Vulpes nothus

probably not a real fox/might be a cryptid/definitely a bastard

[vulpes-nothus]

Frequently Assumed Quibbles

The two tags that seem to start fights explained!

#for the love of fuck play games that arent d&d!

This is my rallying cry and how I tag posts that I refer people to for cool ttrpgs, not suck ass ttrpgs like D&D5 and D&D6. If I tag your post with this, know I am indexing your game or a cool game you are talking about so that I can show it to people and maybe get a copy myself.

#worlds most over marketed role playing game

There are smart people on here that have very insightful things to say about D&D. And there are absolutely brain dead wastes of space that seem to exist purely to parrot whatever proven false advertising that Hasbro shills. The brain dead people follow tags like #d&d #dnd #dungeons and dragons and so on. So, I don't tag good discussions about D&D with d&d. I use this tag instead, because the conversation so far is good, and I want to follow it, and I want the brain dead D&D fans to shut the fuck up and not interrupt.

[guerrillatech]

[alyssadotmp3]

im about to kill someone or myself i just saw someone on the dnd subreddit say "rules are for gameplay, not narrative" (which in all fairness is not a take i should be surprised by) but like THE GAMEPLAY CREATES THE FUCKING NARRATIVE THATS HOW RPGS WORK

[anim-ttrpgs]

[saveyourhelplessspite]

okay so we all understand that sexual attraction doesn't always lead to sex. are we ready to consider that romantic attraction doesn't always lead to romance.

[saveyourhelplessspite]

and i dont mean this in a "its for your own good we dont date" way, or a "they got turned down and are still friends" way, i mean it in a "there is romantic attraction present but the one experiencing it doesnt want to do anything with it" way. am i making sense. are you hearing the words im saying. it wont fucking kill you if you dont act on it. like obviously you should probably communicate it someday but you dont have to let it dictate you or consume you. its just a feeling.

[papercranesandpride]

I've had multiple hook up partners who were clearly very into my personality and stuff in a more than just sexual way, but knew I was aromantic so they'd just bend over backwards to say that they were so into me platonically, only platonically, they thought I was sooooo cool but only in a friend way. And it just was obviously not true. And I had to be like "hey. You are allowed to be romantically attracted to me, you know? That's a feeling. You don't control your feelings. Me being aromantic doesn't mean you're supposed to somehow stop having certain feelings? That isn't how it works? And you're not a dick for having feelings? You're only a dick if you expect them to be reciprocated or for them to turn into an actual romantic relationship when I made it clear that wouldn't happen from the start."

Like. It really troubles me that people apparently think they aren't supposed to have feelings for aromantic people because that implies they can't actually wrap their head around having romantic feelings and then not doing anything about it. And that's like. Really really troubling from a consent perspective.

Like. Alloromantics really don't seem to have the concept of "feeling romantic attraction and just not doing anything about it and seeing it as morally neutral because it's just a feeling" and I think that's a huge problem.

[lenarasys]

I'm just gonna add - without elaborating much - that this same idea is a huge thing in sexual attraction as well.

If you're into rape kink, you MUST want to act on it, so you MUST be a risk to other people you interact with in your day to day life.

If you're into being in a dominant position you must be abusive.

If you're into certain fantasy monsters you can't be left alone near pets.

But even just on a more common scale. A man sexually attracted to women must have to act on that and is thus a risk to women - instead of being capable of learning to accept a no, like any other living being. And so on.

[silurisanguine]

Linktree will be feeding your images with DALL-E, Open AI from 5th July 2026.

Warning to anyone using Linktree.

From the 5th July, they'll be feeding all imagery you use on your landing page into DALL-E by OpenAI.

I deleted my account just now, because there was no way to turn this off or opt out.

[silurisanguine]

Update with some alternatives-

Carrd.co. Free alt with paid features.

Bento.app Currently free, integrated with bluesky

Everlink.tools Closest to Linktree, has some paid features.

Omg.lol Currently $20 a year. If paying for Linktree features this is a great upgrade.

[wizardarchetypes]

it’s sooo funny when rude customers encounter employees who can deny them service for the first time.

i was working at a little cafe where I could deny service over bad behavior, harassment etc. & mask mandates had just ended a week before & already people were being weird about me still wearing mine—an N95, the kind shaped kinda like a duckbill.

so this man walked in, looked at me sooo scathingly, laughed at me, and said “damn. never known a woman to choose…practicality over looks.”

And I just said, “oh. you can go, you’re not getting a drink.” And he said, “what???”

I said, “sir, you just walked in at 6 am & called women impractical and me ugly in one sentence.”

And he was so astonished he didn’t even argue he just turned around and left 💀🙏🏻 it was like he suddenly became self aware

[carolinalaurel]

One summer I was running ferry rides across a lake so people could see the waterfalls without walking 6 miles when a guy snapped my bra strap as he was boarding the boat. So i immediately threw him off, he started yelling for my manager, my boss cheerfully informed him that, yeah, she’s the captain of the boat and she can kick off anyone she wants. He goes to storm off, looks expectantly at his girlfriend, and she just goes, “Well, I’M not walking six miles, Michael! I’ll meet you back at the car!” and sits right back down!!!!

The expression on his face when he was told that he couldn’t get on the boat, then immediately told that his girlfriend was ditching him? PRICELESS. he just blinked at her and then stormed off like a child. I gave her a free hat and was like maybe rethink this relationship…….

[hickeywiththegoodhair]

i once had this fucker come up to order a beer. while i pour it he shows me the wanky fucking chemical structure tattoo on his arm and he’s like “hey. you know what this is” i was like “nah sorry” (never cared abt chemistry in school, plus having to look at a some rando’s pretentious tattoo gives me the douche chills). he decides to respond with “heh. you must not read many books”

i immediately stop pouring his beer. i reply: “heh. you must not want this beer.” thirsty boy immediately starts groveling like a worm “please please no i do want the beer im sorry im sorry” believe me when i say it was one of the most pathetic things ive ever witnessed

[lezbadeez]

gotta love people immediately backpedaling when they realise that there are Consequences To Being Mean

[lastvalyrian]

I genuinely believe that part of why it has become so normalized to be openly callous and evil in politics is that customer service culture has trained affluent people that they can treat everyone they consider beneath them however they want and still be treated kindly.

[whitefangthefightingwolf]

It's also crazy how much more polite people are when they know they are talking to a government employee. Once a week I staff a state "wildlife support" phone line, and very rarely do I ever have a negative interaction, even though MOST of my job is telling people "no we don't perform that service, and there is no agency that does." "no, we can't help that animal, and neither can you, as that is illegal." I tell people "no" up to 30 times per day and I've only had a prickly customer about 3-4 times, and properly yelled at only once. (And if I get yelled at I am allowed to end the conversation.)

Meanwhile, when I worked at PetSmart grooming, I got yelled at MULTIPLE times EVERY day. Over a dog's haircut that I didn't even do.

[wilwheaton]

“According to the report, Tuesday was supposed to mark the start of a productive legislative week, with House members returning from the weekend to pass a slate of bipartisan bills. Instead, the chamber sat nearly empty after Republican leaders postponed the scheduled votes. Johnson’s fractured caucus has repeatedly sabotaged his legislative agenda. Senior House Republicans and aides now openly acknowledge it’s preferable to cancel votes entirely than risk the political fallout from public defeats on the House floor.”

—

GOP lawmakers refusing to return for votes until Mike Johnson cleans up his mess: report

Republicans can’t govern. They are incompetent and useless for anything that isn’t protecting pedophiles and other abusers.

There. Are. No. Good. Republicans.

[sandersstudies]

Sick list of symptoms bro. Now try humanizing your behavior instead of pathologizing it.

[sandersstudies]

Pathologizing: Hey sorry I yelled at you. I have this ADHD symptom called RSD that makes me really sensitive.

Humanizing: Hey, I’m sorry that I blew up like that earlier. In the moment I felt really attacked and overwhelmed and I reacted badly, but I know you didn’t mean to offend me with what you said, so that behavior is on me.

[patricia-taxxon]

people will literally say this and then not actually believe you when you say you're abnormally upset by something unless you disclose your mental disability to clarify it.

[patricia-taxxon]

yeah i'm sorry i convulsed and snapped when you and your friend spoke to me at the same time, i actually have- wait, mentioning my sensory issues would be pathologizing my behavior, uh yea i just hate the sound of your voice i guess. let me jump in this hole real quick

[patricia-taxxon]

i was reminded of this anemic post by a reblog, and i wanna emphasize, this is the neurodiversity version of when someone immerses themselves in an online community of outsiders for too long without engaging with normal society until they're saying "but we shouldn't shame women for wanting to be housewives" and thinking its a hot take. if someone "pathologizes their behavior" it is likely the first time they have ever done so in their lives, if a neurodivergent person legitimately tried to use their condition as an "excuse" towards you it is because they trust you more than any other human on earth and the maddening refusal to acknowledge this is nothing short of terminal entitlement.

there are endless reblogs and replies who seem to be trying to convince me this post says something it doesn't. there is nothing compassionate about telling disabled people to forever concede that their behaviors are indistinguishable from a neurotypical person who simply sucks and is wrong all the time.

[patricia-taxxon]

this isn't analogous to apologizing because you ran someone's foot over with your wheelchair, it's turning to that wheelchair user and telling them to apologize for making their feet so big and heavy

[gremlingirlsmell]

there is nothing compassionate about telling disabled people to forever concede that their behaviors are indistinguishable from a neurotypical person who simply sucks and is wrong all the time

[velvetys]

Everything used to be 20 dollars and now that I finally have 20 dollars everything is now 200 dollars

[mortalityplays]

whether they're Good Media™ or whatever aside, I think mainstream liveplay ttrpg shows have been a fucking disaster for the hobby. it's hard to imagine anything that could have fucked the expectations:results differential for people more than having celebrities do college improv with dice (and an entire media production team behind them) and telling a generation of new players that's what tabletop gaming is like

[mortalityplays]

liveplay ttrpg shows are not 'professional gaming', that's the whole problem I'm talking about. they're entertainment products which make format, content and form choices that would be nonsensical or obstructive at an ordinary table. it's not just "oh if only 'hobbyist' gaming groups (🤮) could pay for all that kit and lighting and professional writers and voice actors".

liveplay production involves story meetings aimed at making the narrative maximally entertaining to a watching audience (not the players, who are also professionals who are there to entertain that audience!). It involves editing (trimming out downtime, uninteresting mistakes, technical issues, moments where the vibe is wrong or there's friction in the room). it involves a room full of production crew watching every move the GM and players make, sensitive to wastage of their time and effort if things don't go to plan. and not for nothing, it involves an entire team of people who need to keep game publishers happy by playing and displaying their products correctly and certainly never criticising them or openly adapting around their shortcomings for the sake of the group's enjoyment.

I've played at tables where we've been lucky enough to have fun props and miniatures and printed maps and sound systems and even a bit of lighting, and where everyone in the group was a seasoned player with writing and performance backgrounds, and the experience was still full of normal natural constructive frictions that are largely if not completely absent from entertainment liveplay shows. player disagreement is normal. stopping mid flow to argue about a rule and look it up and help each other with system technicalities is normal. the music just not working today is normal. the party choosing a direction the GM didn't prepare for and having to adjust their in-character choices a little and tolerate some hastily cobbled together fluff to meet them halfway is so normal it's a running joke. someone finding a scene a little too much and asking for a break or redirection is normal. someone saying something a little ill judged in the moment and having to walk it back with as much grace as possible is normal. storylines not going to plan and petering out without major dramatic resolution, or npcs being ignored and cast off with a shrug is normal. all this shit and more is normal because a normal table is structured around the organic decision-making of a bunch of players who are primarily in it for their own fun and sense of transport, not for an invisible imaginary fandom slash consumer market. which are all the things that make ttrpg play inherently a pretty bad vehicle for storytelling, incidentally!

someone else in the tags expressed their frustration at these shows 'professionalising' the hobby, and while I do recognise and sympathise with the feeling that these shows normalise a level of polish and commercial buy-in that's destructive to the diy culture of tabletop gaming, I still have to push back on the idea that these shows are representative of 'professionalised gaming'. they're not. they're sports anime.

[vulpes-nothus]

To give a non-D&D example, in Remember the Titans, the big climactic match was a very close call where the Titans barely eeked out a win.

The actual players and people who were there for the actual match were very verbal and tried to sue for defamation when the movie came out, because the real Titans fucking stomped the other team, 67-0 or some shit.

But the makers of the film felt like the story of one of the first non-segregated american football teams was not dramatic enough if they just flat out won a match after a teammate got hospitalized. So they rewrote it, negating a rather major historic accomplishment from the public memory in the process.

Which is all I see whenever a player rolls a die the camera never pans to while screaming "NAT 20" while the rest of the cast cheers. Just more writing rooms deciding what would be cool and interesting rather than just letting random things happen, even if random things happening is literally the point of the fucking dice.

[geek-ramblings]

https://glaad.org/fcc/

[jewish-rock]

to go straight to the comments report page, it's here:

https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express?proceeding%5Bname%5D=19-41

[parakeet]

just saw a 'comments' tab on someones blog you know where the following and likes tabs would be if enabled and it was just showing all the replies theyve made on peoples posts. this is fascinating when did this feature come out

[parakeet]

EMERGENCY - ITS AUTO ENABLED!

if you've made replies on posts there is now a tab on your blog showing every post youve replied to and your reply.

if this is not what you want, either go to your blog and click comments and disable it from there or just go to your individual blogs setting pages. just change it from blue to grey if you dont want everyone to see your replies AND the post you're replying to

PLEASE BE ADVISED that it is set to disabled for blogs that have not made any replies but it will turn ON if you reply with that blog in the future.! i just tested it with my main, which was greyed out but it turned on the moment i left a test reply

figured i'd get the word out bc i have not seen a single mention of this and i'm sure there are plenty of people who maybe comment on things they don't want on display for everyone to see on their blog lol. you can still look at your replies with it toggled off just no one else can, like locking the following and likes list

[parakeet]

so for some reason this feature was actually announced on the tumblr engineering blog. interesting choice not to reblog it to the staff or tumblr blog, esp considering they asked for user input on how to implement it, but i suppose considering the response to the last update maybe the replies would be too overwhelming...

so couple of clarifications. comments are disabled as default for primary blogs that have their likes disabled. they are seemingly enabled for all other blogs that have replied to posts

posts you comment on may show on your followers 'for you' page if you leave your replies publically available. they may, in the future, show in on your followers dashboard if your follower goes to their dash settings and enables this. apparently, if your likes are enabled, your followers can already see those on the dash if they've gone into preferences and selected to do so, which I was unaware of, and that seems to be disabled at default, but it's possible i disabled it previously and forgot about it ig

[volfoss]

[ID: A section of the Tumblr settings, where under the replies heading, there is a toggle that is turned on that reads "Share your comments" with the description "Make comments created by this blog visible in the blog page, and to the followers, in their feeds". /end ID]

[bundibird]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. We need a "This is absolutely NOT mature content" feedback button on posts. You can report a post as missing a community label. We should also be able to report posts as having a community label when they dont fucking need one.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I have no idea whether this is true, it seems way too stupid to be real and I have to assume it's made up, but I'm sharing because it has the vibe of something that would happen in a cartoon from the 90s that has characters burn a hole in a door by bouncing a laser pen beam between two mirrors

[leo-fie]

This is AI we're talking about. There is no bottom to the level of stupid it can get.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

Yes but the idea that the AI actually has the capability to change the emails is idiotic. We've had to deal with annoying bullshit authenication for years in the name of security and the robot should not be able to change shit. Welding steel security bars over all the windows and then installing a massive unguarded glass door type scenario. They *have* teams in charge of security, it is ridiculous that a robot could do this.

Until proven otherwise I'm gonna assume that the hackers claiming this are pulling a prank and doctoring this because I am not ready to face a world this stupid.

[hempseeeeds]

the ONLY Thing I find not-very-credible about this is that people exploiting the fact that other people give their AI Tools unreasonably-broad permissions/abilities, has been Happening for several years? Why would that STILL be possible?

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

People get so unreasonably stupid about AI and I don't. I don't understand it. Like I know that there's the occasional tech-illiterate loon who thinks that AI is Proto-Lieutenant Data or whatever, people who take scifi too seriously, but why are the people actually using the tools being so stupid about it? It's some new religion I swear. Fifty per cent of the techbros I talk to it's like they're going "souls are real and we have imbued The Circuits with them". I know nothing at all about computers so normally I'd think I was the one in the wrong here but the guys in charge of these systems are just so so obviously stupid about AI over and over again and I. What the fuck is going on. I feel like I'm in Sailor Moon or something and an evil villain is brainwashing the masses to be super consumerist or whatever those plots were about except this week the scheme is making everyone trust the AI. It all feels so unrealistic how is this shit STILL happening. Overenthusiasm at the start I get, but there have been so many very public AI disasters.

[beardedmrbean]

[datclassydame]

Can @raccoonmilf vouch for this? Super rad if true.

[raccoonmilf]

Yes it’s true

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[thydungeongal]

I think an important part of the "D&D is easy to learn" argument is that a lot of those people don't actually know how to play D&D. They know they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers and sometimes they need to roll another type of die for damage. A part of it is the culture of basically fucking around and letting the GM sort it out. Players don't actually feel the need to learn the rules.

Now I don't think the above actually counts as knowing the rules. D&D is a relatively crunchy game that actually rewards system mastery and actually learning how to play D&D well, as in to make mechanically informed tactical decisions and utilizing the mechanics to your advantage, is actually a skill that needs to be learned and cultivated. None of that is to say that you need to be a perfectly tuned CharOp machine to know how to play D&D. But to actually start to make the sorts of decisions D&D as a game rewards you kind of need to know the rules.

And like, a lot of people don't seem to know the rules. They know how to play D&D in the most abstract sense of knowing that they need to say things and sometimes the person scowling at them from behind the screen will ask them to roll a die. But that's hardly engaging with the mechanics of the game, like the actual game part.

And to paraphrase @prokopetz this also contributes to the impression that other games are hard to learn: because a lot of other games don't have the same culture of play of D&D so like instead of letting new players coast by with a shallow understanding of the rules and letting the GM do all the work, they ask players to start making mechanically informed decisions right away. Sure, it can suck for onboarding, but learning from your mistakes can often be a great way to learn.

[a-wa-c]

I think this also hurts group dynamics as well.

When you have people that have actually done some reading on the rules vs. people that just coast and foist the majority of the game onto the GM, it makes it appear like the more knowledgeable players are sweaty power-gamers or rules-laywers.

Best example I've got with asking players to make informed decisions was when I ran the Wilderfeast Quick Start. The GM has the info about what ingredients can be gathered in any of the regions, but the party then has to cook it. They know what the ingredient does and just have to make the decision on how they want to combine their ingredients as a party.

[thydungeongal]

#i just wanna play a silly game#i feel like. gatekept. while reading this#i don’t have the drive to read a several hundred pg game manual i just wanna play a game w my friends#like. it’s a game. play it how u want#jeeze

My point is not to say that people who don't want to learn the rules shouldn't play, only that people who don't actually know the rules aren't necessarily engaging with the game to its fullest, especially in the case of a relatively rules-heavy game like D&D, and that as the previous poster mentioned it can actually result in a bad rules dynamic where the DM needs to do more work due to player unwillingness to learn the rules as well as casting players who actually know the rules and can engage with them in unfavorable light. All of these are negative elements of the culture of play surrounding.

Like, there isn't anything meaningfully gatekeepy about saying "players who don't know the rules of the game aren't as good at playing the game as the people who know the rules of the game." Because playing games is a skill that can be cultivated and knowledge of the rules is an important part of that skill.

And respectfully, if the idea of learning the rules of D&D seems like an insurmountable task, you don't have to learn them, but you might actually gain something out of actually making an effort because it can make engaging with the game more rewarding for you. Or if the idea of learning the rules of a game that has hundreds of pages is an insurmountable obstacle, there are lots of games with much more modest page counts! D&D is actually relatively heavy as far as RPGs go but it's not the only RPG, and you can get rewarding mechanical engagement combined with cool stories for a much smaller time investment.

[cavegirlpoems]

I actually want to dial in on the phrasing here, which seems - insidious isn't quite the right word - but really weasely to me. There's this reflexive attempt to position the writer as the victim, from the way things are phrased to the actual sentiment. "I feel gatekept" (note that its not "I have been gatekept") is a pretty transparent attempt to claim victimhood, and gain the reader's sympathies. Likewise "I just wanna" and such. But then you have the sentiment of "I just want to play a silly game" and this carries this, like, baggage that game design is *not worth* taking seriously. Same with 'play it how u want', it's working to undermine the idea that you could *care* about this stuff, and it positions taking the artform seriously as an act of aggression against the poor victim who just wants to *not think about things.* Which is to say its classic anti-intillectualism. "It's just a [song/tv show/book/game] don't take it seriously" is like classic anti-intellectualism, and generally comes from a fairly regressive infantalised place.

Which is a long way of saying fuck this person and fuck their slimy lowest-common-denominator bullshit.

[theinstagrahame]

D&D is easy to learn because people expect the GM to know all the rules. They don't need to learn anything, just let one person be the sacrificial scapegoat who heads into the DMG and figures out how fall damage works and whether encumbrance would be annoying.

They can set up the scenarios and build the maps and run the world. They already know the rest of the rules, so why not? They also know the stats for all the NPCs too, so might as well let them play everyone else

It's kinda their world and their game, too. So they can handle scheduling. My schedule is crazy, but they can figure it out.

What do you mean "learn a new game?" I don't have the time to learn a new game. I'm busy and D&D is so easy. We can play it how we want to.

[filipfatalattractionrblog]

I really don't have patience to the whole way of thinking the whole argument is based on. I'm just going to leave here this video by Matt Colville about the book Ellusive Shift

The gits of it is - no one EVER knew how to play this fucking game, people had arguments before the official first edition, the white booklets era. Most people played based on their own interpretation, then arguet about it in zines. All the crunch in the AD&D onward was Gary Gygax's attempt to make the rule for everything because he grew greedy and wished to kill the competition that built careers on explaining his crappy rules better than he did (also, he made AD&D to screw Dave Arneson of his due money).

In any other context I would agree with the proposed argument, but in D&D calling in question anyone's merit as conversation participant because they didn't memorize the useless numbers for useless rule that is only in this game to appease people waxing nostalgic over Gary's horrible, spite and greed-fueled design, is not only anti-intelelctual, it is openly spitting i nthe face of the history of the hobby to declare yourself as only one who knows better. Fuck that.

[cavegirlpoems]

LBB D&D is only like that because it isn't a complete game: it assumes you already have and know Chainmail and Outdoor Survival at a bare minimum. Spiders LBB is an statistical outlier adn should not have been counted.

The first complete game - the Greyhawk supplement - is entirely straightforward and easy to pick up, and significantly simpler than modern D&D.

None of the early editions of D&D are hard to learn or obscure like you seem to think, so I assume you either have pudding for brains or are going entirely on hearsay rather than direct experience.

it is also fucking ridiculous for your argument to be "expecting people to read the source material is anti-intellectual".

[thydungeongal]

Yeah, that response is a mess. Like, the initial thesis of this post was "people don't engage meaningfully with the rules of D&D and thus fail to cultivate important player skills," and people have since elaborated on how this is an issue with D&D's culture of play, and even articulated that framing this conversation as "gatekeeping" not only lets that culture fester but it's also extremely anti-intellectual. To try and frame the conversation that says "engaging with game texts is good and not bad actually" as anti-intellectual is such a clumsy rhetorical trick it's baffling.

[valtharr]

Magic the Gathering is a game whose comprehensive rulebook is far, far, faaaaaaarrrrrrr bigger and more complex than the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Player's Handbook.

I'd wager nobody in the entire world has ever read the full comprehensive rules of MtG as they exist today.

And nobody expects you to! If you go to a Friday Night Magic with a random deck you bought in a toy store, no idea what the rules are like, I'm sure you'll find people willing to teach you, even explain how to properly play your deck in particular.

If, however, you keep coming to FNM for weeks, if not months, and you keep asking basic questions, like what "Flying" means, or what a "+1/+1 counter" does, or how any of the cards in the deck you've been playing for months does, if you call someone who tells you you can't block with that creature because it's already tapped that they're a "rules lawyer" who's "gatekeeping your fun", if it becomes apparent that you're not making any effort to actually learn the rules of the game... nobody will want to play with you anymore. You'll be labeled annoying at best, an asshole at worst.

And that's the case in any dedicated gaming space. As an avid board gamer, there's nothing more infuriating to me than having to re-explain basic rules because someone doesn't listen, or explaining what certain cards/characters/units/items/whatever do because someone is too lazy to simply read.

And yet, somehow, in D&D, behavior like this is apparently not just accepted, but expected, nay, encouraged(!) by the player base!

And people wonder why we make fun of D&D players.

[starfieldcanvas]

"I just want to play a silly game" is such an insidious way to phrase a statement about a game that requires so much effort from the DM. You might as well say "I just want to have a hot dinner waiting for me when I get home, is that so much to ask? I feel like I'm being gatekept from eating dinner."

You may not like cooking dinner—I certainly don't—but I do know how to make cooking dinner easier for my partner. I can chop onions or grate cheese, I can grab things for them while their hands are busy, I can make a simple side salad, I can put away ingredients as they're used, I can set the table and pour the water, I can clean up the dishes after the meal is over. I'm aware enough of what's involved in making dinner happen that I know how to help even if I don't do the most difficult central activity.

Plus, if asked what I want for dinner, I don't respond 'ooh, let's have filet mignon! I want filet mignon!' when there's no steak in the house, because I maintain at least basic working knowledge of the ingredients we typically have on hand and I know filets are not among them.

I don't expect my partner to handle 100% of everything to do with dinner just because I don't like cooking. Why? Because having somebody make me hot dinners is better than the alternative, and I'm not an asshole who's going to take advantage of the fact that my partner would probably cook for us even if I didn't help. I can help, so even though I would rather have an extra 30-40 minutes of fanfic time, I get up and help.

This is the attitude you are being asked to bring to D&D. You don't have to have cooking skills or meal planning skills or hosting skills, but you do have to accept that those skills are important to making dinner. You don't magically become qualified to pronounce "making dinner is easy!" just because you know how to eat it.