Allegations of toxic community - A discussion

[AlastarOG]

Hey all,

So there's been allegations of the pathfinder community being toxic recently, mostly starting with a tweet from GinnyD, but then rolling down to other content creators.

I just thought I'd post a thread here and discuss it, the more we know the less toxic we can endeavor to be.

I'll break this down into 3 points

1: 1e VS 2e

Most of the time, the ''just play pathfinder'' messages that are left on content creator platforms are very vague, and having read a lot of the threads, I feel like they often refer to pathfinder 1e?

Despite Pathfinder 2e being, in my opinion, a much better system, 1e is still very popular and I think more players play it overall ? It certainly has more content produced for it, with more classes, spells, rules and AP's even to this day.

That being said, I have noticed that I sometimes try to push PF2E too hard, which leads me to...

2: Why we do it?

In remembering my past experiences with pf2e I think it kinda breaks down into several stages... and this is going to become relevant after I explain them. Keep in mind that this is from an experienced player's point of view. Having GMed multiple new players to TTRPF into pf2e as their first system, they seem to pick it up fairly well and don't have any of the bad traits, even if they tend to struggle with some of the features sometimes (like lots of feats).

Ignorance
At first, you begin to play pf2e and it seems like a new iteration on something else, although you can't quite understand what's that something else...

New classes, new features but very comfortable, you kinda know where you're going, the added customisation is fun... then you start adventuring leading to...

Anger
As you play, you realise that despite your massive system mastery experience, your choices have in fact NOT made you trivialise encounters yet... weird!

You then start paying a bit more attention and try harder, to no avail, encounters are still grinding you up.

I remember the first time I got really angry that I was underperforming, my gnome bard with 18 cons got taken from full to 0 after taking 2 well rolled aoe bursts from 2 level+2 creatures, all before I could act in my initiative. I was so mad... this hadn't really happened to me in years... I started to dive down into the edition, trying to understand it more, it lead me to...

The click
Suddenly, in one go, it clicks. Everything falls into place as you understand what the edition is about, as you understand how tight the math is, and thus what you have been doing wrong. Falling into a routine in pf2e is similar to underperforming. Pf2e is an edition that makes you pay attention because if you do the same thing round after round you will eventually hit a wall. Understanding the value of the +1/-1 is kind of a click that happens to most players I think... and this leads us to

The passion
At this point, when I got it, when I really got it, I knew I was hooked. We did a couple games in pf1e and dnd 5e after that but I just couldn't anymore... All I saw were the flaws, the bursted seams, where the rules fell down because pf2e just had such a nicely done frame.

I started GMing it and loved it even more, things were explained well, I had cool subsystems, I could tell a million stories, NPC creation didn't require a multi tabed cross calculating excel sheet.

I was in heaven, still am!

So this long buildup is to explain kind of the pattern that it was for me and that I sometimes see in other posters or people.

Why this might lead to toxic posting though, is because we subconsciously think that people who play some pf2e and don't like it, or people that play dnd5e and don't want to play something else despite their game being kind of ''Meh'' are stuck at stage 1 or 2.

And we want them to click! We want them to understand and love it like we have!

But it's probably not going to happen for everyone, and that's ok. The more games the merrier.

3: The community shitpost.

Now I understand why GinnyD might be annoyed at people posting ''Just play pathfinder'' constantly in her stream, its valid and people should stop that.

Nonat1's also made a whole video about other problem behaviors, that are all very valid.

I want to talk about the flipside of this.

We've had so far at least 3 videos from Taking20 just shitposting pathfinder2e in about as ignorant and dumb a manner as there can possibly be? I've watched some of them and legit had to stop because I got angry. Here was a man saying one of his players felt he was stuck in a routine as a druid. He would just ''wild shape every fight and engage''. And I was just... so mind boggled by how weird that was ''Oh i play one of the most versatile classes in the game, but I only do the one thing and complain that I only do the one thing''

Anyways, I could rant on that one video for hours, and rules lawyer did a whole video debunking it, so I won't get into that.

There were also other content creators like Puffin forest doing shitposts on pf2e.

I feel this has created a sort of false edition war. This was random people that I feel we subconsciously think are stuck at the ignorance stage or the anger stage that are just being obtuse. And you want them to get it, and you don't want people to think the TTRPG system that you love is bad, just because some people don't get it.

So what do you do?

Well you overcorrect. You post about it positively all the time, you try to engage other people into it, you point out the flaws and you try to gain traction.

and eventually.... those can be toxic behaviors...

Conclusion:

I think at this point i'm very satisfied with 2e and as a GM who is lucky enough to have waiting lists for his games, I refuse to GM something else than 2e.

But its ok if other people don't want to play it. I remember feeling very sad that Deriven Ferilien (sorry if I mispelled) had to go back to 1e because his players just didn't get how Pf2e was cooler. Ultimately, it sucks cause I know Deriven would prefer to GM 2e but its up to them to figure that out. We're not missing out.

I remember being annoyed that Solasta: Crown of the Magister wasn't in 2e cause I just freaking hate 5e. But after some time I got back into it with the multiplayer DLC and we make some jokes about 5e sometimes but its overall good fun nonetheless (hey, at least Solasta has a freaking magic item economy amirite!)

So I guess my final thought here is that maybe as a community we should chill about the conversion efforts.

And if you're lucky enough to be picky about your games, well, do what you love, if someone else insists on playing 1e or 5e or something else, ask them to GM and if you don't feel like playing that edition, well don't play.

Feel free to comment, this is an open discussion!

Alastar out!

[NECR0G1ANT]

Whatever Ginny Di says on Twitter, recommending a game is not toxic. The vast majority of Pathfinder players haven't heard of her, so laying her irritation at the feet of the entire fanbase is weird. I'm not familiar with her - maybe she's trolling or stirring the pot?

Nonat1's video was a turn towards clickbait videos and social media drama that has nothing to do with the game or the people who make it. I unsubbed.

I hope that in the future Twitter drama stays on Twitter so people who don't use that site don't have to deal with it.

[breithauptclan]

I feel like I only have a peripheral vision of the whole thing. I watch Ginny Di's content on YouTube, but not anywhere else. I also watched Nonat's video about it.

Ginny's content is pretty system-agnostic, though it is noticeable that she plays 5e - mostly from the ads that she runs. So I can understand getting annoyed at people constantly pressuring to switch systems. And I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with publicly saying that she doesn't intend to switch systems - so you can stop asking about it.

And Nonat's video was basically, 'learn to take "No" as an answer'. Which is good advice for a lot of things in life.

So... I don't understand what the problem is.

[Blake's Tiger]

Is the Pathfinder community toxic? No.

It is not a community except in the most tenuous of definitions. People who play Pathfinder do not have a common definition, do not follow a common social mores, nor have a common method of communicating with and correcting the behavior of others.

It would be more appropriate to say that social media users or, even more appropriate, specifically to the venue where the activity takes place are the community of interest: the Twitter community or the YouTube community. Those two communities may overlap but they are still distinct. Even more specifically, the Twitter posting community or the YouTube posting community, because even though I watch YouTube videos, I do not post comments. However, those still aren't really communities.

When a number of individuals related only by their opinion and the media upon which they communicate that opinion repeat an action, it is stereotyping to refer to a community of such superficially definition as toxic.

There are irritating or rude or mean or antagonistic individuals, but to define all people who happen to play a given game system by their posts would be unfair.

That said, it is a moment for each individual to consider and reflect upon their own posting habits.

[Calpal]

Blake's Tiger wrote:

Is the Pathfinder community toxic? No.

It is not a community except in the most tenuous of definitions. People who play Pathfinder do not have a common definition, do not follow a common social mores, nor have a common method of communicating with and correcting the behavior of others.

It would be more appropriate to say that social media users or, even more appropriate, specifically to the venue where the activity takes place are the community of interest: the Twitter community or the YouTube community. Those two communities may overlap but they are still distinct. Even more specifically, the Twitter posting community or the YouTube posting community, because even though I watch YouTube videos, I do not post comments. However, those still aren't really communities.

When a number of individuals related only by their opinion and the media upon which they communicate that opinion repeat an action, it is stereotyping to refer to a community of such superficially definition as toxic.

There are irritating or rude or mean or antagonistic individuals, but to define all people who happen to play a given game system by their posts would be unfair.

That said, it is a moment for each individual to consider and reflect upon their own posting habits.

This is by far the best response I've seen to this yet.

[NielsenE]

And I think you also have to assume any prominent RPG streamer/YouTuber/social personality will have been asked 'have you tried X' or "You should try X' hundreds of times for practically any game system mentioned. Its get real old fast. So even a well meaning fan of X can add to the pile-on annoyance. When the fan base of X is large and passionate, the end result can be toxic, even if individually it would have probably not bothered the person.

Now if the personality has asked 'Hey what your favorite X' or 'I'm thinking of trying X, anything I should know', it should be fine to talk about it. But constantly asking(or worse demanding) on every single video/upload/etc isn't a great community look (but practically every community does it)

[The-Magic-Sword]

I wrote about this on twitter, but while I think there are some rude people who exist (I think we actually have a smaller share of them simply because we aren't the default game), I think they're kind of incidental to the larger issues at play. Its kind of telling that she immediately went for the narrative of Pathfinder fans 'being elitist' and decided to discuss our space as a whole as being the problem. I was kind of disappointed, most of her videos were good advice for new players, and I personally really enjoyed her cute/fun content, and I'd been planning to use her roleplay practice vids for some of my players who struggle with that side of the game, but tbh, now I'm not totally sure I want to.

Quote:

and PF players are shitty and condescending and judgmental so consistently in my YouTube comments that I have added the name to my comment filters.

Like, how do you have a take like this while also being a member of the DND community? Its pretty consistently toxic.

Instead, I kind of think that they're a useful adapter to justify the rhetoric being used, which reinforces "Pathfinder players are a bunch of that guys you don't want to be associated with" we've been seeing more and more as pf2e gains popularity in some circles. I happen to know (I'm in DND spaces too) that a lot of DND players are kind of threatened by the idea of other systems, and they kind of act in ways that are pretty consistent with how people feel when they think a part of their identity is being challenged-- they attempt to quarantine the offending thing by problematizing talking about it, they construct narratives where its secretly better *not* to have the thing that they don't have, they try to associate people who talk about it with bad things, they make appeals to thought-terminating cliches and try to make it about their right to have an opinion, ins hort they try to create a chilling effect on discussing or supporting it.

A DND/PF2e youtuber actually went into this to give perspective on twitter DND creators are in a super weird position right now, the market has been so firmly focused on 5e that DND content that its actually supersized the possible audience for DND content and essentially obligates anyone who wants to make any money to focus on DND content regardless of how they feel about the system. In my own opinion, this creates a significant incentive for them to be reactionary toward any system that isn't DND, because if DND's base starts dividing in a more healthy way, the audience for any given video of theirs is going to be smaller, even the system agnostic stuff isn't really because a lot of the advice presupposes a lack of tools consistent with 5e.

There's a lot of fighting in online 5e spaces right now, because they're dickering over which way their game should go, and PF2e gets brought up a lot as a role model by actual DND players. Like look at this thread where PF2e is mentioned, its got almost a thousand comments and over 500 score after upvotes and downvotes and I've seen DND players accusing people of shilling for pf2e and talking about how they want to retaliate by attacking our spaces-- even though the OPs of the thread usually aren't PF2e players so much as like, 5e players who think something our system does is a good idea, its becoming very tribal. Because 5e is being pulled in a lot of different directions right now (it has to fulfill the same niche as pf2e for some people, Dungeon World for others, and Old School Essentials for still others) there's also a lot of people somewhat rightfully pointing out that maybe it shouldn't be all things to all people and about how there's plenty of other roleplaying games that could satisfy-- but people have a loyal attachment to the name and would rather treat 5e as a battlefield.

In terms of Ginny, I think that she's folding her experiences of rude people in her youtube comments into her edition war style feelings of wanting to stick it to people who hear her complaints about the system and think a different one would be a good fit, because damn it, how dare you suggest I might like Pepsi as much or more, I'm a Coke fan!

Indie Designers have been pointing at this reality for years.

[Temperans]

There is probably a whole planet size amount of sunk cost fallacy to also consider. Remember TRPG players are a bunch who consistently pay thousands of dollars for merch of their main game. Someone comming in and telling them to leave said game can feel like a direct attack on their person. After all if they stop playing it they would have wasted all that money.

The whole thing is even worse when you consider the problem of name recognition, marketing, and overall content creation. Leaving a huge content source that you know gives a ton of consistent views for a more niche content, even if its just a different brand name, can very quickly damage your viewer base. It also makes it a lot harder to advertise given that you are less likely to get the same type of sponsors as before.

Finally, there is the whole issue of, "there will always be bad actors in any given massive global online group". It doesn't matter how much you moderate, it doesn't matter how much you train people to not be toxic, it doesn't matter what the main forums are like. You will always find someone who is at the very least a jerk. If one of those people then decide to act like evangelist and push the game to people forcefully, the response from other people will just be push back. The only thing people hate more than bad guys, is being told what to do, specially if it was unsolicited and given by some person that comes off as rude.

[Nefreet]

I don't know who these people are, but I believe that studies show PEOPLE IN GENERAL are more stressed these days, considering:

We're still in a global pandemic
There's a global proxy war going on
There's record global inflation
There's record-setting heatwaves
Inflammatory and divisive politics
Global economic recession (Soonᵀᴹ)

So in response to any accusation of "Is [so-and-so] [individual or group] more [insert negative adjective here]?", I think the answer is: "Probably".

[Totally Not Gorbacz]

Nefreet wrote:

There's a global proxy war going on

Tiny corregimiento: when one side is in it directly, it's not a proxy war.

[PossibleCabbage]

I don't doubt that we've somehow hit on a shortage of people online who don't know how to act, but I have no clue who any of the people mentioned by the OP are.

This is sort of like telling me "Randy Allen said that cake you baked was terrible" when I have no idea who Randy Allen is and can't recall ever meeting them or providing them with cake.

[NielsenE]

Possile Cabbage, in case it helps for a bit of context on some of the people named by the OP:

GinnyDi: A YouTuber who makes good videos (IMO) that are typically either comedic listicles or GMing/narrative/RP advice. Her humor doesn't always land for me(probably because I'm getting old and un-hip), but I think she provides very good information in her narrative/RP advice ones. I think she's been a good ambassador of RP-driven RPGs in general and almost none of her content is game system specific -- though more relevant to home brew/campaigns and less to APs/published 5e adventures/etc. I'm sad that PF2's fans have been annoying to her.

Taking20: Last year? two years ago? had a series of videos on why he and his group gave up on PF2. It got a lot more attention than it deserved. Being generous, it had lots of examples of not understanding the rules/applying them wrong and them blaming the system for it. Easy to see why it would bring supporters out in torch & pitchfork droves.

Nonat1s: One of the larger PF2 YouTubers, he's been making PF2 video content for quite a while. Generally more of reactions of each new book as its published and highlighting what new feats/etc are exciting to him. He also does some shorter videos that tend to poke fun at both PF2 and 5e players impressions of the other. Generally I think he's avoided being offensive with those; each side comes in for good natured sniping at times. And I bet they're good preforming videos since they often have click-baity titles, but I can see them contributing to some of the general sense of edition warring.

[Gaulin]

Might not be completely on topic (not so much to do with content creators) but as someone who spends too much time browsing these forums, the pathfinder discord, and the pathfinder reddit, there are some patterns that take shape.

As much as 2e is celebrated for it's balance and how easy it is to make a character, it's (imo) only in comparison to 1e. There are a lot of... Traps might be too strong of a word, but there's a lot of things to consider when looking to build a character. In 5e (which I am not a huge fan of, to be clear) if you want your martial to have a cantrip, for instance, you just need a half decent casting stat and a way to get a cantrip. But in 2e, you need a way to get a cantrip, have to keep up with your casting stat, and raise your proficiency or you're not going to have a good time. There's a lot of details that characters have to plan for ahead of time.

And of course, 2e plays a lot different with its action economy. It's hard for some people to give advice (don't attack 3 times in a row every turn) and not sound like a jerk, and hard for others to take that advice when they don't want to be told how to play the game.

The tight math can be a detriment to the system at times, where a player might not want to have 18 in their key stat at level one (I've seen people say they feel like it's too power gamey, which I think is silly) or neglect their AC or saves.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that 5e is a lot more forgiving than 2e, and players new to 2e need or get a lot of advice. And advice can be tricky in this day and age, to give and get without either party taking offense.

[Totally Not Gorbacz]

5e content creator generates retweet rampage over a single comment on her YouTube channel because edition wars = clicks. Unsurprising, but disappointing.

[Blake's Tiger]

Clicked on some things. Commenting into the void for my own catharsis.

Quote:

If you're a cool Pathfinder player, we're cool. But like, seriously, tell your buddies to chill

A. This idea that I play Pathfinder then I'm 1) affiliated with anyone else who plays Pathfinder and 2) responsible for the conduct of anyone else who plays Pathfinder is onerous.

Quote:

I just don’t enjoy being harassed, and PF players are s****y and condescending and judgmental so consistently in my YouTube comments that I have added the name to my comment filters.

B. I would clarify the subject of that second clause so it reads more fairly: "I just don't enjoy being harassed by commenters on my YouTube channel who are condescending and judgmental" because (A).

[Ignis Fatuus]

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

Nefreet wrote:

There's a global proxy war going on

Tiny corregimiento: when one side is in it directly, it's not a proxy war.

It the global part that it is the proxy. You know who aren't officially engaged.

[PossibleCabbage]

Paying attention to the comments on YouTube is always a mistake.

It's probably fairer to say "YouTube has a toxic community" (more accurately a disjoint union of toxic subcommunities, I guess).

[Squiggit]

Is someone on twitter having a bad, incendiary take really this newsworthy?

[SaveVersus]

Some bad faith people aside, I feel this is largely not toxic and people are projecting. This is all an opinion, so I' not backing it up with facts and only submitting it as my perspective.

1. People are passionate about things they like. Personally, I was very elitist in my 20s; the things I liked were superior and the cream of the crop. I didn't throw it in anyone's face, but I'd ask people if you like X, you'll love Y and here are 15 reason why. If they considered it cool, if they didn't, I wouldn't hound the issue, which leads to...

2. I'm sure if inspected, a large number of these people saying "try PF2e" are fire and forget; they make what they feel is a helpful post and move on. The issue is these people are "internet famous" so they receive a LOT more of these posts than you or I would. This is skewing things because after the 50th post, it starts to sound like a broken record.

3. This is a stretch, but stereotypically "nerd culture" is antisocial, which means we're less skilled in getting our point across (I'm including myself in this). In my 20's I processed things a lot more logically than I do now and didn't consider the emotional impact.
If someone mentioned they didn't like something, then I'd suggest something different, list the reasons why it's better, and I'd get confused when my suggestion wasn't taken. If my suggestion answered all their problems, it didn't make sense to me why it was ignored.

4. People are passionate about things they like (redux) and feel invalidated when an overwhelming majority reject that. If I mention something about D&D and the majority of my replies were "Try PF2e instead," then I'd feel like my opinion didn't mattered, and that would probably sour me towards trying PF2e.

5. Generally, happy people don't announce they're happy. If someone is happy with D&D 5e, then they're most likely not going to post a reply saying so. This means even if the majority of replies are for PF2e, that doesn't mean the ENTIRE audience feels that way.

This isn't to say that we should downplay the impact of bad apples. Some people hate D&D and will take any chance to shoot it down. Some people think they're being helpful and are getting upset that their suggestion is being taken, and now they're belligerent about it. Some people are evangelical about PF2e and want to convert as many people as possible.
But I think it's a bad idea to take this as the sample size and extrapolate it to the group as a whole.

[willfromamerica]

I'd LOVE to weigh in here.

As someone who played 5e exclusively until mid-2021, and was way too active on D&D reddit, I was seeing people shill for Pathfinder 2e for months starting in early 2020, every single day. Most of it was very good-natured, like "hey, you want martials to be able to do more than just move and attack? Try Pathfinder 2e!" But it got on my nerves so quickly. I had a ton of brand loyalty to D&D, and a ton of sunk cost fallacy. I did check out Pathfinder 2e, but I created all these reasons in my mind why it was bad. I remember a conversation with my fiancé where we complained about how the lack of impactful subclasses made every character of the same class feel the exact same, and in the same breath argued that most of the excessive feat choices were arbitrary. (Note that we had this conversation without having every actually tried the game).

But after months of people continuing to sing Pathfinder 2e's praises, I was eventually convinced to listen to an actual play podcast, and that convinced me to try GMing a campaign. And now here I am, several months later, having hastily wrapped up one of the 5e campaigns I was running and converted the other to Pathfinder 2e, as well as GMing three PF2e campaigns on top of it.

I'm inclined to guess that a lot of the people having negative opinions about Pathfinder 2e fans are like me: being a fan of D&D 5e is a significant part of their identity and personality, and anyone that implies that a different game system is better is threatening their sense of self. But maybe I'm projecting here!

[Xenocrat]

I quit posting much and never on Twitter, so you can’t blame me anymore.

[pixierose]

So there is a lot going on here. I think regardless of the comment that seemed to have Spurred this whole thing was bad or not, I cnq understand Ginnys response since it seems to be coming from not one comment but from a totality of experience. I'm sure some people have bene toxic and the people who just want to be positive and excited get mixed in with the crowd into a tsunami of voices.

That being said I am frustrated that the comments continue to stoke a sterotype that continues to be perpetuates by fans(both of her and generally 5e)

From 2e's release there have been several videos, that spread both opinions(which are fine to have) and actual falsehoods presented as facts from 5e content creators that have put 2e and the community in a bad light. Ideas of 2e players being anti social elitist needs who only care about math and have no interest in story elements. The game is complex but lacks meaningful choices. Etc etc.

I think a lot of the pathfinder.... I guess evangelizing(for lack of a better word) comes from both just ctual passion and excitement for the Gamez and a strong desire to push back those negative ideas about the game and the community.

When I get excited about how pf2e does something, it's just that I'm excited. Not trying to be elitist. I don't actually care about numbers or crunching or optimizing. I like cool thematic abilities that let me cool thing, I like exciting inclusive lore, and I like neat monster designs to fight.

My frustrations from 5e come from a lack of options in game, not a lack of numbers, and my frustrating with the community is not that I think they are too casual, Its that they keep calling it Mathfinder, and act like pathfinder players don't care about character depth or narrative elements.

So while I think there could be toxic pathfinder players, especially on YouTube or Twitter because those sites rely on tension ,controversy, and the like to fuel their algorithms. The same can be said by 5e players on those sites. And it's kind of tiring that we'll...5e is the big guy on the streets and I don't nearly see the same thing being said for 5e players to calm down and not be toxic.

At the end of the day, be mindful, be good to each other is the best thing I can say, I think

[WatersLethe]

I'm sympathetic toward people who are feeling tired of being badgered to play a different game than the one they like. Ginny Di almost definitely overreacted, but I can understand why.

Telling 5e players to play PF2 instead is almost as bad as the heaps of indie RPG players who scoff at people enjoying anything mainstream.

It gets old fast.

[SaveVersus]

willfromamerica wrote:

I'd LOVE to weigh in here.

As someone who played 5e exclusively until mid-2021, and was way too active on D&D reddit, I was seeing people shill for Pathfinder 2e for months starting in early 2020, every single day...

As much as I liked 5e, I was looking for more for a very long time. The system has its merits, but wasn't crunchy enough for me.

I got the 2e playtest as soon as it was available, but quickly gave up on it because it looked TOO crunchy for what I wanted. Didn't give 2e another look until this year when I ran into the "Different Battle, Same Tactics" issue with 5e that Taking20 mentioned with 2e.

[voideternal]

There exist healthier online communities that do self-policing. Youtube has a report button for harassment that can be used to silently fight toxic posts. Healthy communities also have a tendency for their non-toxic members to be politely vocal enough to drown out the toxic voice.

Just adding my two cents in case you care about improving the PF community.

[Deriven Firelion]

Xenocrat wrote:

I quit posting much and never on Twitter, so you can’t blame me anymore.

I still blame you. I'm not sure for what, but for something.

[Leon Aquilla]

If you don't want feedback, I wouldn't solicit advice or talk about how much your favorite system doesn't do (x) online.

I see the following scenario play out constantly on reddit:

Rando: Hey guys, my group plays 5e and I really want to do something sci-fi in space. How would you go about adapting the 5e ruleset to that kind of genre?

Me: Well, it wasn't really designed for that. Have you considered Starfinder? Or if that's too much of a jump for you, there's also Esper Genesis for 5e, but it has less material. All the rules for Starfinder are online to get started, and there's Foundry support.

Rando: My players don't really want to learn a new system but thanks, I'll just keep working on this homebrew solution

Me: Okay, well it sounds like you're not really open to suggestions but just trying to get validation for your choices. So good luck I guess.

[Gortle]

voideternal wrote:

There exist healthier online communities that do self-policing. Youtube has a report button for harassment that can be used to silently fight toxic posts. Healthy communities also have a tendency for their non-toxic members to be politely vocal enough to drown out the toxic voice.

Just adding my two cents in case you care about improving the PF community.

That's not my experience. A lot of people are labelled as impolite or toxic inappropriately. Many people read in offence where none was intended. Many views - traditional, modern or just alternative - are not acceptable to one group or another. Many people have very odd ways of expressing themselves. Many people are just direct and blunt.

Some people just jump at shadows. Writing in a way that can't be misinterpreted is hard if not impossible. It is certainly beyond the casual internet user.

I have a number of posts that are 100% true IMHO on the basis of very simple facts. In a lot of internet forums they just voted out of existence. Especially if you challenge a commonly held belief. Being different or raising an objection should be fine. Its not.

[wegrata]

Yeah i think it boils down to not offering unsolicited advice to randoms on the internet. Especially those with a large audience, and therefore getting a lot of unasked for feedback. Loving the game and wanting to talk about it are awesome, but forcing someone not interested in having the conversation isn't. Consent matters for everything, even conversation.

[SaveVersus]

Leon Aquilla wrote:

If you don't want feedback, I wouldn't solicit advice or talk about how much your favorite system doesn't do (x) online.

So I've had a change of perspective on this.

I used to suggest stuff like that; the system doesn't support you're idea, so here's one that does...

But most times, that's not what the poster is asking; they're asking for ideas to modify something familiar that they already like.

It maybe helpful, but it isn't constructive.

It also may be the right answer, but you can't make someone see something until they're ready to see it.

[voideternal]

Gortle wrote:

Being different or raising an objection should be fine. Its not.

It's fine to be different or raise an objection. It's not fine to offer unsolicited advice. Ginny Di's issue stems from unsolicited advice. Regardless of which community you reside in, if you care about your community's public reputation, you should know your available tools and what you can do to protect your community's reputation.

[Temperans]

voideternal wrote:

Gortle wrote:

Being different or raising an objection should be fine. Its not.

It's fine to be different or raise an objection. It's not fine to offer unsolicited advice. Ginny Di's issue stems from unsolicited advice. Regardless of which community you reside in, if you care about your community's public reputation, you should know your available tools and what you can do to protect your community's reputation.

This is not what gortle is talking about. Gortle is talking about the fact that no matter how good a community is and/or how true a person's comment might be some people will dislike it because it goes against what they think.

He is describing how communities go from healthy places that can have diverse thought to echo chambers that only accept whatever the most commonly held belief is when people stop thinking critically. And it all starts with "I don't like that statement it should be removed" and ends with "how dare this person say something different to what I think they should be removed from the group".

[voideternal]

Temperans wrote:

Gortle is talking about the fact that no matter how good a community is and/or how true a person's comment might be some people will dislike it because it goes against what they think.

And what I'm talking about is that no matter how true a comment is, if it's off-topic, it not only doesn't belong there, but also damages the reputation of the community associated with the comment. Unsolicited advice is off-topic. There are options a community member can take to dilute or remove those comments.

[SaveVersus]

... and a lot of it is we can control how we type something, we can't control how they read it.

If someone is having a bad day, or they're just normally a condescending person, they may read a comment like they're being talked down to, even if that's not how it was meant.

[graystone]

Xenocrat wrote:

I quit posting much and never on Twitter, so you can’t blame me anymore.

LOL Me either. I don't go to any of these places let alone post there. ;)

[Temperans]

People have a habbit of "reading between the lines" even when there is nothing there.

[SaveVersus]

Temperans wrote:

People have a habbit of "reading between the lines" even when there is nothing there.

And that's just the nature of the medium.

[AestheticDialectic]

Doesn't this all feel like a waste of time? On one hand you have people giving unwanted advice, which is at worst mildly annoying, and on the other hand, someone venting frustration about something someone did that was annoying. Seems pretty straight forward that this situation is not warranting deep debate. The only thing of substance I've arrived at is that the precedent should be that people play multiple RPG systems and not one. We don't do this for video games, why do we do this here?

[belgrath9344]

this is my take feel free to disagree as someone who was an avid 5e fan for years and would only play 5e but eventually branched out to other ttrpgs but ill only be discussing 5e & pf2e for the most part

fantasy is my favorite genre I'm a hobby writer & I loved that 5e allowed me to bring my stories to life as a gm I thought it was the best thing ever.

but over the years I noticed 5es lack of dm support & even player & genre options so I went looking & I found pf2e shortly after it came out & it fixed everything I hated about 5e combat was balanced monsters were interesting & every year it got better & added stiff I wanted guns&steampunk cool alternative to magic systems an alchemist that FEELS like an alchemist crafting system prices for everything a company that listens & implements class test feedback & shows it ect.

and I keep seeing the same arguments on online forums the dnd next subreddit ect every single week

caster melee imbalance cr bieng usless & so on well hey all those problems that everyone brings up constantly as an experienced dm pf2e solves that at least check it out don't only stick to 5e if you have sooo many complaints

oh & I want to run cyberpunk insert other genre there's games specifically designed for those ideas!!!!

but my biggest problem is with wotc themselves & why I don't think the constant play pf2e are coming from malicious like me alot of new players come from 5e & all the amazing dm tools I mentioned & other stuff about the system as the undisputed leader of traditional fantasy ttrpgs WOTC SHOULD BE DOING THIS STUFF!!!.
some of it should be standard practice Especially for something like d&d.

balanced usable combat system should be standard

a consistent item price system should be standard.

magic users not making martials pointless /having both types of characters be interesting & unique in combat should be standard.
interesting & unique monsters & what they can do in combat should be standard

listing & implementation of players feedback on a core part of thier system engagement should be standard & this includes addressing play complaints about balance (paizo did it/ or at least tried with secrets of magic for spellcasters needing a buff & more options).

but they don't & why my thoughts on it is because thier lazy now with how big 5e has gotten & how it took off they don't have to try /put effort in because anything 5e WILL print money because it's 5e alot of people WANT 5e to do better because they are number 1 they should do the standard & innovate within 5e not just sit back & do nothing ! I would love if 5e did all that

& that brings up my last point 5es monopoly both online & gamestores

5e is sooo huge that other systems that are just as fun & should have the same chance to be discussed played have 3rd party support & gamestores space can't because 1 5e is absolute money coverage cash ect so no one else wants to do anything for any system except 5e 2 anything other than 5e I've noticed is instantly dismissed by the 5e community when EVERY system should be tried at least once (that's why I'm surprised the avatar rpg got as much success as it did bieng a non 5e product)

concepts that DO NOT or can not work in 5e & would be/ are served in a different system that's designed for it & by having forums/ 3rd party devs cram a square into a round peg this activity hurts the rest of the trrpg community rather than helping it in other system board's I never hear why would I try x system when mine is just so easy ect I get genuine intrest & discussions when I bring up alternatives if someone has a system issue but 5e board's & community's seem absolutely opposed to even the idea of trying something that could fix an issue they have from what I've observed for 7 years

did 5e help ttrpgs go mainstream yes but now they aren't giving the rest of us equal space or bieng the innovative leader they should/ could be saying play pf2e is trying to help both the obviously unhappy section 5e community & the overall ttrpg communityi feel

my Opinion feel free to disagree :)

[Lanathar]

I couldn’t get through the nonat video as it seemed completely ridiculous and absurd as I didn’t know there was context. Absence of real context the video seemed stupid. Then learning it is seemingly based on one persons tweet - actually makes it worse

Click bait title combined with that very modern phenomenon of “of a small group of people did something, they have x trait in common, I will now get out a broad brush and talk to / lecture every single person with x trait”. Meanwhile most people have an expression similar to that blinking guy gif - no idea what is going on and are completely baffled

[Fumarole]

Clearly we should all just play GURPS.

[AlastarOG]

Thanks for everyone participating, I've been reading the comments.

Thanks for @bookofjuderonomy and @nielsen for the added details, that helped. I initially didn't post referrals because I assumed only those who were aware would participate but that was a failing on my part.

For those who say that this is irrelevant or blown out of proportion I'd just like to say: maybe?

However I'm of the school of thought that if someone who's opinion I otherwise have found to be very reasonable calls out a community to which I affiliate for being a toxic, it warrants at least a discussion.

Dismissing it out of hand would after all be the very first thing a toxic person would do.

In analyzing my own behaviors I have found some traces of what was called out, which I explained in original post, and so thought that as a forum group we might benefit from discussing.

If you find that this does not apply to you, no problem, but some people had things to say about it I think :-)

[AestheticDialectic]

AlastarOG wrote:

Thanks for everyone participating, I've been reading the comments.

Thanks for @bookofjuderonomy and @nielsen for the added details, that helped. I initially didn't post referrals because I assumed only those who were aware would participate but that was a failing on my part.

For those who say that this is irrelevant or blown out of proportion I'd just like to say: maybe?

However I'm of the school of thought that if someone who's opinion I otherwise have found to be very reasonable calls out a community to which I affiliate for being a toxic, it warrants at least a discussion.

Dismissing it out of hand would after all be the very first thing a toxic person would do.

In analyzing my own behaviors I have found some traces of what was called out, which I explained in original post, and so thought that as a forum group we might benefit from discussing.

If you find that this does not apply to you, no problem, but some people had things to say about it I think :-)

Self criticism is good, but simultaneously people take advantage of that impulse and our hyper awareness of toxicity and abuse to be toxic or abusive. I don't think this Ginny person is doing that, or anyone feeling defensive about what she(?) said. In fact I want to put special stress on the fact that I don't think it's a big deal at all that someone used Twitter to vent about something annoying. It's extremely valid and reasonable, even if their assement is incorrect and over something that is basically a non-issue. I don't want to make this sound like a centrist "both sides are wrong" take either. My stance is just that I don't think the accusations is a severe one. It's kind of an issue with this *postmodern-social-media-hellscape* we live in, that we have a hard time "picking our battles" or being able to discern what is important, myself included ofc. It feels like a waste of time to me, except that I do think a discussion about how weird it is any of us play one game, and one game only, is. It is definitely weird in any other hobby to stick with one thing religiously. One genre of fiction, one book series, one video game and so on and so forth. Even here I see a post with someone criticizing 5e for not being adaptable to multiple genres, but it's not supposed to be. If you want to play science fiction maybe pick up Cyberpunk 2020, or Cyberpunk Red, if you wanna play horror Dread exists. These are just off the top of my head examples, but to reiterate the deeper issue here I think is this: People are trapped in one game trying to make it different games when you could just play 5e and another game, or Pathfinder and another game, or both 5e and Pathfinder. Some of us play both, some of us play Elden Ring and Skyrim. While I don't like Skyrim I think the comparison is apt since both are Western-style Fantasy ARPGs. (To pre-empt derailing... I know From Software is a Japanese developer, Elden Ring just isn't a JRPG stylistically)

P.S. I hope that isn't too much of a detour and I hope there are not too many spelling and grammar errors, I'm at work

[The Raven Black]

If people publish something on internet, why should other people not react to it in good faith ?

[Blake's Tiger]

Try Diablo 2 vs. Diablo 3 (or even more controversial, Diablo Immortal). You can find just as hard line version wars.

Honestly, you can find it anywhere if you look. Brands, versions, techniques.