Unpopular D&D Opinions

[Theoboldi]

So that is my position on the matter. I brought it up because of the extreme position of: Any rules relating to character personality or decision making is inherently bad for role-playing. I disagree but I'm not really arguing against here. I just think that one of the causes of that belief*** is that D&D (the most popular system in the hobby) has a real checked past with providing rules for personality and decisions. So someone with similar experiences as mine with D&D, working around the rules more often than with them, but hasn't played other systems that have done a better job with those rules, may very well believe that getting out of the way is strictly the best way a system can approach role-playing. And I already went over how I feel about that.

* I don't have great words for this either, hopefully the result of the post explains what I mean.
** I've found the more focused the game is the more chance they have of getting personality/decision rules right.
*** There are others, including "I like it", which, if you do, is true.

So, late answer, but I do think that this is far more reasonable. With D&D being THE entrypoint into the hobby for so many people, its the one that colours expectations, as any other starting place would. And considering how heavily different games can diverge from one another, assumptions gained from one's starting point will just really not track in with other systems.

I will say that I am not convinced that the people who disliked such roleplaying restrictions in D&D will necessarily be happy with something like, let's say, Masks. Some will, certainly, and I've seen that happen, but just as many will be even more put off by it. Even more probably won't care either way and will be indefferent to the change. It's going to be hard to differentiate between dislike of the quality and dislike of the concept of restrictions, even for the people experiencing them.

To convince people to try these other systems, I believe, focusing too heavily on the already formed ideas will only make them double down. It's best to instead point out how they do things differently, and how that improves the RP restrictions. For instance, by being more focused, either by genre or setting or thematics. It always helps to look at these other systems as something different one can also enjoy, rather than "here's what we should be playing instead." And that's not what you're saying, despite the quotation marks, but rather the instinctual feeling people tend to get in my experience.

Ironsworn, for instance, is a game that gets straight to the action and creates exciting and fun encounters that don't waste your time. It's also the epitome of playing to find out. There's tons of random rolling and it's often hard to predict what could happen next.

That's a weird claim to me, because I always thought combat was the absolute worst part of Ironsworn. It's not bad, so to say, but it's very swingy and creatively exhausting, with battles often way outstaying their welcome or just utterly wrecking your resources past the point of being reasonable. I love the system, but combat's always been really rough compared to the basic but straightforward and functional tactics game of D&D combat.

(I ended up having to homebrew it for my games to do anything other than just use the Battle move for every violent encounter. Getting initiative back on a weak hit with a Face Danger makes things far more diverse and FAR less tedious.)

It does nail the improvised play, though. One of the best games on the market for it.