D&D Advice

There are days I feel D&D must be the worst game ever written since people won't stop telling me how to play it.

I will toss in a sarcasm flag here, but it is true. 

I get why YouTube cracked down on D&D creators, it got to be too much. Endless videos pandering to this lowest-common-denominator of referee advice, class builds, adventure prep, how to make the game more fun, class tier lists, and it goes on and on.

Most of the advice isn't even good, it is just opinion.

And it is presented with such a know-it-all tone and attitude that it drives me crazy. The deep voice and calm presentation, overly serious, self-professed experts with very little knowledge in what they are talking about. The grift is high with D&D YouTube, and the self-sustaining and self-important attitude is galling.

And that sparks further discussion as other creators support or disagree with the opinion, and false knowledge becomes accepted truth, and it all is just this toxic echo chamber that feeds upon itself, creates its own audience, and sustains itself as the entire pile slips into the outrage-for-clicks trap.

YouTube probably has this "outrage thumbnail" algorithm that tells them to kill off a community when the only thing driving interest are outrage and scandal videos. That few years of "Wizards Did What?" content was likely the nail in the coffin. The same is likely happening to Warhammer.

If all that is driving a community is outrage, it is likely a community that the platform does not want.

But, stepping back, and even just considering referee and player advice...no game ever needed this much help. Yes, I get it, this is a popular game, and there is an art to playing it, but it can't be this hard. But other games, like Call of Cthulhu, the second-most popular game in the world, has nowhere near this level of player and referee advice.

And Call of Cthulhu defaults to a historical setting! One would think we would be seeing videos on language, history, style, how to dress, what the world was like, technology, running evil cults, how to fight different monsters, the countries of the world, Elder God tier lists, investigation tactics, how to not go insane, and all sorts of other helpful advice.

And admittedly, Call of Cthulhu is about equal in terms of complexity and far harder in challenge.

And there is very little coverage of the game, given the relative size differences. 

I do see Shadowdark coverage, but it is not as endless pandering to seemingly helpless players and referees. Shadowdark does not need that much help, and the coverage is more about having fun and talking about the adventures. A simple, minimalist, very concise set of rules does not need much in the way of helping people understand how it plays.

A game like D&D, with over a thousand pages to consume, needs so much help it boggles my mind. Is there an inverse relationship happening here? The larger the game, the more help people need? Does a game get so big it generates its own cottage self-help industry?

In general, I am done with D&D and D&D YouTube, I unsubscribe from channels as they pop up. I never watch the advice or adventure prep videos. I would learn more by just preparing an adventure myself. I don't need community experts (or their games), and it all just becomes a tangle of worthless information, talking to hear somebody talk.

Listening because we feel alone and confused.

There are times when you need to stop listening, and solve the problem with your own two hands.