Fake D&D: For Those Who Fear Reality

Fake D&D in a nutshell:

DM culture is saying how you're totally gonna kill your players' characters and laughing at their fear but secretly stacking the deck in their favor #DnD5e

— Eva 🌈 (@evaoddveig) June 24, 2018

Yeah, I had an erudite and witty rejoinder full of cleverness to show off how SMRT I am.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Nope.

A good DM, a competent DM, is Crom. Breath live into the world, then let them strive for it. Let the dice fall where they may. Victory is only valuable when it's earned. https://t.co/ll8Ex1EA41

— Bradford C. Walker (@MrBCWalker) June 24, 2018

Who the hell actually wants the Game Master to cheat, either for or against them? No one sane, that's for sure.

I got a response from yesterday's post that nicely summarizes Real D&D's essence:

Moldvay D&D, and AD&D, the original “roguelike” games. https://t.co/XNwjp1ixFr

ACKs by @_Autarch_ fits the same bill. They also have a new kickstarter, for a dungeon where a lot of characters are likely to die off.

Horribly.

— LastRedoubt🐻 (@vfm_5411) June 24, 2018

"Rogue-like" is the magic phrase you're looking for. "It's the Dark Souls of (whatever)." is the phrase you're looking for , and if you ever played a Souls game you'll know why its fans love them and keep coming back for more. This is Real D&D in videogame form. It's a real test of player skill first and foremost; the more powerful your character becomes means that you're able to handle more challenges, either on your own or with others- be they other players' playing with you or your Henchmen aiding your man in wrangling a bunch of hirelings to the job site.

And yes, this translates to tabletop RPGs generally.

That Fake D&D shit? "Oh no, I will adjust reality to favor you poor dears." or "WRONGTHINKER! YOU AUTOFAIL ALL THE THINGS!" and so you stop having a proper game and instead this Mother May I bullshit where you have to sync brainmeats with everyone else like you're the fucking Borg or Cybermen and follow the One True Narrative with the One True Party down the Yellow Brick Road (and never look behind the curtain) OR ELSE!. They'll do their damnedest to run a Shame Game on you to make you conform. Such Sparrow. Much Signalling. So Brave.

And if you think that's a stunning rebuke, you're really going to blow your gaskets: Gygax was right about strict time records.

Why?

Because in Real D&D, there is No One True Party.

In a given campaign, you were expected to roll and play multiple characters. Why? Because sometimes your Magic-User wasn't able to go out due to ongoing magic item or spell research, your Cleric is in the middle of a lengthy retreat to undergo a ritual, your Thief is still laid up from the wounds he took previously, and your Fighter is still training after getting enough XP to level up. So you played a Henchman, or you rolled a new 1st level character, and you signed on to tonight's delve into the dungeon or into the wilds.

Gaining new or improved class features? Took time. Recovering from injuries? Took time. Meanwhile NPCs had their own schemes to advance, events beyond anyone's control rolled in and out, and Time Marched On. Skipping shit for narrative convenience damages the verisimilitude that Real D&D demands for it to grant satisfaction from those that face its challenges and overcome them via effort and keen management of risk- by earning their rewards.

Which just goes to show that Feels Trips Ruin Everything, and Real D&D ain't no safe-space Feels Trip like one of those hybrid movie-rides at the theme parks you see on TV. (Insert ticket, ride the monorail, have a spectacle play out before you, buy the merch at the shop on the far end and remember to watch the livestreams on Twitch- you're a Real Adventurer now!) You have to risk, put skin in the game, for the reward to actually matter to you; it's basic psychology.

Lifestyle consumer brands are all about bullshitting you into thinking you're one of the big boys because you feel like it, and you feel like it by watching others do it while all you do is spend money on crap you don't need that has the brand on it in order to (Stop me if this sounds familiar.) signal your identity as a brand-follower.

This is what WOTC and the other SJWs pushing this crap are out to do, and their LOL-meme response to #DnDgate shows that all they care about is Identity Brand Affiliation. "Make friends" is piss-easy; hang out in a chatroom and blather bullshit while watching a show or video. It's much too hard for them to actually take a risk, put some skin in the game, and work for their happy endings so they won't belly up to the table, they won't roll 3d6 in order, and they sure as hell won't accept that their man is not a hero out of the gate totally unearned starring in a drama that's All About Them.

And we are right to exclude them from our ranks. They are fakes and frauds. They are not one of us.

And yet, the path is open to all. Just sit down, and face the game as it is. Not as you want it to be.

The only ones keeping the gate--as one should expect of SJWs--are the fakes. They fear the fires that forge the soul into steel as much in the virtual worlds as they do in the real one, so they fear those who come forth forged into souls strong as steel and seek to keep it from the people.