The Culture: This Is What The Clubhouse Keeps Out

The consequences of turning a hobby into a commercial pursuit are not obvious, but they are felt.

This thread at Reddit showcases one of them. The Original Poster is a self-admitted freeloader who prefers Current Edition because it caters to his preference to use the Referee as his personal funny monkey.

Respondants were not universally approving, but you could tell who runs for these people and who does not by the responses.

This set is a good summary of the matter.

This is not how the hobby works. Hobbyist, by definition, require that you put in work; some of the respondants get this, even if they can't articulate it as such, and some do not (mainly due to not having that demand put upon them either).

This guy just want to show up, take up space, and leave. Dealing with him is easy, assuming that "Get the fuck out and don't come back" doesn't stick: make him put in work.

This is another element that proper campaign play, with proper games (e.g. AD&D1e played correctly), has as a feature: built-in gatekeeping functionality.

The OP is able to do what he does because Current Edition is designed to cater to him. By his own admission, taking him out of that environment acts to dissuade him from being at the table taking up space and being dead weight.

This is the final form of most Conventional Play Cargo Cultists; the fast-burning-out Forever Referees are the minority, and they are not valued despite being the only ones willing to run games for these people.

This Cargo Cultist is the one that will welcome the transition to an all-digital business model. This is the guy that will welcome the removal of human Referees in favor of bots because bots don't burn out. This guy wants to play videogames and is in denial about it.

Put him at a #BROSR table and he'll be running for the door before he finishes rolling up his man. He will blue-screen at the first encounter with having any work demanded of him; he will freak out at Player-vs-Player conflict, act like a character in a Lovecraft story when encountering Braunstein, complain about not having everything on the sheet, and God forbid his side loses a Surprise roll and his man gets murked during the Surprise segements or via the Assassination table.

Just as we should welcome those who are willing and able to Git Gud, we should be equally swift in shutting out those that won't. He should be directed to something more suitable to his preferences, which means he should lurking in a chat channel on a livestream watching others play the game because he's already 99% of the way there. This man is someone that would be better off watching Critical Role. He should not be taking up space in the hobby.

So stick to the games whose very operation compels him to flee like a vampire before the Cross. The Clubhouse can welcome anyone. The Clubhouse does not welcome everyone.

Fortunately for the hobby, and the culture, it is anti-fragile and so useless sacks of shit like the OP are on borrowed time. Everyone that comes at Jeffro only ends up proving him right and getting more people siding with him. He recounts the recent thing with Harmony here, which did that.

I can't want for Conventional Play to kill itself.