I’ve seen someone so adamant that we’re all playing wrong that I think he just hates TTRPGs in general.

This phenomenon might be migrating from YouTube into the hobby as a whole. Some of these incredibly bitter old Grognards have gone from, “My way is better. You’re all playing it wrong,” to “5E sucks, D&D sucks, your Dungeon Master sucks. This whole style of gaming sucks. Gamers who breathe too much air suck…” and so on. When that point is reached, maybe it’s time to look in the mirror and ask, “Am I the problem?”

Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this article are strictly my opinion. If you disagree or have a different opinion, that’s okay. I’m not an expert on everything. I’m not always right. I’m just writing from my experience as I know it. Your mileage may vary.

(*Disclaimer: I’m not naming anyone specifically. If you are feeling unjustly called out, then you know where to contact me privately. Otherwise, I recommend inward reflection. Meditation is good for that.)

#TTRPGfamily, this will not apply to about 99.98% of you. The one or two guys who it does apply to have gone from reply or rebuttal videos straight into what I call out-and-out abuse. Why dedicate all or a part of a YouTube channel just to hating on people? If this were a more serious topic than tabletop games about spaceships and elves with sticks, would it be permitted?

Lately I’ve been seeing videos that go well beyond “reply” or “rebuttal.”

The person that I’m thinking of is taking another Content Creator’s video, without any kind of real attribution or recognition, and watching it while pausing every couple of sentences to openly mock that person. It’s not, “my take on the TTRPG hobby is better.” It’s “All these new guys totally suck.” My question is what would be the point of making such a negative video?

There’s no philosophical debate or even a stable topic in question. There’s one Content Creator in particular that I would dearly love to get in contact with just to let him know he’s getting trolled so badly over the course of multiple videos. Really the hobby as a whole, the #DnDCommunity, #TTRPGCommunity, and anyone else who actually enjoys gaming is getting trolled. It’s downright tragic.

I could kind of understand if there was a point being made about the hobby that would make a difference. But it’s the same pedantic, tired, overly-critical, denigrating remarks in every freaking video from this guy’s channel. Unfortunately the old windbag in question recently subscribed to my channel, and it turns out there’s nothing I can do about it. So now I find myself in roughly the same position as the guy that keeps getting verbally belittled along with the rest of the hobby.

Remember the 1980s?

There was a time, especially in the small Iowa town in the United States where I grew up, where mentioning Dungeons & Dragons would get you beat up, shoved in a locker, and actively persecuted by every religious kook that came through town. I’m talking I lived in a town where we were openly shunned as gamers. I got yelled at and banned from the copier at the public library for making character sheets for “that Devil game.”

The very thought of turning on someone else in the hobby was completely unimaginable. If anything, we were happy to recruit new players once in a blue moon. A lot of times it was new kids in town who hadn’t been shunned by the community already. If we were really lucky, the new kid already know about RPGs and maybe even had a book or two. Hey, it happened two or three times. 

Okay, old trauma aside, flash forward to 2024.

Thanks to the advent of the Internet, the TV show Stranger Things, livestreams like Dimension 20, Critical Role and even the Pandemic; D&D got its moment in the sun. Gaming, TableTop gaming specifically, became popular with a whole new generation. D&D 5E has been running for 10 years unfettered by angry small town librarians and religious nutjobs. The game’s biggest downfall these days comes from within.

For once I’m not just digging at Wizards of the Coast. We have people from within the TTRPG hobby who are actively trying to undermine and chase people out of the hobby. It’s the equivalent of becoming an automotive enthusiast just to insult more people into riding bikes or gardening. YouTube has gone from being a great source of meaningful advice to watching people troll and denigrate one another.

Please stop feeding the trolls.

I haven’t mentioned my other least favorite flavor of YouTuber that has cropped up en masse ever since the Great D&D Open Game License Debacle of 2023. I hate to say it, but some of these fine people are feeding the trolls. I’m talking about the hardcore shills. I’m talking about the people who actively pimp the new D&D, Pathfinder Remastered, or whatever Kickstarter project they have most recently connected to. There’s a whole cult of them, and I’ll get into that more elsewhere.

Yeah, I’m kinda harshing the vibe of certain older D&D Content Creators. They’ve also opened the floodgate of newer, very polished, very professional looking younger content creators to come in and start talking about the hobby. I thought that was cool as Hell, right up until the trolls descended upon them like a school of half-starving piranha. Before these new guys started popping up, the trolls were feeding on the same old D&D crowd and each other.

I want to call one specific troll out so badly, but I don’t dare.

The last time this guy came at me on his channel, it resulted in me pulling the plug on my YouTube efforts entirely. If that’s the kind of derogatory crap I can look forward to, I’m not down to make videos. Like I said earlier that guy subscribed to my channel. He’s out there waiting, lurking like an old shark just waiting for me to put out some content to destroy.

Part of the reason I’m so jittery when it comes to this stuff is I had a couple of conversations with friends who mentioned the last time that tangled with a couple of specific trolls, they got doxed, SWATted, and strange packages began showing up in the male with um… really disgusting things inside of them that had nothing to do with TTRPGs. I have zero desire to inflict such nonsense on my family, and you’ve probably never seen my wife full on angry. (Ever see a rabid sabretooth tiger breathing fire? Yeah…)

I once again want to point out that I’m the face of my brand for better or worse.

Instagram Reels, Tik Tok, and Twitch might all have their issues, but I’m starting to take a look that way. This issue with YouTube honestly turns me off of that platform and I’ve been a supporter since 2013. I’m not even trying to make a living off of YouTube at this point. At one time I had some aspirations toward monetizing a channel, but that boat seems to have possibly sailed.

The best case scenario on YouTube would be to go on there, make a bunch of really cool videos about TTRPGs, get to my Silver Play Button, and maybe get a sweet, sweet affiliate deal. I would love to see that happen. Heck, I promised the nice lady at Free League I’d make a video about Dragonbane. I love that game so much; people would probably be begging me to stop talking about it.

The worst case scenario is pretty grim. The first thing that bothers me the most, keeps me up at night, and actually worries me more than many other things would be if I made a video and it ended up on that guy’s channel being ripped apart, denigrated, etc. Then to have that video, from dude’s channel with around 3,000 followers, shown to new Dragonbane or D&D players by the YouTube algorithm which can’t distinguish positive from negative content. Ultimately it’s just not the message I’m looking to send. That would not be cool at all.

It’s one thing to be excited for a hobby. It’s another entirely to start going down the rabbit hole of a new interest only to end up in the deep end with a shark (troll.) If someone had told me the TTRPG communities on Twitter and YouTube are when I first started with them, I’d have run the other way in a big, damned hurry. Thanks. I’ll stick to UFOs and ASMR videos. Some of these old bitter TTRPG guys are as bad as politicians. (God help us all when the discussion gets political…)

You’ll never hear me tell someone that they can’t get out of the hobby fast enough.

It’s not a competition. There’s room for everyone to grow in the TTRPG space just as there’s plenty of room to grow on YouTube. Most of the people who’ve been into either/both know there’s no threat from new talent coming up. There are plenty of GMs, Players, or viewers to go around.

I truly welcome people coming into the TTRPG hobby with open arms as long as they’re at the table to have fun and do no harm. I love welcoming new players into the hobby regardless if it’s 5E, OG Tunnels & Trolls, Renegade’s Storyteller, or whatever. I highly encourage new GMs to jump into the hobby and stick with it.

Why in the actual heck would anybody go from saying their way is better to straight up chasing people away is beyond me. That is so twisted to me. Who hurt you, bro? I have to wonder if this person just really had a bad D&D experience. Were you a pastor in the 1980s?

I hear people all the time talking about how the Old School Renaissance/Revival/RolePlaying/Re- whatever is so bad for the hobby. I hear a lot of terms such as “gatekeeper” getting thrown around in relation to them. Again, why are we trying so hard to push people out or away from the hobby? I’d think we old guys would actually want people to feel welcome like we weren’t. Imagine how awful it would be to get out of a hobby because some old guy on YouTube told you that you were a rotten, no good 5E player and you should get out.

Enough sadness for one day.

This was another article I didn’t want to write. I felt that it was wholly necessary because I don’t want to see someone else go down that road. I don’t want to see anyone else end up in the crosshairs of an anti-TTRPGer’s channel. This isn’t a crusade to get anyone cancelled. I just don’t want anyone to have to live through that experience. TTRPG YouTubers beware, I guess.

My humble request is don’t be that negative guy. Better yet, don’t become negative like that guy. Please be kind, positive, considerate, and welcoming to new players and GMs. There could easily come a day when nerd culture is once again forced underground. We have to look out for one another because no one else will.

As Ram Dass once said, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

Thank you for being here today with me. I appreciate you. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy.