6/ Finally, no one can make you play with anyone you don't want to play with, use rules you don't want to use or indeed do anything you don't want to do.

You can still play misogynist pillage simulator with rascist caricatures if you want to.

Let the rest of us enjoy the new wave of fans.

5/ While we're on the subject - you're all posting about the male loneliness epidemic and then turning around and complaining when Netflix and Critical Role open your hobby to thousands of new people?

Are you bruised in the brain?

Take a shower and run a fucking one-shot. Make a friend!

4/ I will never understand why long term fans of things feel entitled to gatekeep.

You've been playing for 20 years?

Congratulations. No one cares.

Doing a thing you enjoy isn't some hardship worthy of laurels or authority.

You should be welcoming new players, not inventing hierarchicies.

3/ There is no correct way to play.

Dungeons and Dragons can be a played as a hardcore fantasy combat game, a high concept political drama, a romance story, a comedy improv game.

The best way to play is the way your group likes.

You don't get to tell people they're doing it wrong.

2/ The hardest part of most nerdy hobbies is finding enough people in your area to enjoy them with.

More interest means more players means more games means more fun.

It also means you can find people who want to play the game the way you enjoy.

This brings us to:

Satanic panic with heavy metal music too, no doubt 😅

being pre-crazy was like a vaccine against this new big crazy

That begs the question: why has everyone lost their damn minds?

And the answer I think is Phone x COVID x Neoliberalism = everyone is insane.