Beggars

Originally published May 14th 2024

So there’s a very well founded sentiment amongst a lot of people in the ttrpg space, a sort of disdain for fifth edition dungeons & dragons. I get it, if you are the person who always running the games and but don’t want to be every time you bring it up with your other friends that there is something you want to try so it would be more fun for them and they keep looking you in the eyes and saying no. It feels terrible and on top of it you gotta play a game that's so bad that I will not run it unless payed to. Especially when you get off that train, it can feel electric to hear other people say what you are thinking and hear other disillusioned people.

But what's up with the people who are constantly begging internet randos to play other games? Deploying on the regular “I'm begging you please play another game”.

I'm sure you have encountered this before, if not this exact turn of phrase you might also know them from their other tendencies. The sort of person who gets personally offended by some slop factory website made an article about how to make a cyberpunk edge runner guy in 5e, or that some no name actual play is running a horror game in 5e.

It is obvious and self-evident that this massive corporation enacting its a monopoly is just bad for the artform and hobby. But, why are they always begging? Day in day out; it seems to be their bread and butter, this constant begging. What’s begging going to do?

Please I'm begging you play other games is a cry in the face of monopoly to just please vote with your dollars. Like many calls to vote with your dollars it fundamentally comes from a lack of the ability or willingness to analyze the material conditions for our situation.

If you cannot or will not understand that there is a tendency for capital to form monopolies and therefore hurt art, this begging is the only real outlet you have. And I can get it, the idea is comforting isn’t it, the idea that if we just act like this is not a flaw of the system but instead of flaw of individuals who we can preach to? Oh then we can fix that just by posting. If we just all vote correctly with our money like I am begging you to.

Another, albeit more minor, purpose this particular battle cry serves is as a safety blanket for the perpetually aggrieved small business owner. They obviously built the better mouse trap, so why aren’t they reaping the rewards? It cannot be that fame is a lottery, and that we don’t live in a glorious meritocracy. No it is a perversion of the natural order other better games exist and deserve to fill the same role 5e does but alas, the insolent consumer doesn't realize how much money they could be giving to me, the rightful heir of this monopoly. And honestly how dare people not provide me with free marketing more. It’s just not right I am begging you please play other games, like my game.

I think the material lens to analyze the situation is why the beggars tend to act in other strange ways. It's why they latch onto the failed theories (1) of a now over decade long defunct webforum to explain how playing 5e is bad because it’s normalized the idea of house rules. Or make strange claims about how it would be impossible to ever play a heist in 5e because it’s too complex to make plans, so you should learn another game.

They make the same comparison over and over about how games nowadays is like if you had to modify Skyrim to be super mario or something (2), ignoring the fact that the absurdity of that lies in the fact that it would require massive physics overhaul and a completely new set of high fidelity visual assets to be created. Sure it would be absurd to use 5e to model victorian romance novels because you have so much you throw out, but it’s actually entirely dissimilar to anything videogame development related. It is not that much more different to say imagine an airy open garden than it is to say imagine a dank wet dungeon.

The beggar is fundamentally disconnected from reality because it’s a much easier pill to swallow. So, the begging continues. If they just act enough like a missionary for their small business of choice, if they beg and plead to strangers in tones that imply they are better than them surely they will win over the hearts and minds of the people. If people were just smarter material conditions would not be like this.

So I guess that's what's up with the beggars.

Tl;dr shut da fuck up you ain't smart for having read a bunch of posts from the kill six billion demons guy.

1 https://lumpley.games/2025/04/07/revisiting-gns/

2 as videogames are the more important and relevant medium to most people we are forever forsaken to having to understand our own medium through them but that is a blogpost for another day