Another thing I noticed is getting more common among RPG Horror Stories. When once it was common to see entitled players complaining the GM is not running the game like Matt Mercer runs on Critical Role, I have lately seen quite few stories where problem GM tries to use that to deflect criticism. It’s usually the type to be acting creepily towards women, both in and out of game, enjoying juvenile, overtly edgy humor and/or insisting of all kinds of bigotry for “historical accurracy”. And when the players confront him (as it’s almost always a guy) about it, he’s going to say something like “Stop sucking Mercer off, this is real D&D!” or “Go play at Matt Mercer’s table, if you don’t like it!”.
While, as usual, there is possibility these stories are fake, I can see these being true - the kind to engage in those specific behaviors is also the kind to grab on buzzwords or try to twist real problems to deflect criticism.
D&D generally is a game of heroism and hope. D&D’s hells aren’t the hell of out world, nor do devils serve the same role. Different settings have different themes (the style guides are useful for insight) but overall, heroism matters.
And if one likes and gets power enough, one can even descend into the hells to punch the devil himself in the face.
I’ve heard campaigns don’t usually make it to a very high level. How often do you kill the evil gods and free the souls in the lower planes?
Depends! 5E is broken at higher levels so rarely there. I’ve had a few complete campaigns in older editions though; a group with insanely high levels completed the Throne of Bloodstone and another custom campaign closed out after saving reality itself. As for killing gods, once. One of our PCs ascended to godhood too. For the hells, that’s never been an overall goal. Freeing good souls, yes.
So in short, it’s a crapsack world, and campaigns rarely involve fixing it?
There was a campaign that Puffin Forest did where there was a treaty between celestials and fiends that was stolen reigniting the war with the intent that the upper planes would win. But the guy who did that was the antagonist. The players were trying to preserve the status quo.
