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I drafted the following question for main:

I've recently gotten back into D&D (the last time I played it was 2e), and I've been doing a lot of reading so I can be a better player.

One idea I keep coming across is class stereotypes (the two I can think of at the moment are "horny bards" and "edgelord rogues", but if there are others I'd love to know about them). Now, I've been in only two long-term campaigns and done a bunch of one-shots, so I don't have a lot of experience, but I have yet to run into characters who fit these stereotypes. (Technically, I've run into one horny bard, but the player in question makes ALL his characters horny, regardless of class, so it's hard to count that one.)

I'm interested in learning more about these stereotypes. Are they backed up by people's actual experience? If not, where do the stereotypes come from, and why do they persist?

But as I read over it, I started to worry that it was too broad/non-specific/subjective. Is this an appropriate question for main? If not, how can I make it better?

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    \$\begingroup\$ I believe there is an on-topic history of gaming question about the development of specific stereotypes in this, but it also might not be what you are seeking. As it currently stands, it is an interesting question but a poor fit for a few reasons: It is open-ended and a great conversation for forums; the issue is that refining it to make it not open-ended is likely to transform the question into something that might also be interesting but doesn't get to the core of your curiosity. \$\endgroup\$
    – Akixkisu
    Dec 14, 2021 at 14:16
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    \$\begingroup\$ The "I have yet to run into" aspect, backed up by table experiences, doesn't end in an answer that would fit as a "best answer." \$\endgroup\$
    – Akixkisu
    Dec 14, 2021 at 14:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ I think what you could do is to think about why these experiences fascinate you — are you more interested in how playing out those stereotypes looks; are you more interested in how they came to be; are you more interested in how accurate they represent common table play or whether they are more of an abstraction etc. \$\endgroup\$
    – Akixkisu
    Dec 14, 2021 at 14:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ In that sense, there is also no issue with posting multiple questions about the topic, but each is well-focused on something that we can answer in our regular Q&A style. \$\endgroup\$
    – Akixkisu
    Dec 14, 2021 at 14:26
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Akixkisu Thank you for these comments. I'm going to spend some time thinking about what exactly it is that I'm trying to learn. If it turns out to be stackable, I'll post a question—if not, I'll find a more appropriate place. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joel Derfner
    Dec 14, 2021 at 19:54

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Right now, that is very open ended

My short description is that what you've written up is a reasonably good discussion/conversation start – the first post in a forum thread.

Digging slightly more closely, your primary question here is asking for a survey of experiences; that's not a good fit with the format. And since the motivation seems to be idle curiosity, I can offer no assistance in how to make it stackable. The easiest possibility would be to direct it to a forum instead (or our own chat). Or if there is a more concrete problem you're facing, identifying that and focusing on it might work (assuming that problem is amendable).

There is a possibly stackable question in here, though. Or actually, kinda, a set of stackable questions. The matter of where the stereotypes come from is much more tangible. But, each one would be better off as individual questions.

Even saying that they are questions that can be asked, I'll still offer a warning that they might be hard to answer properly. They strike me likely as either going unanswered for a long while (not a bad thing for the site per say, but obviously not as useful to the asker), or being closed if it's too much opinion and noise (or outlook thereof).

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Thank you so much! I really appreciate your help. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joel Derfner
    Dec 14, 2021 at 19:53

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