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I'm not too concerned with boycotting Evil Hat unless OBS/DriveThruRPGs comes out saying they indeed were influenced by Evil Hat's whining. I think that people should put pressure on DriveThruRPGs to either explain why they did it or reinstate the game. There's no better way than not giving them your money, IMO.

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You're not going to get the same effect on tabletop as you did in video games.

I think the issue you have is the idea that the SJW crowd is new to tabletop RPGs. They're not. They've been in it for a while and they've been very effective at taking control. They're the mods for the forums, and the writers and editors for major tabletop companies.

Tabletop is a much smaller hobby, and because of that, SJWs are not a minority like they are in video games. It's a very unwelcoming world for anyone not towing the social justice line. The nice thing is, you don't have to worry about it too much. Find a nice group and stick with them and you won't have to worry too much unless you feel like being a masochist and visiting the forums.

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I hadn't heard about this. What on earth did Paizo and WOTC do?

Nothing much.

Paizo is very LBGT-friendly, and WOTC put their infamous gender-paragraph in D&D5. Which I don't consider to be boycott-worthy at all, but it does mean that the in-crowd "approves" of them.

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I'm pretty sure that's highly illegal, just from what's been discussed around Gamergate before.

Personally though I wouldn't suggest Gamergate starts a boycott of DriveThroughRPG - keep the focus on videogames for now. Though if James Desborough wants to sue more power to him.

I know he has reputation and nothing more but I can't see how anything he did could justify illegal blacklisting.

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The Evil Hat/RPGnet/Something Awful/RPG SJW clique have had a grudge against Desborough for a long time. This is par for the course, honestly.

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I just don't understand how this happens. I don't play tabletop RPG's but wasn't the godfather, Dungeons and Dragons, completely poo poo on by the media and outraged moms for being satanic? There was even a movie about it with Tom Hanks where he apparently starts playing DnD and can no longer distinguish fantasy from reality. [Mazes & Monsters is an amazing garbage movie and you should watch it. —PoH]

Now there is a moral outrage over video games and the evil #GamerGate harassers and these people can't see the parallels?

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SJWs infiltrated everything these days it seems, GamerGate has been ably painted as satanist in most social circles. Most RPG became genuinely progressive since the 90's though so I can see some game scenes attracting this kind of sick people.

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Complaints about mergers, antitrust issues, acquisitions and business conduct that harm competition, limit products or services, destroy innovation, or raise prices may be submitted to antitrust@ftc.gov

I've filed a report and I'll encourage James to do the same.

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Never bought fate, and now I never will. My group is enjoying savage worlds/ deadlands noir anyway.

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I don't even get what's so controversial about Grimachu's stuff. It's not really inflammatory.

almost certainly Desborough trying to operate under the RADAR posted:

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[someone in the thread e-mails Hicks, gets a (polite) response about how such products are garbage no matter who is publishing them]

Like I suspected, it's a personal beef. Not surprised at the weasel language either given that what JD wrote was a defense of rape in fiction. There goes Game Of Thrones.

Plus, it's the same old canard of the fallacy of origin. If he was consistent in any way, he would renounce feminism given the radfems (i.e. radscum) predilection for transphobia, or even mainstream feminism's own racefail (see dearwhitefeminists). Of course, no sane person would expect him to do that.

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Given how much they live or die on the utterly insufferable rpg.net, which allows discussion of GG only in the negative, this is hardly a surprising turn of events. I imagine they're being textually fellated hard enough to strain the servers.

At least I never thought FATE was enough to be worth paying for, even assuming it hadn't labored under something as crass as a for-profit donation drive. I don't buy 'nothing'.

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"If they don't want these people as their customers, they don't have to stock for them."

"If they don't want to bake cakes for gay weddings, they don't have to."

The primary feature of social justice is hypocrisy.

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I'm quite happy that the designers of the collaborative storytelling exercise FATE are showing their true colors.

gently caress you CSE trash.

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I don't think Evil Hat is directly to blame - pretty sure RPG.net's White Knight Brigade fearlessly charged in to make their disapproval known to DTRPG.

Hanrahan's tweet may have instigated it, or he might just have attempted to score some cheap points with the in-crowd.

Either way, it's is a lovely move by a less than clever representative of a noticably big company, and a spinecrumblingly weak follow-up by drivethru. And I hope it actually proves to be unlawful.

No, definitely not Des posted:

Maybe, but the executives do not deny that they did meet regarding what to decide. It only turned out that they didn't have to do anything because DTRPG actually did something shortly after.

Like I said, my only focus on EvilHat is to show their hissy fit, but the actual pressure should be on DTRPG to come clean as to why they removed the game, and to have them reinstate it.

crime fighting hog posted:

I completely washed over the times Zak S. was here and posting. Can someone give me a rundown of how that went?

Froghammer posted:

EDIT: Also, a company using its power and influence to direct the market (in this case get a game taken off a website) isn't censorship, it's how capitalism works. Sorry bros.

Froghammer posted:

EDIT: Also, a company using its power and influence to direct the market (in this case get a game taken off a website) isn't censorship, it's how capitalism works. Sorry bros.

quote:

Across the immensity of time and the disconcerting multiplicity of individuals, one single operation is taking place: the annexation of Christ to His chosen; one single thing is being made: the Mystical Body of Christ, starting from all the sketchy spiritual powers scattered throughout the world. . . Our salvation is not pursued or achieved except in solidarity with the justification of the whole ‘body of the elect’. In a real sense, only one man will be saved: Christ, the head and living summary of humanity. Each one of the elect is called to see God face to face. . .

Our individual mystical effort awaits an essential completion in its union with the mystical effort of all other men. The divine milieu which will ultimately be one in the Pleroma, must begin to become one during the earthly phase of our existence . . .

To what force is it given to merge and exalt our partial rays into the principal radiance of Christ? To charity, the beginning and the end of all spiritual relationships . . . It is impossible to love Christ without loving others . . . And it is impossible to love others (in a spirit of broad human communion) without moving nearer to Christ.”

crime fighting hog posted:

I completely washed over the times Zak S. was here and posting. Can someone give me a rundown of how that went?

ProfessorCirno posted:

He also went on to stalk and harass a lot of people over it, making it a note of pride that he was scaring people out of the ttg industry.

And that's why he was Mearls' choice to help make D&D 5e!

Darwinism posted:

I bet that all was really goddamn easy to find, too, and that just makes it so much more depressing

Libertad! posted:

Those ones were from a dude who felt really, really threatened by my Sexism in Table-top Gaming essay I wrote like over a year ago. The essay in question was made in response to a worrying trend on threads at GiantITP ("I don't understand how women can be good warriors!" "Would you play with a GM who imposed Strength caps on women?" etc), but then expanded to cover other stuff in geek culture.

As I posted it on multiple forums, the resulting reactions ranged from inspiring to depressing. A lot of people agreed with me (especially quite a few women posters on various sites, from what I recall), a lot disagreed, and a few people hated me for it.

All in all, I'm proud of what I wrote.

quote:

Whether or not rape, or child murder, or other things that different people find uniquely bad, are fit subjects for roleplaying games is a perfectly legitimate argument to have. As I've emphasized repeatedly, whatever your boundaries are, they're your boundaries, and you shouldn't be forced to participate in anything you don't feel comfortable with.

But at the same time, I shouldn't be forced to adhere to your boundaries. What I do in my imaginary storytime activities doesn't hurt you, any more than your imaginary storytime activities hurts me.

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Actually, I do have something to say about Convention behavior and environments.

There is something I like to call, implied consent. For instance, if I show up at an anime convention (I spend a lot of time at anime conventions), I'm pretty much signalling by my presence that I think anime is pretty cool and something I find worthwhile to talk about.

But there's a lesser known but equally vital aspect to anime conventions; they're a big crossover with various alternative sexuality and lifestyles. And by being there, you're implying that you're okay with that stuff too. Some of the stuff I find objectionable, but by being there, I kind of implied that I was cool with it, so I keep my mouth shut.

If I went to Mardi Gras, I wouldn't take offense that someone offered me beads to expose myself.

Plague of Hats posted:

He writes obtuse blogs about monsters and his city adventure book was pretty popular. That's super great! I'm sorry you can't stop name-searching and jumping into others' threads to bring up this old poo poo no one's talking about constantly.

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If I went to Mardi Gras, I wouldn't take offense that someone offered me beads to expose myself.

Desborough posted:

The smug sense of satisfaction I get from being the better man is purely coincidental :P

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Oh jesus.

Evil Hat are buddies with a certain transhumanist PnP RPG studio whose flagship product I absolutely adore. It's going to loving kill me if those guys come out in support of poo poo like this, because then I'm going to have to boycott their game.

If you're talking about Posthuman and Eclipse Phase, I don't know if they've said anything about this specifically, but the actually made a big post in their official forums a few months ago announcing that if you supported men's rights they didn't want your business. If they AREN'T in favor of this sort of censorious SJW crap, I'd be sort of shocked.

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Thanks for the heads up. Those things both sound totally reasonable and not at all worthy of anyone being upset.

Artistic expression is a big theme here, and consequently we likely all can agree that Paizo gets to write whatever characters they want to write. (Although I look forward to a time they are able to write transgender characters non-ham-handedly).

I would be worried if either company had engaged in authoritarian crusades against certain groups of people, or people with certain views. Doesn't sound like they've done anything close to that. Panic averted.

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So, I thought about this... Adjust Tin-foil hats as needed:

Many of these people involved espouse Marxist ideals. I've stayed out of that debate for the most part, because it's probably not constructive to GamerGate's core goals.

But, bear with me here. If you're spouting Marxist ideals and trying to promote a Marxist society, There would, arguably, not be a distinction between a company or set of companies encouraging 'censorship' and a group of people encouraging 'censorship', because It's all the same in their mind

(I'm using Quotes here because I feel like Censorship, like every other loving word that is thrown around by the Antiintellectualgamergate crowd, has had it's meaning perverted to the point I don't even think THEY know what it is supposed to mean to them anymore.)

Gary Motherfucking Gygax posted:

As has been often pointed out, AD&D is a game wherein participants create personae and operate them in the milieu created and designed, in whole or in part, by the Dungeon Master and shared by all, including the DM, in imagination and enthusiasm. The central theme of this game is the interaction of these personae, whether those of the players or those of the DM, with the milieu, including that part represented by the characters and creatures personified by the DM.

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Aww.. Cam Banks seemed like a nice guy. He signed my Supernatural book. I asked if he was at the MW booth at gencon and they said he had left the company. Sucks to hear he's a douchebag..

DTRPG is nice but they're pretty closely tied with Onyx Path, and their M:TR guy is a huge anti gamergater. I can't remember his name but he had an anime frog avatar. My point is a lot of people in that community are going to think badly of Gamergate. Personally I won't hold ignorance against too many people in this environment. I think it makes perfect sense for somebody not closely involved to think Gamergate is, indeed, a hate group. It's easy to "listen and believe" when people are telling you horrible things about something. Why would that girl lie? Why would everybody lie? That'd be crazy! But it is crazy. It's a full-scale propaganda war and you can't be too biased against people who get caught in the net.

I'm not trying to defend them too hard, just saying that boycotting them may not be the answer. It's better in this case to try to educate them and/or let them be. We'll never convince the public that we're not a hate group by rioting over their reactions to us. It's important to just focus on what matters.

Plague of Hats posted:

quote:

If you read the early (I mean first couple of months) updates you will see that GMS went to Hollywood to show far west around...I think most of our money went there.

Plague of Hats posted:

Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:

What's with lovely webcomics and using so many loving words?

Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:

What's with lovely webcomics and using so many loving words?

Plague of Hats posted:

"If they don't want these people as their customers, they don't have to stock for them."

"If they don't want to bake cakes for gay weddings, they don't have to."

The primary feature of social justice is hypocrisy.

Chaltab posted:

Desbo used that exact same comparison on his twitter; that's either him or a sycophant follower.

doo-doot doo-doot-da-doot, your daily GGCG update! posted:

Update 5: Steve Jackson Games have refused to sell the product on e23, on the grounds they believe it would negatively impact their digital sales. SJ Games tends to have a fairly right wing and mercenary bent, to the point of not sharing the Munchkin millions with the people who started off the whole thing, in this case it seems like the mercenary bent won out – but at least they were honest and straightforward about it and it’s a purely commercial decision. OneBookShelf (RPGNOW/Drivethru) inform me that there’ll be a consulting period and some actual, generally applicable rules will be come up with to decide what can and should be banned, when and how. So please do continue to contact them and express your PoV as a consumer that free expression is important and that you’re capable of making your own decisions about what you do and do not buy. More importantly, if you’re a creator who sells through any of their sites you should have concerns about any such rules – as they may turn on you in the future – and should make your opinion known. Contact form via this link. For my part it’s simple. If it’s not illegal, it should be allowed – properly streamed and tagged. If you wish to express your displease at SJ Games refusing to host the download, you can do that HERE.

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The funny thing is, an actually transhumanist society would see socjust bullshit in the same hilariously hosed manner they'd look at religious fundamentalism...

In the Eclipse Phase games I've run, I've done exactly this.

Pundowski posted:

It is really loving inconvenient that it's this particular product that's the 'martyr product', because of course they can keep trying to make this about Gamergate instead of about how Fred Hicks believes he should get to decide for everyone else what they're allowed to read, buy or sell (it's for our own good, of course, because we're just unwashed massses that don't know what's best for us, and need illuminated elite guardians to tell us what we should even try to think, so that our inferior impressionable minds don't get corrupted by 'problematic' ideas).

But that's why they chose this one, of course. They don't really give a poo poo about Desborough's gamergate game. I mean, they do as much as any pseudo-activist would, but they went after it as a small-fry to set precedent. What they really want is to win at this one, to establish precedent, and then almost immediately after someone will "discover" something really "Offensive" about Red & Pleasant Land (a far more successful, edgier, and more important product, that is currently making all the Swine seethe with jealousy because it makes them all look like a bunch of pseudo-artistic posers compared to Zak Smith) to make sure that gets blacklisted too.

Pundowski posted:

The most you can say about DTRPG is that they were easily-manipulated cowards. But the ethical fascism here is on the part of the arrogance of the Evil Hat guys, who think they should get to decide for the rest of us what we're allowed to have or not have in the hobby. They didn't want to just tell us they think its bad, or urge us not to buy something; they wanted to cut it off at the choke point so that the rest of us HAVE NO CHOICE about buying it.
Its more hypocritical, of course, that they're also doing it for market-dominance reasons.

And it's irrelevant whether or not OBS was actually driven to blacklist because of them, or what they claim about it, because the point still stands that Evil Hat, that Hanrahan and Hicks and the rest all clearly WANTED to blacklist, they WANTED that influence, and they clearly believe themselves such a special elite above the unwashed masses of regular gamers that they should be entitled to (for our own good no doubt) tell us what we're allowed to read or not.

Slimnoid posted:

Currently smoking: moldy grass clippings rolled in dogshit.

inklesspen posted:

Isn't Red and Pleasant Land just "Zak does Alice"? How the hell does that make anyone jealous?

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The most you can say about DTRPG is that they were easily-manipulated cowards.

Plague of Hats posted:

^^^^ Pundit's essays tend to include a note about what tobaccos he's smoking. There's even a special field on his forum to enter that poo poo into posts. The above was a jape over such tomfoolery.


Because on the rare occasion that he bothers to do so, he can write well, therefore the reason everyone hates him is because he's a genius that embarrasses lesser men. It can't have anything to do with him just being an rear end, otherwise that would be Pundit's problem, too!

Azran posted:

Yeah, I did get the joke - I just meant that I do not get why the hell he does that. But "he's insane" seems to be the answer.

gradenko_2000 posted:

You'd think that Pundowski would be a little more cagey about directly insulting the people whose platform he's using to sell his game. Like, come on DTRPG folks, quote that poo poo and use it as a justification to remove Arrows of Indra the same way that one dude got his game removed from Steam from making death threats about GabeN

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SJ Games tends to have a fairly right wing and mercenary bent,