Pundowski posted:

"Queering" D&D is like "queering" basketball, or bridge. It either can't be done, or can only be done by making something so radically different from what is presently called 'basketball' or 'bridge' that it would no longer be recognizable as such.

Pundowski posted:

Should a Guy Who Hates Non-Underdressed Clerics but Thinks Preteen Maid Pseudoporn is "Art" Get to Decide What RPGs All The Rest of Us Buy?

“Should DTRPG be a gatekeeper? Maybe, maybe not. But the hubbub and rage around the game in question kinda indicates a ‘yes’, to me.”

The above is Fred Hicks (of Evil Hat games), explaining how HE, through commercial pressure to DTRPG, should be the Gatekeeper of the RPG hobby. He just out and out admitted it.

You see, Evil Hat just recently put pressure on onebookshelf to get them to ban James Desborough's (admittedly moronic) "Gamergate" card game. In a knee-jerk reaction after Fred Hicks complained to them, instead of bravely standing up for customer choice, or pointing out the inherent conflict of interest Hicks has as a competitor, they instead totally folded and pulled Desborough's product.

Do YOU think that Fred Hicks should be the one to decide what RPGs should belong in the hobby and which don't?
Before you comment, do keep in mind that Fred Hicks is buddy-buddy with the people who publish the Maid RPG, so he has no problem with an RPG where you play a preteen pseudo-slave in a transparent uniform performing humiliating and sometimes sexualized tasks to please her adult male "master", but thinks a Gamergate comedy card game is a moral outrage worthy of censorship.

Is that who we want deciding for all of us what we should or should not be allowed to buy? He literally believes he's more qualified and wise to judge what's best for you than you, to the point that he feels he should get to control what you're even allowed to consider buying.
Note: I'm not even saying Maid should be censored. I'm saying NO ONE ELSE should get to decide for me which games I have access to. I am also saying, of course, that Fred Hicks and his ilk would in any case be the most utterly unqualified people on earth to be moral arbiters of what should or should not be banned. But of course, that's the irony, anyone who thinks they have so much more wisdom than anyone else that they should get to decide what is best for everybody is by default automatically disqualified from being morally or intellectually worthy of such a power.

And if OBS sticks by the decision to ban Desborough's game, there's no telling which other games will be next. One thing that will be clear is that the choices will be just as hypocritical: obscene misery-tourism storygames that simulate things like necrophilia and pederasty will be kept on because they're written by the 'right people' for these assholes, while D&D OSR sandboxes will get banned because they have drawings of fully-armored female clerics they judge to be looking just a little too sultry.

I'd strongly suggest that if you would rather that YOU get to decide what RPGs you can choose to buy, rather than Fred Hicks, you may want to WRITE to OBS and express your concern about the censorship of Desborough's game. This is NOT about Desborough, this is definitely NOT about supporting gamergate, this is about making sure a total rear end in a top hat doesn't get to choose from now on which RPGs will be allowed to be commercially viable and which won't.

Send complaints here? (unless someone comes along in the comments and shows us a more direct route that will get to the people in charge at OBS)

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Lorenzetti Solitario Rhodesian + C&D's Pirate Kake

Pundowski posted:

I know certain desperately want to turn this "Fred Hicks As DrivethruRPG's Gatekeeper" issue into a gamergate thing, but that's not what it's about. It's a gatekeeping thing.

The fact that Desborough's latest stupid game was about gamergate doesn't matter, because if we say "yes, it's ok for Fred Hicks to be allowed to pressure OBS into letting him decide which games are allowed" the next thing that will happen is that Fred Hicks will decide that Red & Pleasant Land, or Ursine Dunes, or Dungeon Crawl Classics (to pick some random examples) is doing far too well, and all of a sudden what do you know? he finds something "offensive" in those books to justify banning them too.

I guess that's fine right, I mean everyone can just keep buying Evil Hat's games, right?

Pundowski posted:

I don't really give a poo poo about James Desborough or his games. It's not him I'm backing.

What I'm backing is the fact that a small group of elitist assholes (like Fred Hicks) that are so delusional as to be convinced of their right to rule the rest of us for "our own good" should NEVER EVER be allowed the actual power to decide what is or is not allowed in the RPG hobby.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Wait, wasn't it Tarnowski that got his panties all up in a bunch too over the fully-armored female cleric in the CYOA tutorial portion of the original Red Box in the first place?

James Raggi posted:

I didn't touch Dark Albion for the same reason I didn't touch Arrows of Indra - if you're going to give me England, give me England, if you're going to give me India, give me India, don't give me fantasy versions of them.

(Qelong was actually a miscommunication in that regard, but since I was never going to hit southeast Asia myself, I didn't fight about it.)

James Raggi posted:

Settings line up the pins, adventures knock them down.

Adventures can have the historical back drop but it's not about the history. A setting would need to be, and I haven't gotten my poo poo together on that because my bookshelf is already full of dozens of expensive academic press "settings books."

You'll just get to feel all done-upon over there, knowing Vincent Baker's done something for me, knowing that I've tried to get Ron Edwards to do stuff for me, knowing that every so often I check to see if McKinney has any new work I could take a look at, but I am not really interested in publishing anything by you.

Pundowski posted:

The thing is, you have a right not to publish me, obviously. It's a stupid choice on your part, because my work is better than anything the three you named have ever done, but it is your choice; I don't feel "done-upon" about that. I've always found the right publishers for my books, (most importantly) never had to settle for self-publishing, and have been pleased by the increasing critical and financial success of each product. Albion took way longer than most but now it has found a home too, and I think people will be blown away by the final and expanded edition.

But you are kind of missing my point here: you're so desperate to be edgy and hip and cynical that you're underusing your talent. That's why you're relying on cheap shock-tactics (which aptly describes both making 'kill all the pcs' adventures, presenting a purely cynical worldview, and your little cocksucking exercise with vince baker to show just how 'alternative-osr' you really are), instead of actually daring to do something that's much harder, and make actual archetypal fantasy that's good. If I wanted to make some adventure where there's gimmicky weirdo-demons that threaten the PCs and where the PCs have to be awful to survive and where the dungeon is just a gently caress-with-the-players deathtrap, I could drop that in a second. But it's much harder to do something where monsters you've seen a thousand times before are turned menacing again, or where you can present the option of a "good vs. evil" theme and seem epic rather than corny or preachy, or where the dungeon is an interesting environment without having to rely on "screw the players! fantasy loving vietnam! you get punished for even going in!" all the time.

Challenge.

James Raggi posted:

I think I'll go on doing the stuff I want to do, and people will get it if they want it.

People who don't want it have every other publisher out there to get stuff from, and they're welcome to them.

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.

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

gradenko_2000 posted:

I know I shouldn't care so much, but what the hell is this guy's day job that he has a panoply of pipes and esoteric tobaccos to pick from?

Error 404 posted:

Grognards.TXT: Neo-Stalinist Groupthink

Also, noted cargo cult pseudo-designer and plagiarist RPGPundit continues to be almost as funny on G+ as he is on his own blog/forums.

Pundowski posted:

for gently caress's sake stop trying to make my threads about your causes. They aren't my causes, they're not the point of what I'm talking about, and all you do is feed ammunition to the assholes to they can conveniently ignore my point and focus on the desborough-sideshow.

If you say you don't get what the problems are with GG or MRAs, then you're either lying or stupidly naive.

Jimmy-Dead the Sausage King posted:

Sorry, but you see nonsense like the above and it needs stamping on. Like it or not this is your cause as well as part of a wider culture war. Whether you recognise it or not.

Pundowski posted:

I know about the culture war. I also know that MRAs don't represent me, neither do the extreme elements of GG. Your absolute failure to self-criticize is a serious but far from unique problem. Your inability to call out the bad poo poo people do in GG or MRA's name is exactly the same as self-styled 'activists' failure to condemn their own side for pulling poo poo like censorship or making up outright lies about you (or me).

To me, one of the big problems in the culture war is Tribalism. Because the REAL culture war is between Individualists and Collectivists. Now, you expect groupthink from Collectivists, obviously, but when you see rampant tribalism among groups that claim to be individualist you run into a problem.

I don't want a world where there are No Girls Allowed in videogames, or where women go back to the kitchens, or any of that bullshit. Some of these people do. If you claim you "don't see the problem" or "don't understand why anyone would be against" the movement while totally failing to condemn those elements, then you become part of the problem.

Error 404 posted:

Ask Gareth Skarka.

Pundowski posted:

So I'm really looking forward to all of you people who say "this was a card game, not an rpg" and "there is no plan to engage in blacklisting" to stand behind me in five or six months when one of Zak Smith or James Raggi (or my own) products is attacked through pressure to get OBS to ban it, and not to be proving that all the stuff you're saying right now is just so much loving hypocritical bullshit (like how much all of you suddenly love the Free Market and the rights of Business Owners, an affection I've never seen any of you professing earlier and which I suspect will vanish into dust again the moment its not opportunistically useful for you anymore).

paradoxGentleman posted:

Pundowski, also known as Pundit, is a GGer who's mad because Fred Hicks, from Evil Hat Productions (who have made, amongst other things, FATE and Don't Rest Your Head, so I'm going to assume that they have contributed much more to this industry then he will likely ever will) said that he wasn't sure if they wanted their products to be sold next to this garbage, and Pundit thinks this is the result of a SJW pseudo-activist conspiracy, instead of the simple reality that people don't want to be associated with a movement that mostly deals in doxxing and rape threats.
He also believes that he's a real wizard and that people care about what he's smoking.

Rulebook Heavily posted:

JackMann posted:

I actually get the feeling that if it wasn't for the paranoia and persecution complex, Pundit would be a kind of cool guy. He's demonstrated disgust with the GamgerGaters, and like you said, he doesn't have a problem with social justice outside of gaming. It's just that anyone who disagrees with him or enjoys games he doesn't like must be part of this grand conspiracy he's come up to destroy real gaming. He can't fit the idea that people can disagree with him and still be good, decent people. So, they can't really be concerned with racism or sexism or the rights of minorities. No, they're pseudo-activists, people who are only using social justice to destroy the real RPGs and force everyone to play storygames forever. There is no other explanation in his mind. Every action Fred Hicks undertakes must have a sinister explanation that fits into his swine narrative. Tarnowski is fundamentally incapable of arguing in good faith because he refuses to accept any reasonable interpretation of his enemies, their arguments, or their games.

Azran posted:

Wait, what happened to Mikan?

boymonster posted:

OK, so here's my position on Zak.

Zak is an rear end in a top hat.

Okay, the longer position:

Zak is aggressive, strident, plays according to his own particular brand of rational logic, is opinionated, confrontational, and pursues conversation with people he disagrees with in order to arrive at some kind of explanation that suits his own confusion about why somebody might think differently from him. The number of people he's pissed off or angered to the point of blocking him is legion.

In this way he is like a gigantic crap-ton of people on the internet in various fan communities and all of their associated forums, from auto racing fans to kink enthusiasts to Etsy vendors. He is a classic internet gadfly. Even Mandy admits he's an rear end in a top hat.

However, he also genuinely cares about his friends, he goes out of his way to defend the friends he has, and he is remarkably consistent about the things he's an rear end in a top hat about. He supports a number of highly progressive causes, from sex workers to the homeless and has turned over a considerable amount of his fan-generated income to those causes.

I don't believe he's homophobic or transphobic, even though some of his infamous clashes with people who he disagrees with have all the qualities of that. His friends have said repeatedly that he's this much of a dick to anyone. I personally believe he could go a lot further to distance himself from his raving horde of sycophants and fans who take everything he says as gospel and are the reason so many people are harassed to the point of threats. I've seen him yell at followers for doing that, but then again he also posts things like "find this guy and take him on" which the average moron follower probably thinks is a request to harass somebody. He's got a platform and he's not entirely in control of his own message once it gets out to the masses.

I don't like to engage with him much, I don't like his style of engagement, and I don't really care for any of his content or really give much of a crap about his lifestyle or his friends. I do care that he is constantly being associated with toxic behavior. I do care that he and his friends shouldn't be targeted by trolls anymore than I think anyone should be targeted by trolls. His friends are mostly women because that's what his community is made up of, and as others have said so far, we shouldn't be judging him on that. That's lovely behavior and we can do better.

I have been friends with Fred Hicks for over 20 years and I trust and respect Fred's beliefs and his approach to business. I don't always think Fred gets his message across the way he would like, either. I don't even think I get my own message across the way I would like most of the time. So I dispute Zak's accusations of Fred because I don't think Zak is able to frame any of that outside of his own perspective and background. Calling Fred, Tracy, and many other people prudes because they object to sexualized imagery in media is ignorance. Calling people liars because they believe something other than what he believes to be true is also ignorance. Calling people mentally ill for having beliefs that he doesn't agree with is also ignorance. That's lovely behavior and he could do better.

But if we're going to be better examples of our own community and better examples of people in general we should stop engaging with him with troll activity, or insulting his work or personal life or friends, or making accusations against him we can't back up or which (like him) from from a filter we've created that's toxic and insulting. You don't need to give him any more credence or time than you want to, and you sure as hell don't need him showing up in every thread from now until the end of time harping on about the same dumb thing over and over looking for a fight. I'm pretty sure if you leave him alone, he'll get tired of you and go find somebody else to engage with.

Most of the time.

Cheers,
Cam

ZeeToo posted:

I'm pretty sure this qualifies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CfyU1mOZ1E

Heliotrope posted:

In a thread on "GM Manifestos"

LatwPIAT posted:

I keep wondering whether WotC would be so lenient with the Pundit's delusions if the conspiracy theory he pushed was The Protocols of Elder Zion or Eurabia rather than the claim that identity politics were invented by liberals in the 1960's to control debate.

quote:

There have been 4 official D&D DMGs now (4e doesn't count, I declare Damnatio Memoria on the whole thing)

moths posted:

Streetfighter

JackMann posted:

The only thing I remember from the oWoD Street Fighter was that Guile, an experienced special ops soldier, had no experience using firearms.

Night10194 posted:

I admit, I've never known what the hell this was all about.

Babylon Astronaut posted:

The Zac S and John Wick show is the worst video on youtube that I have ever seen.

Bruceski posted:

I think we did 9/11 or something.

Guilty Spork posted:

Also they're mad that everyone didn't apologize about the "debunking" of Tom Hatfield's article, which in real life is people not buying the insane screeds posted in reply to it. It's always amazing when people respond to accusations in a way that makes them look bad. Even if it turns out they're not out-and-out harassers, they're apparently incapable of responding to criticism in anything close to the manner of a civilized adult.

quote:

[27:57] Burning Wheel is a heavy brick of game design… Apocalypse World was designed to be hackable! Fate has the same ethos. Designing for the culture!
[30:15] But… they have captured the audience so well that it stymies design.
[32:30] Apocalypse World and Fate Core raising the bar for fledging game designers, but also creating a paper ceiling.
[39:39] Discussion about the playability and enjoy-ability and good that has come out of Apocalypse Engine and Fate games. Not about whether it is fun to play or not.

Tendales posted:

I don't see why he would be, since Luke Crane goes out of his way to keep his games out of the hands of players.

moths posted:

Luke offers zero digital options, poorly distributed limited print runs, and has only ever "reprinted" one thing ever. (The gold edition hardcover "slightly less convoluted" core book.)

He's the nerd sitting in the corner at the dance making no effort, pining for the day everybody just senses his quality and begs him for games - and he can look down and say "no."

theironjef posted:

I need a primer on Zak S and why everyone hates him and he is crazy.

Darwinism posted:

Are you capable of communicating without constructing bizarre strawmen?

osirisisdead posted:

No. I don't think people should be playing any game like that, because it's loving lame to even begin to care about making the optimal statistical choice in elfgames of any variety. Anyone being a tryhard like that on something that is utterly inconsequential deserves to be mocked heartily for the rest of their sad little existence. That argument was stopped by the moderators because it was stupid, and was over. Are you guys just so wound up about these stupid fantasy elfgames that you are totally unable to let poo poo go?

Arivia posted:

Get the gently caress out of my thread thanks.

Biomute posted:

Was this game ever meant to be played though? I got the rulebook on ebay for cheap way back, and it's the most inscrutable tome I've ever read. Worse than Mage: The Awakening by far. I mine it for Cyberpunk/Post-Apocalyptic ideas now and again, but I've never been able to get any kind of coherent setting or gameplay rules out of it.

forbidden lesbian posted:

are you having a stroke, do I need to call 911