Gosh, Nudity did you say?

 RPG.Net is the absolute worst. The pearl-clutching and virtue signaling is puerile and infantile. The forum is an utterly vapid exercise in neutering bracing science fantasy

in all its utter bloody, don't give a shit about your fragile sensibilities.  Voluptuous, yes using the word voluptuous will bring out the torches and pitchforks. Get this, slavery in your fantasy game is "problematic". Fucking accurate is what it is. 

Why was I even there? I google USR Sword & Sorcery every once in a while to see if I can ferret out any new reviews. This popped up someone reading out the setting guide to Xoth, the only decent and evocative sword & sorcery setting out there for your grim game of savagery. It predictably got shut down with the usual boilerplate -

"So, starting from the top, it's been a long standing guideline on the site that nudity needs to be two clicks away. The very first thing you see when you click that link is, to put it frankly, an astonishingly racist picture of female upper nudity.

Now, there is a history of racist and sexist issues with Sword and Sorcery, though Howard, for instance, moved during his lifetime in far less troublesome directions, he was still a product of his time. It is fine to enjoy the genre and it's writing, but if you are going to discuss them on this board, you need to both recognize the issues, acknowledge them, and for gods sakes, not take them as written truth.

So, just from the start of this Let's Read, with the intro immediately denying women could be the heroes(A vast surprise to Jirel, at the least), accepted without comment. Then the next with the race chapter....okay, you know what, let's just say that there are issues and move on, because this could be a book in itself.

And then here is where we get into the weeds. Let us just say that regardless of the source material, using terms like "Savage" and "Degenerates", especially as they are defined here, is something that draws the ire of the entire mod staff. And that's even avoiding the vastly troublesome depiction of nomadic cultures, the Enlightened being...whatever the heck that is. And then the casual aside that some of the people in the book are unavoidably Savage or Degenerates, focused on a group that, to be honest, has been horrifically portrayed by Racists for centuries as exactly those things. No, this is not less problematic. This is exactly the sort of thing problematic media was coined for.

In all honesty, even just reading the thread and not the book is incredibly alienating to people who might prefer not to be described as "voluptuous", "Savage" or "Degenerate" because of their gender or ancestry, and even though there is a (rather weak) disclaimer in the book, it's not even referenced in the thread. If you are going to be doing WIR or Let's Read or any sort of discussion involving media, you need to be critical of what you're reading. Just because a book, movie, genre or setting is racist or sexist, does not mean you get to decide it is absolutely fine to accept those as is without commentary.

Now, World of Xoth is not a banned topic. But if people wish to talk about it, they need to acknowledge that there are issues(Like there are in other books), and not just accept them as "this is what is."

Smarttman, take three days off. Everyone else, this thread is done."

As it says in this blog's banner, fantasy is the playground of the inappropriate! And of course you need to purchase your POD copy of The Black Book of Sorcery. It is wholly inappropriate!

Crooks in the Hobby

 An interesting as well as sad post was put up on the rpg subreddit today and highlighted another bad actor in the TTRPG industry walking away with $100,000 in Kickstarter funds and delivering no tangible product. 

I suggested, as this list gets longer every year, pinning a message at the top of the subreddit listing bad actors in the TTRPG industry cause these punks never go away. They ghost the gaming world for a few years and then pop back up. And I'm not thinking so much of the consumer, when it comes to Kickstarters backers seem all to willing to let failure slide, no I'm thinking of the freelance folks. The artists and writers who sign on and eventually get stiffed when the jig is up and the money is gone. This where the real shit lies. Stiffing subcontractors is a matter of course in any industry which operates this way. Sure there are disagreements on whether a sub has met obligations for full payment or not, but the TTRPG industry smells of one of the places where it is part of the "business" model. The person handling the cash flow has little to fear when they pay themselves first, even if it means failing on the project and hired help. 

A freelancer has little recourse but to know as much about the people they intend to do business with and make a judgement call. But this kind of information is not easily found. 

So if you have dreams of making it big in the shallow pool of TTRPG's add Jim McLure and Emily Reinhart to your list of poisoned pills.

Rick Stumpf and Swampfox1776 should be unwelcome in gaming circles

I understand and appreciate the turn of phrase “assume good faith, until proven otherwise”, but using a flying confederate flag as your avatar (its animated!) allows me to dispense with the effort and move on to the matter which must be dealt with. The matter of driving out and burying those who believe such racist signaling is permissible in society. Not to be debated with or educated or have a reasonable discussion with. Just marginalized and refuted passage on public forums dedicated to (well, anything else) the civil act of playing games.

I look forward to the day when such abhorrent displays of unethical attitudes held will be as embarrassing in civilized society as walking around and showing off your favorite child pornography.

The moderator has decided my position is in the wrong, so one can only assume Rick Stumpf (the moderator) holds the same ideology and hopelessly biased perspective. Perhaps he is one of those who sees good people on both sides?

Here is the recent exchange with this darkness.

 

 

I suggest this group on mewe be made to go bury their heads in the next “lowest rung” of society somewhere else. Forced to go find a place to set up shop on the melting iceberg which is racism. If Rick Stumpf is going to be permissive of this inappropriate, provocative and violent signaling he shouldn’t be welcomed in the greater gaming community. My guess he is not.

Anything in the greater game community.

So marginalizing this group and signaling to others it is not a good gaming group to support is a legitimate and lawful action to take against this kind of stuff. Pointing out the bald inappropriateness of this behavior and making them unwelcome in larger gaming circles makes for fewer racists in the world, eventually.

Not to spend too much time on this point before I make my plea, I did not go looking for this. I didn’t wake up this morning and decide I’m going to search the gaming forums to perform and get pats on the ass for stating the obvious. This is more of a toxic waste dump I have to pass on my way to school every day. I’m going to do something about it. I’m feeling it as a “local” problem, not something abstract and remote. Matter of fact, don’t comment on this post if you support my position, instead please inform the micro forum of gamers there promoting, and permissive of open displays of racism in a game forum that they need to take confederate symbols down and if not, good-faith efforts will try and get their ass booted. That is my plea. I can only tell Mewe and other gamers on the site this is not cool once. Mewe gets a 100 then you are going to get some action. I could be wrong, but that is all I know to do, ethically. Public shame racism trying to hide out in the open.

I did get a private chat request from Rick and in short, he told me I better watch it. There were two salient points he put forth as legitimate reasons for me to “watch it”. OF the first it is he is of mixed race? Not sure what to make of that. I guess I know more personal details about this person than I care to now? Second, his father flies the confederate flag. Really. That’s the whole of the argument for tolerating open displays of racism in a public game forum? It is a lovely display of how racism is taught generation to generation, the passing of the torch, so to say.

This isn’t the first time I have brought this up at Tabletop Roleplaying group. I noticed it the first time I checked it out. Yes, I play games and I check out gaming groups on the internet. And I got plain with the guy flying the flag avatar and got the same garbage back you see here. But I had left this sewer after saying my peace and heard encouraging words from other users, other members of this particular game group. I must have totally misunderstood at the time, but I thought I was told Rick had asked SwampFox1776 to take down the image. Because I was wrong about that.

So I said it again, as you can see.

Take the time if you can and report this crap. It’s a good time to push back on permissive happenings of overt racism. The majority of the world rightly assumes owning people as property, slavery, is wrong. You won’t end up having to face public displays alone. You will get support. Flying the confederate flag means you are okay with that. Complain to moderators who are exposed to public pressure and get that shit off the gaming walls and halls.

Robert Bohl Don't Post Here at the Vanishing Tower

This is you right? You threw some lame comment in regards to my last blog post. Yeah you are not welcome. 

The rest of you commenting on my claim that Story Games do a worse job at creating story than traditional role playing games you are welcome to continue arguing your point. I may even engage and try to sharpen my argument, but if this is the kind of person you truck with please just stay away as well.