Quote from: Doc Sammy;1058711When will people such as Mike Mearls and other important people, both right and left, stop bringing real-world politics into gaming?

Because everything is "politics".  Look at all the threads here devoted to politics in gaming.

Quote from: JeffUltimately, game publishers will have just swapped audiences. Instead of expanding, selling to both men and chicks, they'll be selling all-chick games to chicks only. This is still a better financial situation for publishers. They will eventually be paying chicks to do the design, art and authoring of games. That means real savings, because they'll only have to pay the chicks 75-cents on the dollar compared to what they pay men.

rofl

Just for the record, I am not Jeff Freeman.

Quote from: jeff37923;1058724Just for the record, I am not Jeff Freeman.

Your loss!

Quote from: jeff37923;1058724Just for the record, I am not Jeff Freeman.

Exactly what Jeff Freeman would say!:p

Quote from: CRKrueger;1058719Now that it's been brought to light, I'm sure it will be deleted shortly, so posted here for posterity in its entirety.

Okay, well the full post has, for me, a much lower laughs-to-cringes ratio (excellent editing, Melan!), but whatever, at least it is saved for posterity so thanks for that.

If it's the same Jeff Freeman who worked on SWG, he took his own life about ten years ago.

I hope it wasn't him (there are many Jeff Freemans out there, and I am not even sure it was his real name). I liked the entire column, and loved his review of FUDGE, which may be my favourite piece of RPG satire ever.

Rest in Peace if it was him.

Quote from: Melan;1058702Mearls is just following in the footsteps of the great Jeff Freeman...

And so on and so forth. 1997, people! 1997!

That was hilarious. Thanks for digging that up!

If a product looks fantastic, and nothing about it ticks me off; I may just buy it.  I never research the creators; I just examine the product.


If I have stumbled across information about the creators prior to seeing the product; I'm human, so of course it's on my mind.

I guess it really depends on how much they piss me off.

QuoteAnyone that ever played 1st edition AD&D remembers the succubus drawing in The Monster Manual. Sure, she would drain hard-won experience levels, had fangs, little horns and bat-wings, but just look at those hooters! Woo-hoo!

Gets 1st ed AD&D Monster Manual, blows dust off. Oh yeah still works for me.

I wonder if I can get my wife to dress up like that for Halloween, just need the wings she came with the rest (including the horns and fangs ).

You all know that that illustration was based on a Playboy Playmate?  Miss May 1977, IIRC.  

To the question:  When they bloat the game.  Or annoy me with sanctimony or anything else.

According to the web page that review is on, the review was edited just last year.  Why would anyone need to edit a 20 year old review?  What did they edit?

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1058681Personally speaking:

I play exactly one RPG, D&D. I play D&D because I'm a mainstream kinda guy, and I can't really be bothered to pay attention to niche products. Plus, it's easier to find games for D&D than the niche stuff.

That's changing soon. I'm switching everything over to ACKS because Jeremy Crawford's sexual obsessions are seeping into official WotC product. See, my big problem is that I'm really lazy. I don't care to draw up dungeons or world lore. I'm a busy man with more money than time, and what I want to do is pay creative people money so I can use their ideas instead of coming up with my own. It's not just WotC's product. 5e culture in general is becoming increasingly Seattle-sexual, and I'm just sick of it. Where WotC goes, the D&D world follows, and WotC is increasingly circling the SJW drain with its content.

Pretty much everything I buy now is either old TSR content or OSR content, because that's the only material that is reliably focused on slaying giants and raiding dragon hoards without sidebars about how to hook up with a gender-swapping elf at a Waterdeep bathhouse. You know what's easier than converting Against the Giants to 5e? Converting it to ACKS. Besides, I want to give my money to people who don't hate me.

TL; DR - I quit buying stuff when the politics of the producers start significantly affecting the product.

This is pretty much where I'm at as well.  I play 5e on occasion, but I've become less enthusiastic with WOTC and more interested in the OSR.  I may introduce Basic Fantasy or White Box FMAG to my players, along with something like Barrowmaze.

Honestly I don't get the problem.  Whether it's a throw away sentence in a random NPC write-up or a five page spread in V5ed, it's easy enough for me to ignore the parts I don't like or feel are unnecessary.  Of the stuff mentioned here, Lady Liberty is probably the closest thing to annoying me (simply because I doubt the character has to meaningfully deal with issues relevant to illegals and transgendered folk, being a super-powered fantasy trip.  And no, beating up Ku Klux Kangaroo or Cyber-Nazis doesn't count as 'meaningful'), but even that is something I can just ignore.  The 5-page spread of sensitivity training in V5ed?  I'm honestly more bothered by the photos of people just standing around in their Saturday night goth costumes (I've hated that in -every- version of -every- White Wolf book).

Quote from: Lurtch;1058595Mike Mearls has been on a tear the last few weeks. He has now called people in the NRA terrorists on the level of ISIS members, said that if you like complexity in games that you're a gate keeping women hating evil person (igoring the irony that the game he is responsible for has a lot of complexity in it), and this week if you believe in due process that you're a rape apologist. This is in addition to firing people that he disagrees with politically from D&D.

Here is where I'm at: I like 5E just fine but when the head guy is so upfront about hating me and people like me, it's hard to be excited about playing.

My choices are a consumer because as a right of center person I have no cultural power to use against the white leftists in Seattle is either not to purchase the products or ise my rights as a shareholder in HASBRO to go after Mearls job.

I'm almost to the point that he needs to lose his job over his lack of professionalism. I'm not big on mobs going after people's jobs but if #DnDGate wants to make something materially better, writing to the CEO of HASBRO with the evidence of how Mearls has been acting will do just that.

1. Your characterizations of what Mearls said is wildly inaccurate exaggerations which, I assume, are based on a biased agenda;
2. My grandfather, a holocaust escapee, loved the music of Wagner, a deeply anti-semitic man. His response to those who challenged his tastes based on that issue was simple: the art is not the artist. I've followed that example all my life. I don't care if the artist is a bad person - I care about the art, separate from the artist, and I have no issue separating art from artist.