Quote from: Kyle Aaron on February 12, 2025, 06:06:45 PM

Quote from: SmallMountaineer on February 12, 2025, 08:21:18 AMI don't understand why any political administration is heralded or condemned on a roleplaying game forum. What in the hell does any of that have to do with our parlor games?

Nothing at all. I don't understand it, either. "Anna the magic-user and Bob the fighter go into the dungeon. There Anna made a group of kobolds fall asleep, and Bob cut their throats. They then found a chest probably full of treasure, but didn't have thief so couldn't open it. Bob smashed it with his axe and was hit by an arrow trap. It was full of gold. In the distance Anna could hear monsters coming in response to the noise. Anna could take the gold and run, or take Bob. She misses Bob."

I can't really see in there how whether you're in favour of or against a lot of migration or abortion or food stamps or invading yet more countries or whatever is relevant.

I vaguely recall someone telling us about the political implosion of a knitting forum, though. So... people.

It's 100% because the left thinks EVERYTHING is political, so they can't help but inject it. And, on top of that, since they are so convinced their views are good and pure and "basic human decency," anyone not agreeing is a vile fascist istaphobe who should be shunned and cast out from society.

On top of that, because EVERYTHING is politics to them, even saying "I don't want politics here" is a "dog whistle" for "I don't want gays or minorities or trans people at all". I've legit seen that argument thrown out, that "no politics" is the same as "right-wing politics" because everything has to be political and a statement about whichever minority is oppressed.

I've been banned from that site and I couldn't even tell you why. I was just talking about games like I have here. They seem very fragile and frankly, cultish.

Quote from: Jaeger on February 12, 2025, 01:06:44 AM

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on February 12, 2025, 12:41:51 AMBut it's an rpg forum, isn't it? Or supposed to be? Just ban all political discussion.

Even when they do that, they don't really do that.

They always, always allow certain groups/people to be the subject of drive-by comments, quips, and snark.

If you try to do that to unapproved targets, you get modded for not being 'inclusive', etc.

Every "politically neutral" forum I've seen does this to various degrees. Every single one.

The truth is that the left are psychologically incapable of any kind of political neutrality. They can never truly just let things be. They always have to get some kind of dig in at the other side...

Precisely; they want to discuss politics and police others simultaneously. It's like a cult, I'm not kidding. They get you there for one thing, then it's a bait and switch for your entire belief system, with a permaban at the ready if you aren't willing to jump into the water headfirst.

Quote from: D-ko on February 13, 2025, 07:35:21 PMI've been banned from that site and I couldn't even tell you why. I was just talking about games like I have here. They seem very fragile and frankly, cultish.

Apparently they have not been treating game designers well for a long time. No clue why. But it seemed to get worse from 2014 on. I talked with a few who had been banned, censored or threatened.

Quote from: Omega on February 15, 2025, 12:59:05 AM

Quote from: D-ko on February 13, 2025, 07:35:21 PMI've been banned from that site and I couldn't even tell you why. I was just talking about games like I have here. They seem very fragile and frankly, cultish.

Apparently they have not been treating game designers well for a long time. No clue why. But it seemed to get worse from 2014 on. I talked with a few who had been banned, censored or threatened.

I was briefly on RPG.net, and the topic of Star Wars alternate games came up.  I mentioned Star Adventurer as one game to look at.  I made no mention of the author.  Then it came up and I simply asked that people should judge the game on its own merits because I knew they were sensitive about real world politics on the forums.

Easy enough.  I mean, let's just stick to the games, right?  Let's not get into what the writer thinks about non-RPG topics. 


Nope. That just lit the fuse on everyone.  There was backlash against RPG Pundit for his political views, it was right and decent to essentially make sure nobody gives him a dime, ban all of his works for that unrelated reason, and ban me from the forums for a week because I was telling people how to think.

And they don't do that?

They're not people I want to game with, so I left.

I got banned for a similar thing with a Venger related product.  No tears over that, just confirmed that the site was filled with rabid weasels.

I guess I lucked out by following my gut.

When I started looking for online gaming forums RPG NET was the first I found, but I never signed up -- the grape candy aesthetic was enough to make me wince and turn away.

The only reason I'm not banned at RPG.net is because I stopped posting or even going there by mid-2016 so there's been no activity to ban.

I got a new PC in 2020 as well so none of old passwords carried over. I'd literally need to do a "forgot my password" to even go back there and I don't care enough to bother.

I'm actually pretty proud of the reason I got banned from RPGNet.


This one has aged really well because it winds up indirectly fingering the mod team for defending nationalism and points out the exact impossible-to-be-innocent trap that activists are setting up. The icing on the cake is that the thread went on for another page only to essentially prove me right. No one had a good way of drawing a line on cultural appropriation.

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 17, 2025, 09:34:33 AMThe only reason I'm not banned at RPG.net is because I stopped posting or even going there by mid-2016 so there's been no activity to ban.

That has NEVER stopped them or BGG or Facebook or YahooGroups or YouTube from banning people preemtively. Or on a whim. You said "potato" 40 years ago on some obscure BBS? Today they declare potato is really a nazi code word for murder! You MUST be ERASED!!!

Just look at the clown show of wotc for watching this idiocy in real time.

Quote from: Fheredin on February 17, 2025, 10:36:50 AMI'm actually pretty proud of the reason I got banned from RPGNet.


This one has aged really well because it winds up indirectly fingering the mod team for defending nationalism and points out the exact impossible-to-be-innocent trap that activists are setting up. The icing on the cake is that the thread went on for another page only to essentially prove me right. No one had a good way of drawing a line on cultural appropriation.

Skimming that thread, and I see mention of Tournament of Rapists being banned on DriveThru, and that makes me chuckle.

I remember all the outrage and threats of boycotts, and then, low and behold, it turned out that Tournament was actually a villain group you were supposed to fight against and not be a part of.  But, since only two copies of the book had been sold before DriveThru pulled it, nobody had actually even read the thing that made them so mad.  On the bright side, it made me realize two things: 

1) what a virtue signaler Fred Hicks was (being one of the people demanding censorship of stuff he'd never actually read)
2) nobody really cares how much rape your game has in it, as long as the game itself is popular (e.g. Exalted 2ed is full of rapey stuff, and still selling on DriveThru.  Child rape is in Delta Green and Werewolf the Apocalypse, and still being sold.  Hell, even Cthulhutech still has its pdfs for sale.)

Quote from: Omega on February 17, 2025, 01:30:22 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on February 17, 2025, 09:34:33 AMThe only reason I'm not banned at RPG.net is because I stopped posting or even going there by mid-2016 so there's been no activity to ban.

That has NEVER stopped them or BGG or Facebook or YahooGroups or YouTube from banning people preemtively. Or on a whim. You said "potato" 40 years ago on some obscure BBS? Today they declare potato is really a nazi code word for murder! You MUST be ERASED!!!

Just look at the clown show of wotc for watching this idiocy in real time.

Yahoo Groups hasn't existed for 5 years. WOTC similarly hasn't had message boards to ban people from for about a decade now.

Quote from: Fheredin on February 17, 2025, 10:36:50 AMI'm actually pretty proud of the reason I got banned from RPGNet.

Why? You were discussing politics, which is playing their game of roleplaying pretending to be gamers.

Now, if you'd got banned discussing game-related stuff, that might have been something to be proud of.

I only got to that place in the late aughts, so I never saw its reputed golden age. All I saw was a lot of wannabe self-important Live Action Roleplayers playing at being "book reviewers", contrarians, agitators, and trollolols from Something Awful -- routinely bandwagoning for their latest darlings to push the Overton Window. There was no 'there' there for gaming talk from what I saw.

I just left, was never banned. Don't know if I'm banned now, but I don't care. It's a cult of personality, Greek Chorus, non-entity, like reddit is becoming, and Board Game Geek became. The less attention we give it the better.

You'll eventually move on and add more game conversation worthy topics to this board.

Quote from: Opaopajr on February 18, 2025, 06:46:55 AMI only got to that place in the late aughts, so I never saw its reputed golden age. All I saw was a lot of wannabe self-important Live Action Roleplayers playing at being "book reviewers", contrarians, agitators, and trollolols from Something Awful -- routinely bandwagoning for their latest darlings to push the Overton Window. There was no 'there' there for gaming talk from what I saw.

I just left, was never banned. Don't know if I'm banned now, but I don't care. It's a cult of personality, Greek Chorus, non-entity, like reddit is becoming, and Board Game Geek became. The less attention we give it the better.

You'll eventually move on and add more game conversation worthy topics to this board.

Greetings!

Yeah, my friend, I visited TBP perhaps briefly, some 15 or 20 years ago. I saw it as yet another den of Commie fucking crybabies and Liberals. And, well, as you described the scene as well. *Laughing* The place held zero interest for me, and I have never been back. Just reading a bit of the threads there was mind-numbing. I always felt like the more I read, the more IQ points I would lose. I was once a very active member at EN World--but visiting them eventually got me feeling the same way, like I was losing IQ points the more I read. EN World has also become a Commie, Woke shithouse.

Here on this site, we have good humour, and consistently intelligent discussion and commentary on whatever.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK