The latest Woke article claims that this is true, but ironically their subject provides the raw factual data that shows it isn't.
#dnd #ttrpg #osr #wotc

I, for one, would love to buy your Far East setting RPG.  I would openly request that you include material inspired by pre-shogunate Japan, pre-unified china, Korea, Indo-China peninsula, and the Maya island peoples. 

No. Question answered. It was very easy.

I for one am hoping for D&D 6E to go full trans.  In fact, the PHB needs to have a trans hotline number emblazoned on the front page and at least one page where WotC lists out its political beliefs all of them.  Put up a transflag, progressive pride flag and BLM flag.  I want WotC to put it all out in print.  It will make it exceptionally easier to cut into WotC's D&D sales.

Does it really matter?

All things said and done, in a capitalist market if people aren't enjoying the product they're going to vote with their dollars, right? (Gold coins, silver coins, amethyst baubles, or whatever.)

Is not the standard argument that is usually applied? If the market isn't there for it, then they'll see their products stuck on the shelves and will have to figure out what they did wrong, right?

If the punters aren't "Trans POC", or people that might otherwise empathise with arguably (!) marginised communities, products won't shift and the market will correct itself. Right?

Quote from: Kage2020 on October 24, 2023, 12:19:24 AM
Does it really matter?

All things said and done, in a capitalist market if people aren't enjoying the product they're going to vote with their dollars, right? (Gold coins, silver coins, amethyst baubles, or whatever.)

Is not the standard argument that is usually applied? If the market isn't there for it, then they'll see their products stuck on the shelves and will have to figure out what they did wrong, right?

If the punters aren't "Trans POC", or people that might otherwise empathise with arguably (!) marginised communities, products won't shift and the market will correct itself. Right?

When you write for a marginalized community that is less than 0.05% of the population, it doesn't connect for sales.  When you put out a product where your selling point is that whites weren't allowed you don't sell books (I see the same Radiant Citadel at my two hobby shops, well the bigger one put them in the bargain bin 30% off).  When you post offensive bullshit on the DMsguild that everything D&D that isn't 5E is mostly racist you lose sales.

I'm a whale, In a 2 1/2 year period, I cleared $750 on D&DBeyond and over $4,000 on miniatures that went towards D&D.  I am money rich and time poor.  In the last 3 years, the only money D&D got from me was Spelljammer AND that was a bad idea.  When I see content that doesn't connect with normies, I walk the fuck away.  Most of the content from WotC lacks verisimilitude and its just toxic.  You have dumb fucks talking about how they can't wait to get rid of whites working at WotC, still employed, books where they deny people the opportunity to write due to race and frankly nutjobs  creating nonsense words.  I've had multiple players react to content I use because its from 1E and 2E, not 5E.  I've got a waiting list now at my hobby shop, while the other 5E group using Phandalin is struggling.  People want something to connect with and that is fun not god damn preaching woke bullshit.  When you hire censors, your art is effectively dead.  Typal is fucking ridiculous.  You go to WotC's official forum and you ask if for the next survey they please ask if players want more sensitivity readers or less as a survey question, that post gets admin locked and you are banned from posting for 5 days.  WotC is ideologically captured and frankly fucked.

WotC if they behaved themselves could be harvesting whales right now, a lot of 50+ year old GenX, the next group with the most money and are coming into their own now financially as the Boomers exit the job market, will not tolerate the shit WotC is shoveling once they see it.  WotC if they behaved themselves and didn't put out meaningless virtue signals to attract millennials who have no job, no spend and leach of the older people with the subscriptions, could be doing a lot better than they are now.    A leftard is more likely to be a waste of flesh than gainfully employed, meanwhile normies have a job and they don't like the race politics WotC is shovelings.

Quote from: Kage2020 on October 24, 2023, 12:19:24 AM
Does it really matter?

All things said and done, in a capitalist market if people aren't enjoying the product they're going to vote with their dollars, right? (Gold coins, silver coins, amethyst baubles, or whatever.)

Is not the standard argument that is usually applied? If the market isn't there for it, then they'll see their products stuck on the shelves and will have to figure out what they did wrong, right?

If the punters aren't "Trans POC", or people that might otherwise empathise with arguably (!) marginised communities, products won't shift and the market will correct itself. Right?

Correct. For instance, that's exactly what's happening right now in Hollywood. Only problem is that a number of beloved franchises have been burnt to the ground in the meantime, leaving many people wishing they had listened sooner. In the far smaller RPG scene it looks like D&D will be the game going down with the ship.

Quote from: honeydipperdavidWhen you write for a marginalized community that is less than 0.05% of the population, it doesn't connect for sales.

Do we have any actual statistics on this?

I ask with reference to the RPG industry rather than pulling statistics that, say, deal with the proportion of trans individuals per capita in a given country.

As I type this, I also realise that a part of the reason that I ask the question is that I'm probably not seeing the same kind of issues in the RPG industry--at least in terms of what I buy. I mean, I saw the Unisystem thing that seemed a little bit contrived, but all the other kind of things that I'm seeing--including the oft-lamented "virtual signaling"--is something that is more from commentators rather than producers.

Quote from: honeydipperdavidI'm a whale, In a 2 1/2 year period, I cleared $750 on D&DBeyond and over $4,000 on miniatures that went towards D&D.  I am money rich and time poor.

Yowzers.

I can empathise with the term "time poor", but my bank account clearly does not jive with the notion of "money rich" no matter how much I earn.

<plays a small violin>

Quote from: honeydipperdavidMost of the content from WotC lacks verisimilitude and its just toxic.

If you'll forgive me, if you're talking about D&D verisimilitude has never been high on its list of priorities.

Quote from: honeydipperdavidYou have dumb fucks talking about how they can't wait to get rid of whites working at WotC, still employed, books where they deny people the opportunity to write due to race and frankly nutjobs  creating nonsense words. 

I was just watching a video linked from this site where someone made claims similar to this and backed it up with some evidence, so clearly some of what you say is true. With that said, this dude sounded like a complete nutjob himself.

I am, however, interested by this notion that people are being denied to "write due to race". Do you have any more information on this?

Quote from: honeydipperdavidPeople want something to connect with and that is fun not god damn preaching woke bullshit.

I think that there is some traction with this. For some reason it reminds me of the "D&D is evil" thing that happened back in the day. A bunch of people decided that D&D was "evil" and it led to all types of shenanigans. Silly, really.

Quote from: honeydipperdavidWotC if they behaved themselves could be harvesting whales right now, a lot of 50+ year old GenX, the next group with the most money and are coming into their own now financially as the Boomers exit the job market, will not tolerate the shit WotC is shoveling once they see it.

I'm in the age range, but I generally won't touch D&D because I don't find it a fun game. It's because of that that I probably don't really get why the products that you mention are "virtual signaling" or whatever. My bad on that.

Quote from: TrondIn the far smaller RPG scene it looks like D&D will be the game going down with the ship.

As far as I can tell, the "hobby" is less concerned with some of what is mentioned here and more about the kind of shenangians--sh*tiness, maybe--when corporations squeeze creators and try to own more than they have the right to do?

Verisimilitude:

3.5E and older content had towns that tended to be racially homogenous OR if there was mixed there was a reason for it (trade, near another kingdom, war).  If you go to 5E content now, a village has every racial group present with no good reason to describe why.  It makes no sense.

D&D Racism:

Kyle Brink is the executive producer for D&D, he said this bone headed phrase, never issued an apology still talking to the public.  If I stated that I can't wait for my white coworkers to leave work, I would be reported to HR and fired for cause because my developers would not trust I'd treat them fairly if they are white.

Quote"Guys like me we are leaving the workforce, and we are not the face of the hobby anymore I'm not the majority of this hobby anymore and so its important to me that my team of creators look like my players and have the lived experience that my players do and I think there have been mistakes made in years past where people assumed  that D&D players were all white players in a basement.  Um which is a faulty assumption for a lot of years and more and more false every day.  And so in my viewpoint, guys like me can't  leave soon enough for this hobby.

source: https://youtu.be/mPDc3DVHwKo?t=2898

Radiant Citadel

The twitter marketing and online marketing for the radiant citadel was that no stinky white people wrote the book so buy it bigot.  The book sold very poorly.

Quote
Slated for June 21st (update - I just got a press release which says it's June 21st "in North American stores"; I'm not sure what that means for the rest of us!), it's a 224-page adventure anthology featuring a floating city called the Radiant Citadel. The book is written entirely by people of colour, including Ajit George, who was the first person of Indian heritage to write Indian-inspired material for D&D (in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft). Around 50 POC writers were involved in total in various ways.

Source:  https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-next-d-d-book-is-journeys-through-the-radiant-citadel.686847/

The assholes are now stating that half races are inherently racist, the shit that keeps coming from WotC is just beyond the pale  A lot of people consider themselves half this and that, but you can't do that for 6E because some assholes at D&D drank some racist Kool Aid.  Whatever their sensitivity writers come up with, they nod their heads, go with it, gets lampooned for it and rinse and repeat.  All WotC has to do is remove the slurs against their betters on DMsguild, drop the race pandering and focus on game rules and fun.  The creators who came before them broke new ground and their content was generally pretty damn well thought out and fun.  Don't slur your betters because you can't create the same quality they did.

Quote from: Trond on October 24, 2023, 01:05:19 AM
Correct. For instance, that's exactly what's happening right now in Hollywood. Only problem is that a number of beloved franchises have been burnt to the ground in the meantime, leaving many people wishing they had listened sooner. In the far smaller RPG scene it looks like D&D will be the game going down with the ship.

Among others. WotC is just hellbent on crashing and burning the hardest.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 24, 2023, 01:02:26 AM

Quote from: Kage2020 on October 24, 2023, 12:19:24 AM
Does it really matter?

All things said and done, in a capitalist market if people aren't enjoying the product they're going to vote with their dollars, right? (Gold coins, silver coins, amethyst baubles, or whatever.)

Is not the standard argument that is usually applied? If the market isn't there for it, then they'll see their products stuck on the shelves and will have to figure out what they did wrong, right?

If the punters aren't "Trans POC", or people that might otherwise empathise with arguably (!) marginised communities, products won't shift and the market will correct itself. Right?

When you write for a marginalized community that is less than 0.05% of the population, it doesn't connect for sales.

Trans is not a marginalized group.  They are a privileged class. 

The actual trans, I'll call them marginalized.  The bros with boobs, full beards died some shade of neon or pastel, not so much.  But we've got those fuckers running around now as well.  A lot of companies are trying to write for those guys and for the most part, they aren't gainfully employed, they don't have spend and their sales tanks.  Rinse and repeat this time pander more and they have even more of a decline.  When the number one book that D&D put out is a cookbook for the last 4 years, you know they have a problem putting out content.

My favorite shit nugget is the upcoming deck of many things books where some chick with some amount of privilege points states she has privilege and the deck was created by a paladin.  Um fuck no, not a god damn paladin.  Go with a wizard and put it in as a 20 page supplement not a full book of a crappy adventure that you know they will put out.  The adventure is going to be full on rails and that paladin of color is going to have so much plot armor she could conquer all of Europe and a nuke won't scratch her.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 24, 2023, 07:40:31 AM
My favorite shit nugget is the upcoming deck of many things books where some chick with some amount of privilege points states she has privilege and the deck was created by a paladin.  Um fuck no, not a god damn paladin.  Go with a wizard and put it in as a 20 page supplement not a full book of a crappy adventure that you know they will put out.  The adventure is going to be full on rails and that paladin of color is going to have so much plot armor she could conquer all of Europe and a nuke won't scratch her.

The best part is that it's a self-insert neurodivergent paladin of color

Only if they're marketing to TBP and EN World. But if those sites are any indication, Antichristian Gamers are also WotC's next target audience. 

No and I've gotten to the point where I actively gatekeep those people out of my games. Yes I am discriminating against them. Discrimination is not always a bad thing. Neither is judging a book by it's cover. Some people are exactly as bad as you think they are. And you are right to be wary of them. They're all awful mentally ill people who ruin games. For the sake of my group they can piss off until they get proper mental help and start acting like adults. I don't ask for much. Just don't be a mentally ill person who is difficult to deal with and ruins social situations. If you can't do that, piss off. My group's happiness is more important to me than your individual happiness.