Lets get real here... Everybody knows the best game designers eat babies.

Quote from: jhkim;1058868I also think people can be pretty broad in what they consider condoning or supporting violence. There are people who say that supporting Planned Parenthood is supporting violence because they consider abortion to be murder, for example. Conversely, there are those who have a problem with anti-abortion groups because of terrorist acts. I think there's a big difference between someone like Vierkennes and just someone who supports Planned Parenthood.

Hey look, disingenuous whataboutism!

RPGs are a form or art which requires you to interact with others, so the politics surrounding them are harder to avoid, especially online. And given their growing influence over platforms and conventions I'm actually far more concerned with writers and publishers making it impossible for me to play their games or participate in the surrounding communities.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1058716I'm surprised they haven't purged this from the website.

Yay, fearsomepirate is back!

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.

Don't forget the archive.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1058752I guess it really depends on how much they piss me off.

Yeah, this is pretty much the same for me...

Quote from: Mistwell;10588141. Your characterizations of what Mearls said is wildly inaccurate exaggerations which, I assume, are based on a biased agenda;

Please post Mearls' tweets you feel are being misrepresented. I've seen the shitbag's previous statements so I've got no reason to be surprised if Mearls doubled down on another heaping plate of stupid. But maybe he didn't. I open to reading what you post.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1058848Mike Mearls called me a terrorist.

I'm assuming that's what Mistwell is referring to.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1058848You know there's "Separate the art from the artist" and all but at the end of the day I'm not going to make life easier on someone who hates me, or would take violent action (or promote violent action) against me or the people I care about.

I can respect that and its something I've been thinking about recently.

I was reading HPL and REH recently and both stories had shitty references to Africans. I'm pretty sure that would have affected my enjoyment of HPL and REH if I was African. We can argue about "writers and their era" and I get that, but from a visceral level, I understand refusing any support to an author who hates you.

Quote from: VincentTakeda;1058862I play palladium pretty much exclusively these days. Clearly I am able to separate content from copyright holder.

LOL! Launch a thread about whatever Palladium stuff you play! Also, tell us why you only play PB games!

FYI, this is a PB friendly forum. A bunch of us play or have played PB games.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1058866The text stands or falls on its own merits.

Agreed 100%, but that's not what the WotC Walk Aways are saying. They are saying, even if 5e is good, I'm walking away. The argument isn't that the product is bad, its about not buying a product even if its good because the author / publisher is a douchenozzle.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1058867That's people voting with their wallets.  Each person has to draw the line where it works for them, one work at a time.

Exactly! Vote with your wallets and vote with your play time. Play games you want to support.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;1058883I'm actually far more concerned with writers and publishers making it impossible for me to play their games or participate in the surrounding communities.

Explain.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the OP: I supported all of the early Autarch kickstarters at above the minimum level.
But, frankly, that wasn't purely because I had a use for the stuff. I *liked* the stuff, the author comes across as a nice guy, bought me lunch once, is a friend-of-a-friend, lived in the same town just a few neighborhoods over, and I'd budgeted some discretionary money for "random RPG & computer game kickstarters".

Sadly, my players only want to play things that say D&D on the cover, whether it's 3e, 4e, or 5e, so it's been more about mining for ideas and background worldbuilding than actual table play. After Milo, and the Gamergate stuff at Escapist, though, I'm now back on "buy his stuff only if I like it and have a likely use for it at the table".

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1058867"The work stands or falls on its own merits" is propaganda.  It's crap.  It's always been crap that artist keep saying over and over to convince others why they are the only judges of whether they get paid or not.

No, you festering knobjockey, the audience decides if the work has merit, and whether the artist should get paid. If it's good people will buy it, if it's crap they won't.

I am not interested in D&D5e not because Mike Mearls is a cocksmock, or because he thinks I am a child molester or Nazi or vegan, or whatever dumb shit he's said this week, but because in the almost four decades since AD&D1e came out all that's improved in later editions of D&D is the artwork. The rest they got as right as they ever got it in 1e. The work fails on its own merits, or lack thereof, without having to bother considering who wrote it or is speaking for it or whatever it is.

Contrariwise, Marc Miller seems like a thoroughly decent guy, but Traveller 5e is an unholy mess. Kevin Siembieda is obviously a lunatic, but Recon was awesome. Mike Pondsmith seems like a mellow guy, and CP2020 is munchkiny fun. Byron Hall is a hateful puddle of spineless goo, and FATAL was awful. There's no correlation between how good or bad a person is and how good or bad their rpg is. And I don't care, since their vileness or decency is between them and the people they actually know and meet in everyday life.

I need friends and family to be decent people who like me. I do not need the people who make my burgers, car or roleplaying games to be decent people who like me. Anything else is virtue signalling, and virtue signalling is the refuge of the worthless.

I don't care if the creators are virtuous or orthodox; I only start caring if the material or the corporate organization as a whole is starting to promote ideas I consider not just wrong-headed, but hostile to the common good.

Note that this is not even solely a question of politics or other hot button topics.  

Some guy makes a game.  Does a fairly good job of it.  Most everyone agrees it is well done.  However, he builds a theme around something that you are not at all interested in.  Let's say, you aren't a dog person, but the game is built around that.  You can maybe objectively look at the game, know that it is a really good game the would appeal to dog people, and still not want anything to do with it.  Not many people would have a problem with that.

Now assume the game isn't about dogs at all (or isn't necessarily geared to them in any particular way), but this is what the guy talks about all the time.  For whatever reason, fans of the game have run with that.  So you can run it at your own table, ignore the dogs, and make it about whatever you want.  At least, many people can, much of the time.  Sometimes, it's like that piece of music that you can't stop humming even though you hate it.  Now that the idea has been put in your head, you can't get it out.  And the guy and the fans simply, will ... not ... shut up.  Everywhere you go in public someone is playing that damn song about dogs.  

Now imagine that it isn't merely that guy's game and his fans, but many games, and a huge swath of vocal fans--many of them with logic and reading comprehension issues.  Then they start demanding fealty from everyone.  You must pretend to like that damn song about dogs, or they'll dog you constantly.  But for some reason, they are supposed to get the same treatment as the first guy?  The only adult answer to that is, "Hell no!"

Quote from: Naburimannu;1058902At the opposite end of the spectrum from the OP: I supported all of the early Autarch kickstarters at above the minimum level.
But, frankly, that wasn't purely because I had a use for the stuff. I *liked* the stuff, the author comes across as a nice guy, bought me lunch once, is a friend-of-a-friend, lived in the same town just a few neighborhoods over, and I'd budgeted some discretionary money for "random RPG & computer game kickstarters".

Sadly, my players only want to play things that say D&D on the cover, whether it's 3e, 4e, or 5e, so it's been more about mining for ideas and background worldbuilding than actual table play. After Milo, and the Gamergate stuff at Escapist, though, I'm now back on "buy his stuff only if I like it and have a likely use for it at the table".

Hey! I think I know who this is. Hope you've been well. :-)

"Buy my stuff only if you like it and have use for it at the table" is the only criteria any creator can ask of someone. It's very kind of you, thank you.

I will note that Varg Vikernes has recently posted a great video on his channel where he speaks about his admiration for old-school Basic D&D, and is entirely reasonable about it.

[video=youtube;uI03Q4mlXXc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI03Q4mlXXc[/youtube]

I will also note that no, I don't follow his channel otherwise, and was referred to it by friends. (What it does say about the people I associate with is, I suppose, sufficient for an indictment. )

Some great posts here by dungeondelver and fearsompirate.

In the end we all have to think for ourselves and make our own choices on this. We are not rpgnet; we are not sheep; we are men. Yes I have had too much Bruccladdich.

For me, Mike Mearls and even Jeremy "dickweed" Crawford have not yet crossed the line. Of course I am biased - I like their game. Their antics do make me think twice about buying new WoTC 5e stuff though.

Varg  Vikernes for me crosses the line a couple times over. A poster here recommended MYFAROG to me some time ago, and normally I would have checked it out; but I just can't in good conscience support a church burning Nazi murderer financially and I can't imagine asking other people to play his game, no matter how good it might be.

So, there's me. Slainte.

If anything Steve Mitchell points out the one drawback to being a palladium fan.  I can love his games, but MOST of the time when i mention palladium there's a legion of Kevin Haterz pouncing on my comment with bile and ire and downvotes.  Its these rare places where I can talk about palladium gaming where (perfectly understandable and well deserved by the way) anti-Kevin sentiment doesn't just pounds the conversation into the ground.  That's why I'm here.  I'm down to basically 2 and a half game forum websites that don't have a standing anti Kevin lynch mob at the ready.  There are simply some sites where anti Kevin sentiment arrives with immediate and fervent abandon any time the game is mentioned, but often not even in the context of the actual conversation at hand.

So if there IS a point where I start caring about the behaviors of the publisher making me stop, its that.  I stop going to forums where fervent anti Kevin posters are allowed to wantonly crap on palladium posters... I totally agree with them that Kevin deserves every ounce of Ire they have.  But lynching the fans of his game for it is going a little too far and makes it hard to have discussions about the game in all but about 3 game forums these days.  I don't even necessarily blame Kevin for that.  Not only can I disassociate kevins game from kevins well deserved mob of angry gamers, I can also disassociate the behavior of kevins mob of angry gamers with kevin, because even if you don't like what kevin's done, there's no reason to show  up on every forum where people who like palladium games chat about it and drop an anti kevin bomb.  Trust me. If there's one thing palladium fans know already, its how much of an ass Kevin is.  But if you don't like talking about palladium games, better to just move on and avoid the thread.

I may not like the sjw stance and direction mearls and crawford are taking with 5e, but I don't go to the 5e threads and shart on those fans for it.  Even if I also don't like 5e.  If I dont like 5e and I don't like sjw game design... I just don't show up to the conversation in the first place.  Sometimes knowing when not to join the conversation is the thing.  Better Angels and all that.  Save it for the 'why I dont like the games I don't like' threads where such comments are appropriate and important for game designers to know about.

There are three general cases regarding creator/publisher behavior:

1. creator or publisher publicly "takes a side" in general political matters.
2. creator or publisher publicly "takes no side" in general political matters. (ex. "a pox on both their houses")
3. creator or publisher publicly says nothing about general political matters.

I will respond to each case according to the creator or publisher's choices.

There is a fourth general case, that of the creator or publisher clearly injecting 1. or 2. above into their product. I will respond to those cases as if they had made a public stand corresponding to 1. or 2., because injecting it into their product is a public stand.

Quote from: S'mon;1058941church burning Nazi murderer

SJWs made me forget that sometimes, these terms really can legitimately be applied to a person.