Quote from: Ghostmaker on July 09, 2021, 06:50:34 AM

Quote from: Jaeger on July 08, 2021, 08:02:39 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 08, 2021, 01:30:50 PM


By his own writings, Orcs aren't Mongols, but degraded and repulsive versions of Mongols.
...

Mongol, Schmongol...

Everyone knows that the Orc's of Myth and Legend are man's remnant memory of Neanderthals.

Put on your tinfoil hats kids, we're going for a ride!

https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/when-orcs-were-real

Quote from: WHEN ORCS WERE REAL on July 08, 2021, 01:30:50 PM
Neanderthals were apex predators. Analysis of isotopes of bone collage has shown that Neanderthal diet was 97% meat. They are estimated to have eaten 4.1 lbs of fresh meat per day. Ample evidence exists to show they used stone-tipped wooden spears to hunt. From the bones littering their caves, we know Neanderthals hunted woolly mammoths, giant cave bears, woolly rhinos, bison, wolves, and even cave lions - the most dangerous and lethal animals on earth.

Neanderthals were cannibals. A number of Neanderthal sites reveal bones that have been cut and cracked open to extract the marrow. While this hypothesis was initially rejected a recent find at El Sidron in Spain revealed numerous Neanderthal skeletons with the unmistakable marks of butchery by cannibals wielding hand axes, knives, and scrapers.

Neanderthals had more robust bones and heavier musculature than Homo Sapiens. They weighed 25% more. They were so heavily muscled that their skeletons had to develop extra thick bones. "One of the most characteristic features of the Neanderthals is the exaggerated massiveness of their trunk and limb bones. All of the preserved bones suggest a strength seldom attained by modern humans..." (quoting paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus). "A healthy Neanderthal male could lift an average NFL linebacker over his head and throw him through the goalposts." Neanderthals also evolved extremely thick skulls - "postcranial hyper-robusticity" — that protected them in close-quarter confrontation with prey. They all had kyphosis, with hunched backs, that gave them a distinct profile and gait.

Neanderthal teeth were twice as large as human teeth. According to 2008 anthropologist research, their mouths could open much wider than human mouths, enabling them to take extremely large bites. Judging by the size of the jaw, they had tremendous bite force.

Neanderthals evolved in Ice Age Europe and had specific adaptations to that climate. They had short limbs, large noses, and compact torsos. Most importantly, they were covered with thick fur!

Since no Neanderthal cadaver survives, this point cannot be proven. But Vendramini points out that every primate except Homo Sapiens is covered with fur, and that every cold-adapted mammal during the Ice Ages had thick fur, including mammals that were hairless in Africa, such as the elephant and rhinoceros. There is no reason to believe Neanderthals were hairless except for our desire for them to look like us. The only way Neanderthals could have survived in the Ice Age without fur was if they made thick, protective clothes. Archeologist Mark White points out "Neanderthal clothing would have needed to be more than the ragged loincloth... of popular depiction. Some form of tailoring would have been required..." But Neanderthal sites have yielded "no evidence of needlecraft technology." They weren't making clothes — because they had fur.

The Neanderthal that Vendramini describes is thus a terrifying creature: A hunched cannibalistic predator with large, shining eyes and an animalistic snout, covered by thick fur and massive muscles, built for close combat, hunting by night, with a brutish and guttural voice, and a huge mouth with huge teeth and powerful jaws. It didn't look like Fred Flintstone. It looked like this:



That, my friends, is an orc. Or a bugbear. Or an ogre. Whatever it is, it's been appearing in our myths and legends for thousands of years. It's the great enemy.

Next time the Orcs = Blacks discussion comes up again on a SJW forum, just cut and paste...

Jesus Christ that's horrifying, Jaeger. I'm going to save that and spring it on my players.

I'll add too that's its something so horrific that stories of it crossed continents... i.e. The Wendigo.

Also, supposedly 1-2% of our DNA is Neandertal and certain scientists keep trying to sell "humans willingly settled down and had families with them"... Un. NOPE! That is NOT any sort of consensual.

ETA: The original article is quite interesting and also includes a follow-up on "Why we fear the night" and that they may have been responsible for our population bottleneck c. 50,000 years ago when they hunted us nearly to extinction until the survivors developed more advanced weaponry and fought back (thus why many culture heroes must go and fight a great man-eating beast; one commenter even suggested that the legend of Zeus' thunderbolt is a remembrance of the invention of the atlatl that finally gave us a range advantage over the Neanderthals' greater strength).

Maybe its true; maybe its not... but it is fascinating regardless.

Quote from: Jaeger on July 08, 2021, 08:02:39 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 08, 2021, 01:30:50 PM


By his own writings, Orcs aren't Mongols, but degraded and repulsive versions of Mongols.
...

Mongol, Schmongol...

Everyone knows that the Orc's of Myth and Legend are man's remnant memory of Neanderthals.

Put on your tinfoil hats kids, we're going for a ride!

https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/when-orcs-were-real

Quote from: WHEN ORCS WERE REAL on July 08, 2021, 01:30:50 PM
Neanderthals were apex predators. Analysis of isotopes of bone collage has shown that Neanderthal diet was 97% meat. They are estimated to have eaten 4.1 lbs of fresh meat per day. Ample evidence exists to show they used stone-tipped wooden spears to hunt. From the bones littering their caves, we know Neanderthals hunted woolly mammoths, giant cave bears, woolly rhinos, bison, wolves, and even cave lions - the most dangerous and lethal animals on earth.

Neanderthals were cannibals. A number of Neanderthal sites reveal bones that have been cut and cracked open to extract the marrow. While this hypothesis was initially rejected a recent find at El Sidron in Spain revealed numerous Neanderthal skeletons with the unmistakable marks of butchery by cannibals wielding hand axes, knives, and scrapers.

Neanderthals had more robust bones and heavier musculature than Homo Sapiens. They weighed 25% more. They were so heavily muscled that their skeletons had to develop extra thick bones. "One of the most characteristic features of the Neanderthals is the exaggerated massiveness of their trunk and limb bones. All of the preserved bones suggest a strength seldom attained by modern humans..." (quoting paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus). "A healthy Neanderthal male could lift an average NFL linebacker over his head and throw him through the goalposts." Neanderthals also evolved extremely thick skulls - "postcranial hyper-robusticity" — that protected them in close-quarter confrontation with prey. They all had kyphosis, with hunched backs, that gave them a distinct profile and gait.

Neanderthal teeth were twice as large as human teeth. According to 2008 anthropologist research, their mouths could open much wider than human mouths, enabling them to take extremely large bites. Judging by the size of the jaw, they had tremendous bite force.

Neanderthals evolved in Ice Age Europe and had specific adaptations to that climate. They had short limbs, large noses, and compact torsos. Most importantly, they were covered with thick fur!

Since no Neanderthal cadaver survives, this point cannot be proven. But Vendramini points out that every primate except Homo Sapiens is covered with fur, and that every cold-adapted mammal during the Ice Ages had thick fur, including mammals that were hairless in Africa, such as the elephant and rhinoceros. There is no reason to believe Neanderthals were hairless except for our desire for them to look like us. The only way Neanderthals could have survived in the Ice Age without fur was if they made thick, protective clothes. Archeologist Mark White points out "Neanderthal clothing would have needed to be more than the ragged loincloth... of popular depiction. Some form of tailoring would have been required..." But Neanderthal sites have yielded "no evidence of needlecraft technology." They weren't making clothes — because they had fur.

The Neanderthal that Vendramini describes is thus a terrifying creature: A hunched cannibalistic predator with large, shining eyes and an animalistic snout, covered by thick fur and massive muscles, built for close combat, hunting by night, with a brutish and guttural voice, and a huge mouth with huge teeth and powerful jaws. It didn't look like Fred Flintstone. It looked like this:



That, my friends, is an orc. Or a bugbear. Or an ogre. Whatever it is, it's been appearing in our myths and legends for thousands of years. It's the great enemy.

Next time the Orcs = Blacks discussion comes up again on a SJW forum, just cut and paste...

Maybe - but I'm dubious. One of the major human advantages (from well before Neanderthals) was sweat - which is impossible with fur. Not having evidence of needlecraft (with minimal evidence about Neanderthals at all) it's a huge leap to claim that means that they were furry. Especially since we DO have evidence of their using tools more generally.

And this is why we will lose in the end against the woke.....

Orcs as neanderthals is an interesting concept, but shouldn't it get its own thread?

Quote from: jeff37923 on July 09, 2021, 08:48:12 AM
And this is why we will lose in the end against the woke.....

Orcs as neanderthals is an interesting concept, but shouldn't it get its own thread?

To be fair; Orcs as Neanderthals is WAY more interesting than anything the Woke are currently caterwauling about.

Its all just "Oppressor THIS! Oppressor THAT! Equity NOW!"

Near forgotten stories from days of long ago where the Neanderthals were literally the origins of our nightmares? Epic.

ETA: It also goes to the point too I think of how much the Woke has affected things even here when half of Pundits videos aren't about great new gaming ideas or how to turn these ideas into viable concepts, but rants against the Woke.

I know its not as easy as "ignore them and they'll go away" but, for God's sake, some days I just have to not come here or various other sites because the latest antics of the Woke is ALL anyone talks about.

Quote from: Melan on July 09, 2021, 04:33:10 AM
Unfortunately, this forum has also been destroyed by the SJWs, albeit indirectly. TheRPGSite used to be the greatest forum for RPG discussion from 2006 to around 2010-2012, but it is now just a shadow of its former self - because we barely talk about games any longer. Look at the threads on display, and it is 90% politics or politics-adjacent. Ten years ago, this place had a message, and actual good, insightful discussions on the practical questions of gaming.

I recognise this is a change that came from outside - the woke invasion of geek hobbies and the great subversion of the Internet is like a Mongol Horde rolling over the gaming landscape - but it did affect the place, and not for the better. Not saying I am not part of the problem, but the problem is there. Every hour we spend bitching about how horrible it is out there, we are not spending on making this place a shining beacon of gaming greatness.

The intolerance of opposing viewpoints has also spilled over into many gaming threads, even ones with no real connection to the culture war.

Not sure how to fix it. There just doesn't seem to be enough activity in gaming-related threads. But trying to resist making everything about the culture war is probably worthwhile, even if it doesn't add anything.

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 09, 2021, 09:24:59 AM
It also goes to the point too I think of how much the Woke has affected things even here when half of Pundits videos aren't about great new gaming ideas or how to turn these ideas into viable concepts, but rants against the Woke.

I know its not as easy as "ignore them and they'll go away" but, for God's sake, some days I just have to not come here or various other sites because the latest antics of the Woke is ALL anyone talks about.

To be fair, at least half of Pundit's old blog posts in the 2000s were rants against the Swine. I felt like he actually got a little more practical-gaming in recent years as he has published more, especially around Lion & Dragon.

I think the problem is more in moderation than his posts. He has been allowing and encouraging more political posting in the RPG forum. He keeps that it has to be ostensibly gaming-related, but even ostensibly gaming-related allows a lot of politically-charged content.

Quote from: jhkim on July 09, 2021, 01:14:01 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on July 09, 2021, 09:24:59 AM
It also goes to the point too I think of how much the Woke has affected things even here when half of Pundits videos aren't about great new gaming ideas or how to turn these ideas into viable concepts, but rants against the Woke.

I know its not as easy as "ignore them and they'll go away" but, for God's sake, some days I just have to not come here or various other sites because the latest antics of the Woke is ALL anyone talks about.

To be fair, at least half of Pundit's old blog posts in the 2000s were rants against the Swine. I felt like he actually got a little more practical-gaming in recent years as he has published more, especially around Lion & Dragon.

I think the problem is more in moderation than his posts. He has been allowing and encouraging more political posting in the RPG forum. He keeps that it has to be ostensibly gaming-related, but even ostensibly gaming-related allows a lot of politically-charged content.

And we should stick only to non-political content on gaming and say nothing against the woke infestation of our hobby...

Yeah, no, you might not like it (and no one forces you to click on those threads) but it's free speech, something you leftists are against.

The problem is the intent of having politics-free gaming... or?

If all we do is spend time hand-wringing over the stupid shit leftists do, in our hobby, while they control the hobby, we lose.

I mean, how many times do we need to talk about Orcs as Black People? This is a Leftist Belief. This is not our belief. This stupid bullshit gets trotted out year after year.

And they have ALREADY changed D&D to reflect their beliefs. This is why the Brand of D&D is lost. I say let them have it. Why are we concerned about it? Why are you on their ship while they set it on fire? By engaging in these dumb discussions, it gives them exactly what they want - for us to be 'whargarbled' over their latest stupid bullshit, while they pillage your favorite <insert x here> in front of your eyes.

Do we *need* to discuss how they're morons and idiots? We already know they're wrong. But we need to exemplify what we believe. And we need to create the place and define it for those that are looking for the Bastion from the shitstorm they've created.

We should be talking about why orcs are cool (yeah I like the Neanderthal-orc.) Instead of whinging about their stupid takes on what we like that are traditional gaming tropes - we should be turning up the volume.

We should have threads about all-new all-different Evil Drow. We should have threads about cool takes on Asian elements in D&D-style fantasy. We should be talking about more sandbox elements. We should be preaching about good GM practices for new GM's.

This is how this Bastion grows. And we should take it seriously as it's apparently the LAST Bastion. Wasting our time only talking about the moron Leftists and their fucked up weirdo claims is not enough. We need to reinforce what we know is Good. So when the new refugees arrive, they have something to hold onto other than a bunch of old gamers screeching about shit the weirdos do. We need to be people of action. And it can be made as simple as talking about good gaming over stupid gaming.

We should be talking about

1) Good systems and why.
2) Interesting takes on unconventional games.
3) Adventure ideas
4) GMing best practices for beginners, intermediate and advanced GM's
5) Cool monsters and their use in-game.
6) Game scaling over time. Nothing could be better than figuring out GMing between the BESMI-scale of gaming *across* other systems. And identifying which systems are even capable of this kind of scaling.
7) Cool ideas for gear and cultural expressions of established gear.
New fantasy cultures - races, nations, analogs, non-analogs, which systems they appear in. Home-brewed ones!
9) Publication processes - we should dig this out of the Development forum because now more than ever we need people to step up in whatever capacity they're willing, to learn the process of making good games.
10) DEFUND the assholes. Stop giving them your money - put your resources towards materials that do not support the lunatics. Invite new gamers to your table and show them The Way.

We need to be more pro-active about talking about OUR stuff, than talking about their idiotic shit.

I have a soft spot for the villainous orcs from WarCraft 1 and 2. Because sometimes playing the alien conquistadors is cool and fun.

Quote from: Jaeger on July 08, 2021, 08:02:39 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on July 08, 2021, 01:30:50 PM


By his own writings, Orcs aren't Mongols, but degraded and repulsive versions of Mongols.
...

Mongol, Schmongol...

Everyone knows that the Orc's of Myth and Legend are man's remnant memory of Neanderthals.

Put on your tinfoil hats kids, we're going for a ride!

https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/when-orcs-were-real

Quote from: WHEN ORCS WERE REAL on July 08, 2021, 01:30:50 PM
Neanderthals were apex predators. Analysis of isotopes of bone collage has shown that Neanderthal diet was 97% meat. They are estimated to have eaten 4.1 lbs of fresh meat per day. Ample evidence exists to show they used stone-tipped wooden spears to hunt. From the bones littering their caves, we know Neanderthals hunted woolly mammoths, giant cave bears, woolly rhinos, bison, wolves, and even cave lions - the most dangerous and lethal animals on earth.

Neanderthals were cannibals. A number of Neanderthal sites reveal bones that have been cut and cracked open to extract the marrow. While this hypothesis was initially rejected a recent find at El Sidron in Spain revealed numerous Neanderthal skeletons with the unmistakable marks of butchery by cannibals wielding hand axes, knives, and scrapers.

Neanderthals had more robust bones and heavier musculature than Homo Sapiens. They weighed 25% more. They were so heavily muscled that their skeletons had to develop extra thick bones. "One of the most characteristic features of the Neanderthals is the exaggerated massiveness of their trunk and limb bones. All of the preserved bones suggest a strength seldom attained by modern humans..." (quoting paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus). "A healthy Neanderthal male could lift an average NFL linebacker over his head and throw him through the goalposts." Neanderthals also evolved extremely thick skulls - "postcranial hyper-robusticity" — that protected them in close-quarter confrontation with prey. They all had kyphosis, with hunched backs, that gave them a distinct profile and gait.

Neanderthal teeth were twice as large as human teeth. According to 2008 anthropologist research, their mouths could open much wider than human mouths, enabling them to take extremely large bites. Judging by the size of the jaw, they had tremendous bite force.

Neanderthals evolved in Ice Age Europe and had specific adaptations to that climate. They had short limbs, large noses, and compact torsos. Most importantly, they were covered with thick fur!

Since no Neanderthal cadaver survives, this point cannot be proven. But Vendramini points out that every primate except Homo Sapiens is covered with fur, and that every cold-adapted mammal during the Ice Ages had thick fur, including mammals that were hairless in Africa, such as the elephant and rhinoceros. There is no reason to believe Neanderthals were hairless except for our desire for them to look like us. The only way Neanderthals could have survived in the Ice Age without fur was if they made thick, protective clothes. Archeologist Mark White points out "Neanderthal clothing would have needed to be more than the ragged loincloth... of popular depiction. Some form of tailoring would have been required..." But Neanderthal sites have yielded "no evidence of needlecraft technology." They weren't making clothes — because they had fur.

The Neanderthal that Vendramini describes is thus a terrifying creature: A hunched cannibalistic predator with large, shining eyes and an animalistic snout, covered by thick fur and massive muscles, built for close combat, hunting by night, with a brutish and guttural voice, and a huge mouth with huge teeth and powerful jaws. It didn't look like Fred Flintstone. It looked like this:



That, my friends, is an orc. Or a bugbear. Or an ogre. Whatever it is, it's been appearing in our myths and legends for thousands of years. It's the great enemy.

Next time the Orcs = Blacks discussion comes up again on a SJW forum, just cut and paste...

Holy crap! Thanks for posting this. This is good stuff.

Quote from: tenbones on July 09, 2021, 02:13:29 PM
The problem is the intent of having politics-free gaming... or?

If all we do is spend time hand-wringing over the stupid shit leftists do, in our hobby, while they control the hobby, we lose.

I mean, how many times do we need to talk about Orcs as Black People? This is a Leftist Belief. This is not our belief. This stupid bullshit gets trotted out year after year.

And they have ALREADY changed D&D to reflect their beliefs. This is why the Brand of D&D is lost. I say let them have it. Why are we concerned about it? Why are you on their ship while they set it on fire? By engaging in these dumb discussions, it gives them exactly what they want - for us to be 'whargarbled' over their latest stupid bullshit, while they pillage your favorite <insert x here> in front of your eyes.

Do we *need* to discuss how they're morons and idiots? We already know they're wrong. But we need to exemplify what we believe. And we need to create the place and define it for those that are looking for the Bastion from the shitstorm they've created.

We should be talking about why orcs are cool (yeah I like the Neanderthal-orc.) Instead of whinging about their stupid takes on what we like that are traditional gaming tropes - we should be turning up the volume.

We should have threads about all-new all-different Evil Drow. We should have threads about cool takes on Asian elements in D&D-style fantasy. We should be talking about more sandbox elements. We should be preaching about good GM practices for new GM's.

This is how this Bastion grows. And we should take it seriously as it's apparently the LAST Bastion. Wasting our time only talking about the moron Leftists and their fucked up weirdo claims is not enough. We need to reinforce what we know is Good. So when the new refugees arrive, they have something to hold onto other than a bunch of old gamers screeching about shit the weirdos do. We need to be people of action. And it can be made as simple as talking about good gaming over stupid gaming.

We should be talking about

1) Good systems and why.
2) Interesting takes on unconventional games.
3) Adventure ideas
4) GMing best practices for beginners, intermediate and advanced GM's
5) Cool monsters and their use in-game.
6) Game scaling over time. Nothing could be better than figuring out GMing between the BESMI-scale of gaming *across* other systems. And identifying which systems are even capable of this kind of scaling.
7) Cool ideas for gear and cultural expressions of established gear.
New fantasy cultures - races, nations, analogs, non-analogs, which systems they appear in. Home-brewed ones!
9) Publication processes - we should dig this out of the Development forum because now more than ever we need people to step up in whatever capacity they're willing, to learn the process of making good games.
10) DEFUND the assholes. Stop giving them your money - put your resources towards materials that do not support the lunatics. Invite new gamers to your table and show them The Way.

We need to be more pro-active about talking about OUR stuff, than talking about their idiotic shit.

Thanks tenbones for this. I was going to come say something similar but you said it more succinctly. I had to decide for myself a bit ago not to engage or even visit other sites. Especially when I got a 30 day ban on big purple for merely saying that we can change the sexual orientation of any character in a published book if we want (I was blamed for straight washing and a trump supporter and summarily given the ban by one of those awesome psychic know it all mods). It's not worth me getting mad about. What do I do to combat it? Your list is good. I too believe that the WotC led D&D is dead. Well good. I still see Pundit get blasted on big purple and most are just regurgitating the hate, just accepting without knowing facts for themselves. Ah well.

Quote from: tenbones on July 09, 2021, 02:13:29 PM
Do we *need* to discuss how they're morons and idiots?

I don't think we do, but Pundit sets the tone here, and I can point to five recent videos on Ravenloft that show he disagrees with me. However, that's because the outrage gets him viewers and every viewer gets fed advertising for his products and ultimately makes him money. That's not a bad thing for him or a bad purpose for his videos. However, much as you discussed, it's not something that is worthwhile to continue on these forums (which, for most of us, are not about selling our product). I would be very happy to see posts here go more toward promoting gaming, and there are some here that try (SHARK does some great gaming posts) but others that really don't (or just don't find any interesting gaming discussions that last long enough to bother with).

Quote from: Thorn Drumheller on July 09, 2021, 02:51:43 PM

Thanks tenbones for this. I was going to come say something similar but you said it more succinctly. I had to decide for myself a bit ago not to engage or even visit other sites. Especially when I got a 30 day ban on big purple for merely saying that we can change the sexual orientation of any character in a published book if we want (I was blamed for straight washing and a trump supporter and summarily given the ban by one of those awesome psychic know it all mods). It's not worth me getting mad about. What do I do to combat it? Your list is good. I too believe that the WotC led D&D is dead. Well good. I still see Pundit get blasted on big purple and most are just regurgitating the hate, just accepting without knowing facts for themselves. Ah well.

I welcome you and everyone else to the start of us taking our hobby back.

Do what you can be it at your table, on these forums, or starting your own thing. Share it with everyone. Let's not waste our time and energy on them. *WE* are the heart of this hobby. Not them.

If we stand around pretending our games and our GMing are better while letting them co-opt the next generation of players, we have no one to blame when their idiotic plan works. Yes, they have a headstart, but we got the experience. Look, how many of us play D&D exclusively? The response is the same:

RUN awesome games that WotC doesn't actively produce. Most of us grew up before WotC was even a thing. We KNOW how to do this. It's now all hands on deck to create campaigns, products, curate groups of players to define OUR gaming habits. We're up against an NPC army, and it's time for us to go full Dynasty Warriors on them with our conversion swords of our own construction.

Welcome to the fight!

Remember - give them no time. Give them no resources. THEY do this to US already. And that's why they're they've gained ground. They have no interest in debate, nor do they have principles. They have useful idiots that parrot their bullshit at us in the pretense of having discussion, when in reality all they do is get us talking about their stupid narratives.

Time for everyone to pull up their big-boy/girl pants and say GTFO. Grab some dice. Grab some pencils. Hang with the people that like to actually game, and maybe publish their own shit and pull people to US. *LIKE WE USED TO*.

They are the parasites that killed St. Gary's Dream. We are the ones that lived, breathedm realized that dream and helped sustain it. Time for us to do it again - FOR US, and BY US.

The time for whining and looking at one another is fine and dandy for having a short-term drinking binge of shit-beer and home-made dirt brew. It's time to sober up and get to work. I will keep saying this.

Quote from: tenbones on July 09, 2021, 02:13:29 PM
The problem is the intent of having politics-free gaming... or?

If all we do is spend time hand-wringing over the stupid shit leftists do, in our hobby, while they control the hobby, we lose.

I mean, how many times do we need to talk about Orcs as Black People? This is a Leftist Belief. This is not our belief. This stupid bullshit gets trotted out year after year.

And they have ALREADY changed D&D to reflect their beliefs. This is why the Brand of D&D is lost. I say let them have it. Why are we concerned about it? Why are you on their ship while they set it on fire? By engaging in these dumb discussions, it gives them exactly what they want - for us to be 'whargarbled' over their latest stupid bullshit, while they pillage your favorite <insert x here> in front of your eyes.

Do we *need* to discuss how they're morons and idiots? We already know they're wrong. But we need to exemplify what we believe. And we need to create the place and define it for those that are looking for the Bastion from the shitstorm they've created.

We should be talking about why orcs are cool (yeah I like the Neanderthal-orc.) Instead of whinging about their stupid takes on what we like that are traditional gaming tropes - we should be turning up the volume.

We should have threads about all-new all-different Evil Drow. We should have threads about cool takes on Asian elements in D&D-style fantasy. We should be talking about more sandbox elements. We should be preaching about good GM practices for new GM's.

This is how this Bastion grows. And we should take it seriously as it's apparently the LAST Bastion. Wasting our time only talking about the moron Leftists and their fucked up weirdo claims is not enough. We need to reinforce what we know is Good. So when the new refugees arrive, they have something to hold onto other than a bunch of old gamers screeching about shit the weirdos do. We need to be people of action. And it can be made as simple as talking about good gaming over stupid gaming.

We should be talking about

1) Good systems and why.
2) Interesting takes on unconventional games.
3) Adventure ideas
4) GMing best practices for beginners, intermediate and advanced GM's
5) Cool monsters and their use in-game.
6) Game scaling over time. Nothing could be better than figuring out GMing between the BESMI-scale of gaming *across* other systems. And identifying which systems are even capable of this kind of scaling.
7) Cool ideas for gear and cultural expressions of established gear.
New fantasy cultures - races, nations, analogs, non-analogs, which systems they appear in. Home-brewed ones!
9) Publication processes - we should dig this out of the Development forum because now more than ever we need people to step up in whatever capacity they're willing, to learn the process of making good games.
10) DEFUND the assholes. Stop giving them your money - put your resources towards materials that do not support the lunatics. Invite new gamers to your table and show them The Way.

We need to be more pro-active about talking about OUR stuff, than talking about their idiotic shit.

Thanks Tenbones for bringing everything back on course. 

I think we should still ridicule the shit out of any one who tries to espouse their woke nonesense on these forums.  But I agree with all of your points above.

Quote from: HappyDaze on July 09, 2021, 02:53:44 PM

Quote from: tenbones on July 09, 2021, 02:13:29 PM
Do we *need* to discuss how they're morons and idiots?

I don't think we do, but Pundit sets the tone here, and I can point to five recent videos on Ravenloft that show he disagrees with me. However, that's because the outrage gets him viewers and every viewer gets fed advertising for his products and ultimately makes him money. That's not a bad thing for him or a bad purpose for his videos. However, much as you discussed, it's not something that is worthwhile to continue on these forums (which, for most of us, are not about selling our product). I would be very happy to see posts here go more toward promoting gaming, and there are some here that try (SHARK does some great gaming posts) but others that really don't (or just don't find any interesting gaming discussions that last long enough to bother with).

Sure Pundit has other reasons. But that doesn't mean *WE* have to spend our time doing it.

No I agree with you - I'm guilty of a lot of this shit too. But frankly, as this thread stands - this is Reality Time. And either you're the type of person that accepts reality or you don't. And if you accept this reality, it should be readily apparent this is not the time to sit around allowing the ideologues that have ruined this hobby to frame our discussions in the last place where we can have them. Because that means we're circled and effectively have given up.

Pundit sets the tone because he's already doing his part. He's publishing, and trying as he can to get more people on board with his stuff. Venger Satanis is too, as are others.

I'm talking about the rest of us getting more strategic. I'm talking about overtly creating our own culture of gaming that exists to support what we want. I'm working on my own project which I intend on publishing under on a very well established system, and I also plan on making a house system for my brand. The OSR in many ways has proven it can be done and how - we need to be that second-wind to push things outside of the largely traditional D&D-system into other realms. You can't beat WotC/D&D with simply having better systems. You have to create a culture around new games and settings and *actively* market and bring new players into the fold.

What makes RPGSite important is EXACTLY for the reason that we're all here: we have been cast out of the Purple Cave, and for good reason. And this place is our last stand. We can sit here and rub our asses about the Purple Bootprint on it. Or we can take it for what it really is: a badge of honor. Because it is. They're the fucking weirdos. And for the last decade+ we've been sitting here talking/laughing/raging about it while their kind has dismantled our hobby. Sure we got the OSR! But I say we need to hit them where it hurts by taking their players away by  better gaming with better games WE make.

I'm less interested in drama. In fact I don't even care about it anymore. I don't care who fucked over Zak, and why Pundit does what we does, or is D&D racist. We *already* know the answers to these things. While we hem-and-haw about them, we've ceded the ground to our detractors that hang on the nuts of these corporate designed homogenized pap they call an RPG.

I say fuck all that. We got more important stuff to do, including taking back OUR narratives over what we know is good. We need to stop hanging on the puerile and start talking about the important stuff.

We can't let the OSR just be about "how to reskin your favorite D&D edition". YES those things matter.  But it also means we have to discuss what D&D Fantasy IS - this is where we spend most of our time whinging with the SJW's. But instead of talking up what we know is true - we end up talking about what they castigate us for believing. What gets lost is the very kernel of what really is important: reimagining D&D on different systems (that hopefully everyone will have their own flavors of) played OUR way. This will passively give us the broadest net with which to catch new gamers and those cast out of the Purple Cathedral with their fresh boot-prints on their asses.

Then we gotta do outreach. I'm a HUGE supporter of Venger's Non-GenCon idea. We need more of them. This would be a great place to organize such things. We need to participate in them. We need to get new players at our tables - IRL or virtually.

There is enough creative firepower on this forum to launch our own publications. It's ALL right here in front of us. Or we can stand around here angrily circle-jerking about the weirdos that circle-jerk on us.

I'd rather do the former.