Consumer's Guide to TTRPGs
     This is permanent link to the Consumer's Guide, you can find the discussion thread here.

Foreward
     I have been playing tabletop games for about ten years now, mostly as a game master. I have played most of the games on my shelf and at least read through them all, and all of them are in this guide and some that I have only discovered through my research on making this. I was also thinking of all the games I feel like I have been deceived or companies I have purchased from who have made their opinions abundantly clear on how they feel about gamers. A common phrase i've seen is "if you don't like our politics don't buy our games" which is fair enough and has a simple solution. I've watched major companies, such as wizards of the coast employees engage in harassment and doxxing campaigns, and others interfering with the ability of other creators to get their games on shelves and finally had enough. I put together a list, asking for suggestions from other gamers on which companies they felt were ethical, and decidedly apolitical and why they felt that way. Then I compiled the information here in three categories, green, yellow and red. I tried to keep the criteria simple and a full A through F scale would involve a bunch more work and maybe in the future the guide can afford to be more granular but it is not a project I would wish to go at alone. The Green category was for game companies that maintained a stance of neutrality, were pro free speech and are generally friendly regardless of anyone's political persuasion. The yellow category was intended to be more questionable, where a publisher or creator may have engaged in questionable practices but doesn't appear to make a habit of it, whether unintentional or simply well intentioned but may have either sent the wrong message or was exercising restraint. The red list, which this document has become infamous for, is reserved for bad actors. Entities who have caused harm to people or businesses, have a hostile stance to those of differing ideological views or in general have engaged in anti-consumer practices. Whenever possible I will try to provide links to the sources of why a company was categorized the way it was.

      It is my hope that this guide serves as a sort of consumer guide, and not a blacklist. I really do want more entities to be categorized as green. This is for my own love of gaming and the hobby. I would ask anyone who reads this to not reach out to the creators you don't agree with. Let them do their thing, and if this list helps you make a decision or discover a new game you didn't know existed then it has done its job. I know on creating this list I have discovered several new games that were absolute gems and picked them up immediately. If anyone has any suggestions, comments or concerns please share them on the original thread Here

Thank you for all the support I've received for this effort, I hope you find it useful.

Now for the infamous "List"
Link to Guide

I think this should be pinned. I also think a pdf edition should be available so it can circulate around the web.

Non-Google hosting would be appreciated, since unfortunately Google belongs on the "red" category.

I'll see if i can find another host, maybe a free cloud or something

Quote from: Zelen on November 19, 2022, 03:07:18 PM
Non-Google hosting would be appreciated, since unfortunately Google belongs on the "red" category.

My sentiments exactly. I have Google blockedon my computer, and only have an older pdf of it.

Quote from: Ocule on November 19, 2022, 03:37:57 PM
I'll see if i can find another host, maybe a free cloud or something

It's been awhile since I used GoogleDocs, but I think there's an option to export to some other format e.g. Word/Excel/HTML/etc?

Yeah I can export to pdf that's not an issue just need to find a way to upload it that I can keep the updated guide without having to redo the original post

Well, I'm not on any of your lists. Please leave it that way.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven on November 20, 2022, 11:17:29 PM
Well, I'm not on any of your lists. Please leave it that way.

Please put any requests for the guide in the discussion thread mentioned in the original post.

It's quite weird that this guide is purportedly about anti-consumer behavior, when you list anti-SJW under Green. Obviously a lot of RPG buyers are SJWs. It seems like you are taking a side there.

Quote from: pawsplay on December 06, 2022, 07:00:28 PM
It's quite weird that this guide is purportedly about anti-consumer behavior, when you list anti-SJW under Green. Obviously a lot of RPG buyers are SJWs. It seems like you are taking a side there.

How is that weird? SJWs and wokescolds are a hate cult, the lowest form of life next to furries. Being anti woke is just good karma at this point

Well darn it. I should have checked this list before I decided which TTRPGs I wanted to leave on my shelf and which ones need to go into the wood chipper.
Looks like Paizo (red) and TinyDungeon (yellow) are going to be trash. At least I still got Old School Essentials and Basic Fantasy RPG!

Since it has been brought up in the thread but not addressed in the document: It seems Robert Adducci has left Ulisses US as a community manager. Is there some other reason for them to be in the Yellow?

Working on updates, sorry been busy with life so haven't had as much time to update.

Quote from: migo on January 11, 2023, 06:16:37 PM
Since it has been brought up in the thread but not addressed in the document: It seems Robert Adducci has left Ulisses US as a community manager. Is there some other reason for them to be in the Yellow?

Going to probably move them to green, that guy was really just that cancerous. They don't have much of a social media footprint and I don't have any of their books so was going on what was reported or what I found in the thread

Update 2/10/2023

• Basic Fantasy moved from Green to yellow for this post here http://web.archive.org/web/20230210225622/https://basicfantasy.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=776&hilit=core+rules&start=1620
• Added the Neulow games to green
• Added The Basic Expert to green
• Added The Trollgodfather press to green
• Added Shonner press/Shawn Driscoll to green
• Added Felbrigg Herriot to green
• Added Awful Good Games to green
• Added Jim Stater to green
• Added Paradox Games to green
• Added Design Ministries to green
• Added John Wick Productions to Red
• Added Thousand Year Old Vampire to Red
• Added Cephalofair Games to Red
• Added Leder Games to Red
• Goblinoid Games moved to yellow
• Added explanation to Fabula Ultima being red