Quote from: MongooseMatt on February 17, 2022, 12:08:02 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 16, 2022, 09:28:53 PM
On the other hand, if there's a little-known anti-woke company, it SHOULD be put on the Green List, to promote it.

Taking this further, if you would consider a suggestion - what about only having a Green List? It would make the list more about promotion than anything negative, and could become a gold standard for those looking?

The failure mode with a green only list is how do you distinguish between a bad actor (let us assume for this discussion that everyone agrees on the labels and that they are 100% correct- neither of which is true), and a company that is in fact green but is not on the list (too small, too new, just not one the folks that contribute happen to buy from).

By having a G/Y/R list, the uncommon person that is not batsh*t crazy but is in an identity group (ethnic, political, etc.) filled with them, can stand on their own merits.

Over reporting green folks (i.e., very small press that almost no one knows of gets listed) and under reporting red (too small to be worthwhile so don't give them free press) is, IMO, the way to get the desired outcome.

Quote from: Howard on February 17, 2022, 12:19:47 PM

Quote from: MongooseMatt on February 17, 2022, 12:08:02 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 16, 2022, 09:28:53 PM
On the other hand, if there's a little-known anti-woke company, it SHOULD be put on the Green List, to promote it.

Taking this further, if you would consider a suggestion - what about only having a Green List? It would make the list more about promotion than anything negative, and could become a gold standard for those looking?

The failure mode with a green only list is how do you distinguish between a bad actor (let us assume for this discussion that everyone agrees on the labels and that they are 100% correct- neither of which is true), and a company that is in fact green but is not on the list (too small, too new, just not one the folks that contribute happen to buy from).

By having a G/Y/R list, the uncommon person that is not batsh*t crazy but is in an identity group (ethnic, political, etc.) filled with them, can stand on their own merits.

Over reporting green folks (i.e., very small press that almost no one knows of gets listed) and under reporting red (too small to be worthwhile so don't give them free press) is, IMO, the way to get the desired outcome.

I actually would prefer the Red only vs the Green only. There are going to omissions... I would prefer that the Green list not miss good companies while having no Red list to warn us.

As I was searching for a credit card I could use to pay my medical bills with, I came across my Gygax issue #1 (February 2013). I decided to go through the ads and see if any of the companies were still around. To my surprise, a few are.

Dark Platypus Studio seems like it would go in the green category. At least the illustration services that are offered are fairly un-woke (and NSFW). I haven't ordered any of their products so I don't know if they are politically active in any way, but the website doesn't seem like it is.

Quote

I actually would prefer the Red only vs the Green only. There are going to omissions... I would prefer that the Green list not miss good companies while having no Red list to warn us.

Personally I like the inclusion of yellow. It gives the consumer more information to make purchasing choices with.

Quote from: MongooseMatt on February 17, 2022, 12:08:02 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 16, 2022, 09:28:53 PM
On the other hand, if there's a little-known anti-woke company, it SHOULD be put on the Green List, to promote it.

Taking this further, if you would consider a suggestion - what about only having a Green List? It would make the list more about promotion than anything negative, and could become a gold standard for those looking?

Yeah...no...I want to know what companies and authors are sjw shit...I want to know who not to spend my money on, and its far easier to pop in here and look then try to google all these morons who should have never been allowed in this hobby...

Quote from: MongooseMatt on February 17, 2022, 12:08:02 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 16, 2022, 09:28:53 PM
On the other hand, if there's a little-known anti-woke company, it SHOULD be put on the Green List, to promote it.

Taking this further, if you would consider a suggestion - what about only having a Green List? It would make the list more about promotion than anything negative, and could become a gold standard for those looking?

My position is that an important part of the list is so that people know which game companies/designers have strong wokist political views to the point of hostility to most normal gamers.  Some of these people are very open about their views and don't try to dissemble at all, but others try to hide their products behind some other more mainstream image to essentially trick gamers into buying them.

So this is like a "better business bureau" for tabletop.

And likewise, if you are a wokist, there's nothing stopping you from using the exact same list to know which communist designers to purchase products from.

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 17, 2022, 03:21:34 PM

Quote from: MongooseMatt on February 17, 2022, 12:08:02 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 16, 2022, 09:28:53 PM
On the other hand, if there's a little-known anti-woke company, it SHOULD be put on the Green List, to promote it.

Taking this further, if you would consider a suggestion - what about only having a Green List? It would make the list more about promotion than anything negative, and could become a gold standard for those looking?

My position is that an important part of the list is so that people know which game companies/designers have strong wokist political views to the point of hostility to most normal gamers.  Some of these people are very open about their views and don't try to dissemble at all, but others try to hide their products behind some other more mainstream image to essentially trick gamers into buying them.

So this is like a "better business bureau" for tabletop.

And likewise, if you are a wokist, there's nothing stopping you from using the exact same list to know which communist designers to purchase products from.

Then there are the "normal gamers" that don't like the extreme "woke" positions but also don't buy deeply into this kind of gatekeeping bullshit (see the guy that just posted about those "that should never have been allowed into the hobby"). This kind of shit makes things worse, not better.

Without yellow it would look as if a company could be green or red but was forgotten on the list.
I think G/Y/R works nicely.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 17, 2022, 03:46:01 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 17, 2022, 03:21:34 PM

Quote from: MongooseMatt on February 17, 2022, 12:08:02 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 16, 2022, 09:28:53 PM
On the other hand, if there's a little-known anti-woke company, it SHOULD be put on the Green List, to promote it.

Taking this further, if you would consider a suggestion - what about only having a Green List? It would make the list more about promotion than anything negative, and could become a gold standard for those looking?

So this is like a "better business bureau" for tabletop.

And likewise, if you are a wokist, there's nothing stopping you from using the exact same list to know which communist designers to purchase products from.

Then there are the "normal gamers" that don't like the extreme "woke" positions but also don't buy deeply into this kind of gatekeeping bullshit (see the guy that just posted about those "that should never have been allowed into the hobby"). This kind of shit makes things worse, not better.

No...what would have made this shit better...is never allowing them into the hobby in the first place...

But hey you wanna watch your hobby destroyed by blue-haired land whales screeching and the soy bois defending them...knock yourself out

If he wasn't already mentioned, Vincent Baker of lumpley games. During 2020 he tweeted something about the need to abolish the police. I asked if he was willing to try that out in his home town since it was such a great idea. He blocked me, and I threw his shitty little confused mess of an rpg directly in the trash and that was that.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 17, 2022, 03:46:01 PM
Then there are the "normal gamers" that don't like the extreme "woke" positions but also don't buy deeply into this kind of gatekeeping bullshit (see the guy that just posted about those "that should never have been allowed into the hobby"). This kind of shit makes things worse, not better.

I used to be of this position (anti-gatekeeping) until I legit ran into idiots who ruined our game because we tried to be as nice and welcoming as possible. Some were from the wokescold crowd, others were just being assholes. Point is, gatekeeping has a purpose. It's not puritanical, it's not bigotry, it's simply filtering who you want to play with.

Quote from: mudbanks on February 18, 2022, 01:02:49 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 17, 2022, 03:46:01 PM
Then there are the "normal gamers" that don't like the extreme "woke" positions but also don't buy deeply into this kind of gatekeeping bullshit (see the guy that just posted about those "that should never have been allowed into the hobby"). This kind of shit makes things worse, not better.

I used to be of this position (anti-gatekeeping) until I legit ran into idiots who ruined our game because we tried to be as nice and welcoming as possible. Some were from the wokescold crowd, others were just being assholes. Point is, gatekeeping has a purpose. It's not puritanical, it's not bigotry, it's simply filtering who you want to play with.

The last major idiot I had to kick out of one of my games was a hyper-conservative jackass. He wasn't kicked out because he was hyper-conservative (though he tended to be annoyingly preachy). He was kicked out because he was a jackass. I don't find it useful to filter players based on their political beliefs. Far better to filter them for how they treat the others at the table and what they offer to the gaming group. My table has people from both ends of the political spectrum and they get along just fine because they are not jackasses.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 18, 2022, 01:28:29 AM

Quote from: mudbanks on February 18, 2022, 01:02:49 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 17, 2022, 03:46:01 PM
Then there are the "normal gamers" that don't like the extreme "woke" positions but also don't buy deeply into this kind of gatekeeping bullshit (see the guy that just posted about those "that should never have been allowed into the hobby"). This kind of shit makes things worse, not better.

I used to be of this position (anti-gatekeeping) until I legit ran into idiots who ruined our game because we tried to be as nice and welcoming as possible. Some were from the wokescold crowd, others were just being assholes. Point is, gatekeeping has a purpose. It's not puritanical, it's not bigotry, it's simply filtering who you want to play with.

The last major idiot I had to kick out of one of my games was a hyper-conservative jackass. He wasn't kicked out because he was hyper-conservative (though he tended to be annoyingly preachy). He was kicked out because he was a jackass. I don't find it useful to filter players based on their political beliefs. Far better to filter them for how they treat the others at the table and what they offer to the gaming group. My table has people from both ends of the political spectrum and they get along just fine because they are not jackasses.

I never discuss politics or religion at the gaming table and I don't tolerate any disruptive behavior, and that includes attempts to politicize a game or impose one's political or religious views on the other players. Of course, that doesn't mean that the player characters can't get political in the game setting itself - e.g. players who support the Republic or the Empire in a Star Wars game.

Quote from: The Comedian on February 17, 2022, 08:03:26 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 17, 2022, 03:46:01 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 17, 2022, 03:21:34 PM

Quote from: MongooseMatt on February 17, 2022, 12:08:02 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 16, 2022, 09:28:53 PM
On the other hand, if there's a little-known anti-woke company, it SHOULD be put on the Green List, to promote it.

Taking this further, if you would consider a suggestion - what about only having a Green List? It would make the list more about promotion than anything negative, and could become a gold standard for those looking?

So this is like a "better business bureau" for tabletop.

And likewise, if you are a wokist, there's nothing stopping you from using the exact same list to know which communist designers to purchase products from.

Then there are the "normal gamers" that don't like the extreme "woke" positions but also don't buy deeply into this kind of gatekeeping bullshit (see the guy that just posted about those "that should never have been allowed into the hobby"). This kind of shit makes things worse, not better.

No...what would have made this shit better...is never allowing them into the hobby in the first place...

But hey you wanna watch your hobby destroyed by blue-haired land whales screeching and the soy bois defending them...knock yourself out

"never allowing them into the hobby in the first place" is not a realistic or workable position in the first place, but more like an emotional response to a situation we had no way of even predicting would end up this way until it actually happened. Arguably the first "woke" people in the hobby (or at least the most notable ones, depending on WTF you even mean with the poorly defined term "woke") was White Wolf, which was the game company that published Vampire the Masquerade, Werewolf the Apocalypse, etc. back in the 90s.

How exactly were we supposed to keep them out of the hobby? Show up at their company headquarters and close them down by force under our nonexistent authority to close businesses down? Show up at the game table of people playing Vampire and trashing their game books?

And all of this rests on a loose interpretation of WTF "woke" even means, considering that "wokeness" wasn't even a thing until the past decade or so, but precursors of it have arguably been around since the 90s, and the ideologies that eventually led to it have been around since decades before that. And by the time that "wokeness" came to manifest in its full glory and became truly apparent, the people who would be "woke" were already deeply entrenched into the hobby.

Hell, I used to be on the "woke" side of politics before this whole mess and I'm not anymore precisely because I'm not "woke", not because my political views changed radically, but because these people became insane. And pushing for forced diversity or calling everyone who disagreed with your fallacious arguments and spurious accusations "racist" wasn't exactly a central part of progressive left-wing politics till around a decade or so. But the moment it did, I fled, while the people who clung to their "left-wing" label became "woke" in the strictest sense of the word.

I think Green/Yellow/Red is good. The reasons also need to be stated, as the list is pretty subjective - very lightly curated if at all - and one man's Green or Red is another's Yellow, etc. Few would doubt that eg Evil Hat are Red or that Autarch are Green, but there are plenty of more 'normal' companies, including many of the large ones, whose owners don't have a strong ideology, tend to blow with the political winds, and aren't so easily classified. Eg Kobold Press is currently listed Yellow and Mongoose currently Green, but they seem much of a muchness to me. These aren't crusaders for either liberty/free expression or totalitarianism/thought control, they're guys trying to make a buck.