Quote from: TheTechnomancer on February 23, 2022, 02:14:59 PM
Just out of curiosity where would Herogames be on that list?

Quote from: mudbanks on February 23, 2022, 09:26:27 PM
What's the word on BTRC/Greg Porter, publisher of EABA?

Quote
Virtually all fandoms are toxic once they reach a certain size. The reason is pretty simple: fandoms are groups of thousands of people that only have a single interest in common. This means that wherever they hang out, members of that fandom will be constantly engaging with people who share their enthusiasm for the fandom's topic, but whose worldviews are opposed to their own.

This wouldn't normally be a problem (we run into people with incompatible worldviews all the time) except that modern fandoms are often very intent on uniting the fanbase under a single "community." This creates several problems:

• You're part of the community whether you want to be or not.
• You get the cognitive dissonance of being in a community full of people who don't share your beliefs.
• People within the community are upset at you when they see you in conflict with other members over basic issues.
• You get the embarrassment of outsiders lumping you together with people you dislike.
• If the fandom topic is a big part of your identity, you can feel that it (or you) is tainted by the presence of bad actors.

This situation causes the constant sniping, gatekeeping, and toxicity you find in fandom spaces. There are a couple ways to solve this.

• Make a real community, but be very selective who you let in (preventing disparities in worldview).
• Stop pretending that a shared interest group is a community and be very specific in what you allow people to talk about (preventing discussion of worldview disparities).
• Ignore the communities question, and just keep the group very small (200 people at most). This is basically why G+ worked. Most people knew each other on a personal level (often playing in each other's games), so they were able to overlook worldview conflicts.

Quote from: JoeCold on March 06, 2022, 09:28:30 PM
Any insight on to which list SmiteWorks (Fantasy Grounds) belongs?

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 07, 2022, 02:55:34 PM
Speaking of 'companies we should avoid', I was checking through the 'Texas Trans Rights' bundle to see if anything actually worthwhile was there.

What's interesting is that the 'big kahunas' contributions look kinda... weak. Like, a whole bunch of supplementary crap for 5E or PF2E. Stacked behind that is a shitload of games that I doubt anyone's heard of, as well as 'microgame' systems. Hilariously, I think the biggest 'full systems' offered are Mythic d6, and Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

I'd suggest tossing all these morons onto the Yellow list, but honestly? They don't deserve the publicity.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 07, 2022, 02:55:34 PM
Speaking of 'companies we should avoid', I was checking through the 'Texas Trans Rights' bundle to see if anything actually worthwhile was there.

What's interesting is that the 'big kahunas' contributions look kinda... weak. Like, a whole bunch of supplementary crap for 5E or PF2E. Stacked behind that is a shitload of games that I doubt anyone's heard of, as well as 'microgame' systems. Hilariously, I think the biggest 'full systems' offered are Mythic d6, and Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

I'd suggest tossing all these morons onto the Yellow list, but honestly? They don't deserve the publicity.

Quote from: THE_Leopold on March 07, 2022, 10:58:37 AM
They are pro captialist, don't care who puts modules up on their site as long as it's authorized by the company, and has kept as far away from politics even holding a FantasyGrounds Kickoff for FG:Unity in Orlando this year.

I'll go for Green until I see otherwise.

Quote from: oggsmash on March 07, 2022, 03:02:29 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 07, 2022, 02:55:34 PM
Speaking of 'companies we should avoid', I was checking through the 'Texas Trans Rights' bundle to see if anything actually worthwhile was there.

What's interesting is that the 'big kahunas' contributions look kinda... weak. Like, a whole bunch of supplementary crap for 5E or PF2E. Stacked behind that is a shitload of games that I doubt anyone's heard of, as well as 'microgame' systems. Hilariously, I think the biggest 'full systems' offered are Mythic d6, and Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

I'd suggest tossing all these morons onto the Yellow list, but honestly? They don't deserve the publicity.

  Out of curiosity, I ask, what trans rights are the Texans taking away now?

Quote from: TheTechnomancer on March 07, 2022, 03:41:48 PM
Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law last years restricting Texas' transgender student-athletes from playing on K-12 school sports teams that align with their gender identity.

Quote from: Zalman on February 26, 2022, 11:04:31 AM
Many pages ago someone suggested adding Ben Milton to the Green list, for staying apolitical and just producing good old-school games and adventures. I would 2nd that nomination. He also does great OSR product reviews on his YouTube channel, FWIW.

EDIT: Example blog post:

Quote
Virtually all fandoms are toxic once they reach a certain size. The reason is pretty simple: fandoms are groups of thousands of people that only have a single interest in common. This means that wherever they hang out, members of that fandom will be constantly engaging with people who share their enthusiasm for the fandom's topic, but whose worldviews are opposed to their own.

This wouldn't normally be a problem (we run into people with incompatible worldviews all the time) except that modern fandoms are often very intent on uniting the fanbase under a single "community." This creates several problems:

• You're part of the community whether you want to be or not.
• You get the cognitive dissonance of being in a community full of people who don't share your beliefs.
• People within the community are upset at you when they see you in conflict with other members over basic issues.
• You get the embarrassment of outsiders lumping you together with people you dislike.
• If the fandom topic is a big part of your identity, you can feel that it (or you) is tainted by the presence of bad actors.

This situation causes the constant sniping, gatekeeping, and toxicity you find in fandom spaces. There are a couple ways to solve this.

• Make a real community, but be very selective who you let in (preventing disparities in worldview).
• Stop pretending that a shared interest group is a community and be very specific in what you allow people to talk about (preventing discussion of worldview disparities).
• Ignore the communities question, and just keep the group very small (200 people at most). This is basically why G+ worked. Most people knew each other on a personal level (often playing in each other's games), so they were able to overlook worldview conflicts.

Quote from: TheTechnomancer on March 07, 2022, 03:41:48 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on March 07, 2022, 03:02:29 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 07, 2022, 02:55:34 PM
Speaking of 'companies we should avoid', I was checking through the 'Texas Trans Rights' bundle to see if anything actually worthwhile was there.

What's interesting is that the 'big kahunas' contributions look kinda... weak. Like, a whole bunch of supplementary crap for 5E or PF2E. Stacked behind that is a shitload of games that I doubt anyone's heard of, as well as 'microgame' systems. Hilariously, I think the biggest 'full systems' offered are Mythic d6, and Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

I'd suggest tossing all these morons onto the Yellow list, but honestly? They don't deserve the publicity.

  Out of curiosity, I ask, what trans rights are the Texans taking away now?

I found this when look for info to help you out.  Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill into law last years restricting Texas' transgender student-athletes from playing on K-12 school sports teams that align with their gender identity.