Quote from: jhkim;1111823On the other hand, what I'm not sure is: Are there really a ton of nerds buying stuff they don't like because they don't understand how to buy things? Or is it that they just have different taste in gaming products from RPGPundit and Spinachcat?

All over the internet you hear countless protests from nerds about how awful the new Star Wars movies are, how awful the new Marvel comics are, how awful all the Watchmen spinoffs (in comics and TV) have been, in how awful the SJW agenda in Pathfinder and D&D are... and yet in those very complaints they make it implicitly or explicitly clear that they continue to buy the products.

It isn't even necessarily about SJW politics.  With the Star Wars and Forgotten Realm novels, as the quality of the products continued to get worse and worse, you'd see more and more nerds complaining about how awful they were. As far as I know, neither were full of leftist politics (this was long before the SJW entryism era), but the same problem happened: nerds are completists, and they're obsessives. They will keep buying absolute garbage that actually ruins the thing they loved, because it has the same name as the thing that was actually good and that they actually loved, not understanding that by lacking the slightest bit of discrimination, THEY are responsible for helping to run their favorite thing into the ground.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1111881I'll let Blizzard know.

I didn't say there is no connection in any field. I said in THIS field. In this field, if you combine all the indie RPGs together in one bucket and put that next to WOTC, you will not even notice the indie RPGs. Not so with other fields. But with this one, we have one incredibly dominant. Pathfinder 2e is the runner up, and from what I can tell it's doing well for a runner up, but pathetic relative to D&D 5e. Even PF2e isn't noticeable to WOTC in terms of sales, and it's the second biggest seller.

QuoteSo what? I've never cared if others share my opinions, my likes or my dislikes. That's not how I'm wired.

What I do care about is how I feel. And I feel great when I consciously vote with my dollars.

If a protest falls in the forest and nobody is there, does it make a sound? My premise is these protests result in some degree of sacrifice from the buyer (you seem to be ignoring that aspect of this). Because, as I said initially, if I AM GETTING SOMETHING GOOD OUT OF THE PRODUCT then I will continue to buy it. Which means you're advocating I sacrifice buying something I like, for the cause you care about. In that context, if the company you're protesting doesn't even notice the protest, it's a pretty meaningless act which costs you something to undertake.

And if it's not costing you something, then why are you complaining to me that I should behave like you, when it IS costing me something because I like these products?

QuoteOf course I'm having a meaningful impact! But my goal isn't a meaningful impact on WotC. My goal is a meaningful impact on small press publishers who make stuff I enjoy by supporting them financially by buying their products and evangelizing their brand by running their games in public.

It's exactly why Kickstarter backers have a meaningful impact because without them, many projects would never have seen the light of day. I've backed several projects where there were only a few hundred of us, or less, who made sure the creator had the support they needed to launch.

I don't buy RPG stuff just to read most of the time. And as my group will not play indie stuff, it means I cannot afford to just spend money on a bunch of indie stuff that will sit on my bookshelf.

If you're privileged such that your group will play it, or you can afford to just blow money on this stuff just to read it and hope you get something out of it, great for you. But that's me, and you advocating I should adopt your standards when we're in different places in terms of what we can spend money on seems pointless and a bit lacking in empathy.

QuoteVoting with your dollars is just driving two blocks past Taco Bell to eat at a locally owned taco stand instead. No energy spent by any stretch, but it does require a modicum of awareness.

In terms of food, I've been a vegetarian since the 80s for a variety of reasons. That is a cause which has a lot more meaning to me than "Jeremy Crawford said something political I disagree with on Twitter" and "A couple of gnomes in an adventure are gay".  But even with this thing which is much more important to me, I don't talk about it unless it comes up. Because evangelizing is annoying.

QuoteNerds are too attached to name brands like D&D, Marvel, Star Wars, etc and now that these brands have shit their pants with SJW propaganda, many of the nerds I've seen online and offline are angry, upset, but weirdly still attached to the brands like some bad marriage.

Who are you to judge what is "too" attached?  I LIKED the more recent Star Wars movies. I liked Captain Marvel. And I like D&D. If you're seeing people who are still consuming stuff they claim they don't like, might I suggest they may be virtue signalling to their perceived tribe but privately do still like these things? I can't tell you how annoying it was for me to say "I liked Indiana Jones 4" or even "I thought Twilight was fine" and to have so many of my nerd friends lose their shit over my liking those nerdy things they didn't like. The temptation to just say "Yeah those things suck! Go team!" was strong just to get them off my back and not have to deal with the argument. I didn't, but I pay a cost still for saying both of those things and I can see if some others just don't want to pay the cost of saying "I liked Captain Marvel" just to hear a bunch of peers bash it and them by association.

QuoteI don't get this attachment. We live in the Golden Age of Geek Stuff from comics to video games to RPGs and there is so much interesting quality content out there being created by independents and small companies. So my message is simple. If you don't like what the name brands are doing, come check out dozens of products you might like much better.

A lot of stuff is popular because people like it.

Controversy sells. Always has. Always will.

Quote from: Mistwell;1111818It's laughable how you think my expressing my opinion is some implied "higher intelligence" claim, or that I don't understand the concept.

It's not a vote. Voting with dollars is an analogy, not reality. Reality is there is no connection made by these companies between sales and the positions they take on the internet. And they're right - your protest "votes" are not registering because far too few people think like you or care about these topics like you do. You are peeing in the ocean and proclaiming everyone will drown as the seas rise.

It's activism. Of course it's activism. That's another word for "personal economics" in this context. These are not "local businesses". Hasbro does not care about your idiotic internet bitching about woke shit. You are having no meaningful impact with your "personal economic votes" with regard to shit like WOTC products.

But you think you do apparently, or don't care. If you don't care, cool, then you should understand me not caring. But if you think you're having a meaningful impact then it's not me whose intelligence you should be insulting.

Riiiiigggghhhhhtttt.... and that's why we are running hard with Fourth Edition D&D, instead of having a 5th Edition of D&D that looks so much more like 3e than 4e?

Or why Gillette posted a five BILLION dollar loss this last year.  Or why Solo, by all accounts a perfectly serviceable movie in the Star Wars universe, took a bath at the box office, and Rian Johnson is being tapped to make all the Star Wars movies forever.

Because people voting with their dollars amounts to a big wet fart, and OCD Nerds are just keeping everything running smoothly for all these woke-ass products that insult them constantly.



I'm with Spinachcat, here. I won't buy Essentials (I probably wouldn't have anyway, but now its garaunteed), but honestly I don't care if you do.

I'm also with Spinachcat. I don't care if we disagree. Also, if you focus on your product and don't shit on your customers, we're good, even if we have no beliefs in common. And everyone should buy stuff they want to buy because they like it. Go forth and be happy.

I stopped spending any money on WotC products ~1.5 years ago.

After TLJ, I skipped Solo and won't be seeing Rise of Skywalker.

Those were both hard to do. But, it's not only voting with my dollars. It's not paying companies money to (at best) insult me, and for an inferior product at that. Why spend my leisure/entertainment budget on things that make me unhappy?

I agree with both RPGPundit and Spinachcat.  Why spend money on people that hate you and want to see you die?

Quote from: Dimitrios;1111724It's as though the makers lacked the confidence to believe that they could make something that people would like for its own sake.

A big problem with the current markets is that original works typically don't do well enough to justify making them. For every breakout success there are hundreds of failures that languish in obscurity. That is why sequels/remakes/reboots have been big business for the last decade. That is why creators have to hijack existing brand names.

No matter how many times you cry "make new X" in market Y, any attempts to do just that will not sell. Only by piggybacking off the popularity of existing brands are new what-have-you able to succeed.

Ironically, a lot of the current original works that languish in obscurity will probably develop cult followings down the line and receive massively successful sequels/remakes/reboots in twenty to forty years from now.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1111881Nerds are too attached to name brands like D&D, Marvel, Star Wars, etc and now that these brands have shit their pants with SJW propaganda, many of the nerds I've seen online and offline are angry, upset, but weirdly still attached to the brands like some bad marriage.

I don't get this attachment. We live in the Golden Age of Geek Stuff from comics to video games to RPGs and there is so much interesting quality content out there being created by independents and small companies. So my message is simple. If you don't like what the name brands are doing, come check out dozens of products you might like much better.

Fair enough. If there's anyone here who feels they're going through this behavior -- I agree. There are tons of great indie RPGs.

I'd be curious if anyone who feels like this is directed at them could speak up about their experience. I wonder what that "bad marriage" experience is like.

On the tangent of in-name-only sequels,

Quote from: Dimitrios;1111724Netflix recently made a miniseries of The Haunting of Hill House that turns out to have literally nothing to do with Shirley Jackson's novel or the movies based on it. They used the title and some of the character names (but not the characters themselves) and that's it. The funny thing is, taken on its own merits it's not bad. It's a serviceably creepy story about the impact of a childhood encounter with a haunted house on the characters as adults. I'm not sure why they tried to tie it in with the Jackson book. It's as though the makers lacked the confidence to believe that they could make something that people would like for its own sake.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;1111931A big problem with the current markets is that original works typically don't do well enough to justify making them. For every breakout success there are hundreds of failures that languish in obscurity. That is why sequels/remakes/reboots have been big business for the last decade. That is why creators have to hijack existing brand names.

There are regular binges of sequels/remakes/reboots in the history of television and film. Specifically in-name-only sequels/adaptations are often the result of financiers rather than creative leads. How to market and sell a work (including the title) is often quite different from how well a work does on its own terms. I blame audiences more than creators in this regard. If audiences weren't so attached to brand loyalty, and were willing to try new works, then we'd see more stand-alone releases.

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897In this field, if you combine all the indie RPGs together in one bucket and put that next to WOTC, you will not even notice the indie RPGs.

The indie RPG bucket would be massively larger in terms of choice and variety. AKA, the parameters that matter to me.

As for relative financial profits, unless I am a shareholder, why should I give a damn? All that matters is my experience with the company and it's product, not it's profit margin.

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897If a protest falls in the forest and nobody is there, does it make a sound?

That Grizzly Man dude was probably screaming when the bears ate him.

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897My premise is these protests result in some degree of sacrifice from the buyer (you seem to be ignoring that aspect of this).

Like "activism", I consider "protest" to be something far more engaged and committed than simply voting with dollars.

Is skipping the McRib and eating real BBQ really a sacrifice? Or in vegan terms, do you really sacrifice anything when you buy organic fresh vegetables from your local farmer's market versus buying some old greens in a plastic bag from a mega-chain?

I can't imagine what I'm sacrificing by not buying WotC products. The camaraderie of fellow 5e players? Playing auto-win railroad modules with Adventure's League? I can't sacrifice something that means less than nothing to me. Sacrifice means I was giving up something that mattered to me. I was raised Roman Catholic and us kids were told to give up something for Lent, but we weren't allowed to give up brussel sprouts, chores or homework. Sacrifice has to be the loss of something you value.

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897Because, as I said initially, if I AM GETTING SOMETHING GOOD OUT OF THE PRODUCT then I will continue to buy it.

It's your dollars! Vote for whatever YOU want! Do as thou whilst, but do so consciously and honestly.

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897Which means you're advocating I sacrifice buying something I like, for the cause you care about.

Nope. I'm not advocating YOU sacrifice anything. I don't care whatsoever if we share the same causes or not.

I'm advocating that everyone be conscious regarding their purchases. Choices do matter, even if they only matter in the very small pond called your life.

If someone is devoted to wokeness, they should buy woke products and support woke creators so they can help spread wokeness. But if you aren't devoted to promoting wokeness, then perhaps you should consider other options in the VAST marketplace of nerd entertainment available to us.

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897And as my group will not play indie stuff, it means I cannot afford to just spend money on a bunch of indie stuff that will sit on my bookshelf.

Why won't your group play indie stuff?

If you don't have the time to have two groups so you can branch out and explore other RPGs you might enjoy, there's always the idea of you running "indie stuff" at conventions or game days. Do you really want to limit your hobby options because of one group?

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897Who are you to judge what is "too" attached?

God Almighty.

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897I LIKED the more recent Star Wars movies. I liked Captain Marvel. And I like D&D.

Good for you! Thus it makes sense for you to support these creators with your dollars.

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897I didn't, but I pay a cost still for saying both of those things and I can see if some others just don't want to pay the cost of saying "I liked Captain Marvel" just to hear a bunch of peers bash it and them by association.

What cost?

My friends and I have lots of different likes and dislikes. We're really good at telling each other to choke on a bag of dicks long before any of us feels bad for liking or disliking what we want.

Next time you meet someone who knows what a good movie is, don't take their shit!

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897A lot of stuff is popular because people like it.

Very true, but why I should I give a shit? A mass of people liking something means nothing to me. Popularity is no barometer to whether I will like something or not.

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897SNIP
A lot of stuff is popular because people like it.

Welcome to tautology 101 : If it's popular, by definition people like it, and if enough people like it it's popular. Of course there's popularity among group X, like geek/nerd hobbies used to be : Popular among geeks/nerds.

But, here's the rub, that something is popular isn't a reason to get behind it, believe it, etc. That's called ad popolum fallacy.

Quote from: Spike;1111912Riiiiigggghhhhhtttt.... and that's why we are running hard with Fourth Edition D&D, instead of having a 5th Edition of D&D that looks so much more like 3e than 4e?

LOL that had nothing to do with woke bitching on the Internet or ANY bitching on the Internet. I am not saying sales don't matter - of course they do. We're talking about a context where sales for 5e are astronomically high. A handful of guys complaining on message boards isn't touching that. OBVIOUSLY.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1111986Welcome to tautology 101 : If it's popular, by definition people like it

The quote is right there for you to see, and yet you strawmanned me anyway. I didn't say all things popular are therefore liked. I said A LOT OF STUFF is popular because people like it. Not a tautology. Highly relevant for the topic of 5e D&D - people genuinely like it. That's why it's popular.

QuoteBut, here's the rub, that something is popular isn't a reason to get behind it, believe it, etc. That's called ad popolum fallacy.

Nobody for a moment has said you should like it or get behind it because it's popular. But, thanks for that second strawman. If only you were arguing with someone who said the things you wished they said?

What started this part of the thread is people saying I should not buy things I like because of the woke messages associated with some creators behind it, or minor woke messages in some of the material. And me saying fuck that, I will buy it if I like it and ignore the woke crap, which appears to be what's happening in the marketplace because it's so well liked and popular. In no world is it rational for you to retort that I am saying YOU should like it because it's popular.

Quote from: Mistwell;1111992The quote is right there for you to see, and yet you strawmanned me anyway. I didn't say all things popular are therefore liked. I said A LOT OF STUFF is popular because people like it. Not a tautology. Highly relevant for the topic of 5e D&D - people genuinely like it. That's why it's popular.



Nobody for a moment has said you should like it or get behind it because it's popular. But, thanks for that second strawman. If only you were arguing with someone who said the things you wished they said?

What started this part of the thread is people saying I should not buy things I like because of the woke messages associated with some creators behind it, or minor woke messages in some of the material. And me saying fuck that, I will buy it if I like it and ignore the woke crap, which appears to be what's happening in the marketplace because it's so well liked and popular. In no world is it rational for you to retort that I am saying YOU should like it because it's popular.

You need to grab a dictionary and look up the word popular

You said this

Quote from: Mistwell;1111897SNIP
A lot of stuff is popular because people like it.

Which is the exact definition of the word popular, hence a tautology.

And you said it in response to this

QuoteI don't get this attachment. We live in the Golden Age of Geek Stuff from comics to video games to RPGs and there is so much interesting quality content out there being created by independents and small companies. So my message is simple. If you don't like what the name brands are doing, come check out dozens of products you might like much better.

So Maybe you can understand why some might think you're saying if it's popular you should like it, but if that wasn't your intention fine, my bad.

Really? Who and where exactly anybody told YOU not to buy things you like for whatever reason? What I'm saying is: Citation needed.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1111886All over the internet you hear countless protests from nerds about how awful the new Star Wars movies are, how awful the new Marvel comics are, how awful all the Watchmen spinoffs (in comics and TV) have been, in how awful the SJW agenda in Pathfinder and D&D are... and yet in those very complaints they make it implicitly or explicitly clear that they continue to buy the products.

It isn't even necessarily about SJW politics.  With the Star Wars and Forgotten Realm novels, as the quality of the products continued to get worse and worse, you'd see more and more nerds complaining about how awful they were. As far as I know, neither were full of leftist politics (this was long before the SJW entryism era), but the same problem happened: nerds are completists, and they're obsessives. They will keep buying absolute garbage that actually ruins the thing they loved, because it has the same name as the thing that was actually good and that they actually loved, not understanding that by lacking the slightest bit of discrimination, THEY are responsible for helping to run their favorite thing into the ground.

It isn't nerds in particular, it's just normal human behavior. It's called normalcy bias. People try to maintain their normal behavior even in the face of a mounting disaster.

Quote from: GeekyBugle;1111994So Maybe you can understand why some might think you're saying if it's popular you should like it, but if that wasn't your intention fine, my bad.

It's OK, he got confused over my use of the word "majority" too, but he is a Corporate Attorney so I guess that goes along with the job description......