Well, that picture, if real, is rather dystopian.

Quote from: THE_Leopold on February 12, 2022, 11:08:49 AM
oh did SJW's move from "community" to "family" now? Is that the current catch phrase to show "Inclusion" and "Diversity"?

Also, for the SJWs "family" cannot, must not, in any way, refer to biological relatives. The good that is family must be completely disconnected from any biological relationship. Because reasons.

For some reason, the use of 'family' in this context is more related to a MAFIA family than anything else. Besides, who on earth can reason that a hobby is a family? Oh, right - the same people who call murder love! 

Quote from: consolcwby on February 13, 2022, 12:31:05 AM
For some reason, the use of 'family' in this context is more related to a MAFIA family than anything else. Besides, who on earth can reason that a hobby is a family? Oh, right - the same people who call murder love! 

Lol  i was thinking that myself after I idly looked up the exact definition of family.

"all the descendants of a common ancestor." Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson maybe?

Contagion-style thinking, splitting the world into in-groups and out-groups with fear reinforcement policing any 6 degrees of separation to taint/shame/sin, is a classic hallmark of cult-like thinking.

The follow-up step where artificial community is created, and later graduates to replacement family, is classic "Danger Will Robinson!" cult-like thinking.

Anyone riding this rocket at this point is choosing pathological dissolution of self. This is not self-sacrifice or selfless togetherness. This is the primrose path for any malefactors to grind the gullible under their heel. This is fair warning; check the cult checklists for these warning behaviors and return to confusing yet loving ambiguity. 

Stay safe everyone, rpgs are just games of make-believe not an escape hatch from reality.

Quote from: Opaopajr on February 13, 2022, 07:57:52 AM


The follow-up step where artificial community is created, and later graduates to replacement family, is classic "Danger Will Robinson!" cult-like thinking.

Eric Hoffer postulates in the True Believer that all mass movements attempt to break down the real family in order to tie the adherent to the movement. 

Quote from: Gog to Magog on February 11, 2022, 11:42:12 PMIt's this

I believe the phrase "kill it with fire" or even possibly "nuke it from orbit" is really the only acceptable response to that level of insanity.

Quote from: Visitor Q on February 13, 2022, 06:50:58 AM

Quote from: consolcwby on February 13, 2022, 12:31:05 AM
For some reason, the use of 'family' in this context is more related to a MAFIA family than anything else. Besides, who on earth can reason that a hobby is a family? Oh, right - the same people who call murder love! 

Lol  i was thinking that myself after I idly looked up the exact definition of family.

"all the descendants of a common ancestor." Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson maybe?

That's not a very good definition. It denies that a married couple are family, and rejects adoption. It seems to be an attempt to define family in biological terms, but it doesn't map to Linnean families. Instead, it's the definition of a clade. Which isn't a family.

Agree on Hoffer, though.

I learned through life experience: never join any of the cults that don't readily admit they are one!

Quote from: Gog to Magog on February 11, 2022, 11:42:12 PM
...
It's part of this kind of insanity combined with the giant gaping hole in a bunch of the people that have joined the hobby in a parasitic attempt to control it while simultaneously trying to salve the void they feel in their lives. It's why so many of them act so insane.

It's not just the new-kid twitteratti crowd...

The things we are seeing now are very much a result of a subset of longtime Fandom within the hobby that have managed to place themselves in positions of power and influence.

IMHO, a lot of what the RPG hobby is going through is eerily echoed with what happened to the pulps pre WW2:

"All of this started because of a small cadre of antisocial geeks with no higher purpose in their lives."
https://wastelandandsky.blogspot.com/
https://wastelandandsky.blogspot.com/p/science-fiction-illustra.html

"Fandom changed mainstream perception by bullying and forcing themselves inside the system and lying continuously. It goes without saying that everything they pushed, every term they invented, everything they said, and everything they supported, must be looked at with the highest level of suspicion. They were never your friend."

I've been reading this blog the past week - and although really long winded, the parallels are strong.


I'm going to  express myself very imperfectly here, a bit incoherent, as most of my thoughts are half formed...

A lot of the problems with the RPG hobby, and specifically current D&D, is due to the subset of Fandom that do not identify with normal people, and have gotten some control over the hobby.

For all his failure as a businessman, Gygax was a normal family man, and insurance salesman with a common wargaming hobby before he went and did D&D.

Most of the early TSR employee's were the same. Just normal guys who moved into this new thing that they thought was really cool.

Even Lorraine Williams, with all her greed, was just a career woman bouncing around between middle manager gigs that saw an opportunity to make some real money when she was invited into TSR.

They were mostly all relatively normal people that viewed RPG's as a recreational activity and fun hobby. Even Williams with her distain of D&D fans, didn't have any interest in changing the game. It was a money making vehicle to her...

But that Changed when TSR was bought out by WoTC - which was wholly driven by Peter Adkison.

Adkison was a lifelong gaming nerd computer geek working for Boeing that got rich when Magic hit. When he got the chance to buy D&D he did, because he wanted it bad. By his own admission; literally a gaming geeks dream.

This is where at least somewhat normal people being in charge of D&D ended. Peter "open marriage" Adkison slept with employee's while Ceo of WotC. He was very much a product of lefty seattle culture and he brought in like minded fellow travelers to run D&D with him. Like Johnathan "My plan was to demonstrate hell to be absurd" Tweet, and other proto-sjw's like Monte Cook. I have posted how they intentionally started to change elements of the game for left-wing sociopolitical reasons in the past.

The People in charge of D&D no longer identified with the normal people that largely saw RPG's as a recreational hobby.

And even though Adkison got handed his walking papers in early 2001; the deed was done. Fanatics were now in charge of D&D. D&D was not just a hobby to these guys, it was an intrinsic part of their lifestyle and personal identity. One in which they feel an overwhelming need to self-insert their own personal sociopolitical beliefs into so that they could feel more comfortable within it. No one would be hired to work on D&D from that point on that did not agree with their internal political beliefs.

Even now that WotC is essentially in the hands of IP Money Merchants - everyone directly in charge of D&D falls into the Fanatic mold that does not identify themselves in any way with at least half of their customer base. (If not secretly despising it). And as long as WotC/Hasbro is otherwise making money off of the IP - the Fanatics will be left in charge of D&D.

"All of this started because of a small cadre of antisocial geeks with no higher purpose in their lives."

Indeed.

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 14, 2022, 02:24:09 PM
I learned through life experience: never join any of the cults that don't readily admit they are one!

I feel like there's a very fascinating story behind this. I hope you'll decide to share it someday.

If you don't mind me asking, does the OTO play a big role in it?

Quote from: RandyB on February 12, 2022, 02:02:46 PMAlso, for the SJWs "family" cannot, must not, in any way, refer to biological relatives. The good that is family must be completely disconnected from any biological relationship. Because reasons.

I have to admit, I've long been of the opinion that the single biggest contributing factor to someone's susceptibility to Wokeness is if they come from a broken family, or an abusive and/or stifling home. It's hard to sell the value of the traditional family/social arrangement to people for whom it was only a source of misery.

One of the great tragedies of our modern age, and sadly not as uncommon as one might hope, is the discovery that one's found family is even more toxic than one's birth family.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on February 14, 2022, 05:48:43 PM

Quote from: RandyB on February 12, 2022, 02:02:46 PMAlso, for the SJWs "family" cannot, must not, in any way, refer to biological relatives. The good that is family must be completely disconnected from any biological relationship. Because reasons.

I have to admit, I've long been of the opinion that the single biggest contributing factor to someone's susceptibility to Wokeness is if they come from a broken family, or an abusive and/or stifling home. It's hard to sell the value of the traditional family/social arrangement to people for whom it was only a source of misery.

One of the great tragedies of our modern age, and sadly not as uncommon as one might hope, is the discovery that one's found family is even more toxic than one's birth family.

    It for sure is connected to a broken family, and especially a father who was absent after.

Quote from: Gog to Magog on February 11, 2022, 11:42:12 PM


It's this



It's part of this kind of insanity combined with the giant gaping hole in a bunch of the people that have joined the hobby in a parasitic attempt to control it while simultaneously trying to salve the void they feel in their lives. It's why so many of them act so insane.

If you only knew how much that image creeps me out....

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 14, 2022, 04:38:04 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 14, 2022, 02:24:09 PM
I learned through life experience: never join any of the cults that don't readily admit they are one!

I feel like there's a very fascinating story behind this. I hope you'll decide to share it someday.

If you don't mind me asking, does the OTO play a big role in it?

No, I was never in the OTO, though I had a lot of friends who were.