I hope that they don't cave to the opposition.  I also hooe that they actually release stuff instead of crowdfunding and then pulling the plug/jerking us around like so many other game producers have done.

NuTSR seems to be posting on both sides, wanting the best of both worlds.

I've seen anti-woke posts from them, and I've seen some very woke posts from the same account (the official TSR twitter account).

My biggest problems are that the product doesn't appeal to me (GiantLands seems like discount Gamma World), and the main people behind the production have become internet famous for not delivering Kickstarter promises.

Worse then SJWs are grifters and opportunists. A grifter is a SJW without even the glint of a ethical core.

Quote from: BronzeDragon on June 26, 2021, 06:25:13 PM
NuTSR seems to be posting on both sides, wanting the best of both worlds.

I've seen anti-woke posts from them, and I've seen some very woke posts from the same account (the official TSR twitter account).

My biggest problems are that the product doesn't appeal to me (GiantLands seems like discount Gamma World), and the main people behind the production have become internet famous for not delivering Kickstarter promises.

yeah, it is pretty hilarious that they are trying to play both sides of the fence, and in a very clumsy manner

they are going to get buried as a result: their list of allies is exhausted

I would have some respect if they stuck by their guns, tried to carve out an old-school audience, and gave the middle finger to the wokeists, but they didn't.

and here is the thing

Neither Ernie Gygax or his brother Luke had  a thing to do with TSR back in the day. Ernie helped out a bit in the office, but he has no writing credits to his name, was not involved in design or production, and wasn't an employee. Luke was never involved at all until after Gary's death.

So the old guard, or guys like Tim Kask, put out videos on youtube basically saying "Ernie, who the fu** are you"? And calling into question his motives and credentials.

It's ugly all around, and it isn't going anywhere good.

Even Gary himself was irrelevant for the last 20 years of his life. The company he founded moved way beyond him, and some of the best writers and designers worked for TSR after he left (Aarom Allston for instance).

The players and the DMs are what makes the game. Nostalgic cash grabs are nonsense

Seems like the best direction this cluster fuck can go is away.

Greetings!

Where I used to live, on my way to work in the morning I used to stop often at this little donut shop and bakery to get a morning coffee and a few donuts. The place was always packed, every day. I gradually got to know the manager of the donut shop and bakery. She was a tiny Vietnamese woman, about 30, the eldest daughter of her family, and immigrated here when she was a kid. English was not her first language. Despite such potential cultural and linguistic challenges, this little Vietnamese woman had charisma, grace, and charm in spades. She smiled radiantly, laughed sincerely, and managed all kinds of conversations with customers all day long, starting at 0500 AM in the morning--while supervising three other girls, and several bakers in back, all usually working up a sweat. She kept her crew *moving* tight, all with such charm.

I wonder why whenever I hear about so many of these old TSR guys--it always strikes me that my Vietnamese Donut girl had more charm, grace, and social skills going for her on a bad day than most of these TSR people? They so often come across as being socially retarded in so many ways, it's sad. Add in there often inept business and marketing sense--and again, my little Vietnamese Donut girl had been successfully running her show for over 10 years straight. She was always sharp as a razor, and her professionalism and skill was obvious, just like her charm, grace, and friendliness, despite having a distinct accent and not having fluent mastery of English. I would put money on her running a successful business, and actually winning and cultivating lots of fans and customers, paying her well every day, compared to many of the TSR guys.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 21, 2021, 02:30:53 PM

Quote from: tenbones on June 21, 2021, 12:15:50 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 21, 2021, 10:37:35 AM

Quote from: imurrx on June 19, 2021, 05:01:02 PM
The chainmail bikini offers no protection except as a distraction or unless they have been "enhanced".

I just saying...

The fur loincloth offers a comparable lack of protection for our barbarian heroes.

Never played with a woman playing a female barbarian, have you?
... and yet no one really complains about that.

It's almost like the people that do the complaining about these things really have to get cyclopian in their squinting to find something to complain about.

Edit: As an aside, I loved how Beasts and Barbarians created an Edge - Loincloth Hero, to allow people to play that (works as a Chainmail Bikini too).

Maybe being big and strong and scantily clad is a male fantasy or something? But conversely a chainmail bikini is not a female fantasy?

You've never played with a female who played a female barbarian, have you?

Quote from: tenbones on June 22, 2021, 11:54:39 AM
I'm Asian - I came to this game with Conan the Barbarian and King Arthur (and whatever my childish mind had packed inbetween which is largely nothing).

I honestly didn't even register that there were overtly no Asians in our games. My GM was a Vietnamese girl, and I played with two filipinos and an American white and black kid. At no point did the fact that my black friend was playing a paladin (who by his own description wasn't even black) or the fact that I played a savage fighter who in my mind looked like a Hyrkanian (conan ftw bitches) ever matter to any of us.

Our GM - the Vietnamese girl, from Vietnam, who knew *nothing* about American culture, presented the game exactly as it was. PC's in a fantasy setting where she described the NPC's as white people in a quasi-medieval setting... you know... D&D. No one was torked up about representation.

We played the game for what it was and what we made it. The novelty of Oriental Adventure when it came out had *nothing* to do with Asian representation for me or anyone else I knew. It had to do with Golden Harvest/Shaw Bros. Representation. It had to do with Black Belt Theater/Kurosawa/Bruce Lee Representation and the crazy idea that Ho Li Phuc! Asian cinema can be turned into D&D! Genius.

All the fucking weirdos in Dragon Magazine jacking off about historical authenticity, and shit like that were missing the larger point. Sure that stuff matters to me (sort of) as an adult. But at the time - it allowed me to expand on my "normal" D&D conceits by spreading the ruleset further to include OA mechanics in my established fantasy game.

It wasn't "Asian" mechanics. And for people wanting historical accuracy, it should be pretty clear that there isn't some requirement for historical accuracy when you have motherfuckers leaping 30-ft into the air, flying kick people harder than getting hit with a zweihander, or punching holes in people from ten-feet away (Distance Death baby!). And people complained about OA being so Japanese/Chinese centric - got their cries heard by Mike Pondsmith in the Kara-Tur boxset (glorious!).

Ultimately despite many products for the line - it didn't sell well. Why? Because largely the western and white demographic likes playing in their own cultural comfort-zone. THAT'S OKAY. That should be expected, and the Real TSR(tm) made an honest-to-Galactus stab at it.

All of these is conveniently memory holed because the narrative of representation is really a crusade to destroy whatever came before in the attempts of blurring what D&D was into the freakshow it's become.

Fortunately if you take your gaming seriously you can step back and be Brand Free and realize "D&D" isn't "D&D" anywhere but in your heart and mind. The company that owns "D&D" has no claim over what you as a consumer wants "D&D" to be at your table without your consent. It's not defined by an edition, or by a system, contrary to what others might think. D&D exists as an idea we define everytime we sit down at the table.

I vote with my dollars. And at this stage in my life, my gold is there for the a taking to whomever wants it if they give me good product. Many of these companies apparently think that my gold is not worth what they think "bad thoughts" are in their heads. That's not my problem.

There are companies that recognize this and I hope they're rolling around naked on my money as long as they give me good stuff, and they deserve it. This new TSR company ain't gonna be one of them.

Man, my group of Whiteys loved OA and Kara-Tur.  So did the black, brown and yellow peeps who also played.    In the 80's our knowledge of the Orient were Shaw Brothers and Sho Kosugi movies.  In other words, fantasy mythology, you know...like D&D.

I discovered Bushido, and Land of the Rising Sun, so the "real" Japan became more known to me, but then again, so did the "real" Antiquity, Dark Ages, Middle Ages, and Renaissance, and that didn't make me change my D&D campaign either. 

I'd already read about Temujin when Kara-Tur came out, and The Horde totally psyched me up.  I started a side campaign with PCs part of the Tuigan.  Everybody I knew understood how important Alexander the Great was, and everyone knew the names of Genghis Khan and Kublai Khan, but no one knew what they were famous for.  It was so crazy reading about this guy and his grandson that conquered nearly all of China and almost did the same to Europe.

Indiana Jones got me psyched up to read more about the real Ancient Israel, and India, the same way those books got me psyched up to read more about the real Orient.  If they were never written because there wasn't a demographically appropriate person at the time, oh well, there's always the Shaw Brothers, because I wasn't a History Major.

I'd be a lot less critical of The Woke, if they weren't in almost every fucking goddamn arena, ending up with a result the exact opposite of what they claim they want.

You guys really don't know what Ernie said?  Here's the wrongthink from the interview...


On Cooperating with WotC

I would hope so but they just put out a big disclaimer recently trying to divorce themselves from the ethics and style of play that was involved in the origins of the game. They're basically trying to say 'we're a better company and a better type of person' than those who started playing. At least that's somewhat of the impression they've given and 'please switch over and be part of the new wave'. You know. Join the pack of lemmings, oh yeah!

Why A New TSR?

TSR has been gone. There's a ton of artists and game designers and people that play..... and recently they were dissed for being old-fashioned, possibly anti modern trends, and enforcing, or even having the concepts of gender identity (laughs).

People were non-plussed.

Then the TSR Twitter account (not Ernie) said these.
https://twitter.com/TSR_games/status/1408852128341372938?s=20
https://twitter.com/TSR_games/status/1408566618628710406?s=20

Saying these things to the Woke is a "dog whistle" saying you're essentially Himmler reincarnated.

Then, whoever is in charge of the Giantlands Twitter account (it's also not Ernie) delivered the Coup de Grace...

https://twitter.com/Orangesuitcases/status/1408784995800563713/photo/1

They followed it up with this...

"It's got nothing to do with her choices, but attacking us & trying to force us to make statements by bulling us? Please go away."

But, we all know they're done.

Quote from: crkrueger on June 27, 2021, 06:15:16 AM
You guys really don't know what Ernie said?

Is Ernie famous for being anything other than the Boss' son?

And I'm even using the term famous really loosely.

Quote from: Silas1066 on June 21, 2021, 05:14:13 PM
and what about the Marmoreal Tomb KS that was never delivered by Ernie and his old business buddies? $126,000 was raised for that, and it is over 5 years late. The comments and accusations on the KS page are scathing, with people claiming Ernie spent the money on a new home and wedding, and that the company doesn't even have money to print the materials. Troll Lord Games tried to come to the rescue, but the whole thing is a complete cluster

Those "claims" are patently false (and were never phrased as claims - you just "recharacterize" them that way, I assume for attention and to spread rumor). And even a moment of research would have shown that. Troll Lord has the funds. They were not spent, with the exception of some early money being paid to the actual artists hired for artwork early on before Troll Lord took over. Troll Lord is printing the books - in fact their latest June update specifies the box and maps are already at the printers. Those who invested in the kickstarter have been getting pretty regular updates from Troll Lord, the main book is complete, and they're working on the extras now. Yes, it's very late. Yes Troll Lord had to come to the rescue. But no, it's not a complete cluster any more, it's on a pretty good schedule now.

Quote from: Jaeger on June 22, 2021, 02:41:31 AM

Quote from: imurrx on June 19, 2021, 11:22:10 AM
The only thing that 3e did was started using the word "she" instead of "him" in it's texts. It was a way to try break the gender divide and attract more females into the game. It bugged me when they did that switch. From a marketing point, they wanted a new audience instead of old aging fat men to play the game. There was not too much else they changed in my honest opinion that would invoke SJW....

I disagree.

Like I said; Critical Theory based "inclusive" politics were actively being injected in 3e D&D well before most people knew what an SJW was.

My Evidence:

Johnathan Tweet: 3e-and-the-feel-of-D&D
https://www.enworld.org/threads/3e-and-the-feel-of-d-d.667269/

Tweet openly talks about excising any references of or to real-world mythology when worldbuilding for official 3e D&D.

Making the game entirely self-referential.

Effectively doing a "Year Zero" of D&D lore...

Select quotes:
"...one part of the process I enjoyed was describing the world of D&D in its own terms, rather than referring to real-world history and mythology. When writing roleplaying games, I enjoy helping the player get immersed in the setting, and I always found these references to the real world to be distractions."
...
"...by the time we were working on 3rd Ed, D&D had had such a big impact on fantasy that we basically used D&D as its own source."
...
"We were fortunate that by 2000 D&D had such a strong legacy that it could stand on its own without reference to Earth history or mythology."


Johnathan Tweet: Diversity-in-D&D-third-edition
https://www.enworld.org/threads/diversity-in-d-d-third-edition.668462/

Tweet openly discusses pushing a "diversity and inclusion" agenda for 3e.

Select quotes:
"One way we diverged from the D&D heritage, however, was by making the game art more inclusive."
...
"Luckily for us, Wizards of the Coast had an established culture of egalitarianism, and we were able to update the characters depicted in the game to better reflect contemporary sensibilities."
...
"By the time I was working on 3E, I had been dealing with the pronoun issue for ten years."


Notice how pissed he gets when the WOTC Marketing team of the time insisted that they throw their biggest sales demographic a bone...

"...the marketing team added Regdar, a male fighter, to the mix of iconic characters. We designers weren't thrilled, and as the one who had drawn up the iconic characters I was a little chapped."

And to his utter horror:
"... Regdar proved popular, and if the marketing team was looking for an attractive character to publicize, they got one."


The White male fighter hate was strong with the 3e design team:

Monte Cook: Originally Posted by Monte Cook on his now defunct livejournal blog.
https://www.thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?t=16418

Select quotes:
"When I worked at TSR, there was always basically a truism in cover art--the central figure had to be a white male. Most of us actually helping to create the cover art, either by conceiving it or actually creating it, hated that kind of outlook, ..."
...
"...when D&D was bought by WotC and we started working on 3E, we really felt that this was a time when we could break this mold. ..."
...
"It was a thumb to the nose of the old TSR requirement."
...
"At least that was our intention."
...
"...to the credit of a number of people--artists, art directors, designers and editors alike--our disdain for Regdar made its way into a lot of art. If you look closely, Regdar is getting thrashed on most of the early pieces he shows up in. (Look for his ignominious fate on the original DM's Screen, for example.) ..."


James Jacobs: ( D&D writer, and current Creative Director for the Pathfinder Adventure Paths.)
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2iha2?Monte-Cook-on-Gender-and-Race-in-DD-Art

This shit just speaks for itself...

Select quote:
"Killing off Captain Whitebread is indeed a time-honored tradition in WotC books. I've written my fair share of art orders for those books, and have made sure to have Regdar get blasted or ruined or murdered a few times myself (such as at the end of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk). It's a fun little semi-secret D&D tradition!"


WOTC D&D has hated its core sales demographic long before they eagerly bought their first copies of the 3e PHB.

And they have been paying WOTC to hate on them ever since.

I have to say, that's some pretty good research right there. Thanks for posting that.

Greetings!

*Laughing* Notice the stark contrast between what the average, dopey, naïve gamer likes to believe--there's just a few changes made, so the game is more appealing to a broader audience than old, fat white men--and the true, malicious ideologies and attitudes embraced by the lead designers and writers, and their insidious intentions to steadily subvert and corrupt the game.

The sharp contrast between the jello propaganda these people are perfectly happy to swallow--while fiercely defending WOTC and others from criticism--and the deeper truth is mind-boggling. It's like, "NO! NO! My favourite cuck game designers can't really be terrible degenerate scum, desperately committed to corrupting a treasured game hobby! REEE!!!!"

It's pretty sad and pathetic at how deep the cultural rot has destroyed our cultural foundations, and made so many seemingly-talented and bright people into willing change agents set on corrupting and fucking up everything they get their hands on.

I've been saying that forever. The SJW's--and the "Proto-SJW's" in decades before now have this driving hatred of our culture and Western Civilization, and they are themselves so deeply afflicted with nihilistic, self-loathing, and a giggling joy at corrupting and destroying everything.

They are absolutely disgusting.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Thornhammer on June 26, 2021, 03:35:45 PM"Make Fantasy Great Again" would have brought forth much more hilarity.

That would have required balls.

And it would have made them lots of money.

There's plenty of people with disposable income on the non-SJW side of the culture war and for many people, that cash is burning in their pockets to support good product.

And anti-woke company hosting anti-woke cons would make cash, and notable cash if their products were actually good.

  Well I guess that explains why Redgar was always getting his ass kicked.  I scratch my head at these people.  I also think, maybe this is why there really have not been many fantasy creatives to come along who can emulate REH.  He actually exercised and did all sorts of physical manly shit and respected physical manly shit.  The being a gifted writer was IMO, a bit of a gift (I do not think everyone can be a good dramatic writer) but the gift combined with actual experience of .... being in an actual fight and appreciation  for what it takes in such manly pursuits, created a form of writing that is realistic and never has to be overly detailed to communicate exactly what is happening.

    Reading how these clowns tried to make the character they viewed as the 'MAN", especially the hu-white MAN as the dunce getting clowned at all turns says a whole lot about how they view people like...me. I will keep this in mind when i see their names on products I guess.