Thursday, August 11, 2016

Dealing With the Converged: Step 1 - Cut Out and Choose Alternatives

When SJWs converge a business or non-profit, it will be turned towards promoting their death cult. The first reaction should be an immediate and total boycott of that converged entity, cutting it off from as much revenue as you can to slowly strangle it to death. For tabletop RPGs, this is a very viable option; being print and not digital or tied to hardware, old RPGs remain viable competition well after they fall out of print. Because of this, newer editions are in competition with older editions of the same RPG, and the wise are aware of this fact.

Tabletop RPGs are notoriously bad businesses. Smart people, if they must, use the tabletop RPG as an IP hothouse through which they build up a brand. Once they have the brand, they use it to move into more profitable (by comparison) niches. However, no such TRPG-based brand of IP has yet to escape the need to keep that original business going to sustain that growth. Kill it, and the entire edifice collapses.

That includes Dungeons & Dragons, the only TRPG that matters.

So, as Wizards of the Coast and Paizo Publishing are demonstrably converged by SJWs (as is all of the Seattle-based gaming orgs and corps), it is necessary to cut them out. Fortunately, D&D is one of the most widely-cloned TRPG out there, so alternatives are easy to acquire and many of them are dirt-cheap or free. (Also fortunate is that TRPG PDFs are widely pirated; if you have to have a SJW-converged game, there you go.)

The point here is that by going with these alternatives, you remove yourself from their extractive model- which they continue to tie to the convention scene and their Organized Play scheme, which they want to us to centralize control over gameplay culture by normalizing specific habits and norms through that scheme (and then use that centralized culture to push the Narrative).

So, let's restate for clarity:

  • Cut out the SJW-Converged Product or Service. Dump their stuff, and don't use it thereafter. For D&D this includes Pathfinder, 3.X, 4th, and 5th Edition D&D. Dump them, don't play them, and cease involvement with their Organized Play schemes.
  • Choose Alternatives: In addition to Original D&D, the Moldvay (B/X) and Mentzer (BEMCI) Basic D&Ds, and both Advanced D&D editions you have OSRIC (clone of AD&D), Dark Dungeons (clone of Mentzer Basic), Swords & Wizardry (clone of OD&D), The Black Hack (another OD&D clone), Labyrinth Lord (clone of Moldvay Basic), Astonishing Swords & Sorcerers of Hyperboria, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and more in that vein. Form your own group, or run an open table, and enjoy.
  • Promote the Forks: Get the word out. Do it, point others to it (post those links), show them what it is and how it benefits them.

This establishes a space for Step 2: Choke Them Out.

6 comments:

  1. A timely and informative post.

    To preempt the "Boycotts are evil/stupid/futile" crowd, it's less about the outcome than about who and what you're materially cooperating with.

    And to show that I won't ask anyone to do what I won't do myself, I haven't bought a new WotC or Paizo book in almost a decade. My group and I have been quite happy running our own home-brewed games for years.

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    1. A dollar less in your enemy´s pockets, is an improved world.

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  2. A good post indeed. I've noticed more and more convergence in pop culture lately.

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  3. Gygax, Holmes, Moldvay, Cook, Arneson, and countless others haven't called gamers whitecismalepissbabyterrorists. Only masochists would give money to companies who employ people who do.

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  4. Besides, the guys laboring under the OSR are generally producing material out of passion for the hobby. They don't make a living at it. They aren't using it as leverage to force your behavior to adhere to their standards. They just love the hobby.

    The people converging the hobby are using RPGs as a means to an ends. It's a weapon they use in a larger battle. Don't give ammo to those who are at best ambivalent about RPGs, give it to your fellow enthusiasts.

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