Endless high school. Author David Stewart explains.
I have one reaction to this trend out of WOTC and their fellow travelers in OldPub and the Big Two.
This is the result of a near-total severing of the hobby from the literary roots from which it grew and without which it dies, something that even this otherwise-apt meme misses because by the time of Dragonlance that severing was already well underway due to subversion in OldPub being actively undertaken.
That severance of the literary roots is also paralleled with a deliberate severing of the gameplay roots in wargaming that RPGs--all of them--grow from. These severed roots, which Jeffro has been rediscovering with his Trollopoulus campaign, are the the basis for today's SJW-converged WOTC and the not-D&D they push on a credulous public that doesn't know that they're not even getting the real game.
(Jeffro, you ought to be familiar with Dave Wesely's West Marches campaign.)
Much as folks bag on Boomers, with increasingly good as well as apparent reason, the reality is that the imaginative adventures of the founding cohort were far and away superior to those of their present successors. Good fodder--Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Michael Moorcock, E.R. Burroughs, Fritz Lieber, etc.--in fertile soil carefully cultiated by a paradigm of classic wargame campaigning with both at-table and away-from-table elements (see Jeffro's post above) using "Braunstein" as a model would in time become Blackmoor, Greyhawk, Tekumel, and other classic fantasy settings. However, being Boomers, they refused--not failed, refused--to pass on this cultural patrimony bequeathed to them to we that came after them.
Now we see the result of this failure of generational stewardship put before us. These are atrophied imaginations by emotionally-stunted retards using devotion to the Death Cult as a substitute for achieving maturity and moving into adulthood- fantasties of rewriting personal histories to assauge unfulfilled (and unreasonable) expectations instead of fantasies of realizing inchoate ambitions, exploring new worlds, or testing oneself against adverse conditions in emergency situations.
It would be tragic if they weren't useful idiots for their masters marching through the institutions of the West, whose dogma they carry out without thinking to keep the dopamine flowing.
Fortunately we have plenty of alternatives to Fake D&D out there, and D&D itself is immortal thanks to the Open Game License, as much as Death Cult Central wishes otherwise.
And once Jeffro's rediscoveries reach critical mass, the commercial end of this hobby will implode and take the clout-chasing cultists with it. They can't imagine that, so it will never occur to them to stop Jeffro and his allies from spreading the word, so atrophied is their imagination.
And once they are gone, and they will go, we'll be able to rebuild better and this time keep them out for good.
“That severance of the literary roots is also paralleled with a deliberate severing of the gameplay roots in wargaming that RPGs--all of them--grow from. …”
ReplyDeleteOne truth about the left that I have learned is that these guys are very proud of what they do, and always ‘out’ themselves sooner or later.
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…
Johnathan Tweet: 3e-and-the-feel-of-D&D
https://www.enworld.org/threads/3e-and-the-feel-of-d-d.667269/
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.”
One would think this would be enough...
But wait. There’s more…
ReplyDeleteJohnathan 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.) …”
This shit just speaks for itself...
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
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 was already left wing, and they hired two proto-woke gamers; Jonathan tweet and Monte Cook to design 3e.
Critical Theory based "inclusive" politics were actively being injected in 3e D&D before "going woke" really took off.
This can be proven from articles and post where Tweet and Cook talk about the creation of 3e.
Critical Theory based "inclusive" politics were actively being injected in 3e D&D well before most people knew what an SJW was.
Some people are in utter denial. “It’s barely there…” “Easy to ignore…” etc.
Not only should that crap not be there in the first place, but the dial always gets turned up never down. To the left we are all just a bunch of lobsters on slow boil. And they will milk and shame you for all the cash that they can before they boil you to death.
The stuff I cited in my little research bit is readily available. It was always there. The truth is easy to see for those with open eyes.
These guys have hated the mainstream RPG demographic for years. Because they have been taught to hate themselves, and so they hate you too.
People need to wake up and understand; The left is incapable of understanding hyperbole, or figures of speech; they take and mean everything literally.
The Left/SJW’s are not joking about what they want to do to us. They mean every word.