Narrative Warfare: The Benefits of Treating Hobbies Like The Lodges They Are

Let's take the last few days' posts and apply this to tabletop RPGs.

Gatekeeping bad actors reliably requires exploiting their disdain for dedication and effort in recreational pursuits--i.e. refusing to Git Gud--while having a means to bring in new players that are willing to do what it takes. This is an initiation procedure. In corporate parlance, this is "onboarding", and now I refer you back to the Tutorial post.

You bring that player on step-by-step, teaching a rule or mechanic, and then immediately applying it with the explicit expectation that they are to remember this. You simultaneously show that player that they--not you, the Game Master--are responsible for their actions and therefore responsible for achieving the entertainment experience that they want to have. You do not care about their characters at all; you are utterly and absolutely indifferent, and through that indifference you demonstate that narrative logic and similar feels-based psuedo-logic does not apply.

Everyone that refuses to put forth the effort to learn the rules and acclimate to the requirements of successful play gets kicked out.

Normies should be told that this hobby is not for them--that they are not the audience--and sent away to do something more to their liking. Death Cultists--and they will out themselves, so don't worry about identifying them--should be identified and blacklisted as known bad actors so others can shut the gates in their faces in turn. They do this to us already; TURNABOUT IS FAIR PLAY!

This is not only acceptable behavior, it is necessary and vital to maintain a healthy hobby scene to screen out those that will not measure up regardless of why they do so. All things are not for all people. Recreational basketball players have no need to accomdate those that refuse to learn the skills needed to be effective players and form effective teams, recreational Three Gun shooters have no need to accomodate those hostile to private firearms ownership and possession, recreational fishermen have no need to accomodate "Green" (Red) faggots screeching about Muh Environment or Muh Climate, and no hobby needs to accomodate those unwilling to become what they must to win at the thing- and that includes RPGs, because you most certainly can #winatRPGs.

Okay, you've got a gatekeeping mechanism that filters out bad actors and Normies as well as sweeps out entryists that somehow slip through. Good. Now what?

A healthy hobby scene maintains its connection to its roots, and shuns becoming so insular and self-referential that it disappears up its own ass. This means senior hobbyists take the time to teach the hobby to those freshly initiated, including its history and origins, much of which explains why things are done the way that they are. For RPGs, this means:

Start with everything in Appendix N of the Dungeon Master's Guide to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st Edition, with Jeffro Johnson's Appendix N as a parallel study guide with commentary. Then branch out from there, starting with other works by those same authors in Appendix N, then the wider Pulp literature followed by its worthy successors.

Then mix in the historical works--biographies, documentaries, etc.--which informed and inspired those literary works. The wargaming hobby (which RPGs are a branch of) roots itself in the analysis of past events and their key actors, so having a command over the knowledge of who did it, what they did, when they did it, where they did it, how they did it, and why. For bonus points, learn some additional languages so you're not trapped into an information chokepoint- you can't act on thoughts that you don't have because you never got the information needed to think it.

Again, this requires dedication and effort. What it does not require is monomanacial hyperfocused attention, i.e. grinding. This is something you can while you go about your ordinary life pursuing a career, cultivating a healthy marriage and family life, executing civil and religion duties and obligations, and otherwise being a useful adult in your community. Nonetheless, you must insist on making time for the hobby; otherwise you have a Normie-grade passtime and not a hobby.

This knowledge is what comprises a healthy hobby's subtance, and its transmission from mentors to proteges is how that substance is renewed generation to generation, and in the RPG hobby that knowledge has components beyond what is on the page. Requiring dedication and effort compells the cultivation of habits and virtue that are useful and beneficial to both the individual and the collective in all aspects.

And this cannot be done if we don't be selective, exclusive, and discriminating against those that cannot or will not measure up- and we're already living with the consequences of failing to do so. Purge the heretics, then shut the gates.

Don't believe me? Look at the story of the failure to keep out bad actors from the Pulps over a century ago with JD Cowan's latest release, and see how we got to this hellscape.