The Business: Raggi Is Right About Conventional Play Discourse

Last week, James Raggi of Lamentations of the Flame Princess reacted to this interview.

And he had OPINIONS!

James may not have the vocabulary, but he sees the problem: the problem is Conventional Play.

In the Comments, Grifting Beast shows up to argue that "Generic Fantasy" does exist but he too avoids that this is due to Conventional Play. Unlike Raggi, I don't give Beast the benefit of the doubt; Beast knows that his position can't be made without acknowledging that the dominance of The Only Game That Matters over 50 fucking years drowned out all other conceptions of Fantasy. Couple that with Normies Don't Go Out Of Their Way For SHIT, and that's how you get "Generic Fantasy" aka "Pink Slime Fantasy" and why it means "D&D Fantasy".

What that term means is entirely under the control of Management. You'd think that the audience gets a say, but the last decade--especially the last five years--shows that they do not; the party that matters is the party cutting the checks, and the audience doesn't cut the checks because that audience does not exist. Somehow WOTC, and Hasbro, are getting their funding from somewhere else (start looking at Vanguard, Blackrock, USAID, etc.) because what WOTC's C-Suite does complies with the social engineering mandates that the check-cutters want.

"But the audinece-"

Yes, tunes out. I know. The problem is that the audience is Normies, and Normies don't go out of their way for anything. They moved to anime and manga beause it's right there, in their faces, where they can easily see and get it; they don't have to out of their way, like they do for indie media of any sort, and it's already in English so they don't have to deal with subtitles or learn another language either- too much work for the Grillers.

"But that-"

Stop. Think countermove. If you know how the target generally behaves, you can manipulate them into compliance against their stated preferences by leaning on Revealed Preferences. The Revealed Preference of the Normie is to go with the easiest option that is least offensive. The countermove is to make all alternatives to what you're pushing more bothersome or offensive than what you have.

This is why we see Death Cultists occupy chokepoints in the importation of pop culture alternatives: translators, payment processors, local publishers, etc. and the smarter ones do as Mike Benz explained and work with government agencies and NGOs to crowbar their way into position before using that position to push the poz on the targetted actors. Doing this makes alternatives to the Mammon Mob and Death Cult offerings more inconvenient, more offensive, more bothersome, etc. than what the Normie Griller audience will accept so they come back on the reservation as it is the easiest and least offensive option.

That's what this Grifting Beast/Mearl interview displayed: Containment.

Beast's Appeal To Consensus is just that: Containment. Raggi may not be articulate about it, but he's got the right of it: games are products, machines, tools- and tools are made to fulfill a specific purpose, to execute a specific task. Use the proper tool for the job; this is contrary to what Network Effects and Brand Identity wants commercial operations to do, which is why all alternatives are depreciated and shut out while Use Brand For All The Things is pushed- and why people like Sandy Peterson get salty on main. Both sides are directly fucking with the money of the other, only one side has a nigh-insurmountable advantage and need only do the minimum to win.

We're going to see this smeared in our faces over the next several years as Conventional Play leaves the Real for the Grid.