The Culture: Grifting Beast Can't Admit It

The Grifting Beast cut this video this week.

The answer is, as anyone with a clue knows, NETWORK EFFECTS!

But this video does have value: he explains why the Cargo Cult persists.

This is indepdendent confirmation of what I have previously posted.

“Direct conflict” as opposed to “cross-purposes” conflict actually (usually) produces less drama because of its directness. If we’re playing chess, we both know going into it that someone will lose (or claw out a draw) and someone will win. We accepted that as part of the game. But games with slightly more subtle conflict don’t have that psychological acceptance built in to the decision to play the game. A kid might know that there’s only going to be one winner in Monopoly, but what he won’t have realized is that means that he’s going to be (potentially) screwed over by 3 other players at the same time. This is both a much more sportsmanship-taxing ask, and also not an explicit ask. That’s the core of the problem.

- Tenari

Read on Substack

I will again bold this for emphasis:

"Normal People are poor sports.

But Normal People want to have a relaxing evening with a mildly enjoyable diversion. So whenever they play a game with “fun” conflict it creates real drama and they either stop playing that game, or house-rule it to avoid conflict (which breaks the game)".

The Normies ARE THE PROBLEM! They need to go, one way or the other; if that bastion of gaming integrity known as Blizzard Entertainment (you know, the folks behind World of Warcraft) can shrug off the Normies and thrive after sloughing off that dead weight, Wizards of the Coast can too.

Grify Boi can't admit it because that directly fucks with his income.

The Oldfags can't admit it for the same reason. Same for the PDF Merchants and other Cargo Cult enablers and exploiters.

Normies need to be shunted off to the products that are purpose-built for their satsifaction--piss-easy boardgames, piss-easy videogames, etc.--and cater to their Revealed Preferences, something that is antithetical to the medium and hobby of Tabletop Fantastic Adventure Games.

This is why the Clubhouse, as well as D&D, is inevitable. The latter draws in all the worst, and the former exists to sift out the wheat from the chaff so those who belong here can engage and enjoy to their full potential in peace.

The rest can use products that cater to them, and not waste our time with their retardery.