The Culture: Beast Can't Read

Grifting Beast is again ankle-biting the Bros and promoting Cargo Cult Dogma because he needs the Cult to buy shit he shills.

No, it's not Calvinball. It's not a folk tradition. It's no different than Chess; it's a game with a strict ruleset that is there to be used and obeyed. Using it wrong--"folk traditions"--doesn't stop being wrong because you did the meme.

from Imgflip Meme Generator

Because no, Grifty-Boi, you can't read. So many of you can't, so you resort to Calvinball to cope with being unable to read what Gary wrote and comprehend what he said.

Proper gameplay means that all of your problems cease to exist.

• You can play when you want, how you want, for as long as you want because there are gamemodes and procedures that focus on it- Schedule Your Fun isn't an issue.
• Strict Timekeeping means that the world is always in motion and thus opportunities for Happenings to play out are always there, and mandatory upkeep costs keeps all mans on the map focused on securing and protecting their logistics lest they be knocked out of play.
• No Calvinball. The rules say what they say, they are what they are, and everyone is bound by them- including the publisher. The Word Is The Authority, not the Referee, the publisher, or any other man. They can be read, studied, known, and mastered- same as Chess, UNO, Scrabble, or any other game because that's what this is.
• The focus is on being an independent actor operating under a Fog of War pursuing objectives. Some are individual mans, some control factions, and there are no permanent parties so you mix up who you play and who you play with on a regular basis.

This is presuming that Grifty does suffer a reading a comprehension problem. Far more likely is that he's doing this shit again.

These people don't know a goddamn thing about game design, so they fuck with things things that they shouldn't and then wonder why shit doesn't work.

Initative is one of them. It's there to manage information flows in combat by keeping things confined to one subset at a time; the more granular the procedure, the worse things are at the table and the more you argue for digitization and automation (i.e. Vidya) instead because that level of complexity is better done in competing media but that would mean that Grifty can (a) read and (b) consider Second and Third Order effects, and we see that he can't.

Shut up already.

The Culture: Remember To Not Give Them Money

Reminder that the other twat that started The End of Globohomo is still doing her racket.

And as for the recent shit racket release:

Go ahead, review bomb that shit.

Then, if it is actually worth playing, pirate that shit.

We're playing by Chicago Rules now. It's all Fair Game. Have at it, gang.

The Culture: Time Is A Flat Circle

The LOLcow sees what Ryan Dancey saw 26 years ago.

NETWORK EFFECTS, MOTHERFUCKER!

Folks gainsay Garipay here, but he's right: all competitors ultimately feed The Only Game That Matters, which is why they are not competitors at all. This is the old-time Blizzard playbook, and it works.

Dancey published the receipts on this when he announced the OGL back during the pre-release and early post-launch phase of D&D3e; he explained, in person at cons and at-length on forums, how this worked- the very process Garipay explained in his video above.

This is not new. This is how "The Industry" has always worked, because it's a bunch of tinkering twats doing Cargo Cultism because sweet fuck-all know jack shit about game design despite all pretensions to the contrary- as shown by their results.

(The ones that do know anything go into Vidya and actually make a living doing this that can afford children, at most keeping Tabletop as a sidegig like Mike Pondsmith did.)

This is why I immediatley dismissed the Darlings as the flashes in the pan (if that) that they were, along with the rest of the PDF Slop out there, as completely irrelevant; any good ideas--LOLNO--would filter up to The Only Game That Matters in due course.

Just play D&D- and play an edition that actually works. Braunstein is far more relevant and influential that this crap.

The Culture: Slopaganda Is In Tabletop Too

This applies to a lot of PDF Merchant shit out there.

Once you realize they're not really games you can use the existing word for crude, state-backed psyops

Slopaganda https://t.co/mKsKD3lzQy

— Brian Niemeier (@BrianNiemeier) May 10, 2026

The only difference is the covert Corpo backing.

Instead, it's nepos and those with nepo-baby friends or connections making these "to make a statement" or something equally fatuous on one hand and delusional incompetents on the other making their Fantasy Hearbreaker.

(Blanked) By The Apocalypse. (Blank) Hack. Flowery Bullshit Vaguely Based On Fagshit Books From Fellow Travellers Decades Ago. The Writer's Hobbyhorse & Fetish As A Game. All of them and more litter the shelves and would be better off throw on the pyre and burned- and the "games" too.

Either way, as I have said many times, it is a waste of time and money to make and to buy. Stick to The Game That Matters. Learn it, study it, master it because that one gets played and the rest sit on your shelf.. JUST. PLAY. D&D!

The Business: The Grogs Don't Get Why It's Being Done

Oldfags being unable to think like corpos again.

The problem with Official Game is not Muh DM Support.

The problem, so far as C-Suite is concerned, is the need for Dungeon Masters AT ALL.

It's been over 10 years since Current Edition's launch. D&D Beyond has achieved hegemony on the commercial side of the hobby. Wizards of the Coast knows this, which is why they feel secure shitting all over the Cargo Cult and the Oldfags in the OSR. They don't need the Cult anymore.

From the perspective of C-Suite, DMs are the problem. The solution is to remove the need for DMs entirely. The technology now exists to do that, and Wizards of the Coast (at Hasbro's insistance, driven by shareholder pressure) is working on doing that.

Why? Because there are FAR more players than DMs for Official Edition. Those people are hopelessly yoked to Beyond, so they are not going to leave The Only Network Effect That Exists for Your Dogshit Alternative.

Think like a Corpo. What's your clockblock? DMs. What's easier, getting players you trained by be passive raidloggers to run the game or replace the block with a bot?

Beep-boop, motherfucker. DM Bot is online, and it will be a better DM than the vast majority of shit DMs out there for all the same reasons that Vidya curbstomps the Cargo Cult: doesn't cheat, doesn't do Calvinball, always consistent, always available, and (this is the corpo-friendly killer app) only uses Approved Options and Content.

It will be rolled out first as an aid, then functionality will be added until it can openly shove the shit-tier DMs out of the chair entirely because DM Bot Is Always There.

Revealed Preferences show consistently that users prefer convenience over everything else, which is why WOTC is being told to do this and why it will succeed once implemented. Players want to play the game; DMs are the cockblock. Remove the block, and players play more; players that play more pay more to get more stuff that gives them advantages when they play, and Microtransactions are what Hasbro is pressing WOTC to turn Official Edition into and C-Suite will comply or get replaced with people that will.

Seattle's FIRING You!

This is what it means to be hammered from above by the Corpos. Meanwhile, the Cult and their Six Session Suckouts can't get over themselves so they won't be admitted to the Clubhouse where the Real Game will remain after the Corpos finish doing their job on the Official Edition.

No one wants what the Cargo Cult sells, or they wouldn't be coping so hard over WOTC's pivoting in a manner that solves the Cargo Cult problem from their perspective just as the Bros solved it by restoring what the Cult shoved down the Memory Hole.

They're already dead.

The Culture: "Winning Secrets" Is In The Wild

My physical copies of Winning Secrets and BROZER arrived on Friday last week.

When this becomes available, you should get a copy. This is, along with BROZER and UMBROS, the (at-present) collection of receipts that combine into a remedial teaching manual for what the hobby of Fantasy Adventure Gaming is and how it works.

The Business: WOTC Drones Justify Their Own Extinction

Last Wednesday, Pat cut the following video.

First: This is really about 100 Arena devs vs. Hasbro, not D&D.

Second: LOL.

These wankers have no leverage. Hasbro C-Suite will take this action as justification for liquidating these people, outsourcing/H-1Bing/AI replacing their positions, and then a review will see if the corporate structure needs to be shifted around to secure assets against any future liability threats.

What these people do not comprehend is that they are Hired Guns in positions where they are disposable, expendable, and fungible cogs in a machine. This will result in Hasbro accelerating their plans.

When--not if--this is done, there will be the usual wave of performative outrage before Network Effects do their thing and shut them up because they cannot endure the friction of not being in the scene where it is easiest to play. They will bloviate, and they go right back to giving Hasbro money to continue being viable in competitive play.

Don't think the D&D side of WOTC isn't aware of this. They are.

Hasbro is well aware of the liabilities in WOTC's offices and want to remove them. Some already got punted; the rest will go once the business model revision to rely on bot-generated content and art (and cheap labor otherwise) is complete and--as has been the case for 50 years--those self-possessed poseurs who think they matter will find out fast that all they can do is grift on Kickstarter until that goodwill runs dry.

And, quite frankly, fuck all of them.

The Real Game and thus the Real Hobby, being non-commercial, continues on without any of them unimpeded.