The Culture: Lovecraft Is Played Out

"Oh no, Muh Sanity-Blasting Horrors!"

*sigh*

No, I don't think they are. Horrors? Yes. Sanity-blasting? No, and not for anyone at the time either, which is why I have long suspected that no one took the Sanity rules from Call of Cthulhu seriously because they didn't take the sanity-blasting seriously either. No, we have not gotten any better; it's only gotten worse.

Which is why I suggest, for those who still use it, to instead use it for running SCP Foundation games. No, they still aren't sanity-blasting horrors, but they are far more in line with what prospective players want out of such a play experience. Furthermore, since sweet fuck-all is going to happen if you just yoink from the Wiki and share videos like these all you need is the bare-assed bones--the literal technical manual--since COC is far more of a vibe, a vibe that SCP and similar stuff like the Backrooms does better and is easier to get folks to engage with.

We have, and have had, multiple popular videogame takes on the concept by now. Some are licensed; most are not. Some are serious; most are not. For all the high weirdness, folks still don't buy into Muh Sanity-Blasting Horrors, for no other reason than they can't engage with a game if they did take that seriously. There's been reams of studies by now, some of which actually got replicated, showing just how malleable "normal" is and thus how people can indeed adapt--even thrive--in radically changed environments.

TLDR: We are nowhere near as fragile as Mythos fans would like to believe. That should be the source of horror here.

And it is this fact that reframing COC to SCP The Game nails: how piss-easy it is for Le Normalfags to accept that the behaviors they otherwise would not do is necessary and thus normal to do when doing it for Foundation (or whatever) reasons. Delta Green tried to commit to this, but wussed out; Kult didn't have the language or the framework to make it successful. Normies in general don't buy the premise, nor should they, and savvy horror people don't even try; they do as I noted above.

And yes, COC as SCP-The-Game? Instantly playable as a Real Game with Total Non-Stop Braunstein in full effect- even a challenge, due to timey-whimey bullshit being on the table. Unlike Muh Cthulhu, you can actually get plenty of people to play! (Dibs on playing the Wandsmen.)

The Culture: Do Your Job Or Get The Fuck Out

This past week, the Roll For Combat crew demonstrated why Conventional Play cultists are fucking retards.

Oh holy shit, these retards still think that role-playing is acting. That's Theater Kid bullshit making itself felt.

We have the definition of the term. EVERYONE HAS GOTTEN THIS WRONG SINCE! AD&D1e DMG, page 86.

Consider the natural of each class of character. Consider also the professed alignment of each character. Briefly assess the performance of each character after an adventure. Did he or she perform basically in the character of his or her class? Were his or her actions in keeping with his or her professed alignment? (...) Clerics who refuse to help or heal or do not remain faithful to their deity, fighters who hang back from combat or attempt to steal, or fail to boldly lead, magic-users who seek to engage in melee combat or ignore magic items they could employ in crucial situations, thieves who boldly engage in frontal attacks or refrain from acquisition of an extra bit of treasure when the opportunity presents itself, "cautious" adventurers who do not pull their own weight- these are all examples of a POOR rating.

Yes, this applies to Palladium, Pendragon, Cthulhu, and everything else because there are roles in place implicity to make the thing viable for play at all. That's what the term means: doing the job that your man signed up to do. It is not dice-rolling. it is not Theater faggotry. It is DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB!

You signed up to be a Paladin? You signed up to do a specific job. You are rewarded for doing your job competently, and penalized for fucking up or refusing to do what you signed up for. Simple as. Signed up to be an Assassin? You have a job. Signed up to be a Druid? You have a job. Every class, every alignment, and I would argue every race alll have a job tied to them that matters in the campaign. You make a Not-Superman? You're expected do so Superman things. You don't want to do that? PLAY SOMETHING ELSE!

Yes, this does mean that the multi-classed demi-humans have competing class interests to balance in order to level up in addition to the permanent division of earned XP along all classes.

With this one error, the rest of the stream's topic is depreciated or rendered irrelevant; until you know what playing your role is, the question of the importance of math is not a relevant one.

And yes, these retards get other things wrong--yes, Mark, games by definition have to have win/loss conditions because they have end conditions--which is why the cannot be saved, nor should they, and when the end comes for them it will be better for the hobby.

The Culture: They're STILL Trying To Get In Front Of Us

The Professor didn't intend to do this, but he revealed why Critical Role's doing West Marches.

This is not a big hobby. The distance between me and the offices in Seattle is not as long as people think; current and former WOTC people know who I am.

The idea that the Bros and the revival of Braunstein is not known where it matters is not a reasonable position to have; they know, even if they dismiss(ed) it, and they do keep hearing about what goes on deep underground because they pay attention to the retroclone scene (where the Bros get plenty of attention).

There are savvy people at Wizards of the Coast. They may not be on the board, or the shot-caller, but they are there and where they can they do act. Someone there, sensing what's bubbling deep underground, decided to look back and dug up West Marches. That this older half-assed version of the Real Game just happened to fit the needs of a perfect marketing tool and its utility as a backstop for Hollywood talent made it a no-brainer to use for the show.

Watch for it. This will be covertly and discreetly pushed as "The new and exciting way to play D&D that solves so many of your problems!" That's getting out in front of the Bros and the regeneration of the hobby, a thing that necessarily takes them out of their central position due to de-commodifying the hobby as a necessary element of regenerating and restoring it back to what it should have always been.

The tell? They're already pushing the drop-in/drop-out element as a feature for the CR audience, something that will be sold as an improvement implicitly so that the Normies (who, again, do not like Scheduling Your Fun and Official D&D does require that) infer that this is better for them than what they've been doing. Watch for it to get pushed in new marketing, new products, revised products, etc.--such as that new Dark Sun release--going forward.

You know you're seeing confirmation when there is a push from Seattle to kill the long-held Conventional Play norm of only getting to play one man at a time, instead of playing a roster of mans that rotate on and off the bench like Normies do in World of Warcraft and similar online counterparts, because that is as far as they dare to push to keep the Bros in containment because they know that Normies already playing don't like rapid change.

Is this good news? We'll see. There's successful containment, and there's failed containment; which this is remains to be seen.

The Culture: The Fight's Not Over, Gang

MentisWave had to remind people that Woke Is Not Dead.

Trump can't do all the work. Some of those bodies need to be piled on by us.

This means that the war isn't over, that we cannot relax, and that we must instead press the advantages we have to continue the fight until this enemy that seeks our very extinction--their words--has instead suffered their own; they are the Terminator, and we remain on Death Ground.

They wouldn't be trying to kill us if they did not fear us. Rip and tear until it is done.

The Culture: What Afflicts The Devil Mouse Is Not Confined To It

This video article talks about Marvel and Mouse Wars, but this is not confined to those franchises.

TLDR: The young men of the emerging generational cohorts (the Zoomers, and soon to be followed by Gen Alpha) tuned this crap out.

Turns out that when you say "We don't want you!" they listen and go elsewhere. Now that's being felt at the bottom line, with more and more failures. What WDW Pro did not address is that this same thing also applies to the rest of Hollywood, the rest of Western mainstream media (e.g. the failure of Doctor Who), and in Vidya and Tabletop.

The Culture Industry, as controlled by the Death Cult and backed up by the Mammon Mob, relies on Millenials and Gen Y; these are the cohorts now moving into institiutional power in the West and slowly taking over from the Boomers and Jonesers.

What Brian Niemeier said--that the Boomers are handing off to the Millenials as their meme clones--is coming to pass; the other displacements are part-and-parcel of this process.

Go figure that those frozen out are deciding that they can just go where they are treated best instead, and there are places where they are wanted--valued, treasured--out there. Only now is the Death Cult noticing, and boy are they freaking out over the idea that their designated punching bags can escape from the prison prepared for them. You want to know why there is renewed censorship being pushed? This is part of it. You want to know why there is increased detontation of the economy for them? Here it is. TINA must be enforced or the Death Cult loses.

Tabletop has done worse than tried and failed. They did not try at all. Vidya, at the very least, tried and failed to reach the young adults.

The problem is that Tabletop is in a situation similiar to, but not indentical too, what happened in OldPub: ideological capture, supported by the Mammon Mob, calcified around Millenial/Gen Y segments suffering from Troll's Remorse and other vectors for becoming pozzed as Boomers did to the mainstream entertainment industry in the 1980s when they seized control.

The result is that more and more of the existing audience check out of the new releases outside of the core franchse (i.e. other than The Only Game That Matters), such that even Le Indie Darlings no longer move the needle- despite all the chatter claiming otherwise. The data makes it clear that there is only competition within the dominant network and its associated brand; everyone else, even ones that can claim a following of any size, are irrelevant--no one outside of Tabletop cares about RIFTS, despite 35 years of it being in the Top Five, and the same goes for all other brands--

The only big change was the adoption of Virtual TableTops as the norm for play, which--despite Sigil failing--WOTC did achieve to further enhance Official D&D's position of dominance; most people refuse to buy anything they can't use on a VTT (especially WOTC's D&D Beyond), and WOTC's been slowly pushing everyone over to the most recent revision of Official D&D. (That's why Foundry, etc. are so popular on Steam and why Discord/Guilded is so widely used.)

The retroclone push began over a decade ago. That slowed, but did not stop, with Current Edition, and especially as the Old Ways regenerate the hobby the experiences young men crave will draw them in just like Roguelikes and Soulsborns did. The Great Retrenchment means that those young men, if they play at all, will play the older editions because that is where the experience they seek can be done. Just play D&D.

The Business: The Price War Over Status Identity For The Hobby

The Pundit noticed the price changes.

Let's acknowledge one thing: yes, adjusted for inflation, $15 in 1980 is $60 now.

That's a verifible fact. There is just one problem: this is not the issue at hand.

The problem is that the perception of a luxury good--which is what every Tabletop product is--in terms of social class is determined largely by its price at retail. What we are now seeing, as a consequence of the larger cultural and economic bifurcation, is that there is a struggle within the busiess side of Tabletop by the Conventional Play outfits over the identity of the hobby.

Those pushing for higher prices want to position the hobby as a High Status luxury pursuit, suitable for the fashionable crowd to be seen and known to partake of, seeking to take advantage of the celebrity presence in the hobby and the influence of Critical Role to price out the undesirables in favor of a far more wealthy and status-anxious demographic that have been long accumstoned to using Conspicious Consumption as a form of Status Signalling because it's necessary for career success.

Those pushing to maintain the historic low prices tend towards a populist perception of the hobby, not caring that this also signals low social status, and many of them are legacy outfits that are either in operation solely to maintain IP control or are active operations that will inevitably wind down as legacy personnnel rotate out by one means or another. The rest are self-funding hobbies or delusional dreamers, both of which are in this end for their own reasons.

Regular readers should know where I stand on this question by now.

The future of the hobby, as it must be, stands not in going for the High Status people with money. That's the route to completing the destruction of it. The future is the past, the past is as a cheap low-status pursuit kept behind closed doors in tightly-held clubhouses, and the future is the disappearance of the hobby from popular perception as it goes back underground- never again to return.

The price for regeneration is rejection of fashionable approval. Pay it.

The Business: Copium Huffing In The Conventional Play Crowd

The narrative coming out now is that the Mercer Crew rooked WOTC into cutting them a check.

As a certain wombat is prone to say:

This is flat-out bullshit that Stephan's pushing here.

There is no world where Daggerheart is a threat to The Only Game That Matters. There is no world where the Mercer Crew can try to get some leverage over The Only Tabletop Publisher That Matters by begging on Kickstarter for a print run that miraculously sold through (because it's pathetically small, as is often the case in Tabletop). There is no world where WOTC sponsoring the show is anything but a fucking rounding error for WOTC compared to where the real money is.

In short, this is some Baghdad Bob bullshit to soothe the butthurt of being told that Your Indie Darling Doesn't Pay The Bills, Retard.

Remember that CR is Normie-facing. Normies Only Play D&D. Normies turn off for everything else- even Star Wars (and that was before Kulty Kathy and the Kunty Katty Krew crashed the brand). CR not playing D&D, by their own metrics, was a colossal failure; WOTC knows it, CR knows it, and so does the audience. CR didn't rook shit; CR bent the knee to the One True King.

There is only one game that matters. It has achieved Total Dominance over the hobby, something Conventional Play refuses to accept despite skyscrapers (and decades) of receipts proving it. There is only competition within the Network and its Brand; there can never be any from without.

Just Play D&D.

The Business: Colville Isn't The Leader In Analog Vidoegame Development

Joe has OPINIONS!

The comparison of 5e to 4e is not out of line.

The real comparison is between the two iterations of 5e. What he reveals is that 5.5 is, in a manner that was more literal than I expected, an analog videogame.

Remember that 5e already had one CRPG adaptation that worked well enough (Solana) before Baldur's Gate 3 showed up. Normies do not think in description terms when it comes to game; they think in proscriptive terms. It's the difference between "Not forbidden is permitted" and "Not permitted is forbidden"; the latter is the analog videogame take to tabletop game design.

Joe correctly nails that the problem is Virtual Tabletop Integration, which he also notes is what Wizards of the Coast wanted with 4e but failed to achieve. 5e did achieve it, and it is not far and away the norm for ALL Tabletop play- not just Current Edition. The Roll For Combat crew, among other bottom feeders in the hobby, have actively bemoaned this on a regular basis: they can't sell Endless Product Slop to the Beyond Only or VTT Only crowd (i.e. THE NORM OF THE BUSINESS) because these people routinely do not have Beyond/VTT integration in their slop product offerings.

Yes, believe it or not, the slop problem could be a hell of a lot worse; WOTC actually did the hobby a solid there, if not for the right reasons.

This is likely the biggest reason for Le Indie Darlings failing to so much as make contact with The Only Game That Matters, which plays into the Narrative behind Critical Role using 5.5 over Daggerheart, which is tomorrow's post.

The Culture: Gen Con Doesn't Matter. Cons Don't Matter. Culture Is Retrenching, Morons.

GenCon 2025 went down the other week. Don't be surprised that there's no buzz.

What we're seeing with GenCon is not just a Tabletop or a Conventional Play problem. Rather it's a wider Convention Culture problem.

The fan convention has been something that’s been a staple for science fiction, fantasy, comic books, and gaming, but in recent years it looks like events like Worldcon, Star Trek conventions, and others are on the verge of dying out as the group that started them is aging without a younger demographic coming up behind them to fill out attendance.

This weekend was the large Star Trek Las Vegas convention, run by a company called Creation, which has been doing the conventions for over 50 years, with Las Vegas holding a mega-convention since 2001. The convention boasts over 100 guests from the various Star Trek shows each year, and at its peak, it was garnering around 25,000 fans. It doesn’t look that way anymore.

The problem is not just Death Cult wanking being all over the place; that's the lagging indicator. The real issue is that the money's gone; the Mobsters are either pulling out entirely, or they are yanking the leash on the Death Cultists among them for messing with the money because the Death Cult hasn't gotten the memo yet that the Money Printer got shut off (that's all that USAID and related looting of the US Treasury was about).

As these propaganda fronts got their funding cut, now those fronts need to do actual business and turn a profit to stay alive. Guess what kept these conventions afloat? That's why the Trek con was so shit, and why Gen Con does not matter anymore: the people who push away the profits like vampires shun the Cross have made it nigh-impossible to run a business, and the massive collapse in discretionary spending means that the cult-like schemes employed via crowd-funding to keep the grift going has faltered (and for some, failed). The end result? Total Hobbyist Retrenchment.

The Tourists, Casuals, and Normies are more and more actively shaming and shunning those Indie Darlings and the weridoes that push them like the second coming of Jesus in favor of The Only Game That Matters: Official D&D. The data doesn't lie: every Indie Darling and foreign IP claiming to be the D&D Killer can, has, and will fail just like every WOW Killer in the MMORPG niche can, has, and will fail and for the same reasons.

Freakish weirdoes from the Soup Aisle push that bullshit. Grifters farm those freakish weirdoes for clout and cash, selling them slop they don't need for games they never play and never will, because despite 25 YEARS OF HARDCORE DATA BACKING UP THE ORIGINAL ARGUMENT'S CASE these people still think that Network Effects are not real--if they did, they'd never bother trying to compete with The Only Game That Matters--and thus keep putting out their dogshit competitors to less than a fart in the wind.

Meanwhile, if you try to tell them that commercial pursuit in this manner is never going to work, you get gainsayed first and vindicated later when they end up wrecked by their own hubris. Go non-commercial, you retards, and earn your living elsewhere doing something that pays a living like working in a factory.

Stick to what gets played, not Le Indie Bullshit, you clout-chasing cockgobblers.

The Culture: Braunstein Solves The Problem With Mysteries That Conventional Play Has

DM Lack, being a Conventional Play Cultist, doesn't see what the solution is because he wants to sell it to you.

The solution is this: make the players cause the problem to be solved.

You hand the responsible actor off to a player. Let him Do The Thing. Other players are now trying to stop a living, breathing human actor--not an analog AI--so suddenly that problem about how to come up with a mystery scenario ceases to be relevant because you reframed the situation into a Player vs. Player scenario that is ideal for a Braunstein session.

Go back to that Dunder Moose stream. That's a Mystery scenario. That's the solution DM Lack needs for his problem, and he can get it all done in one night- or, rather, it would if he weren't a PDF Merchant shilling for his completely superfluous Endless Product Slop.

If DM Lack here were really about protecting Player Agency he would use the play format that relies upon it as a fundamental level. He's not, so he has to do the meme.

from Imgflip Meme Generator

You can do Braunstein for free. Just use Braunstein for this. You don't need Endless Product Slop or whatever other PDF Merchant crap hucksters like DM Lack puts out in an attempt to get suckers to pay his bills. It's simpler, easier, far more engaging, and far more friendly to the Tourist crowd bottom-feeders like DM Lack cater to.

The Culture: You Fix This Problem By Letting Players Wargame From The Top Down

Another Conventional Play guy doesn't get it.

By now you should have figured out the problem: players give no fucks about your retarded lore bullshit.

Why?

They have no skin in the game. Not their mans- them, specifically. Want to know why the old, original form of campaign play is superior? They have skin in the game. They have a vested interest in seeing someone win, or someone lose, or both because they're the people who made the domains happen by way of running the factions (and their ruling mans) who made it so, not some Forever Referee who's really some form of Frustrated Novelist or Wannabee Showrunner.

It's no long Loredump McSnorefest. Now it's Bob's Wizard Empire because Bob created the Wizard Empire through playing his Wizard man up into someone who pursued magics that bound others to his will and enforces his decrees. Folks who want to trash the Wizard Empire will roll up mans who want to trash the Wizard Empire, and those who want to expand or usurp it will roll mans to do that. By their actions--REVEALED PREFERENCES BEING REVEALED--you get these things to happen.

All the Referees need to do is sit back, munch on the popcorn, and ensure that the rules of the game are obeyed and the integrity of the campaign is maintained- wins and loses must be earned by the book.

Conventional Play can't do this without breaking their own cult dogma, which is why the #BROSR is now driving the bus.

The Culture: Grifting Beast Bullshits About Running The Game

Grifting Beast must be low on people to steal from for content if this is what he's doing.

You have to be a Conventional Play Cargo Cultist to even think that this is something to discuss.

Meanwhile, back in the Normiesphere, it's this simple: READ THE FUCKING MANUAL! DO WHAT IT SAYS EXACTLY AS IT SAYS!

The Hobbyist, being on the other end of the bellcurve, is the same. Thus we have the meme.

from Imgflip Meme Generator

The only thing left to conclude is that most Tabletop designers are dogshit at their job, both as designers and as technical writers. Properly written technical manuals kill all ambiguity in how to use the widget, and properly designed widgets always produce the intended outcome when used as directed.

What Grifting Beast is really talking about is how to cope with the dogshit quality of most Tabletop products on the shelf, past and present. In the real world, the solution to dealing with this problem is this simple: don't use dogshit products, you collosal retards!

Play a game that is competently made, and competently documented, exactly as you are told to use it. That's the solution. That's why you can toss over 90% of the product on the shelves into the incinator, and those who made them, because-

Nothing Of Value Was Lost The Critic GIFfrom Nothing Of Value Was Lost GIFs

The Culture: Dunder Moose Talks BarrowStein

Last night, Dunder had a panel discussion on Barrowstein.

Like others featured by Dunder Moose, this Braunstein scenario was a one-night session where a Convergence of actors occured and needed to be resolved. In this case, this was a matter within the elite caste of a campaign's major polity--a Magocracy--within which came opportunities for others to advance their own agendas.

By the time it was over, you had demons in the palace, aliens bursting from victims bodies, a tactical nuclear weapon detonated, magic and firepower being used, and some rather weird familial dynamics being revealed. This could have leaped out of the pages of Heavy Metal Magazine or a Michael Moorcock novel.

We also see that the #BROSR is getting very good at refining the structure laid down by Dave Weaseley all those years ago now. The Bros have incorporated Braunstein play into the full structure of Fantastic Adventure Wargame campaigning, both in this specific format and in the more long-term format commonly referred to as Play By Post.

You can get in on this too. The Bros put all the #WinningSecrets down in BROZER, which--again--is free in PDF and at-cost in print.

The consequences of this Braunstein event will now be carried forward back into regular play at the table, as the surviving actors either exploit their win or cope with their loss in a manner that demands Diffusion away from each other for a time before pursuit of their objectives inevitably force another Convergence at a future point in time.

After Action Reports like this continue to show how superior this is for creating and sustaining a campaign over time over Conventional Play. Now everyone else just needs to catch up, again.

The Culture: Iron Age Media Presents Battleborn Magazine

Folks are trying to be the change they want to see.

The campaign link is here.

FROM THE 'FRONTLINES¯OF FANTASY

ATTENTION RECRUITS!

WHAT IS BEST INLIFE? AYE, THE THRILL OF THE FIGHT, RED MEAT AND DARK LIQUER,THELAUGHTER OF CHILDREN AND, TELLING TALES OF HEROES!

DERRING DO, AND BLOOD AND THUNDER, DASHING ROGUES AND HARDFIGHTING, HEROES, SEEKING GOLD AND GLORY, AND SPILLING AN OCEAN OF BLOOD AND GUTS ALONG THE WAY.

THE KIND OF SWORD & HEART POUND, PUTS A FIRE IN YOUR BELLY; AND BURNS A PLACE IN YOUR VERY SOUL.

IF THE LOVE FOR HEROIC FANTASY BEATS IN YOUR CHEST LIKE A BATTLEDRUM, THEN.JOIN US AS WE BLOOD AND THUNDER BACK TO THE FRONTLINES OF FANTASY!

BECOME A HERO.

BECOME A LEGEND.

BECOME... BATTLEBORN!

Take a look. See if you want in or not. I have nothing to do with this project and thus have no opinion; I am merely boosting the signal.

The Culture: Pat Talks Censorship

Pat had a rant.

Pat's got a point. No one involved in this can be trusted; it's not about the Cause, it's about the Revolution- it always is.

But, and this is where everyone needs to take a chill pill, there are workarounds that I know work.

BUY. OUR. BOOKS.
Over 30 titles.
Junger, Mishima, Codreanu, Evola, Guenon, Nietzsche, Serrano and others. And you can get Tsar Press books through us as well.
A lot of new stuff coming up soon!
Shoot us a message at carthulepub@protonmail.com pic.twitter.com/MXK2PvXjWt

— Caribbean Thule Publishing 🌴 (@CarThulePub) October 29, 2023

These guys did it.

You want details? Hit them up and ask how they do it.

I bet it goes something like this:

• You email them with a query.
• They send you a donation link.
• You donate X amount.
• As a free gift, they send you the book you want.
• The donation account and the account used to procure and send the books are two separate accounts, with a third used to move funds from A to B.
• The secondary account is linked to a POD service that has the books uploaded as Unlisted so only the uploader can see them; they buy copies, receive them, then resend them to the buyer- this avoids scrutiny.
• Buyer gets their book, and it's always a fresh copy.

You can do this digitally too. Buyer is, on paper, making a donation; they get (on paper) the file as a gift. Public Broadcasting does this ALL THE TIME in their shillathons, and they are not the only legitimate outfits that do this.

You're gamers. Play the game. Master the rules and do it better than they do.

The Culture: Macris Talks With Brian Niemeier

Last night Alexander Macris had Brian Niemeier who is currently running the Nethereal 10th Anniversary Special Edition Novel Kickstarter and discuss the indie author life and how one needs to rapidly adapt to constant algorithm manipulations.

Just days left to go, but well past funded so you're clear to back with confidence.

Above and beyond everything else that went down, the fuckery from Mastercard is rather poignant in light of the recent Steam censorship.

The need for payment methods that are not slaved to VISA, Mastercard, or American Express are now necessary; if Vox Day can do it--and he has, at UnauthorizedTV--you should too if you are at all at risk of getting choked out of mainstream means.

There is a bill in the US Congress.

I said it on stream and I pinned it to my recent video about payment processors
but if you care about this censorship and live in the US, while exposing the feminist harpies and other useful idiots who push for censorship is good and necessary, please make sure to contact your… https://t.co/6EgN82s59o pic.twitter.com/ngEYCZb8tH

— Kirsche 🥥 🧁 (@KirscheVerstahl) July 21, 2025

Time to yeet these chokepoint holders.

The Culture: The #Godstein Breaks Containment

One of the Current Edition channels again talked about what the Bros are doing, albeit by way of the Women's Division Champion.

Credit to the man for crediting Harmony Ginger as the one who (a) coined the term "Godstein" and (b) directing people to read her Substack articles on the matter. That's a step away from what he tried to do previously--stealing credit from the Bros for Braunstein and its mode of play--so the bullying worked. (Keep that in mind; these people are squishy bitches so handle them accordingly when they step out of line.)

But why take his word for it?

Dunder Moose had Harmony on last night to get it straight from the #Godstein table.

The Culture: Living Urf Presents Braunstein! In! SPACE!

Dunder Moose had on the gang behind last weekend's Spacestein.

This was quite the event.

Using Classic Traveller, this dust up in a backwater space station was one part Alien and one part Outland with a side of Ice Pirates.

This scenario had several widgets in play, each of which offered advantages to whomever got a hold of them and were valuable enough to fight over. Lots of things went down that everyone else was not necessarily privy to know at the time, necessitating After Action Reporting just to piece together things into a cohesive and coherent whole.

We have the player Session Reports below:

• The winner, Vince McMaximus
• Hoot Owl's report
• Tourneville's report
• Brig's report
• Joshua's report
• Merinus's report

I'm sure that there's others, and those fine men will not hesitate to tell everyone where to read theirs in due course.

You too can enjoy playing Braunstein. Go download BROZER (or buy a print copy) today and get playing tomorrow.

The Business: The Death Of Diamond Drags Down Conventional Play As Expected

I told all you Conventional Play publishers that you were fucked. You didn't listen. NOW YOU'RE HERE!

I told you the Colony Drop was coming. I told you when it hit. I told you repeatedly to Get The Fuck Out Of Dodge. YOU! DID! NOT! LISTEN!

You should have listened to me.

Diamond does not have to pay these people anymore. They can just sell what they have and pocket the revenue.

Between this and the tariffs--they're only delayed, not cancelled, and the palace coup in Beijing means they're going to come back good and hard soon--Conventional Play people like this are reduced to open begging for money like the cheap whores they are instead of the businessmen they pretend--they LARP--to be.

They cannot run a business; they are reduced to begging for scraps like the losers they are.

In any other business sector you would NEVER consider giving such incompetent fuckwit losers your money. You would let them die, and you would be correct to cut them loose. DO THAT HERE AND NOW!

Don't give him money. Don't give anyone like him money. Not while they keep front as businessmen running a business. Punish stupidity and incompetence with bankruptcy and death; you don't need them, the hobby does not need them, and we are all better off without them- and we always have been. Nature is healing at long last.

The Culture: Macris Talks With Dominic Martyne About D&D's History

Macris is joined by Dominic Martyne to discuss his crowdfunded book Dungeons & Dragons: An American Institution.

Yes, this is the same guy that was on Dunder Moose the other week. If you missed it, his Kickstarter page is here.

You can expect that the core point is the same: Jon Peterson and his Fellow Travelers cannot be trusted to tell our story, so we have to do it oursevles.

This is Narrative Warfare. Peterson and others of his camp are deliberately rewriting history to suit their ends when they deny that this is a wargaming hobby and thus the game has to be run as a wargame in a wargaming social environment.

This interview is a good follow-up to the Dunder Moose appearance. Watch both, and back the book.