Next Edition of Blue Rose Poised To Spotlight, Embarrass Marginalized Communities

Preview Art for Green Ronin's Inclusive Fantasy Game Released To Nervous Silence

Crusading Game Designer Takes Stand For Borg Rights

"Star Trek Is Hella Homophobic When I Pretend Fascist War Cyborgs Are Gay People" Says
Freelancer

While modern Star Trek fans are celebrating George Takei and John Cho's Lieutenant Sulu coming out as gay, a vigilant game designer has revealed all is not well in the popular science fiction franchise for lgbt citizens.

 "I have reached the Voyager watershed that is "The Gift," and I feel like I understand why so many people hate 7 of 9," begins a trenchant Google+ post by Smallville RPG contributor Josh Roby "I also kind of want to vomit."

Roby then goes on to detail how, once hereimagine the Borg--Star Trek's evil civilization-consuming race of cosmic cyborgs--as innocent homosexual earthlings, the beloved property's sinister side is revealed:

Let's start, shall we, with the conversion therapy that Janeway inflicts on 7 of 9 in complete violation of her free will. Here's a fun exercise: watch the episode but imagine you can replace "humanity" with "the life that the Lord has planned for you" and replace "the Borg" with "being gay." I honestly don't think I can put other works together right now to express how profoundly disgusting I found this plotline.

Confusingly, Roby also describes Kes, the idealized spiritual nerd-girflriend whom 7 of 9 replaces in The Gift, as a "a character who viewers had grown to love". 

RPG Psycho Pretty Pissed About Druggy Slug Man D&D, Reasons Unknown

Has--Watch Out World--Asian Friends

RPGnet commenter "hippokrene" has announced his or her friends would be not at all pleased with David McGrogan's independently-released and critically acclaimed dark fantasy setting Yoon-Suin.

The reasons for Hippokrene's displeasure with the Moorcock-inflected crabman-infested fictional place were left unclear, though she or he appeared to believed that having "Asian friends" was not only unusual but somehow afforded him or her an enviably unique point of view on the thorny question of whether surreal dreamzones with man-yaks were legit.

More on the situation as it develops.

Stupidest Conversation In History of Games Begins

Designer Says All Games Hurt People, Remains Oddly Silent on Whether Lying About Rape Does

Noted loser and game designer Ben Lehman, best known for fabricating accusations about sexual violence in order to attack fellow designer-loser James "argues with spambots" Desborough began a conversation yesterday on Google Plus by claiming that all games are dangerous.

"Most art harms people, one way or another," claimed the rape-threat-faker "Games often harm their own audience, by giving them artificial desires and then frustrating those desires, or setting friends in competition against each other."

As the discussion progressed, Lehman provided both compelling evidence of his idea and a window into the disfunctional environment his own game design work spews forth from: "For personal example: my experience of Settlers of Catan is that it does real lasting harm to the friendships of people who play it. "

Thus far, Lehman's friends--best known for continuing to read Lehman and sometimes giving him money even after he proved himself to be either a frightening sociopath or a vindictive scam artist--responded by treating the post as if it was not a terrifying cry for help from a damaged mind.

Indie Game Genius Wraps Head Around What Internet Has Been Telling Him For A Decade

"Maybe...People Don't Play Story Games Because They...Don't...Want...To?"

Longtime Story-Game diehard Alessandro Piroddi sent ripples throughout the Indie RPG community earlier this week with an article announcing that maybe people don't play games he likes because they like the games they like better.

Piroddi cited a variety of key differences between games his friends like and wrote and games they don't, including:

• Games Alessandro likes require everyone to read the rules.
• Better games don't.

• Games Alessandro likes require everyone to learn whole new procedures just to play for a few hours only to find out the game is about milking a sheep.
• Better games don't.

• Games Alessandro likes require everyone to act like the GM or at least an Indie game nerd.
• Better games let people relax and only take charge when they feel like it.

• Games Alessandro likes are about bullshit like sad pirate choices.
• Better games aren't.

A terrified Indie scene reacted to Piroddi's announcement by continuing to be incredible assholes:

"...while from an armchair it looks like you'd only want to play rpgs if you were especially imaginative and had deep creative needs..." hypothesized one Eero Tuovinen, "in actual fact the people actually exercising the medium may simply be doing it out of habit, and due to accumulated experience overcoming personal leanings. Sort of like if you taught a child to play Chess at an early age, they might continue doing it despite it being out of character for their adult personality, simply because the game is so familiar and they're so good at it that the expertise enables them to enjoy it despite the natural handicap."

 "I think the question implicit here," said fellow Story Gamer Paul T "is not just "why don't modern games overtake older games", but "why don't modern overtake older games, given the well-known problems those games carry"?"

RPGnet Moderator Unsure If He Should Be Part of Hobby

Rest of World Concurs

"..there may in fact be no ethical way for me to pursue this hobby"

Evil Hat Forced To Relocate Corporate Headquarters

Zak S/RPGPundit Verdict: It Was Funhaver Games

Game Company Contributors And Fans Promoted Fraudulent Accusations Against RPG Loudmouths

For a week, the role-playing game community has been wondering who or what cared so goddamn much about porn actor, painter and DM Zak S and RPGSite owner/opinion-mongerer RPGPundit that it bothered to smear them all over the internet when the Fifth Edition of Dungeons And Dragons was released with their names listed as contributors.

Look who's got no plusses….

Some asked: Was the controversy a sign of the times? Was it merely just desserts from years of inflammatory RPG blogging by the pair of prolific pontificators? Was it a consequence of the nature of the emergence of a new internet-influenced paradigm of cultural production? Was it a symptom of a larger toxicity in the Dungeons & Dragons community? It turns out that, no, it was a company called Funhaver Games.

Rather than just say what the rest of the RPG community said ("These two completely suck but they have good game ideas--sometimes--I guess. Hey read my blog I have a Shadowrun hack for Savage Worlds") the company--named in reaction to Lamentations of the Flame Princess author James Edward Raggi IV's essay "I Hate Fun" and associated with the ailing Nightfall kickstarter abandoned by admitted liar Bryan "Gau" Schwaderer--adopted a far more interesting response, imagining themselves seeing a cigar-smoking game reviewer beating up gay men in the street or fantasizing about being followed home by a wheelchair-pushing porn star missing half of his hair.

So he lied about money, and he lied about Zak …

…so why would you think he's lying again?

A glance at Funhaver's twitter following confirms a shockingly high proportion of the struggling game company's friends, allies and contributors have attacked TheRPGPundit, Zak, or both, including:

• Longtime RPGnet irritant Neko Ewen/Ewen_Cluney
• Blog-hit hound Jussi Martilla
• Funhaver proprietor and Dongion regular Mikan/ Tablehop/ Schmelz
• Topher Gerkey, pro-clothing, anti-porn-actress-activist and author of Princess Drive X
• Sub Rosa author and noted evidence lacker Andri Erlingsson
• Rageforum-turned water-muddying twitter account grognards.txt
• Jess Purdy author of the barely-read Gamer XP
• and die-hard story-gamer Chris Chinn/Bankuei/Yelosun whose D&D Basic release-day blog entry suggests he thinks the consultants want to kill him

…along with an assorted bumper crop of those who have retweeted insulting things about the Lenny and Squiggy of RPGs*

When asked for comment, a spokesman for Funhaver replied "ArrgrhguggugglebargggleTry my Monsterhearts hack!"

*

(Zak is Squiggy)

Stupid Response To Stupid Review Of Stupid Product Sparks Stupid People To Do Stupid Things

Raggi Profits

Pointless argument ensued this week after the RPGpundit posted a pointlessly histrionic review of a pointless product, sparking a pointless reply by the pointless author, Geoffrey McKinney who pointlessly accused the reviewer of liking Dragonlance. The Pundit responded by pointlessly calling McKinney "Mr McRapeypants" and then asking the public if the bad and pointless things McKinney had done weren't somehow more bad and more pointless than the bad and pointless things he, the Pundit, himself had done did.

The utterly meh Isle of The Unknown prompted the vicious review that left the public struggling to give a fuck either way.

The Internet responded via pointless discussions and posts about the pointless controversy about the pointless hexcrawl supplement of which this article is one and--in some cases--by buying it. Which was, perhaps, the point.

Someone Reads Dragonsfoot Thread

"So I was browsing the forum and a topic caught my eye…" claims local blogger.

Dongion Challenge Results In!

Zero Percent Of Team Pearlclutcher Game With People of Color

Voices for inclusion in gaming responded with deafening unanimity to The Dongion's recent challenge--they don't know the people they supposedly advocate for.

Despite blog analytics indicating the challenge was widely read and clear evidence it was discussed, none of them were able to come up with any evidence that they'd even seen, much less played with, anyone who wasn't white.

"This confirms what albinologists have long suspected," said one researcher "when these people say something like 'This Wild West game needs to neither remind anyone that there was racism in that era nor gloss over the harsh realities of the racial prejudice in the Wild West' this doesn't generate any cognitive dissonance because they're not basing their ideas on any kind of observation but rather just dreaming what they imagine people of color would say and than pushing that out of their suffocatingly large and garishly white asses."

Autarch Announces Dwimmermount Will Now Suck In New And Unexpected Way

"It's comically behind schedule and some critics claimed it lacked imagination from the start," says project manager "so we thought: 'Why not heap insult on top of that injury?'" 

Alexander Macris, caretaker of James Maliszewski's crowdfunded Dwimmermount project, announced plans to use the opportunity granted him by the original author's tragic emotional breakdown and subsequent abandonment of the ailing megadungeon module to make it worse.

Macris released some sample rooms on theRPGsite earlier this week, such as:

25. LATRINE There are several non-working toilets in this small chamber, along with similarly non-functional water basins. The room has a musty smell, but there is no evidence of any kind of mold present in the place. A tattered and grossly stained codex litters the floor near the toilets; judging from its obscene illustrations, it seems to be a religious tract of an erotic mystery cult. The codex would be worth 250 gp to a collector, but Paladins who read it must make a successful saving throw versus Spells or lose 500 XP from the corrupting material.

The new rooms have garnered praise from some fans, particularly ones who own Life of Brian in at least three formats, haven't read a book without a crossbow in it since The Scarlet Letter, and shouted "+5 backscratcher?!" last time you asked if the dead orc had any treasure on him completely like as if he had not also done that every single time anyone asked if there was treasure on a monster they'd just killed every single week since last August when some bright shiny nickel first had the idea to invite his extra-anchovy-eating, felt-drawstring-dice-bag-owning, Gazebo-shirt-wearing ass over to play.

Man Enraged That Women Are Doing Work For Him

"Sure, we're allowed to play for free in the Contessa Online Gaming Convention, but women are setting up everything and doing all the hard work--it's deeply offensive!" claims strange man, allies.

"This is just like that time my mother made me a grilled cheese sandwich on rye toast with a side of butter beans," said one commenter, "I didn't stand for it then and I'm not standing for it now."

Gamer Claims He Has No Opinion On Subject He Doesn't Know Anything About

"I don't know anything about him and I'm no expert," says one witness "but if I were to speculate, I'd say it's because he's terrible"

Social Justice Monocle-Droppers: Take The Dongion Challenge!

Post a picture of yourself playing a game with a person of color.

Even one.

It can't be at a convention with people you just met. It can't be an on-line game. If you are a person of color (and you probably aren't) you can go ahead and post a picture of yourself, so long as, in the picture, you're playing a game with other people.

Challenge ends Feb 28!

Vague Accusation Of General Wrongdoing Made Against Ill-Defined Group

Author Really Sick Of Trend He Keeps Looking For Evidence Of

RPGnet Vague On Imaginary-Rape-Threat Advocacy Policy

Public asks: Does Skotos Tech encourage or merely tolerate creating imaginary rape threats?

It was revealed this week that RPGnet moderator Paul Ettin / Paul Matijevic both endorsed and publicly encouraged
others to endorse false accusations that a game designer "threatens their critics with rape" 
after, and only after, learning the allegations weren't true.

Other gamers, after being given an opportunity to reconsider their advocacy of the fake accusations
(in the wake of the careful, months-long investigation into the charges on the part of one of the accuser's
friends) rescinded their support, apologizing on Google Plus:

...while many more gamers removed their plusses from the inaccurate post quietly.

Meanwhile, the RPGnet moderator, reflecting what for all we know is RPGnet policy, eagerly

seized on the opportunity to encourage lying about threats of violent sexual assault:

While Ettin's powerful stance in favor of what is arguably libel and what is unarguably bullshit

has clear appeal, it leaves aspiring RPGnet moderators wondering "Is this a requirement?

Or just a suggestion?"

To aid Dongion readers, those unsure may wish to send this letter, or a variation upon it,

to RPGnet proprietor Shannon Appelcline via shannona AT skotos DOT net and CC:

Skotos CEO Christopher Allen christophera AT lifewithalacrity DOT com. 

Dear Mr Appelcline and Mr Allen,

     I would like to one day become an RPGnet moderator.

    After reading about your moderator Paul Ettin's fake-rape-threat-accusation advocacy, I had

a few questions:

     If I want to become a moderator, should I start advocating false charges of rape threats now?

Or should I wait until such time as I become a moderator? Should I make up charges of rape

threats myself? Can I make up reports of rape threats about anyone, or just non-members?

Would alleging that you, Shannon Appelcline and Christopher Allen, threaten people with rape

improve my chances of becoming a moderator?

     Should I make up other facts about RPG personalities? (For example, would: "Ed Greenwood

stole my niece's rollerskates and then farted on them" be acceptable?)  I guess what I'm

asking there is: Are made up facts in general advocated by RPGnet, or just made up facts about

traumatic, life-decimating episodes of sexual violence? Does it have to be libel, or does slander

count?

    I am unsure which course will best express to Skotos the dedication to honest discourse

and unbiased judgement in matters of heated debate becoming of a forum moderator.

Please advise!

Sincerely,

Aspiring

WOTC Announces Confirmation Bias Con For Summer 2014

Online Experts Widely Suspect Announced Fifth Edition Release Date Is Too Early, Late For Game To Be Any Good

In a press release this evening, Wizards of the Coast--manufacturers of Dungeons & Dragons--announced your summer will feature a lot of people repeating things they've been saying about a game they've never read for the last two years.

"'Players will be immersed in rich storytelling experiences' ? Like being killed by a ten-foot fall at  first level?" said one gamer who has been saying basically that and nothing else for as long as anyone can remember in response to the announcement .

"'As they face off against the most fearsome monster of all time'? Well, Mike Mearls' game design is like watching getting your dick stuck in a microwave door and watching the tip explode, but I wouldn't call it 'The most fearsome monster of all time' LOL," said a frequent online commentator who has spent most of the current century in web forums polishing drafts and variations on that sentence like it was the jewel of the fucking Nile.

White People Complaining About Dark Elves Still Not Dead In Fire

Experts unsure what's up with that

Evidence released by authorities early this week reveals that, despite widespread outcry, various white people--including an author of a game about underage teen goth sex werewolves--are still complaining about the anthropology of fake elves and still not all dead yet.

"I haven't actually heard a lot from gamers of color in real life about this, but when they do hear about it, I'm pretty certain we'll be greeted as liberators," sad a spokeswhitedudeontheinternet.

Wizards of the Coast--the company which owns the right to the actually not really very controversial imaginary people--has announced no plans to significantly alter them, despite no significant protests from communities of color anywhere ever.

RPG.Net Privileges Privileged Gamers By Allowing Them To Pay For The Privilege of Not Being Banned For Being Privileged

RPGnet launches fundraiser, citing flagging site traffic, exhaustion with hiding moderator bias

"Yes, other game forums don't ask for money, but they also don't have in-depth and nuanced discussion of important topics like 'Do I Have A Moral Obligation NOT to Play A Different Race or Gender,'" said an RPGnet spokesman.

"Yes, 7-55 people have severe emotional problems, but we want them to see RPGnet as both a haven and a soapbox"

"Some members have more influence here at RPGnet--mostly because their white collar tech jobs give them time to post a lot and earn the moderators' trust. We thought that class-correlated privilege was pretty cool, so why not double-down on it by having these members give us some of that disposable income in exchange for having a little flag and a bigger avatar letting everyone know not to disagree with them?"