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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9841904" data-attributes="member: 6799660">I'll admit this set off some alarm bells in my brain the same way the phrase 'ethically sourced teak' does. However, I'm having a hard time coming up with a credible scenario where this would actually be an issue. It is post-science cast-off rock material. It's not precious scientific or cultural knowledge destroyed because I'm financing a 19th century _____-ologist who does his scientific acquisition using dynamite or the like. What is does come off as, after the alarm bells have stopped ringing, is try-hard, combined with competitive marketing playing off FOMO and manufactured cred. Like, I get it -- when they first started becoming available, I got a set of solid brass gaming dice (to have a set of 'brass ones'). It felt like a fun little joke, and maybe a bit of a financial indication of my devotion to my hobby (I was spending $50-100, back when that was more of a commitment than now, to indicate how much gaming meant to me). And honestly it was less of an expenditure and more practical than those Damascus steel straight razors and barrel aged whiskeys and mother of pearl handled pocket knives non-gaming magazines were trying to tell me would prove I was a manly man of sophistication.  It's just that, 20+ years on, everyone else who likes to make money has caught on, and every time I go to r/RPGs or the like, I get another banner ad for brass or 14-k gold or rose quartz dice I can carry in a faux dragon hide dice bag and roll on my ethically sourced teak' gaming table with black-lipped mother of pearl inlay that costs more than my first car. And now the dice are made of T-rex bones, but next year it will be moon rocks. And you better get some, cause this is a limited time offer, and we're going to imply that the guy over there totally is in on the deal (he's getting the upscaled version), and you wouldn't want anyone to think that he was more into gaming than you were?That's obviously hyperbole. Still, 20+ years on, the brass dice are... somewhere (I think a cigar box with other things vaguely precious to me, but not worth putting in the safety deposit box). They aren't really good for gaming (shouldn't roll them on many surfaces) and they certainly don't win the game for me. Certainly no one is noticing that I have them and thinking, "wow, he's a gamer amongst gamers." Nor did they make Jenny Anderson retroactively agree to go to the prom with me or whatever it is that makes us seek out those manliness indicators. And every time I see another one of these -- we'll call them gamer consumerism one-upsmanship items -- I just think it's the same thing as those brass dice sets for a new generation.</blockquote>

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