D&D Jihad: People Who Are Unwell

GothmogIV · 2026-03-20T13:31:20+0000

There are some deeply unwell people on X. I mean that seriously: there are men--all men--who are nutzo about BROSR. I mean...it's hard to describe the vitriol these dudes spew about anyone who doesn't agree with them. We are talking Christian, far right-wing looney tunes in the game space. There is an entire ecosystem of deeply malignant actors who have an interconnected web of X accounts, podcasts, and Youtube channels seemily all dedicated to spreading hatred about role playing games. Role playing games! All of the horrors of the world going on, and these dude are spreading pools clotted midnight about people pretending they are elves.

Brethren, I am astonished. What a toxic hellscape.

AnotherGuy · 2026-03-20T13:35:22+0000

I find whether you are religious or not any direction far breeds unwell farms of toxicity. But it has been a long time since I was astonished.

billd91 · 2026-03-20T14:05:31+0000

The online manosphere is deeply, deeply effed up.

aramis erak · 2026-03-20T14:05:53+0000

Many of the saner voices from Twitter left when it became part of Musk's portfolio and more still when renamed to X. And Twitter had a bunch of toxic "ghettoes" in their echo-chamber mode in all flavors of Far from median prior to Musk.

As for the BrOSR... ignoring them is the best bet. Genuine Old School has only one common trait: diverse approaches to playstyle and rules.

mamba · 2026-03-20T14:07:02+0000

GothmogIV said:
There are some deeply unwell people on X.

at this point that is almost a prerequisite to spend a decent amount of time on it…

zottel · 2026-03-20T14:09:01+0000

GothmogIV said:
who are nutzo about BROSR

What... what does that mean? Do they like the BROSR, or dislike it?
... What does BROSR mean, exactly? I have an inkling, but am unsure if my own bias is making me quick to jump to conclusions.

GothmogIV · 2026-03-20T14:12:25+0000

BROSR is like, "if you don't play AD&D the way we think it used to be played, you are a ______" (fill in the bad word. Like, really bad word). These are the Sick Puppy guys from the Hugo Awards a few years back. I am, literally, astonished by how vile the rhetoric is. About. Games. Horrid.
What a messed up world we live in. I get that people are hyperbolic on the internet to gin up attention, but this isn't that. These are bad folks. One guy was on about how if you don't pray the rosary with your group before you play, S A T A N will take over your game. And he wasn't kidding.

zottel · 2026-03-20T14:21:11+0000

GothmogIV said:
BROSR is like, "if you don't play AD&D the way we think it used to be played, you are a ______"

Ah, gotchu! So no reason to seek these people out, basically. Thankfully, they seem to occupy different places on ye olde web than me.

GothmogIV said:
These are the Sick Puppy guys from the Hugo Awards a few years back.

Huh?

GothmogIV said:
if you don't pray the rosary with your group before you play, S A T A N will take over your game.

Sounds rad! Must be an AD&D thing, though, as it has never happened to my games :/

billd91 · 2026-03-20T14:23:59+0000

GothmogIV said:
One guy was on about how if you don't pray the rosary with your group before you play, S A T A N will take over your game. And he wasn't kidding.

I guess even the Satanic Panic crowd has its slightly-rebellious edgelords.

Scribe · 2026-03-20T14:30:23+0000

Combine the following.

A fanatical belief in something that is either counter to reality or unprovable.
A 'public' space to find more people who believe things that are not real.
Give the mob a way to spread their message.

And it doesnt really matter what it is that they believe, it will become toxic, as we have seen for over 8 years now.

You couldnt pay me to use those social media sites.