WotC Some Rich Dude Calls for Wizards of the Coast to "Burn in Hell" and I Refuse to Care

[Lidgar]

Anyways…my group played our first session of D&D using the 2024 rules last weekend and thought they did a pretty good job. Our party of five first level characters ended the session battling a horde of goblins and giant rats. Two PCs died and it came down to the orc fighter going 1 on 1 with the last giant rat. He took it out with only a couple of hp left and the rest of us incapacitated (if not dead).

This is why we play.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I don't get the celebrity thing at all.

Plus, Justin Bieber said it was unhealthy to care about what celebrities said!

 

[Morrus]

Elon Musk isn't some rich dude. He's an individual who currently has the ear of president elect Donald J. Trump and will soon be tasked with leading efforts to dismantle the federal government.

Again?!? Two days after a warning for exactly this? Seriously? Are you p*nking us? Are we just not saying it right?

OK, take a day's break this time. Maybe that will get through.

 

[Oofta]

Plus, Justin Bieber said it was unhealthy to care about what celebrities said!

I really don't care what celebrities say any more than anyone else I don't know well. But sometimes, like Justin, they can be correct.

 

[Remathilis]

This isn't the first controversy Grummz has generated in the TT game market. He was instrumental in a lot of Warhammer drama and previously tried to start Dungeon gate (TT analog to gamergate) that was cleverly shut down by flooding the hashtag with discussion about doors in RPGs. This one only managed to get Elmo's attention and he used his megaphone to amplify it.

I don't think this controversy has the legs he wants. But I imagine Grummz and Musk will continue to milk grievances from gamers in the TT market as they have successfully from the video game market.

In other words, get ready to not care about a whole lot of these in the future.

 

[Bill Zebub]

This post isn't a jab at folks who are discussing the news item alluded to in the thread title. I just wanted to comment on the story without posting in a thread that inadvertently publicizes the rich dude in question.

If you're not familiar with the news item I'm referencing, it's essentially a loud rich dude talking smack about the publishers of D&D. My response: I'm tired of attention-seeking billoinaires dictating the news cycle, so I'm tuning out their commentary on my hobby. I encourage everyone else to do the same. I think we'll all be better off for it.

So, anyway... I hear BlueSky is pretty cool, right? I'm told some publishers have accounts there. Feel free to discuss that or any other RPG talk unrelated to rich dudes if you, too, refuse to care about rich dudes' opinions.

We're talking about Justin LaNassa, right?

 

[Mannahnin]

I don't care about him or, really, what he posted. But I think there's a larger deeper train of thought we can follow on this topic.

• You can love D&D and RPGs and recognize its troubled past (even recent past).
• People you respect can say and do terrible things. One doesn't cancel out the other. You can (and should) acknowledge the bad while not necessarily letting it become the whole message about the good.
• People can say very harmful things and hang onto harmful opinions and still be nice people who love and support their family and friends. Both can be true.
• We each have to decide what we do with our own hold of problematic art and problematic artists. It's complicated and our views can change (mine have).
• We can listen to those affected and not use our privileged position (for those of us cis het white dudes) to discount their experiences.

Cory Doctorow wrote a really good essay about his complicated feelings on Harlan Ellison that I thought did a good job of navigating the topic and I think is relevant to the core of the topic today.

It's a good essay, thank you for sharing!

Our own local logorrheac essayist legend Snarf wrote a couple of somewhat similar pieces this summer, more directly related to Gary.

D&D General - On Early D&D and Problematic Faves: How to Grapple with the Sins of the Past

A topic that has recently arisen again is the issue of problematic material in early Dungeons & Dragons. If you aren't familiar with the most recent controversy, the thread (about Gary Gygax and sexism) is here. That said, this is a topic that continues to re-occur. Sometimes it is about the...

www.enworld.org

D&D General - Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast the First Magic Missile: Why Gygax Still Matters to Me

I am not a role model. I am not paid to be a role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. -The Round Mound of Rebound, his excellency, Sir Charles Barkley I realized that while I have discussed, in depth and several times (most recently here), the...

www.enworld.org

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Yeah there would be a table with minis and a great dm and dice…I would keep almost getting to play but I would get called into work, a kid would need something, my wife would object…

Wait I have already been through hell?!

Nah. You'd get a game.

but the dice is super big and you have to roll it up this hill and get it over the edge to roll it into a box. But, just as you get it to the top, it rolls back to the bottom again.

That, or every time you roll, the dice falls off the edge of the table and you have to re-roll. for eternity.

 

[occam]

Nah. You'd get a game.

but the dice is super big and you have to roll it up this hill and get it over the edge to roll it into a box. But, just as you get it to the top, it rolls back to the bottom again.

That, or every time you roll, the dice falls off the edge of the table and you have to re-roll. for eternity.

Hell is where every die roll ends up cocked... and you're not even the one rolling. You're just watching someone else roll, and reroll, and reroll... "oops, cocked again!"... when will you ever get your turn??!!

 

[MichaelSomething]

I generally avoid going into threads just to tell people I don't care about the topic they're discussing.

I do think it's worthwhile to remind the community that we don't have to engage with incendiary comments celebrities make about our hobby, but I'm not going to advocate that in a thread whose purpose is to discuss incendiary comments a celebrity made about our hobby. That would be rude.

It could be a lot worse obviously.

What if Taylor Swift said the Ranger class was unfun to play? Can you imagine the carnage??