OGL The Moral of the Story Is....Maybe there's such a thing as (D&D being) too big

[gamerprinter]

Maybe, but it's worked for me for over 35 years, and presumably for the next decade or so, until I'm fully retired, if I ever am. What worked last century and next century isn't really my concern, rather the now is what matters most to me. I've been an employee in the past, and not something I'd seek again. Capitalism through operating businesses, through monetizing my artistic creations, to publishing creative content has fulfilled my life, like nothing else could. Maybe that will be silly in 50 or 100 years, but I'll be dead and unconcerned about it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't disagree, so it would taken longer to fail, without CIA interference. I don't just look at 20th century examples though, I look at political systems across time, and take that into account in any declaration I make about it.

Sure, geopolitics is complex and very imperfect, as every political and economic system - I'm no expert. But I'm confident that at least for now Capitalism is the form of economics that work best for me.

We cannot know that, because all attempts at an alternative have been sabotaged. We don't know what would have happened in Guatemala if the CIA hadn't intervened to overthrow their democratically elected leader and replace them with a dictator. We also don't know what the Earth would be like if the asteroid hadn't killed all of the non-avian dinosaurs. But the fact that the non-avian dinosaurs are extinct doesn't mean that they were doomed to die out or evolutionarily inferior to mammals or birds. It just means that an outside force altered the course of history.

Capitalism is failing now. The wealth disparity between the ruling class and the working class is worse than it was during the French Revolution. Short-term profits are destroying the world, because trying to prevent the worst effects of climate change doesn't make money in the short-term. DuPont and other corporations have poisoned the planet. Everyone on the planet has a dangerous level of microplastics and forever chemicals inside them. Acid rain is (thankfully) gone and replaced with cancer rain. In the USA, corporations are people and money is speech, but companies cannot be held accountable for slavery, mass starvation, fueling the opioid crisis, and other crimes against humanity that they commit.

We're in late-stage capitalism, and it's ruining the planet. We can't have the foresight to say "socialism/communism is a good idea in theory, but never works in practice" because the attempts by foreign countries to try out other socioeconomic systems is always sabotaged by the people that want to protect capitalism. It might be true that socialism and communism never work, but we cannot know for sure because of the CIA. But we do know that our current version of capitalism is ruining the planet (or, at least, our ability to live on it).

 

[gamerprinter]

Governments and economies don't exist in a vaccuum, and there are always nations/forces in opposition to other nations (since the beginning of human interaction). So the expectation of say a Soviet Union lasting a thousand years instead of 70. The US and it's corrupt intelligence agencies aren't the only nations that maintain it's equivalent, even if some aren't as sophisticated, every nation has something like it. So any government or economy type faces the same challenges. So you cannot look at one or another system and pretend they'd become successful if they'd have been left alone. Humanity never leaves things alone, so your system if it's strong enough still has to survive in the wake of everyone else trying to stop you. That's a given, so not worthy argument to speak of governments in isolation, that's pure fantasy.

Capitalism is certainly seeing challenges, but I don't see necessary fall anytime soon. In fact, I see the world is at a turning point, and while the forces think it's going one way, the evidence that I see, is that it's going back to nation states, and the end of globalism. Religion is going to be a bigger part of every society in the next century, that's where the population will be coming from and urban secularism will die.

 

[Mercurius]

3....2....1....

 

[gamerprinter]

Not out of the question, but my intuition tells me that isn't going to happen, not in my lifetime anyway.

 

[Charlaquin]

I guess I'll spell it out for you. Saying "capitalism destroys everyhing" is intellectually lazy and adds absolutely nothing to the converation. It doesn't provide any insight into the current situation or help make sense of anything. It's cheap. And you're better than that.

I could go more in-depth, but we’re not supposed to talk politics.

 

[payn]

I could go more in-depth, but we’re not supposed to talk politics.

I really wish you wouldn't have started it.

 

[Charlaquin]

Anti-corporate rhetoric and attacks are making the boards feel very hostile to folks who work for large businesses. Particularly in a managerial position. There has always been an undercurrent but now it’s a torrent. Maybe you don’t know, or don’t care, but it kinda stinks. Lots of people work for corporations that they like working for and don’t deserve to have the workplaces constantly attacked by generalizations and sweeping statements.

Corporations are bad, M’kay?

 

[Charlaquin]

I've been an employee in the past, and not something I'd seek again.

Yet you champion a system that only works if the majority of people are in such a position.

 

[Malmuria]

Over in the #dungeon23 thread we're making things with just pens and notebooks. Admittedly my notebook is somewhat fancy. My ttrpggoal for 2023 is to do more making and sharing and much less buying. I wrote about it here way back in August. Helpful links:

Traverse Fantasy - Steps to Demonetize the TTRPG Hobby

Something we can do, on an individual and a collective basis, is to reject the predominant culture of the hobby and to strive for a community with non-commercial interactions between members. This is not to say that the issue is grounded in the culture of the hobby, but that the culture of the hobby has developed to reproduce the sorts of relationships we have with each other. No more indie publisher guilds masquerading as unions (?) and misappropriating the language of anticapitalist critique (!) to convince you to buy their zines. No more Twitter pseudo-personalities taking offense at people pirating their work. No more snake oilers arguing with walls that Wizards of the Coast is selling trash, and therefore you should instead buy their trash. None of this makes anyone’s lives better, except for those fortunate enough to profit off of everyone else. Fortune here is mostly a function of being early to the chase and having a strong force of personality directed towards marketing. I want an exit.
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Tom Van Winkle - The Commodification of Fantasy Adventure Games

And there is also the endless dream of living as a full-time hobbyist. But generally, putting a price tag on a game makes it socially real and legitimate in the ways described above, not just for others but also for ourselves. Only with $$$ does the fantasy of today become more than private. It became a part of mass culture when it cost money, a shared medium of exchange. Somehow, that is disappointing to a dreamer like me, as it was to Kask in 1981, yet one must acknowledge that the hobby would be much, much smaller and lonelier without this system of valuation of fantasy.

Jacobin - Dungeons & Dragons Is a Case Study in How Capitalism Kills Art

But Dungeons & Dragons is also a perfect illustration of how capitalism bends and deforms any artistic endeavors to its own ends, and how, whatever the specific details of the situation or the intentions of the people involved, the demand for profit will always subsume the desire for aesthetic value or artistic integrity.

 

[gamerprinter]

Corporations are bad, M’kay?

I don't disagree, but I consider Capitalism a separate system than what a corporation does, though the latter is derived from the former, it's a completely different inhuman animal, not capitalism at all, something altogether different, not in a good way. Corporations are entities owned by shareholders with shareholder profits as the only goal. Capitalism involves individuals, families, it's human to human interaction. That's not what corporations are. They aren't all bad, but potentially can go bad fast...

 

[overgeeked]

Over in the #dungeon23 thread we're making things with just pens and notebooks. Admittedly my notebook is somewhat fancy. My ttrpggoal for 2023 is to do more making and sharing and much less buying. I wrote about it here way back in August. Helpful links:

Traverse Fantasy - Steps to Demonetize the TTRPG Hobby


Tom Van Winkle - The Commodification of Fantasy Adventure Games



Jacobin - Dungeons & Dragons Is a Case Study in How Capitalism Kills Art

From the start Gary was confused by people needing him and the writers to sell players their imaginations. That’s why D&D used to be a toolkit that players and referees had to tinker with and the world was a blank they had to fill in rather than pre-packaged…everything. Don’t ask us how you should run your game. Call us up and tell us what you decided to do so we can learn from you. Now we have corporate approved social media accounts giving orders from on high how the game should be run. Blerg. Analog folk RPGs all the way.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Over in the #dungeon23 thread we're making things with just pens and notebooks. Admittedly my notebook is somewhat fancy. My ttrpggoal for 2023 is to do more making and sharing and much less buying. I wrote about it here way back in August. Helpful links:

Ok enjoy.

 

[gamerprinter]

Jacobin - Dungeons & Dragons Is a Case Study in How Capitalism Kills Art

It depends on how you pursue your art career, I suppose. I'm definitely not typical, but I was a freelance cartographer since 2008 for dozens and dozens of publishers in that time. I did one for Paizo, and a Call of Duty strategy guide, but most of my commisisons were with smaller companies. My work with Legendary Games, some of authors are very particular with a high expectation with how a given map will appear, however most of their authors fully trusted me, and let me wing it in places aside from meeting their requirements - I've created around 450 maps just for Legendary Games. I've done extensive work with Kobold Press in the past.

However, I've been a publisher all along as well, producing map products and map symbol sets initially, but I published a setting with 15 books for Pathfinder, and I've published a dozen supplements for Starfinder. I don't take map commissions anymore. All the illustrations and maps I create now are exclusively for my own products that I publish. So now I am creating many illustrations and maps, but capitalism has provided me to be the artist with guaranteed work, because I'm also the publisher. Capitalism didn't kill my career, it built it into what I am today...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't disagree, but I consider Capitalism a separate system than what a corporation does, though the latter is derived from the former, it's a completely different inhuman animal, not capitalism at all, something altogether different, not in a good way.

I get what you're saying, but it's a No True Scotsman argument in the end. There's never been when capitalism existed and corporations didn't. They came into being at the same time (actually corporations slightly earlier depending how you count it).

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't disagree, but I consider Capitalism a separate system than what a corporation does, though the latter is derived from the former, it's a completely different inhuman animal, not capitalism at all, something altogether different, not in a good way. Corporations are entities owned by shareholders with shareholder profits as the only goal. Capitalism involves individuals, families, it's human to human interaction. That's not what corporations are. They aren't all bad, but potentially can go bad fast...

Corporations are the natural trajectory of capitalism; profit as the only goal is exactly what the system incentivizes. The way to prevent this is to empower the human element: the workforce. Democratize the work place, give the laborers part ownership over the means of production. In other words, socialism.

 

[gamerprinter]

I get what you're saying, but it's a No True Scotsman argument in the end. There's never been when capitalism existed and corporations didn't. They came into being at the same time (actually corporations slightly earlier depending how you count it).

I'm not incorporated, I'm a sole proprietor. I got some Scottish blood in me, even some royal blood, but I'm no True Scotsman.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In other words, socialism.

That's actually syndicalism more than socialism, but they're connected concepts. You can theoretically have syndicalism without most of what we regard as socialism though. To be fair syndicalism is largely forgotten today (booo!).

 

[gamerprinter]

Corporations are the natural trajectory of capitalism; profit as the only goal is exactly what the system incentivizes. The way to prevent this is to empower the human element: the workforce. Democratize the work place, give the laborers part ownership over the means of production. In other words, socialism.

I don't see it as natural at all, just one way it can go. While there are many LLCs, the majority of businesses in the world are small family businesses, not what I consider the corporate environment. The truly big A type corporations are very few, but since they make all the money they get all the Capitalist attention. To me the attention should be placed on the 99% that aren't that kind of corporation, and what truly defines capitalism - to my perspective.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't see it as natural at all, just one way it can go.

I mean, but it's never gone any other way lol. And 99%? By what methodology are you measuring that? If it's terms of ownership of capital it's more like 30-40% isn't. I feel you're conflating mere exchange-based systems with capitalism specifically, which is not the same thing. Having money as a form of exchange does not equal capitalism.