I haven’t blogged all year long. A quick update on my personal life for my half-dozen or so followers—I’m still working in China now, but at a different school as an LES librarian—in training. After one failed attempt at teaching High School AP English last year followed by half a year of attempting the same for an IB school, I think it suits me much better. We’re currently on vacation until the first week of August.
Speaking of August—RPG a Day will be starting soon. That’s when I write almost every day. I’m looking forward to that a lot more than I am to going back to school, but something popped up in the past couple of weeks that is RPG related. That is the return of TSR. There’s a lot of drama going on, and it’s hard to tell all the players without a scorecard, so here’s my attempt at a tale of the tape for those who may be interested:
Before we start it must be noted that a very vocal portion of the TTRPG community are “WOKE”, SJW, soyboy, snowflakes. Because we remain a niche hobby—apart from DnD itself—these activists can wield a disproportionate amount of influence especially when it comes to independent/start up companies trying to establish or in this case re-establish a brand. The mainstream audience for TTRPG—if any—probably hasn’t heard of any of this stuff. Even to fellow enthusiasts not living in America this whole drama is a blip on the radar…if that.
WOTC—subsidiary of Hasbro. Panders to the woke crowd totally corporate SJW types. Owns all the most famous IPs including DnD. Industry leader. You can expect “Pride” month, inclusion, and diversity buzz words aplenty. Many oldskool players are fed up with them. Quite a few—older than me—never gave them a chance once they took over TSR1 and released the sub-par 4th edition DnD—a popular opinion which I do not share. In recent years they’ve become very popular due to Critical Role and other streaming shows. They’ve overcorrected a problem that arguably never existed to placate a minority of customers(?) In the safe-place army while phasing out a lot of their oldest fans and trying to erase their own history.
TSR1- The group WOTC bought out, replaced and in some cases want stricken from the historical record. long gone original. Formed by Gygax/Arneson and others. Originators of DnD and other popular IPs, these creators have attitudes that reflect their time. These ideas may be “problematic” for today’s woke SJW snowflakes—they may spill their soy lattes as they run for a safe space if you accidentally call their make-believe, ambiguously aligned, gender-fluid goblin by the wrong pronoun without first calling for a point of personal privilege. Some of these oldskool creators are still around, and as you can imagine, their old ideas don’t play well with the woke. They should probably be playing ‘No Thank You, Evil’ instead. That said, no matter what any company might tell you to the contrary, TSR1 is defunct and/or in the WOTC fold even if the trade-marked brandname gets shifted around.
TSR2—now known as SOLARIAN GAMES had been using the TSR name primarily publishing Top Secret which was an update/revival of one of TSR1’s popular IPs. Let the trademark slip on the name ‘TSR’ which was snapped up by E. Gygax and crew to become TSR3. This is a small but trustworthy indy company that doesn’t take a strong “woke” or “anti-woke” stance…Originally, continued to license the ‘TSR’ branding from TSR3, but after all the trouble TSR3 found themselves in with the Twitter Mob, they had to distance themselves and change their brandname. Safe to order from and support these guys.
Wonderfilled Inc.—This is the company with Dinehart at the helm. They created Giant Lands with Ward and others. This is not a failed Kickstarter as some claim. This is a fully-funded Kickstarter that has yet to deliver product. There is a difference. Work is ongoing allegedly. They took the TSR branding from TSR3 to better promote Giant Lands. They refuse to take the knee and continue to fight the good fight. In my heart I want to support them based on ideology, but they haven’t delivered a product. At this point, I feel like It is a risk to buy-in with this group in spite of any reassurances they may give. The initial run of Giant Lands is said to be 2000 copies. Most KS projects I’ve backed gain less than that many backers, so buying-in after the product is physically available should be possible.
TSR 3—This is primarily the Justin LaNasa and E.Gygax group. They bought out the TSR brand-name trademark when TSR2 (Solarian) let it lapse. They planned to license the brand back to TSR 2 (Solarian) for a pittance, but the latter eventually felt the name was too tarnished to use. They were also going to use Wonderfilled’s ‘Giant Lands’ as the launch title for the new TSR(3). Thus, ‘Giant Lands’ would be TSR(3) branded and Wonderfilled would be considered a subsidiary/licensee of TSR(3) . Ward and a handful of artists—who are legit, oldskool creators from the TSR1 days—worked on the ‘Giant Lands’ KS under Dinehart, but were never directly employed by TSR3. TSR(3) is also responsible for the TSR Hobby Museum. Dinehart seems to become more and more involved in the group and possibly runs their social media. E Gygax appears on a YouTube channel and offends the professionally offended crowd by questioning the PC delusion of gender fluidity in a very off the cuff non-confrontational way—but this is pounced on by the pronoun people and all Hell breaks loose on Twitter. With each response from E.Gygax to this mob he just continues to bury himself and the company deeper and deeper. The Giant Lands (Dinehart?) account doubles down vs. the snowflakes while the TSR(3) accounts (also Dinehart?) flip between bowing to the pressure of the snowflakes and standing strong with the anti-Wokes. They start pushing #keepgamingfantasy. Several conventions—which have long since kowtowed to the safe space crowd—ban anyone associated with TSR3 from attending.
TSR 3.5—Same players as above except with Dinehart kicked out and thrown under the bus. He takes Giant Lands with him and removes TSR branding going back with his own original Wonderfilled branding. Michael Hovermale becomes TSR(3.5) social media director announcing various news in ongoing press releases. They claim the old social media director (Dinehart?) was in charge of TSR(3), Giant Lands, TSR Hobby Museum, and the personal Twitter accounts of E.Gygax and LaNasa. E. Gygax takes the knee with flying rainbow colors and announces a pending apology tour. LaNasa and E.Gygax continue work on the museum. The company has no pending releases. There is a smattering of older books and dice for sale in their online store.
…and that’s all we have right now.
It’s an ongoing/developing situation, but one that I’m unlikely to readdress unless I break down and buy Giant Lands and review it. I really want to support Wonderfilled INC. as it is a company that is trying to craft a truly new non-corporate based RPG with an oldskool vibe, similar to yet differentiated from the OSR movement. I just wish the product was in plain sight. In spite of my bluster, I actually play female characters quite a lot and have played with many woke and/or gonzo flaming queens sitting at my table. As long as they don’t preach to me, I won’t preach to them. We should all be there to have fun without the politics. I find the ‘X’ card and lines and veils work both ways. If the table is getting too woke and/or “festive” tap the ‘X’ because that’s what it’s there for. If you don’t want any backdoor shenanigans happening in the game then put it behind the veil or make such scenes an uncrossable line. I like to think of it as hanging the SJWs up by their own petards, but in a way it truly opens up the table for everyone. After all what’s offensive to one person may not be offensive to another.
