I don't blog a whole heck of a lot once #RPGaDAY is over for the year, but it seems that another TTRPG controversy has been brewing over the last few days. There is a list out--no link provided. You can find it easy enough and those that know already know anyway--that breaks down some of the big name TTRPG companies down by how woke they are. Long post less long, TTRPG creator John Wick is angry because he didn't make the list. I responded on a YouTube discussion with the following...I liked it so much that I saved it below:
The first 7th Sea 2nd edition KS project--back in 2016 so only around five years ago--was great. It was the top backed project on KS for a long time, and I was among those backers.
The follow-up has been a disappointing disaster to say the least. The KS for 7th Sea Khitai funded and the product was due for delivery way back in August 2018. That's pre-WuHan Flu by a couple of years. He got fat on all that sweet, sweet KS money and fell way behind. He is currently partnered with Chaosium to sell the existing products and for help in completing the outstanding ones, and--to his credit--he never "skipped town" and still updates us and shows the PDFs as the project slowly makes its way to completion. However, by this point any real interest I had in playing has fallen by the wayside.
The list itself was not meant as an enemies list. It was used to make consumers--mostly conservatives--aware of what these companies and games represent. Most gamers want the game to be apolitical the WOKE SJW types see the hobby as a means of pushing their agenda, and many of us don't want anything to do with it. It's not a bad thing to support the companies that stand for what you believe in, and there's no reason to spend your money on a company or product line that hates you or pushes "morals" that you portend to disagree with. That said, I will be buying 'Witchlight'. I want it and it doesn't matter to me if Wizards of the Woke is the publisher or not. On the other hand, I will not be buying D&D "prom night" or similarly themed "snowflake/safe place" products and it wouldn't matter who published it--it just happens to be Wizards. At the end of the day everyone should vote for what they're interested in with their wallets, play with the people they like to play with and play the way they like to play--just as it's always been.
One last thing, politically speaking, I don't care if the company is good, bad or indifferent. If they can't deliver their product in a timely manner, they will not get financial support from me--and thus is the fate of John Wick.
