Remember my last blog post about the OSR (and all traditional, conservative, based RPG hobbyists) supporting President Donald J. Trump?
Well, it happened. Maybe you've seen my day-after video on the election? So, what does this all mean for RPGs? On the one tentacle, not much at all. Politics might be downstream of culture, but we can each, as individuals and groups, do our own thing. Play the games we want, the way we want, with the people we want.
On the other tentacle, is this the final nail in the DEI coffin of wokeness? Yes, I think it is. The Waspinator had an interesting video that I partially / mostly agreed with - especially the part about different cultural segments catching up at different speeds. Video games, comic-books, movies, TV shows, late night commentary, RPGs, etc. Not all of these subcultures will get deradicalized all at once.
And make no mistake, the left desperately needs to deradicalize. The rabid, TDS suffering lunatics foaming at the mouth at the thought of "race and gender traitors" supporting the orange man are not classical liberals, but fanatic progressive Commies in training. Those in the Democrat party now coming out to say that the left needs to be even less tolerant, less moderate, and less calm are ready to throw themselves into the abyss just to "own" Trump and his supporters. If those crazies want to shave their head, wear blue bracelets, and swear off men for a few years, go for it, ladies. You do you.
It's definitely possible that RPGs will be one of the last to let go of its radicalism, but I hope we can see positive changes back to "factory settings" normal before too long. Want to know the secret to winning elections? Don't call a major voting block "terrorists" for over a decade. Especially, when straight white males (mostly) want to be left the fuck alone.
Fixing the economy (or improving it, depending on your view) will absolutely help the industry. That's the kind of "lifting up all boats" happy-talk we can all agree on. I'm still not sold on how a million bucks going to this shiny new crowdfunding campaign and that stunning and brave product's press release getting a hundred-thousand upvotes on reddit actually helps the small-time, independent creator. The little guy fighting the marketing war in promotional trenches with memes and mechanics and A.I. artwork - how does the latest fad-chase help him?
Most of us can also agree on "fuck WotC Nu-DnD." What they've been doing over the last few years is moving Dungeons & Dragons farther and farther away from what the game has always been... a masculine, pulp, sword & sorcery escapist fantasy made by and for, predominately, straight white Christian men. That's not to say that demographic - or any demographic - is necessarily better or worse than another, but there's a reason why certain people gravitate towards it, and why changing all the fundamental principles ultimately changes its audience.
The Democrats have a messaging problem. What they're communicating to voters isn't translating into votes. And D&D has that same problem. In the end, reality wins. You can pretend all day long that tabletop gaming should be about safety tools, bake-sales, coffee shops, gender fluidity, anti-colonialism, and fighting the patriarchy, but it's not.
[Remember when I designed a glyph (basically, chaos magic sigil) to hijack Kamala's "imagine what can be, unburdened by what has been" Communist message? I used that and warped it to will President Trump towards victory.]
When the left ditches its progressive activism and returns back to the center, we can - I hope - start having productive political discussions and - best of all - stop talking about real world politics in RPG spaces. No one is more sick to death of injecting politics into the hobby than me, but if one side continues to relentlessly come after the other with deplatforming, demonetization, censorship, banning, boycotts, and hateful slurs like "nazi," "fascist," and "bigot," we have to fight back.
I've been exiled from more RPG discussion boards, subreddits, FB groups, etc. than I can even remember. All because I've supported Trump and have moderate, mainstream conservatism views. The radical-left needs a time-out. This election proved that. As we've seen, the youth came out in favor of MAGA. I think that's an RPG audience in waiting that would love based content that folks like me, Alexander Macris, RPG Pundit, Red Room, Jim Raggi, and dozens more have been providing for years.
Time to turn the page and get on with our own personal project 2025. It's time for CHA'ALT's ascendency. For the rest of November, all 3 Cha'alt PDFs of the trilogy are free on DriveThruRPG. And I've also updated the fully-loaded, ultimate edition of Advanced Crimson Dragon Slayer to include everything that I've been using to run Cha'alt these last few years. Print-on-demand softcover coming soon!
Ok, that's it. For Democrats who feel defeated right now, I don't want to pile-on or mock you or disparage your principles, but America is telling you to moderate. We welcome you back to reality where legal immigration is fine, but a wide-open border is fucking bananas, the environment can and should be conserved... without ditching fossil fuels, trillions of government spending literally caused inflation, men are men, women are women, forcing others to use your pronouns or else is ridiculous, we don't care what adults want to do with other consenting adults in private, but don't parade it around our kids or groom them in any way.
Like the new map? Yeah, it's awesome if I do say so myself. Can't wait to use it next year!
Have a great week, I'll be celebrating my 50th birthday early by going on another cruise - this time it's last minute, as opposed to the one a couple months ago which Danielle planned for 2 years (the wife and I were going to New Mexico, but they're dealing with an insane blizzard and cold-snap that makes Wisconsin look unseasonably warm).
VS
p.s. Join the Kort'thalis Publishing mailing list. VENGER CON IV: Post-Modern Apocalypse still has about 80 badges still available - get yours today!!!
