If You're Going to Hate Me, At Least Do It For Stuff I Actually Believe

Well, I can't say I didn't expect it.  The Swine are up in arms, the big (I should say HUGE) initial success and popularity of the new D&D release has them furious, and especially furious at the fact that people they hate, namely yours truly and Zak S., were credited as Consultants (some of them acting as though it was a huge surprise, as if it hadn't been something I'd been open about all along, and as if they hadn't all previously expressed outrage back when it was announced two years ago).

For the most part, my attitude toward them is this:

What I think is especially funny is when people who despise D&D and would never have bought it anyways in a million years say "because this guy was working on it, that's why I would never buy it!" as if otherwise they'd have stacked their shelves full of WoTC products.  They really think they're fooling someone.

And some of the comments are just hilarious;  one person suggested that the best way to counteract the effect of our evil would be to give to some kind of charity.  I would like to know just what charity would need to be donated to in order to offset the evil that Zak and I represent... I mean seriously, what is the cause that both of us will be deeply opposed to?  Some kind of pro-censorship organization, I suppose...

On the other hand, there was at least one comment  I didn't find funny at all. More than a few people have spoken with praise to Wizards of the Coast for the inclusion of this statement in the section on Gender in the D&D rules:

"You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Correllon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example...You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, or a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character's sexual orientation is for you to decide."

Now, Bruce Baugh made a post on his G+ stream where he stated his problem with me and Zak being hired being that we would 'be opposed to the very options of inclusion that are being praised'.  He invited people to comment, even supposedly in defense of myself and Zak, so I wrote this on his thread:

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Your statement about "options for inclusion" was pretty vague, so maybe you'll want to clarify what you meant by that.  However, at the moment as much as I wrack my brain I can't think of what you could possibly have meant other than the comment on gender found in the new D&D rules.

If that's the case, I think you're engaging in a serious injustice, be it accidental or intentional.

I was completely and explicitly in favor of Wizards including that, just as they did.  Contrary to what you have implied I have never  and would never be opposed to inclusion on the basis of gender or sexual orientation.  I have always been firmly in support of gay rights; I have had gay and bisexual players in my gaming groups, my wife (The Wench) and I lived for many years with a gay couple renting our spare bedroom, I have been a supporter of LGBT rights in Uruguay (which is one of the most progressive countries in South America on that note, where not only has gay marriage and adoption been legalized but anyone from the age of 12 onwards has a right to choose the gender stated on their identity card), and to my knowledge (maybe someone can point me to a pre-existing work that proves otherwise, but if so I did not hear of it) my Arrows of Indra is the first RPG to feature a transgendered character on the cover.

It's true that in some areas I would be seen as "conservative" by the broken dualistic concepts the U.S. paradigm is stuck with; but this is not one of those areas.

And again, many people  reading this might have legitimate reasons for hating me, because of my position on RPGs being radically different than theirs or even for other political stances I might have, but if anyone hates me because they think I'm a homophobe, they're dead wrong. If you or others want to cry angry tears over the fact that the new edition of D&D is closer to my vision of gaming than yours, that it represents a return to old-school thinking instead of pseudo-intellectual 'theory' bullshit or pseudo-artistic pretentiousness, then by all means continue, but I'm sure you can all find more than enough things to hate about me that are actually true, rather than misinformed.
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I guess he didn't like that, though, and I guess his claims to fair debate were just bullshit, because he went on to block me and (I presume, I can't say for sure since he blocked me) to delete my post.  So I'm reposting it here.

It's very telling that the people who hate me (and Zak) can't just be honest about the reasons why; it seems silly and petty to say "this person should never be hounded out of his job because he has a different idea about RPGs than I do!" or even "This well-known RPG writer, blogger, and rpg forum owner said mean things about me! How dare they listen to him or take him seriously as a writer on RPGs!"
No, instead, they feel like they have to make up LIES about me being homophobic (or racist, or other such inventions).  I'm sure in their pseudo-activist minds they justify it by thinking "well, he doesn't agree with me on rpgs so he MUST deep down really be a neo-nazi or something, because anyone who disagrees with me is clearly evil in every way!"

And that's the sort of bullshit I just won't abide by.

Finally, I should note that while I did get paid some seriously fat cash, I do not actually gain royalties from D&D.
So haters: no matter how much you hate the fact that I mattered to the design process of D&D, and that in spite of your wishing it weren't so I continue to be successful, your buying or not buying D&D products does not enrich or impoverish me in any way.  You can go forth and safely purchase D&D.  Go on... I mean, surely, you were actually planning to buy D&D, right? It couldn't possibly be that you're mostly from the crowd of perennial D&D-despisers who would never have bought the thing no matter what, right?

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