And man, Helton sure is on a roll of making a complete cunt of himself. He's three-for-three on the last cause du jours of the Outrage Brigade! He was the originator of the "gamers should be forced to give self-styled game designers a 'living wage'" idiocy. He was a standard-bearer for the idiotic "not at my table" (and wrote a blog entry about me where he was too scared to call me out explicitly... see, Helton? It's not that hard!). And now here's this asshole's next move:
Yes, because the Swine are deeply worried about the sexism of a well-known problem among married gamers: when your spouse isn't into your hobby (of course, so few of the Swine are so fundamentally unlovable as human beings that they are not nor have ever been married, no surprise they're not familiar with it). This crusade is definitely about that, and not about the Tabletop Library being an attempt at creating a competitive alternative to OneBookShelf.
Or not. The real story is very clearly this: that the Swine are constantly worried about any potential competitor to OBS arising. They know that the more digital sales points there are, the more diverse market competition is, the less vulnerable anyone will be to threats of boycotting in order to force Censorship. If the Tabletop Library succeeds, then people like Helton have less power to force OBS to censor books they don't like. Note that Helton has been a pro-censorship activist for at least two years now, and explicitly praised the ability of the Swine to force OBS into censoring its products.
That's their key motive. That and being pathetic virtue-signalling windbags of course.
Free-market competition helps prevent censorship. Helton already came out as pro-censorship by his endorsement of #NotAtMyTable. The Tabletop Library is a really good target for him to attack, to further his sad pathetic mission to try to become a relevant icon among the Regressive Left Swine of the RPG world.
I look forward to see what else he does, and whether he gets the leadership position he's clearly so desperately craving that the OSR totally denied him.
RPGPundit
P.S.: Kudos to Tenkar's Tavern for a brilliantly clever and subtle attack on Helton's asinine bullshit. I, on the other hand, have chosen the direct approach.
Currently Smoking:
I googled that ad but of course I couldn't find it. Any links to where it might currently be seen?
ReplyDeleteI showed this post to my wife, Rach.
ReplyDeleteHer response?
You do realize I sneak makeup and shoes past you because I don't want to hear you complain that I already have enough? I know you sneak gaming books past me... it's the ones you don't I ask where the hell are you going to put them?
Males gamers are about 85% of the gaming population, especially in the OSR. Most spouses do not game.
Not to get too serious about this, but even if it doesn't always apply, it's still funny. You should be able to joke in a friendly way about silly differences between the sexes even when they're only general differences. And the joke is partly self-deprecating. It's just as much about men being silly hoarders of stupid stuff. It's also a silly joke about the "strains" (which of course aren't really strains) of marriage. That anyone would have a problem with this sort of thing is insane.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course I doubt Christopher Helton really has a problem with it. It's just another way to demonstrate one's ideological cred.
So Helton think only men can have wives in this day and age? Looks like Helton is making a hetero-biased argument that excludes a portion of the population with absolute disregard.
ReplyDeleteHusband/wife jokes :such as that one)aren't sexist even with a traditionalst view of marriage because they actually make fun of both partners.
"Steve Kenson"
ReplyDeleteEVERYTIME.
Yup. He was the original bringer of Liberal Douchebag Preachy-pretentiousness to our hobby, via Blue Rose, remember?
DeleteI remember.
DeleteBut i don't know who is worse: Him, Chris Pramas or Fred Hicks.
Well, we're then debating which varieties of feces smell worse, but I would think probably Hicks.
DeleteAlso, Kenson is the best designer of the three and to me that counts for at least a little bit.
Who the eff reads banner ads? That's like sitting though commercials on television. Why would you bother?
ReplyDeleteI hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but the Outrage Brigade won this one. Tabletop Library pulled the ad and apologized for it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not even convinced Tabletop Library will be the one to really provide the ultimate alternative to OBS. I am convinced that if they don't someone else will, sooner or later.
DeleteThe point isn't so much Tabletop Library's reaction, as how this makes other people aware and mobilized and pissed off at the ideological hijacking of our hobby (and the insipid motives behind said hijacking).
If they 'won' this battle, the blowback of their bullshit makes it a Pyrrhic victory, which is the only kind of victory they tend to be getting anymore when it comes to the Tabletop RPG hobby at least.
Mostly, for blogging, unimpressively.
ReplyDeleteJust tossing out a casual FYI since it seems very few seem to recognize there is another online store that probably has the best shot at competing with OBS, that being my store www.opengamingstore.com. Last month Rogue Genius Games made more in my store than in OBS and Paizo *combined*.
ReplyDeleteDo all publishers in my store do as well? No, but this shows the potential exists.
www.opengamingstore.com has been open for business since December 2013 and grows it's sales numbers every month, averaging thousands of transactions per week, with about 150 different publishers regularly uploading new products.
I also carry a complete range of physical goods, including dice, battlemats, dice bags, miniatures, map packs, hardcover books from many different publishers for many different game systems and I had a booth at Gen Con this year for the first time (sharing with PCGen) and next year I'll have my own booth. I also regularly attend mid-western (Mi, In, Oh, Il, Wi) conventions as a vendor/dealer representing the publishers in my store.
Just once in a while it'd be nice if someone acknowledged my store
;)
John
Huh. Ok. So how is it I never ever heard of you until just now? Why aren't you advertising yourself more?
DeleteIf you really think you could be the answer to OBS' virtual monopoly, why not get some PR going and push your location as the alternative on places like theRPGsite and other forums, as well as G+?
Anyways, IF you have a free-speech policy, and are really a viable alternative, I'd love to help you. I just wish you'd popped up during the recent OBS scandals when the iron was hot in order to galvanize an opposition movement to them.
From what it looks like, you don't even carry LotFP products, for example. Why is that? If it's just that he's never contacted you, maybe you should contact Jim Raggi, for example!
Love Dark Albion. But we're going to exterminate all the basement dwelling InCel Fascists trying to hide their disgusting selves behind free speech.
ReplyDelete