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Saturday 14 July 2018

Classic Rant: We Can "All Just Get Along" When You Stop Trying to Censor Me

So, in the last day or so, something of a shitstorm has emerged in the hobby when a semi-Storygamer named Mark Diaz Truman posted a blog entry called "Two Minutes Hate", where he (impressively, I must say) admitted to some of the HORRIBLE behavior of the Storygaming crowd, and called for some kind of rapprochement between the OSR and Storygaming. 

This led to several people on both sides commenting on it. I'll be fair and say that some Storygamers were expressing thankfulness for the post and feeling it reflected something they felt for a time. Others, especially the Usual Suspects of the Outrage Brigade, have already begun the process of teaching Diaz Truman the things too many of us in the OSR and regular gamers in general are already well aware of. Prepare to face a campaign of ostracism and marginalization, amigo.

On the OSR side, most of the commentators have expressed some degree of happiness with the post and begun chanting kumbayahs about how we should all just get along now and put the contentious past behind us.


Allow me to provide you with the dissenting vote.




Now, I'm not the 'boss' of the OSR and don't claim to be (unlike certain others who have tried to make the OSR their personal fiefdom). 
But for me, I have no reason to seek a rapprochement with the gang of assholes who have spent years lying about me, slandering me, trying to have me censored, trying to have me blacklisted, and, most importantly doing this to everyone else in the hobby that stands in their way of controlling it.

If the Storygamers want peace, there's a simple answer: stop trying to invade the hobby. 
Stop trying to censor games or blacklist game designers. 

Apologize for the people in your movement who have told outright lies about so many of the OSR's writers.

Nothing will be fixed as long as they keep demanding we accept their ideological agenda or be silenced. And I won't stop until they stop trying to do that. Contemptible actions demand contempt in response.



Now I know, you may be saying "can't we make peace now, instead of still fighting over ancient history"?

But the thing is, the Storygamers love-affair with censorship is NOT 'ancient history'. It is happening RIGHT NOW. There are major leaders in the Storygame movement that advocate censorship RIGHT NOW. 

Anyone who does not unequivocally denounce censorship and anyone who advocates it, including the pulling of games from OBS or other website, the attempted banning of dissenters from social media, or the attempted blacklisting of people from working in the hobby, will never ever see peace from me. 

RPGPundit

Currently Smoking: Neerup Bent Billiard + Image Latakia

(Originally posted July 27, 2016)

4 comments:

  1. I'll admit something here... I'm not really an OSR gamer. I've been playing RPGs since the early 90's, but I welcome some streamlining and homogenisation in the rules (although, D&D 5e took it a little too far). Having a different subsystem for every type of task does make the game a bit clunky. That being said, I wouldn't call myself a storygamer either; I like to have the player challenged, I like a game that is deadly, I don't think we should focus on balance, etc.
    Despite all this, I end up more and more drawn to the OSR side just because I can't stand the people on the other camp. I can't stand the constant agenda pushing,, the constant attempt to censor, the constant lying, the constant claims of victimhood and I can't stand any concept of "X-card". No, I don't want to make peace; I want those people pushed out of the hobby (and out of nerd culture in generals; comics, video games, star wars, etc) (ideally tared and feathered first).

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    Replies
    1. They're not pushing an agenda. It's just that you're getting old and are no longer the target audience for what they're making. You can either change with the times, accept your irrelevance or end up like the Pundit.

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    2. You mean he could end up living off his game design work and enjoying a growing audience?

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    3. Yeah, right Thomas. That doesn't describe what's happening. The agenda driven decisions are even admitted.

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