Tuesday, February 24, 2015

"Cool Cool" and Other Wisdom From The Escapist

So yesterday we announced we weren't going to do our D&D show, I Hit It With My Axe, with The Escapist website anymore because they hired a transphobic dickhead.

So that's that. People in general seem to be really wondering What Is Going On At The Escapist? so I am going to do my best to say what I can tell you from the inside about how something this fucked up happens. And maybe under what circumstances it might happen again. This summary was written quickly--and poorly.

So who are these guys over there? We had meetings, some in person and we talked many times.

From the first phone call I got the impression that these are very much people for whom The System Had Worked. Not necessarily the school system or the government system or any institution, but the broader dork version of the American dream where you are smart and ambitious and so eventually by hook or by crook you get what you are due--that had worked for them. "We're smart so we win." They had respect for technocratic smarts. They do like games, for what it's worth.

Yeah, there was a libertarian vibe which I was really not into, but I've heard Daily Show writers say they were libertarians, and that place seems alright. In the beginning I wasn't paying much attention. It was inside baseball video games and that's mostly pretty boring.

The most common comment you'd get when you said something outside their experience was "Cool cool". Mandy might do a column about feminism and gaming? You want this metal band to do the music? "Cool cool".

"Cool cool" was a way of saying "I don't know what you're talking about, but I like that you are thinking and therefore smart about something so I trust you, I am not going to think about this any more, go to it".

You could show them things and they would appreciate that a thing was being shown to them, but lacked curiosity about it. Like your dad when you talk about some band you liked covering a Hendrix song.

I think a lack of genuine curiosity is one of the most dangerous things a person can have on the internet.

Like the women on the show would go "We are getting a lot of hate on your forums and it's fucked up" and they'd go "Ok, we'll see what we can do" but, like, they didn't get it. They had a Keep The Talent Happy attitude but it took a while for it to sink in that this meant that Tons of their users were abusive assholes and this had to be dealt with constantly and you need someone on it. It seemed like they kinda overall did not have a lot of experience dealing with women with strong opinions who weren't in their same line of work.

What did they have a passion for and what could they talk about with passion? In the cases I saw--history. Particularly military history. I don't mean to suggest that they were crypto-fascists, more just that this was something the dudes could wrap their heads around: a clear foe, tactics and strategy, total victory, total defeat, Clausewitz, the greater technocrat wins.

The most common compliment you'd hear was "____ knows more about ____ than most people in the world so _____". The idea was: you divide things up, and you put an expert in charge of each thing. Which makes sense when you're fighting a war.

It reminded me of that Killing Joke line: Business, lawsuits, market forces - No philosophy courses

Here's the problem: the current argument the Escapist is embroiled in requires philosophical thought. And they don't have a guy for that.

I think they're not the only ones. People--especially dorks--like to set aside thinking about whether to do something and just set their minds to doing it. Just assume Bowser is an asshole and the Princess needs to get saved and get to work on the jumping and fireballs.

So to apply this to the current situation. So here's Brandon Morse talking about calling trans people what they wanna be called:
Here's his defense:

Now what you notice right off is this sounds like an evasion:

You can say whatever you like. People then can decide you're a dick based on that. Every human in the history of the planet has had that experience and is ok with it. When they go "You can't say xxxx" or "You shouldn't say xxxxx" what they mean is just a shorthand for "You say that and I will decide you're a dick and maybe take action based on that".

I don't think Morse thinks this is a dodge, though. I think he actually believes that. I think the emotional logic of "I do what I want!" is as far as he's thought about it.

Like so many people on the internet, he wants to get what he believes out of the way so he can get on to sickburning people for not believing it.

When I went to The Escapist about this dick, the response was basically pretty libertarian: we don't tell people what to think, his ideas are his own, the market will sort it out etc etc. They didn't have a defense of his ideas, just a defense of their right to slather them in money and slide them across the Internet.

The obvious question is like, Would you use the same logic to employ--ok, this is nerddom so we're not allowed to say a Nazi but fuck it, my dad was Jewish--a very polite Nazi?

My honest-to-god read on The Escapist is they're so libertarian it's a 30-70 shot they'd say something like "Well so long as they weren't advocating violence and were putting out great content, why not?" Not because they hate Jews, but because they just believe that hard in the Marketplace of Ideas.

Or maybe they'd go "Well that's different."

And I'd go "How?"

And at that point, no matter what they say textually--it'd be a desperate cover for the fact that we'd just crossed beyond their experience. Because they never thought "Ok, what if we set up rules at our company to make ourselves money harmlessly and it doesn't work and makes the world genuinely worse for people during our lifetime and theirs and you could've stopped it and didn't because greed?" Their whole lives there has literally been no reason to ask a question like that, so it's never seriously occurred to them.

Just like when you ask people how any 140-character life rule they just made up for themselves breaks down.

I'd like to pretend this is just The Escapist, or just libertarians, but it's really really not. It's a pattern you see over and over with people online when push comes to shove.

Most people don't actually have very clear rules about when to take action or what the words they're throwing around mean. They just have loyalties. That's why you can go "Brandon Morse is a bigot and so is that guy Ettin" and the same people will be like "Yeah Brandon Morse is a dick" and "Calling out Ettin in public like that for something he said months ago? Not cool, dude! You don't go starting drama like that."

Not unless it's, like, important.
What counts as important?
I'm not here to debate you.

(Why do people feel ok about saying that? Just so you know: I am always here to debate you. Ask me whatever.)

But if you're on the internet to announce ideas instead of talk about them, you end up basically using those ideas as a kind of faceless fuel to gather steam for a much larger enterprise and one with more certain rewards: fighting on behalf of them. Tactics, strategy, a clear foe.

And the impression I get is that even if they don't agree with Morse, they like that he's offensive about something even they don't approve of because it somehow in some weird realm proves the macho robustness of their libertarian ethic.

I think the level of Nope Not Gonna Think About It dismissiveness here is hard to wrap your head around if you don't share the mindset. Morse's take on trans issues has been consigned to a certain bin of Less Relevant and there it will stay.

Brandon Morse says something transphobic--4 people retweet it and 11 people favorite it--and that hugging fuels Brandon to say the next thing. And the next thing. That is The Job. That stuff beneath where people, like, question the ideas? Addressing that is not the proper work of Brandon Morse. Or the Escapist or anyone else who ever used the "I was just giving my opinion on my blog jeez isn't this a free country any more?" excuse. You are here to advertise ideas, not use them.

And Brandon makes money somehow, I guess, so it's ok--the same reason RPGnet won't just get rid of the ad server that keeps sending them sexist ads.  Dudes Need To Make Money.

Long ago someone at the Escapist decided that We Hire Whoever So Long As It Makes Us Bank--and, moreover, they decided that decision wasn't a secret, cowardly compromise, it was What They Believed and they were proud of it. So, cool--now they have something to Fight For. And the rest is just tactics.


p.s.

If anybody at The Escapist has a problem with what I just wrote:

Hey kids, buy my new D&D book! It's the fastest-selling and best-reviewed indie RPG book of the season!

...if I follow your logic, if I make even a dollar today, everything I wrote up there was totally justified. Because, like, money's the most important thing, right?
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Monday, February 23, 2015

We're Not Playing D&D With The Escapist Ever Again

EDIT:
Periodically this post gets linked from GamerGhazi, where the link here (thanks!) its accompanied by a bunch of attacks on me and the women in my game group (boo!) from folks participating in a smear campaign started by Paul Matijevic / Ettin and his conspiracy theorist friends from the Something Awful boards literally because I like the wrong edition of Dungeons & Dragons (as Mandy explains here). If you have any questions about me or the motive for this post, here's my Ask.fm--I can link directly to evidence, you don't have to ask random Redditors why my allegedly "toxic" rpg presence has gone all Social Justice.

Hi everybody,

As many of you know, we've been working on making new episodes of our D&D documentary series "I Hit It With My Axe" for the Escapist website.

The first time around they gave us a shoestring budget and we figured we'd do it anyway for the fun of it, but this time they gave us a lot more and we were looking forward to doing the show exactly the way we wanted this time--lots of interviews, in-depth looks at the players and how we played games, and lots more jokes. We've been working with the Escapist and combing through the footage since the summer.

But then this week they hired this douche:
So, to put it simply: we refuse to work for the Escapist or its parent company any more.

Why? Well this is us:
Left to right, top to bottom:
Wizard, Druid, Wizard
Thief, Cleric, Wizard
DM, Thief, Druid
Thief, Ranger, Ranger






Without comparing anybody's struggle to anybody else's, you don't need a degree in social science to figure out that since one of the people in our group is a Jew, six are people of color, two were born handicapped and like someteen are bisexual women and one is trans it would be shooting ourselves in the foot if we were, hypothetically, to make money for a company that would then give that money to an actively anti-semitic, racist, ableist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic person. 

So the D&D With Porn Stars crew working with the Escapist under those conditions would be as hypocritical and self-defeating as supporting Think of the children!-anti-sex conservatives like Fred Hicks or Fox News. Here: we let you film us playing D&D, you make money, then take the money, buy a bullet, and shoot us each in the foot with it. 

Well, every monday I log on to Google Plus and run a videochat campaign where Scrap Princess plays an awesome wizard and we're happy to have her. We owe her the same protection we owe all our friends. I'm not gonna shoot Scrap (or Sarah or Ana or Natalie or Morgan) in the foot just so we can have a TV show.*

The most cutting-edge game-designer in the early tabletop hobby and a major force in early video games--Jennell Jacquays--is trans, as well as some of the most innovative folks working today. Jennell wrote Dark Tower, did the arcade conversions for Pac-Man and designed the Quake levels. If the girls in our group get shit on by conservative gamers and conspiracy theorists just for showing up to play and telling trolls to fuck off--I can't imagine what she and other transfolk go through having to actually work in the business.

And, for what it's worth--and many of you may not understand--I'm a porn performer, and so is most of the rest of the group, and you can't get too far in the adult industry without realizing the hours that trans people like Sarina Valentina, Bailey Jay, and Buck Angel put in on their sets are as real as the ones we put in on our sets and the stigma they face every day is real.

Maybe we'll put the new episodes of Axe out somewhere else, maybe not. The Escapist wants to give us a lot of money--but nothing is worth this compromise and any new gamers the show brings into the hobby are not worth the damage the Escapist does by telling people you can be openly transphobic and still get paid to talk about your dumb ideas.

Sometime maybe we'll get to see Stoya fight a manticore, but not today.

-Zak S.

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*Yes, I checked with Scrap before linking to her page here to make sure she was cool with this post. She was. I put her official response in the comments below this post if you want to read it.
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Friday, February 20, 2015

Skin DIamond, Death, Resurrection, Time-Eating Spiders, Another Decimator



Skin Diamond--2012 Urban X Award Female Performer of the Year, 2014 AVN Best Oral and dragonborn (blue) druid) lives around the corner 
So she came over to play her first game--she got Godzilla because, y'know,
dragonborn. 

We had a full house. 
She brought Heather and they kicked impressive ass--especially for first-
time players. Heather (tiefling paladin) killed a giant-de-aging-web-
shooting spider, and Skin turned into a spider with druid powers and tricked the
another one into running
off after a big juicy imaginary fly.

But then the decimator showed up... #druidlife

It killed Connie (left) after she tried to sneak past its death aura in an anti-magic shell
and rolled a 1. That is Connie's "Fuck I'm dead after 14 levels and 6 years" face.


Connie's drawing of her character Gypsillia, with her famous last words and pig helmet.

Luckily the party has some high level blonde clerics.
One had Resurrection prepared.
So, once the party got an hour's worth of peace and quiet to cast the spell, all good.
It gave Connie more time to draw.
This required casting Reverse Gravity on the decimator--which pretty much
aced it. 300 hit points don't help much when you are just floating 100'
off the ground for 10 rounds. Again. I gotta stop using that monster...
…also, must remember to go after the cleric first.
You'd think she'd be easier to kill.

Anyway, with the Decimator out of the way, next week the party's
free to bring in the Heart King's food-taster. Who's rumored to
be in that tower on the far end of the table...

Friday, February 13, 2015

Viking Amazons of the Metal North

"A witch dwells to the east of Midgard, in the forest called Ironwood: in that wood dwell the troll-women, who are known as Ironwood-Women. The old witch bears many giants for sons, and all in the shape of wolves; and from this source are these wolves sprung. The saying runs thus: from this race shall come one that shall be mightiest of all, he that is named Moon-Hound; he shall be filled with the flesh of all those men that die, and he shall swallow the moon."
-The Gylfaginning, Snorri Sturluson

From my search history today...
-Gray wolf#Behavior
-Canis lupus
-Wolf reintroduction
-Eurasian wolf
-Arctic wolf
-Nominate subspecies
-Canis lupus albus
-Subspecies of Canis lupus
-Holarctic
-Tundra wolf
-Gray wolf#Subspeciation
-Gray wolf
-Decoction
-Angelica archangelica
-Garden Angelica
-Angelica
-Abortion in Norway
-Mentha pulegium
-Anise seed
-Acorus calamus
-Mugwort#Medieval Europe
-Mugwort
-Artemisia absinthium
-Wormwood
-Self-induced abortion
-Darkthrone#Change in direction: 2005.E2.80.93present
-Darkthrone
-Anti Cimex
-Nidhöggr
-Jex Thoth
-Dimmuborgir
-Dimmu borgir
-Emperor (band)
-Viking era
-Bog iron
-Gut
-Wire
-Spruce
-Whitewood
-Blackwood
-Acradenia euodiiformis
-Volcanic eruption
-Effusive eruption
-Volcano#Active
-Volcano#cite note-esa-10
-Volcano
-Caldera
-Wolfbrigade
-Tumuli
-Norse funeral
-Koelbjerg Woman
-Bog body
-Population genetics
-Spelt
-Porridge#Varieties
-Porridge
-Tiger#Social activity
-Tiger
-List of English terms of venery, by animal
-List of English terms of venery, by animal#cite note-sdzoo-1
-Tennessee Walking Horse
-Landrace
-Horse breed
-Fjord horse
-Kvann
-Sled
-Sled#Types of sleds
-Piophilidae
-Maggot
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Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Time Golem

It hits you once and you are Slowed, it hits you twice and you go unconscious. Once unconscious it will steal away your time--in the form of levels, one level per round.

Its head is full of time-sand--after taking half its hit points worth of damage (i.e. when blooded in 4e terms), each hit on the golem sprays time-sand around. Everyone within 10 feet must save vs spell or fall unconscious.
It's unclear whether time-displaced alternate universe versions of the PCs are actively summoned by time golems or whether time-displaced creatures seek out time golems because the golems themselves represent confluences in space-time where alternate universes meet.

Either way, roll d100:

1, One PC duplicated, same level as original
2, One PC duplicated, as original -1 level
3, One PC duplicated, as original -2 levels
4, One PC duplicated, as original +1 level
5, One PC duplicated, as original +2 levels
6, Two PCs duplicated, same level as original
7, Two PCs duplicated, as original -1 level
8, Two PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels
9, Two PCs duplicated, as original +1 level
10, Two PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels
11, Three PCs duplicated, same level as original
12, Three PCs duplicated, as original -1 level
13, Three PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels
14, Three PCs duplicated, as original +1 level
15, Three PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels
16, All PCs duplicated, same level as original
17, All PCs duplicated, as original -1 level
18, All PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels
19, All PCs duplicated, as original +1 level
20, All PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels
21, One PC duplicated, same level as original, gender(s) changed
22, One PC duplicated, as original -1 level, gender(s) changed
23, One PC duplicated, as original -2 levels, gender(s) changed
24, One PC duplicated, as original +1 level, gender(s) changed
25, One PC duplicated, as original +2 levels, gender(s) changed
26, Two PCs duplicated, same level as original, gender(s) changed
27, Two PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, gender(s) changed
28, Two PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, gender(s) changed
29, Two PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, gender(s) changed
30, Two PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, gender(s) changed
31, Three PCs duplicated, same level as original, gender(s) changed
32, Three PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, gender(s) changed
33, Three PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, gender(s) changed
34, Three PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, gender(s) changed
35, Three PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, gender(s) changed
36, All PCs duplicated, same level as original, gender(s) changed
37, All PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, gender(s) changed
38, All PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, gender(s) changed
39, All PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, gender(s) changed
40, All PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, gender(s) changed
41, One PC duplicated, same level as original, race(s) changed
42, One PC duplicated, as original -1 level, race(s) changed
43, One PC duplicated, as original -2 levels, race(s) changed
44, One PC duplicated, as original +1 level, race(s) changed
45, One PC duplicated, as original +2 levels, race(s) changed
46, Two PCs duplicated, same level as original, race(s) changed
47, Two PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, race(s) changed
48, Two PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, race(s) changed
49, Two PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, race(s) changed
50, Two PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, race(s) changed
51, Three PCs duplicated, same level as original, race(s) changed
52, Three PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, race(s) changed
53, Three PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, race(s) changed
54, Three PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, race(s) changed
55, Three PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, race(s) changed
56, All PCs duplicated, same level as original, race(s) changed
57, All PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, race(s) changed
58, All PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, race(s) changed
59, All PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, race(s) changed
60, All PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, race(s) changed
61, One PC duplicated, same level as original, race(s) changed
62, One PC duplicated, as original -1 level, race(s) changed
63, One PC duplicated, as original -2 levels, race(s) changed
64, One PC duplicated, as original +1 level, race(s) changed
65, One PC duplicated, as original +2 levels, race(s) changed
66, Two PCs duplicated, same level as original, race(s) changed
67, Two PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, race(s) changed
68, Two PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, race(s) changed
69, Two PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, race(s) changed
70, Two PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, race(s) changed
71, Three PCs duplicated, same level as original, race(s) changed
72, Three PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, race(s) changed
73, Three PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, race(s) changed
74, Three PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, race(s) changed
75, Three PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, race(s) changed
76, All PCs duplicated, same level as original, race(s) changed
77, All PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, race(s) changed
78, All PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, race(s) changed
79, All PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, race(s) changed
80, All PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, race(s) changed
81, One PC duplicated, same level as original, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
82, One PC duplicated, as original -1 level, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
83, One PC duplicated, as original -2 levels, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
84, One PC duplicated, as original +1 level, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
85, One PC duplicated, as original +2 levels, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
86, Two PCs duplicated, same level as original, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
87, Two PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
88, Two PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
89, Two PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
90, Two PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
91, Three PCs duplicated, same level as original, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
92, Three PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
93, Three PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
94, Three PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
95, Three PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
96, All PCs duplicated, same level as original, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
97, All PCs duplicated, as original -1 level, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
98, All PCs duplicated, as original -2 levels, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
99, All PCs duplicated, as original +1 level, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed
100, All PCs duplicated, as original +2 levels, gender(s) changed, race(s) changed

When they die, everything dissolves except the time-sand in the upper half. Usually about d4 rounds worth (or d20+4 seconds). Eating this sand will freeze time around the diner for the appropriate number of seconds.
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