Woke tabletop gaming companies like Wizards Of The Coast, Paizo, and Catalyst, backed by big companies that gorge off ESG money from BlackRock, like Hasbro, have made the tabletop roleplaying game or TTRPG industry radioactive. Then, to codify their takeover of TTRPGx, tourists like Matt Mercer set up dramatizations like Critical Role to act like they’re playing Dungeons & Dragons, which are nothing more than hipster theatre to try to sound hip to the d20 crew.
The trouble is much of these companies’ modern work feels less like a dungeoneering session and more like a non-binary after-school special. Now with these pink-haired pinkos smearing their feces that they dipped in rainbow food coloring all over the TTRPG industry, one would think all would be hunky dory, there are celebratory drum circles, nasty slam poetry, and they can groom anyone the age of twelve that would deign to come to their table as there’s no threat of ‘the chuds’ setting foot in the world of TTRPG, right? The problem with the people involved in Dungeons & Dragons and the games that followed is they’re never satisfied.
A fellow indie TTRPG developer who goes by the name Grim Jim acquired a couple of pieces of information, which revealed that since they no longer have to worry about ‘the chuds’ in TTRPG, as it usually is in most Marxist-dominated institutions, they turned the cancel cannons on each other.
Grim Jim reported on an insanely long medium article written by one Dr. Clio Belle Weisman. The fact that she even calls herself a ‘doctor,’ let alone have three names without being Hispanic, is suspect. A little caution, though: the article is the internet equivalent of ‘War and Peace’; please do not play any drinking games with all the buzzwords you’ll find. But in short, it seems like all the pandering to the pronoun posse from the likes of figures from WOTC, Paizo, and others was all for naught because “Dr.” Weisman calls critics of the direction of woke TTRPG ‘incels’ and ‘harassers.’ She wrote:
“If you are not familiar with this world and reading about it for the first time I will start with this observation: do you see all the audio clips embedded in this article? They are clips of interviews I did with harassers. That is my voice you hear talking to them. After researching this world within an inch of its life, I know to a near-certainty that one of the reactions to this article will be that it is all made-up and I know that if it is countered with “What about the audio clips?” the speaker will simply disappear, wait, and say it again later somewhere else. I also know the person who does this will as likely as not have an award-winning career in the game industry and a network of online friends who think that none of that behavior is weird or even especially wrong.
In addition to harassers, I interviewed victims, bystanders and experts on the industry. However, I found that I needed almost none of what the innocent said to explain the broader situation because the harassers themselves were remarkably honest in explaining their own behavior. Every interview quote and clip you are about to hear is from them, the harassers — a community of toxic artists, game designers and fans describing itself.”
People like Kyle Brink, executive producer at WOTC, thought that posting their pronouns on their bio and calling for ‘white dudes in a basement’ to cede the TTRPG hobby to these cultural commissars would give them a pass. This clearly shows it makes you an even bigger target than apologizing to them.
Grim Jim also recovered some audio from the so-called “exposé” that reveals the utter insanity that’s going on in these major TTRPG studios.
With all this backstabbing, one-upmanship, and generally disgusting and unprofessional behavior going on in the wake of this glorified ‘sperg-piece’, I don’t care if that’s not a word it should be as it best describes this “exposé,” eventually a name would be affixed to this situation. Names like ‘DungeonGate,’ ‘CancelGate,’ and my favorite ‘Tw*tGate’ (HINT: it rhymes with ‘swat’) have been a catch-all to describe it. But since this is a family publication and out of respect to our esteemed editor-in-chief, I’ll go with the moniker ‘DungeonDrama’ because those who know me know that drama doesn’t make dollars, and to paraphrase DJ Quik, if it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense.
To best describe ‘DungeonDrama’, Fandom Pulse reached out to Grim Jim on Twitter to give a TL;DR version of it. He responded:
“A group of ‘progressive’ independent TTRPG creators have been slandering and cancelling people, lying about them, for about a decade. Self-admittedly without evidence or seemingly much reason other than elevating their own profile and getting a kick out of it.”
At a long enough timeframe, the woke eventually becomes an Ouroboros
This situation has yet to escape the attention of those within the indie TTRPG realm. Another fellow TTRPG developer, Venger Satanis, the creator of Cha’alt, did three videos surrounding ‘DungeonDrama,’ and his third video confirmed a prediction he made that 2024, God willing, is the death of woke and this situation is one of its death throes.
While this is a hopeful sign, TTRPG fans shouldn’t spike the proverbial football until the game is over. There are still ten months left in the year of chaos.
Finally, there’s a substack article by the incomparable Raven Wulfgar. In it, he praises Grim Jim and James Raggi IV, the latter of whom made a video in which he made a statement taking the woke to task.
Though it’s nice to see that the mainstream TTRPG industry is paying for its sins by allowing these activists to set up tents and turn most of its content into Marxist agitprop, the TTRPG industry might not recover from this for a long time. Unlike the film and video gaming industry, the audience is niche, and unfortunately, niche audiences don’t make a durable industry due to the limited demand.
Listen to more on ‘DungeonDrama’ further on The Mad Shogun’s Twitter space show, HUDCAST, this Wednesday.
What do you think of the drama in the TTRPG community? Leave a comment and let us know.
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Most everything that I know about DungeonDrama I learned in this article. Aside from the ESG money funding all this junk, there are people who could redirect TTRPGer’s attention to non-woke alternatives. For example I recall feeling tired when the TAZ boys backpedaled their non-woke characters, turning them woke ASAP. Taako couldn’t co-opt Mexicans, presumably because his player wasn’t a Mexican? They didn’t have to do that, and they were positioned to not do it, probably losing a lot of revenue in the process, but building an audience that didn’t have to listen to the hot garbage that is dungeon drama.
I’m hoping 2024 will be the death knell of this woke fucktardery. That would mean that actually good actual play sessions of Mekton Zeta, Jovian Chronicles,and Heavy Gear would soon be on the horizon and with considerably less pronoun cultist bullfuckery too.
I’m hoping 2024 will be the death knell of this woke gobbletygook. That would mean that actually good actual play sessions of Mekton Zeta, Jovian Chronicles,and Heavy Gear would soon be on the horizon and with considerably less pronoun cultist bullcrap too.
The fact of the matter is, if you’ve seen the movie The Big Short, there’s a scene where Steve Carrell is looking at these bankers talking about the subprime loans they sold without a single shred of conscience as to what could happen and they had zero in the way of care as long as they “got another boat this year.”
He asked, “Why are they confessing?” and someone else responded, “They’re not confessing, they’re bragging.”
Which is exactly what these people did and unfortunately, nothing will happen to them. Life will probably go on as it always does and they probably still have the people to do what they have always done.
They’re calling foul now, not over getting caught…but how they got caught. They’re crying about the release of the audio…but it’s on record.
The people they’ve destroyed are trying to rebuild a life of some sort and, if left up to those that bragged like Fiona Maeve Geist, they wouldn’t be able to.
I wrote a series of articles on the subject only deviating with my last one. Thanks for the mention, I’m truly honored and I can’t wait for the full version of Ronin.