Quote from: Venka on Today at 01:57:30 AM

Quote from: Brad on February 13, 2024, 12:07:20 PMSee what you do is make a beer commercial with a tranny in it, even though 99% of your customer base is a bunch of rednecks and Catholics, then wonder why your company tanks. This just reminds me of the JRRT "superfans" who made videos on Youtube to push the Amazon Rings of Power and it was obvious they had no clue wtf they were even talking about. The only requirement for being a "superfan" was apparently having blue hair and writing a blog post about how LotR is misogynistic because you discovered it has like two female characters after you hatewatched half of the Peter Jackson movies.

This made me laugh pretty loudly, but the actual matter at hand is much more serious.  Whatever motivation has caused a bunch of ostensibly intelligent and well meaning people to embark on these absolutely disgusting missions- where profit is thrown away in exchange for what they earnestly believe is an unalloyed good, but is, in fact, socially ruinous- is really quite dire.

When it comes to Hasbro as a whole or even D&D in particular, I'm not even sure if the go-woke-go-broke is the main factor, or even all that large of a factor.  Certainly, assuredly, it is a factor, and when I see a video with a guy in it doubting that it matters at all, I know he's trying to take a politically neutral tract when the reality is actually somewhat political.

What I think is interesting though is that it's the players and DMs with the most passion, the ones who were bought in the most to the older, superior stuff, that are the ones who offer the pushback and then switch to some system that doesn't give the offender money.  We also see this in other adjacent things, such as players of miniatures games trying to find ways to set up offbrand, older, and 3D printed alternatives.  Tabletop has an advantage in that every real game is ultimately a circle of people; if you go to some competitive miniature event, arguably the ultimate use of such a collection, you are gonna have to play by all the corporate rules.  D&D doesn't have this, and won't unless it achieves incredible success with a virtual tabletop- and I don't think that they will.

The other thing that isn't considered is this; you take 100 gamers and DMs, and you push your shitty political agenda on them.  Some of them like it- say, 10.  Many don't care- say, 50.  Of the remaining 40, you have people who will just shrug and get over it, and then you have a small core who become, for lack of a better term, radicalized.  Even if that's just 1 guy in that 100, he'll lead his group away from that, suggest other games, find ways to deny WotC a revenue stream from himself and his buddies.  By doing this, they create a non-ignorable group that will continue to push back against them.  In other words, it's not just a matter of dollars, you end up making some people in the community simply opposed to you. 

And there's no way that's a smart call in the long term, and yet, that's what so very many companies are doing.  Why create "brand unembassadors" or whatever?  How does that help?

Quote from: ForgottenF on Today at 09:05:34 AMDidn't the Mario games already sanitize the Tanuki?

Quote from: ForgottenF on Today at 10:45:14 AM

Quote from: Trond on Today at 10:07:59 AM

Quote from: Slambo on April 25, 2024, 09:58:38 PM

Quote from: Trond on April 25, 2024, 09:22:19 PMHere's a question: these Africa-based settings, do they sell? Do black people actually buy them in larger numbers than they otherwise would?

I'm actually interested in trying a setting like that once (I also bought the Pundit's book based on India, and a few others that are slightly different from the norm). But I also suspect that the situation is a bit similar to what Bill Burr points out about women's sports ("they don't buy any tickets!!!"   ).

Anecdotally, I'm not really attracted to African settings myself. Except Ancient Egypt based settings if you count that.

Well, Egypt does have a long history. Africa south of the Sahara is the opposite.

This is also part of the problem when people say that we should teach more history written by blacks or whatever. There's not a whole lot written even recently, and the proposition falls apart the moment we want something more ancient. "OK then, let's get some books based on prominent writers south of the Sahara from say 2000 years ago? Someone like Xenophon or Cicero maybe? ....No?"

On top of that, most of the market for RPGs, including among black people, is way more steeped in the European-Mediterranean cultural tradition than they are in the African. They're probably more comfortable roleplaying something like ancient Greece than they are ancient Africa.

This I assume is the reason there aren't more RPG settings based on historical China. There's plenty of source material, but it's not something the mostly Euro/American audience has much interest in.

Quote from: Trond on Today at 10:07:59 AM

Quote from: Slambo on April 25, 2024, 09:58:38 PM

Quote from: Trond on April 25, 2024, 09:22:19 PMHere's a question: these Africa-based settings, do they sell? Do black people actually buy them in larger numbers than they otherwise would?

I'm actually interested in trying a setting like that once (I also bought the Pundit's book based on India, and a few others that are slightly different from the norm). But I also suspect that the situation is a bit similar to what Bill Burr points out about women's sports ("they don't buy any tickets!!!"   ).

Anecdotally, I'm not really attracted to African settings myself. Except Ancient Egypt based settings if you count that.

Well, Egypt does have a long history. Africa south of the Sahara is the opposite.

This is also part of the problem when people say that we should teach more history written by blacks or whatever. There's not a whole lot written even recently, and the proposition falls apart the moment we want something more ancient. "OK then, let's get some books based on prominent writers south of the Sahara from say 2000 years ago? Someone like Xenophon or Cicero maybe? ....No?"