[Q&A] Questions you want answered (D&D Edition)

Reviving for the new D&D:
-ask or answer questions better suited for D&D than EE
-not intended as a debate thread; if people want to debate a particular issue feel free to create a new thread for it.

~mod~
Wishing death upon people is not acceptable on Gamers With Jobs.
mudbunny

Drazzil wrote:

This kinda goes back to where I view things currently but two questions:

1. Why haven't the "people" in general overthrown our terribly toxic government that threaten their lives?

2. Do the politicians think that this state of events can go on forever?

3. How can people be so *STUPID*

In reverse order.....”People eat blood sausage; people are morons.”
Sure they do. It has. What would that change.
I don’t know. I don’t because I made my husband a promise when we married that I wouldn’t. But I want to.

Stengah wrote:

I'm not ready to overthrow the government because I don't want to start killing people.
Humans are animals but we're social animals and killing our own kind doesn't come easy to those of us predisposed to empathy and compassion.
While you'll find many that agree that Republicans are toxic and dangerous and should be removed from power, you won't find that many that are willing to start outright murdering them, which would be required to overthrow them. That's why the preference is to work within the existing system to remove them from power.

Thank you. Agreed, and this conversation has taken a really dark turn.

SallyNasty wrote:

Thank you. Agreed, and this conversation has taken a really dark turn.

~mod~

Agreed. And it is a turn that is in no way, shape, or form acceptable on GWJ.

This line of discussion stops.

Now.

mudbunny

Gotcha.... BUT my larger point here is that I am an illustration of why gun control is needed.

I should not be ABLE to have access to guns.

The fact that I could choose to go and get one is a serious failing in this country.....and a danger.

mudbunny wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

Thank you. Agreed, and this conversation has taken a really dark turn.

~mod~

Agreed. And it is a turn that is in no way, shape, or form acceptable on GWJ.

This line of discussion stops.

Now.

mudbunny

I think you're misapplying that rule, personally. She's not pointing at anyone in particular, and those posts were very powerful. That rule exists to prevent certain outcomes, and enforcing it in this case is, IMO, causing collateral damage.

You are entitled to that opinion.

On one hand, that may be true if we're only viewing posts in the context of armchairing ideas in a private conversation.

On the other hand, this is a publicly-viewable forum in a priavtely-owned space. Some of the things in the post were, frankly, disturbing. It was reported by a large number of people and if (and when) taken out of context, us remaining silent on that is also us being complicit in openly supporting or encouraging those kinds of statements with that silence.

To be clear, lusting for the mass murder of anyone columbine-style is not something I want people slavering for, in jest, in fantasy, or otherwise in this space. Feel free to post like that on your own personal twitter or facebook where they're notoriously lax on that kind of thing and you are welcome to own whatever fallout that entails.

Just to tack in a different direction, I have a crime coverage question that I think belongs in this thread since I’m genuinely curious.

At what point is it useful to start attributing a mass shooter’s intentions before an official investigation? The reason I’m asking is the media has been quick to call out the Atlanta shooter’s extreme Christian motivations but has held off on attributing any religious motivations to the Boulder shooter. I’m not buying into right wing media’s reports that this may have been an ISIS lone wolf attack, but I also want to see the investigation move forward before making conclusions. I feel the same should be done with the Atlanta case, although it’s of course fine to rally around the Asian community and dismiss stupid reasons like “sex addiction.”

Personally I think that any attribution of motives is risky - at any point in the investigation. I think it should be treated a bit like a scientific theory. This is the motive - as we currently understand it but it may change at any time if new evidence comes to light.

Amoebic wrote:

You are entitled to that opinion.

Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad I read those posts, and I think it's a damn shame that others have missed them.

Malor wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

You are entitled to that opinion.

Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad I read those posts, and I think it's a damn shame that others have missed them.

Now I have some serious FOMO, though I guess on the plus side I’ve stopped checking D&D every hour or so.

FWIW when I get pissed off at the other side and start wandering into “Thanos did nothing wrong” fantasy, I try to remember my experiences in Bosnia. When sh#t goes down it becomes very hard to tell the good guys from the bad because bad actors will crop up on both sides. And even if Team Blue keeps it together, they are fighting against an enemy that would love nothing more than to kick off genocide.

Malor wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

You are entitled to that opinion.

Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad I read those posts, and I think it's a damn shame that others have missed them.

Alternatively, I found them extremely upsetting and wish I hadn't seen them and am glad others will not be subject to them. With no attempt at humor or hyperbole I wonder if we have a responsibility to report them to the appropriate authorities.

SallyNasty wrote:
Malor wrote:
Amoebic wrote:

You are entitled to that opinion.

Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad I read those posts, and I think it's a damn shame that others have missed them.

Alternatively, I found them extremely upsetting and wish I hadn't seen them and am glad others will not be subject to them. With no attempt at humor or hyperbole I wonder if we have a responsibility to report them to the appropriate authorities.

I mean is that worth doing on a gaming forum? I’m gaming buddies with many Goodjers but I don’t know their personal lives or propensity to violence. Compare this to say some of my crazy former Army buddies who I have been watching since they have the motive and means (they LOVE posting their arsenals).

It’s hard to gauge if someone is just spouting off, and I’d prefer not to involve police and possibly get someone beat up or worse for an ill timed rant.

I haven't, to be clear, but it was basically a shooting spree fantasy against conservatives, framed in the context of being prevented from doing so by gun control. It was gross.

That said, every one of these mass shooters that posted on Facebook were probably dismissed initially as well.

SallyNasty wrote:

I haven't, to be clear, but it was basically a shooting spree fantasy against conservatives, framed in the context of being prevented from doing so by gun control. It was gross.

That said, every one of these mass shooters that posted on Facebook were probably dismissed initially as well.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been guilty of raging in the past that I don’t put much stock in general rants. I guess I figured everyone has those moments so live and learn unless it’s a very specific threat - aka “I’m headed down to the Re-elect Trump rally at 1 pm. And check out my cherry new AR 15.”

jdzappa wrote:

Just to tack in a different direction, I have a crime coverage question that I think belongs in this thread since I’m genuinely curious.

At what point is it useful to start attributing a mass shooter’s intentions before an official investigation? The reason I’m asking is the media has been quick to call out the Atlanta shooter’s extreme Christian motivations but has held off on attributing any religious motivations to the Boulder shooter. I’m not buying into right wing media’s reports that this may have been an ISIS lone wolf attack, but I also want to see the investigation move forward before making conclusions. I feel the same should be done with the Atlanta case, although it’s of course fine to rally around the Asian community and dismiss stupid reasons like “sex addiction.”

There's never really an "official investigation," though. If the shooter didn't off themselves or get killed then they're going to be prosecuted. And whatever evidence of their motivation is going to get locked down for the trial, which will be months or years after the fact.

Nor is there a need for an "official investigation" when the shooter leaves a manifesto or final message. His motivation should be clear.

From what I've read about the Boulder shooter experts haven't found any telltale signs of radicalization from his social media:

Washington Post wrote:

A Facebook profile that appears to be Alissa’s contains posts about martial arts and Islam, with no evidence of “any radical or extremist views,” according to an analysis Tuesday by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors online extremism. Analysts there reviewed an archived version of the Facebook page, which has been removed from the platform.

The profile shows that Alissa “was born in Syria and came to the U.S. as a toddler in 2002. He studied computer science and expressed an interest in wrestling and mixed martial arts (MMA). Alissa also frequently discussed PlayStation 4, Islam, and his stance against same-sex marriage.”

“We still don’t know what his motive was, or if he had one at all. But what I can say is that based on what I’ve seen of his social media presence, he didn’t even remotely suggest having radical Islamist leanings, or really radical leanings of any kind,” said Rita Katz, executive director of SITE. “There are already some suggesting he was a jihadi or anti-Trump terrorist, but social media posts they cite as evidence don’t really back it up.”

There is evidence that he was a loner/anti-social and had a temper, but nothing that remotely says he was an ISIS lone wolf. But conservative media just assumes that every Muslim is a terrorist.

The Atlanta shooter was much, much clearer, IMO. No 21-year-old says they have a "sex addiction" unless that sh*t's been burned into them by their f*cked up religious upbringing. Hell, "sex addiction" is a literal evangelical Christian code phrase for anything that's not boring-ass p-in-v missionary sex between a husband and a wife. You look at porn or masterbate and it's "you have a sex addiction." 21-year-olds are sexual, not "sex addicts."

And he targeted multiple Asian-run spas. One attack is random, two is maybe a coincidence, but three is "I'm specifically trying to kill Asians."

There's a slim chance he was simply targeting the places he had visited, but that doesn't really matter in the big picture, especially when the people he targeted have a long history of being targeted in this country, doubly so since COVID.

Can anyone explain to me the latest hullabaloo about the resurrection of TSR (aka the company that founded Dungeons and Dragons)? All I've been able to garner is that the trademark slipped and Gary Gygax's son snatched it up, but beyond that I'm seeing a lot of conflicting info.

jdzappa wrote:

Can anyone explain to me the latest hullabaloo about the resurrection of TSR (aka the company that founded Dungeons and Dragons)? All I've been able to garner is that the trademark slipped and Gary Gygax's son snatched it up, but beyond that I'm seeing a lot of conflicting info.

Twitter thread with a good overview.

jdzappa wrote:

Can anyone explain to me the latest hullabaloo about the resurrection of TSR (aka the company that founded Dungeons and Dragons)? All I've been able to garner is that the trademark slipped and Gary Gygax's son snatched it up, but beyond that I'm seeing a lot of conflicting info.

Trademark lapsed back in early 2000s, new company (A) registered it in 2011. They missed a filing deadline last year and another company (B) snatched it up immediately. A is still using the name in commerce, and would probably win if they filed a lawsuit against B, but they don't have the money to litigate, so A is currently licensing the TSR name from B since B technically owns the trademark now. (They're only charging like $10 a year, but still.)

Ernie Gygax (Gary's son, in company B) is the only one in the family involved in the project, mostly because Ernie's pretty much a terrible person and hates the direction that D&D has gone and wants to go back to the old days when DMs could tell you your characters only had two possible genders to choose from without someone "dissing" the DM for it. He's... well, he's a piece of work. Look up some of the interviews he's given or comments he's made if you really need more examples, and there are also apparently other higher-ups at company B who have made similar statements.

There's a twitter comment/minithread about it here, but the jist of what company B wants is summed up like this:

Nev, on Twitter wrote:

And now they're using it to make a "safe space" for cis white dudes who feel D&D is too woke

Edit: Okay, yeah, Dimmer beat me and his thread is better. If you're interested the tweet I posted is directly from Company A, though.

jdzappa wrote:

Can anyone explain to me the latest hullabaloo about the resurrection of TSR (aka the company that founded Dungeons and Dragons)? All I've been able to garner is that the trademark slipped and Gary Gygax's son snatched it up, but beyond that I'm seeing a lot of conflicting info.

Back in 2011 Jayson Elliot discovered that Wizards of the Coast, which had purchased TSR back in 1997, had abandoned the TSR trademark in the early 2000s. He registered it in 2011 with plans of rebooting it to its former glory and put both Luke and Ernie Gygax, Gary Gygax's sons, on the new TSR's board of directors.

In 2013 Elliot launched Gygax Magazine, which covered tabletops games and RPGs. In 2016 Gail Gygax, the wife of Gary Gygax, made it clear that she owned all the rights to the use of Gary Gygax's name and likeness and all related intellectual properties. The magazine ceased publication and Luke and Ernie Gygax left the company.

TSR attempted to recover by publishing games, the biggest being a Kickstarter-funded reboot of Top Secret, a game first created in 1980 and sold by the original TSR, in 2017.

Last week it came out that Elliot and TSR had failed to file paperwork to re-register TSR as their trademark last year. Another company--run by Justin LaNasa, Ernest Gygax, and Stephen E. Dinehart--swooped in, registered the TSR trademark, and announced it was publishing Star Frontiers and Giantlands.

Elliot's company then announced that they didn't have the money to sue to regain their trademark and had worked out a deal to license the TSR name from the new TSR for $10 a year so they could continue to exist.

Then Ernest Gygax went on the Live from the Bunker podcast to talk about what had happened and what the new TSR was going to be up to. During that interview Gygax (about 17:30 in) said that "there are a ton of artists and game designers and people who play and recently they've been dissed for, uh, being old fashioned, possibly being anti-modern trends, and, uh, enforcing, or even having the concept of gender identity" and then laughed.

This statement was picked up on Twitter with people accusing the new TSR of being homophobic and transphobic. At first the new TSR's Justin LaNasa, who actually owns the TSR trademark now, tried to play off Gygax's comments saying he wasn't "a corporate guy" and that those comments were Gygax's and not a reflection of the new TSR. That went over about as well as you'd think.

The new TSR quadrupled down by openly fighting people calling for the company to make a statement that they support trans and gay rights (among other things), gaslighting them, and, ultimately, telling a trans woman D&Der "you're disgusting" for wanting the new company to put out a trans positive statement.

Jayson Elliot, who had stayed quite for months about the trademark being effectively stolen from him, began tweeting support for trans rights, black lives matter, and more to distance themselves from the new TSR. Elliot tweeted that they've decided not to re-license the TSR name, are figuring out what to do, and have largely switched their social media over to branding for Top Secret: The New World Order, their flagship game.

And then a few days ago Gen Con, which itself was also founded by Gary Gygax, said on Twitter that they aren't associated with the new TSR and "don't support their recent statements." This was interpreted as Gen Con essentially banning the new TSR.

Luke Gygax also felt the need to disavow the new TSR and his brother by tweeting that GaryCon, an annual convention that honors his father, has nothing to do with the new TSR nor Ernest Gygax. He reiterated that "everyone was welcome" at GaryCon.

What's the name of the Spanish or Italian, or maybe Portuguese author who wrote a bunch of books on fascism? There is a list of things fascist leaders do that he is commonly attributed to in gifs. I want to learn more about him and read his work.

Sounds like Umberto Eco's 1995 essay "Ur-Fascism"

Gremlin wrote:

Sounds like Umberto Eco's 1995 essay "Ur-Fascism"

That's what I was looking for, thank you!

First, thanks everyone for the great answers.

Second, I am sad at the way they are trying to reboot Star Frontiers. It was one of my favorite games from the 80s.

What, no love for their millions of Boot Hill and Gangbusters fans?

Gremlin wrote:

Sounds like Umberto Eco's 1995 essay "Ur-Fascism"

And here's a link to the 9 page essay. Really interesting work and quite prescient, too.

https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles...

With the Ashli Babbitt case back in the news (Air Force vet shot at Capitol), my conservative circle are hassling me about double standards in police response and accountability. So here are my two questions. One - should the cops have first tried non-lethal force given her size and the fact she was visibly unarmed? The argument on the other side is there were dozens of officers and one could easily have tackled and restrained her.

My bigger question though is why the secrecy in who fired the round? I personally feel it’s important to have police shooters named in all cases, though wasn’t sure if DC rules are different.

jdzappa wrote:

With the Ashli Babbitt case back in the news (Air Force vet shot at Capitol), my conservative circle are hassling me about double standards in police response and accountability. So here are my two questions. One - should the cops have first tried non-lethal force given her size and the fact she was visibly unarmed? The argument on the other side is there were dozens of officers and one could easily have tackled and restrained her.

My bigger question though is why the secrecy in who fired the round? I personally feel it’s important to have police shooters named in all cases, though wasn’t sure if DC rules are different.

With the violence directed towards Capitol Police during the 1/6 Insurrection, I think there is a strong argument that releasing the name of the officer constitutes a high risk of harm towards that officer and family.

I watched the full video. Babbitt was actively breaching a closed and locked door and ignoring verbal commands to stop while the crowd was actively verbalizing threats of violence and death towards legislators.

She was shot and killed during an insurrection attempt in which she was actively attempting to overthrow the federal government.

As a former Air Force officer, she knew that trespassing on federal property is against the law, she knew what she was doing illegal, and she knew that the possible results of her actions included the use of force, to include lethal force.

Personally, she died a traitor's death and the conservative attempt to lionize a criminal white woman's death at the hands of law enforcement speaks to the moral depravity of conservatism generally and the rank moral turpitude of Republicans specifically.

She deserved to die, I’m glad she’s dead, and I relish the crocodile tears of the universally white crowds to whom she is a martyr. She was the snake who bit America, and America bit back.

If the people whining about double standards want to join the fight against police brutality, I welcome them to put their money where their filthy mouths are.

Seth wrote:

She deserved to die, I’m glad she’s dead, and I relish the crocodile tears of the universally white crowds to whom she is a martyr. She was the snake who bit America, and America bit back.

If the people whining about double standards want to join the fight against police brutality, I welcome them to put their money where their filthy mouths are.

As I have gotten older, I am less likely to say whether or not I think a person "deserves" to die or not.

In this case, her death is neither surprising nor unreasonable given the circumstances in which it occurred.

Again, having watched the video, the crowd immediately stopped their assault once she was shot dead.

As the youth say, "f*ck around, find out."