Stopping The Pendulum

How Grim Jim & James Raggi Cement Their Hero Status In #DungeonDrama or #Cancelgate

James Raggi IV finally broke silence yesterday, releasing a new video which is brutally honest and what I can only describe as bare-faced, courageous and bold.

James admitted to things that I probably wouldn’t have. Have a watch and please watch the entire video. We’ll talk about it.

Quick Note: We should all be supporting James and Grim Jim right now. James is having a clearance and BOGO sale at his US Webstore so, if you were ever curious about this edgy horror game disguised as a fantasy game, now is your chance and if you wanna do like I did and expand your library, now is a great time to do it. I still wanna get a copy of Death Frost Doom and might with the next paycheck though I’ll probably have to order it from the Euro store. We’ll see how that works out.

Anyway, there were a few things that upset me about the video. I talked it over with a friend and, at first, I found myself upset to the point of openly ranting to the air in my living room. I couldn’t seem to get my head into an RPG I was playing in Second Life last night (Sorry, Angelique!) and there were other factors at play, of course but let’s cut to the quick of this thing, get to the heart of it right away.

I both sympathize and empathize with both Grim and James in equal measure. I’ve been in similar situations. Recently, a former guest turned and decided to get hysterical on me because an argument didn’t go his way, burning his bridge with me. In the past, there were the odd three in the morning phone calls by anonymous people who knew how to bypass caller ID and issue threats. Threats they and I knew they’d never make good on and hence, the reason I had guns in the house. Long story short and everyone who has read this blog knows the story. Everyone who’s seen my videos know the story as well. To Francis Maeve Geist, I don’t wonder why I support James. I know why I support him.

Grim has taken the position of not supporting or approving of organized boycotts, however, in being fair, he has stated that the decisions should be left to the individual. His latest video which he considers an endcap to the entire subject can be seen here and I suggest you watch this one in full as well.

They both have gone on record as stating, in a paraphrased sense to play what you love and love what you play, similar to

FracBrain

and comments he’s made. Neither support the idea of the list that Ocule and Dungeons & Diversity have created and I’d like to clarify why these lists are made.

These lists were made to inform you of who makes games for the sake of gaming. Those companies and creators take an approach of letting you know, by their own actions that, once the book you purchased is in your hands, it’s out of theirs what you do with it. Other companies have engaged in some minor-league questionable at best behavior and maybe kept it out of their games, some will engage in that same behavior and put it into their games and yet others will use their games as a pulpit for their new political religion and lecture you on what a terrible person you are for not doing as they do.

It’s a list of creators that are recommended, cautioned about and flat out not supported by those of us who just want games. At no time will any of us flat out tell you that you are not to buy those games from anyone. The end decision will always be yours.

The problem that I see by purchasing a game that these people have worked on is that it funds the war chest of people who actively hate your guts. That’s the problem.

Listen, Mothership is a great rules-lite game. I have it. I also have an Event-Horizon-like supplement for it called This Ship Is A Tomb and, to me, it’s excellent as well but had I known about the actions and thoughts of Fiona Geist, I never would have purchased it. I did, however, spend a good bit of money at the Lamentations of The Flame Princess store, even though I already have ten books from that game and now I’m looking down the barrel of having possibly up to ten more, some of them zine format.

I’ve spent a good deal of money on Postmortem Studios books as well, mostly in the Giallo series that got reworked for The Wretchedverse by The Red Room and the game Actual Fucking Monsters.

I had a conversation about this and much more with my friend in Orlando, Marcus and despite the differences in origin and distance in land between us, seems the more we talk, the more we end up finding out what we have in common. We’ve both had very similar timelines and events with only the slightest deviation. We’ve gamed over the years with a veritable cast of characters, both of us have rejected assholes and people with Main Character Syndrome and both of us agreed in that moment that something had to be done. Moral High Ground, showing who we really are and always have been hasn’t worked.

After I hung up the phone, I tried to read a comic book or two and found I couldn’t concentrate. I felt pretty angry. I wanted to break something. I wanted to step outside and scream to the skies that this would only continue if something weren’t done.

These people don’t deny what they did. They didn’t confess. They bragged. They were willing (and probably still are) to take full advantage of our kindness and acceptance, burn it all to the ground only to rule over the ashes. The moral panics will continue and claim lives and livelihoods at some point.

I stretched out watching a history documentary and fell asleep instead. Working myself up would do no good.

Seeing Grim’s video this morning while brushing my teeth, something occurred to me. I had pointed out that the pendulum needed to stop at Zero Point, otherwise, the Vargs (Varg Vikernes to the uninitiated) of the hobby who are also a tiny but vocal minority would be there there to say “See? We Were Right!!! We Told You So!!!” and there would be enough people in a vulnerable enough state to move to their “side.” Then the next ten years would be headed by actual racists and phobes and jerks and there would be us, stuck in the middle again with the atavistic nightmare becoming even more apparent and the fires rage on.

In short, there’s probably going to be nothing happening to these people that caused this or that took part. To me, it’s akin to having those people there at my doctor’s visits and chiropractic appointments telling me “Yeah, wow, sorry ‘bout that, pal. What a crazy little time that was huh? Welp, have a good one!” and bouncing while I get to deal with the effects of the damages they’d caused, some of them irreparable. Meanwhile, they get to walk away without a bit of consequences ever having visited them. I’d be lying if I said that those physical pains didn’t embitter me at least a bit.

Looks like for James and Grim, respectively, that will be the case as well only they won’t be getting any apologies at all, same as me.

After sleeping on it, maybe they’re right. I’ve stated many times that the purpose of the beatings, the harassment, the threats and the misery visited upon me by “the good people” doing their “high-minded work” was to make me cease enjoying myself.

I won. They lost. I still listen to that music, play those games, watch those movies. If I was going to suffer for it anyway, I would have some moments of joy in my life. My mind had been made up. As much as their viewpoint of not wanting to revisit that on anyone much less those people, perhaps they’re right.

The decentralized nature of the hobby itself lends well to this. No one can or will ever have the ability to burn it all down and, sooner or later, the exiled will outnumber the exilers. That much is also true.

Grim does close it out with a sentiment I’ve also echoed in that we should support those creators that make good games and want to have our business. Again, games like Actual Fucking Monsters, Dystopian Dawn 2526, Castles & Crusades, Lamentations of The Flame Princess, Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age, Night Shift: Veterans of The Supernatural Wars, Cowpunchers Reloaded, Macuahuitl, The Wretchedverse, Cha’alt, Shadowdark, Hostile, Tales From Trinity City or even Viktor Gorchev’s Modern supplements for your games just to name a few are written by creators worthy of your support. Why? Because they create games and they’re down to game with you. Political spectrum, color, economic status, who you sleep with, doesn’t make a difference to them because it’s gaming with friends that matters most to them.

Look, if you still wanna buy Mothership, Halls of The Blood King for Old-School Essentials or any of that other stuff, I’m not going to think less of you. Grim and James aren’t going to think less of you, hell, even the people at Dungeons & Diversity won’t think less of you. I’ll even play them with you…unless it’s Thirsty Sword Lesbians or Myfarog, those, I just won’t play and it’s because I have the same problems with both games.

Maybe Grim and James respectively, are right. We can call out their bad behavior and Reddit, Facebook, Discord and EN World can suppress that all they want. Now we know who they are too. I will actively call for a boycott of all those platforms. Let them go down with that burning and sinking ship all they want. Let’s just ditch them and play the games we do love and if Fiona Geist just happens to be one of the people that wrote that game you love, okay well, happened to me twice so I can’t bitch, can I? I do know she probably won’t be employed at Troll Lord Games without shutting her mouth, right?

Know what else I’m gonna tell you here? Pick up some games that are fun. Cyberrats looks like a barrel of laughs and so does Skate Wizards. Best part? Cost. They don’t cost much. Alex Rinehart and Michael C Hsuing are amazing people with amazing talent to just drop an entertainment bomb on you. Feel that shockwave.

Focusing more on games we love and not worrying about these people or acknowledging their existence any further, yeah that’s worse. Grim And James respectively have chosen to stop the pendulum at Zero Point. As much as it irritates me to have to be as resigned to the fact that they may just get away with it, aided and abetted by big tech, that doesn’t mean I have to like it but I have to join because, like Grim and James, no one should ever have to go through that ever again anywhere for any reason.

In the words of Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid pt II…

Daniel LaRusso:
You could have killed him.

Mr. Miyagi:
Hai.

Daniel LaRusso:
Well, why didn't you?

Mr. Miyagi:
Because Daniel-san, for person with no forgiveness in heart, living worse punishment than death