Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 5:12 am

I actually don't know if Shitmuffin is transphobic. I do know that Shitmuffin is an absolutely insane asshole to everyone who disagrees with him and engages in "splitting" behavior where he decides that everything about a person has to be bad if he disagrees with some aspect of their person or views.

So there's pretty much no chance of Shitmuffin having gone through life without going off on unhinged personal attacks that seem transphobic. As soon as he's on the other side of an argument with someone, he acts as if every facet of their being is bad - and that's got to include their gender identity. Which is not to excuse his behavior, but merely to explain it. I rather suspect that Shitmuffin does not consider himself transphobic and in abstract is quite supportive of the trans community. But, and this is a big "but," he's so immature and aggressive in all disputes about absolutely everything that it's difficult for me to imagine him not pouncing on sensitive gender topics if he thought someone was "vulnerable" on that issue.

Tarnowski of course, is a monstrous and unrepentant asshole. While he makes no bones whatsoever about being aggressively transphobic, this is actually a minor facet of his character. After all, being unrepentantly racist, misogynistic, and frankly most other "-ists" that you can imagine, the fact that he is discriminatory and dismissive of the trans community is honestly just a rounding error of the people he deliberately offends on a regular basis. It's kind of like calling attention to the fact that the KKK promulgates negative stereotypes of Pacific Islanders.

Mearls behavior here is puzzling and inane. Obviously, saying nothing at all would be better. Claiming that Pundit had been "exonerated" completely fails that laugh test. Pundit can't be exonerated, because he openly boasts of having done the things he is accused of doing.

-Username17

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 5:35 am

I like the part where Shitmuffin's girlfriend defends him against all those internet trolls. living in a bubble must be great.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 6:38 am

Reading through it, it seems she really is attached and, who knows, maybe he did do something really nice for a long period of time.

In which case he's still a shitbird for not mustering up that level of kindness and consideration for the rest of the people he deals with; for, in fact, using it to excuse being a terrible person to everyone he disagrees with online. Moral licensing, yo.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 7:14 am

Unfortunately, the person writing the article handled it poorly possible way: alluding to vague and unprovable threats (needs more specifics, and it needs to tie to the asshats, not vaguely linked to unnamed supporters), but not providing any actual information, which unfortunately supporters of these asshats (and they _are_ clearly and demonstrably asshats) can use to obfuscate the situation.

Even bringing up "the 'Jap' in WWII" thread manages to muddle the conversation, since, if its the thread that I'm thinking of, the main discussion in the thread (and I'm not sure what whathisname's stance once) was that in-character racism was appropriate to the setting (because everything, from newspapers to radio to everyday commentary was, in fact, really fucking racist, and just whitewashing it and pretending it didn't actually happen is actually worse). But by bringing it up as a real issue alongside the really abhorrent behavior against real, modern people, it weakens the author's position as a whole, because it gives something for supports to latch onto. Conflating the two individuals doesn't help either. Pundits got some obvious screeds, and apparently shitmuffin... doesn't so much. He comes across as a little bullying asshole, but not much else.

And of course, telling people they're the 'worst community ever' is just going to inflame them against anyone trying to shine a light on this sort of shitty behavior.

Good intentions on calling out some assholes and shitty behavior, but handled... poorly. Needs a lot more documentation: as is, it is too easily trashed by the asshat's supporters as just another attack on their Favorite Assholes.

It is embarrassing that WotC latched onto these two fuckers, but throw down some quotes and display why. [And you guys don't need to here. We've all seen enough of both to be pretty convinced of the hypothesis- that was more directed at the author of the original piece, who needs some meat on that framework to offer something substantial to the audience.]. This thread can go back to picking apart the game system.

Mearls behavior here is puzzling and inane. Obviously, saying nothing at all would be better.

Agreed. I would hope the WotC/Hasbro PR or Legal departments come after him with a hammer, because this is really the kind of thing they exist for. Having a designer blather inanely and attempt to handle the situation ineptly should piss off the suits.

Alternately, of course, they don't give a fuck, but he still shouldn't have opened his cake hole.

ACOS · Post by **ACOS** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 7:44 am

That blog post is just several thousand words of crying "stop picking on my boyfriend" apologist b.s. She's clearly biased to a degree that she can't be taken seriously on the topic.
Sure, I'm sure Shitmuffin is a super awesome guy to everyone who drinks his kool-aid or that he fucks (or wants to fuck) off the clock. But that's completely meaningless.

@ Mearls
In his dumbass rebuttal of the complaints, he specifically notes that they (WotC) wanted people who were going to "rip apart" their game.

Go ahead and let that sink in a minute.

Now go find a towel so that you can clean up the brain matter that just leaked out of your ears.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:07 am

If Frank Trollman (in an alternate universe) was part of the D&D5e special thanks section, would the online RPG community be as big of a huff about it as they are against Zak S and RPGpundit?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:48 am

No, but certain circles would have shitfits.

Admittedly, the people who masturbate to 4E already hate 5E. But they might get to go "It's all because of that Frank", thus exonerating Mearls from being an incompetent fuckwit.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 11:36 am

Morzas wrote:Well, this is interesting. And Mearls is being a dipshit as usual.

From the thread explaining why he was banned from RPG.net:

You serially derail [..] threads with bad-faith arguments. You insist that nobody can ever make generalizations about anything ever (even when they're not), then post generalizations. You pull out arguments that boil down to "words don't mean things" like that's ever been constructive outside the philosophy forum. You're passive-aggressive and occasionally condescending, you post anecdotes as facts [..]. You're convinced that you're always right and refuse to consider otherwise, or at least that's the only explanation I can think of for why you keep making up strawmen to dismiss people who disagree with you [..]. You don't take anything that isn't agreement for an answer, and will argue in circles about it instead of making the positive contributions you could be until you get bored or someone makes you stop.

That describes 99% of people on this forum. In fact, I think that describes most people on any forum!

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 12:26 pm

Yes. Here though, we've adapted to deal with it better.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:03 pm

OgreBattle wrote:If Frank Trollman (in an alternate universe) was part of the D&D5e special thanks section, would the online RPG community be as big of a huff about it as they are against Zak S and RPGpundit?

I think Koumei is broadly right. Obviously there would be some people who shat bricks, because there are of course lots of people who hate me. There was a period in which several obsessives quoted all kinds of snippets of things I said onto grognards.txt and then ranted about how obviously stupid I was. My impression is that that particular trend largely dried up when it was no longer possible to argue that I was wrong about 4th edition D&D being pastured (thereby obviating the need to repeatedly "discredit" me by targeting me for two minutes of hate rituals). Similarly, Catalyst loyalists, though obviously few in numbers after the collapse of Shadowrun as a TTRPG brand, openly blame me for the company's poor fortunes. If I hadn't broken the news that there was a mass exodus of talent because of a series of broken contracts, wouldn't Shadowrun still be selling well?! (answer: No. But they sure don't want to hear that).

I think if I had had special thanks in 5e, that the gorgnards.txt people would revive their two minutes of hate rituals about me, or at least some of them would. We'd definitely have a couple more goon invasions over here. But the fact that I'm actually not banned over on the big purple (hard as that may be to believe), would probably lead to a very different and much more contained flame war than Shitmuffin and Pundit are generating. Of course, if I had special thanks in a D&D edition, I'd probably be presenting an olive branch to the 4e people rather than calling them swine and pig fuckers, so there's that.

-Username17

Daztur · Post by **Daztur** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 1:25 pm

hogarth wrote:That describes 99% of people on this forum. In fact, I think that describes most people on any forum!

Well Ettin is the worst mod on rpg.net, which is quite an impressive accomplishment.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 3:19 pm

Morzas wrote:Well, this is interesting. And Mearls is being a dipshit as usual.

The author of this article is a special combination of retardation and unconscious hypocrisy that one does not often see outside of Discworld Big Bads.

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 3:36 pm

Daztur wrote: Well Ettin is the worst mod on rpg.net, which is quite an impressive accomplishment.

The only site with worse and more biased moderation than rpg.net I've experienced is Tvtropes. While my various bans or warnings on other forums at least were for observably being mean and rude to people (even if a mod was stealthily taking sides), I quit rpg.net after being quite literally and openly forbidden from ever discussing Exalted, because my opinion about it was negative.

Speaking of this particular ban as a person who didn't know any of the participants in this shitflinging contest before reading a link provided in this thread, it is a pretty transparent attempt at censoring an opinion Ettin didn't like.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 3:54 pm

FatR wrote:
Morzas wrote:Well, this is interesting. And Mearls is being a dipshit as usual.
The author of this article is a special combination of retardation and unconscious hypocrisy that one does not often see outside of Discworld Big Bads.

Well, yes. Whatever has happened there seems to have devolved into vicious ad hominems being fired by all sides. And yet again, I can only think on how moderated forums only serve to make everybody grow very thin skins.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 3:58 pm

First, can we not devolve into sexist and ableist comments here, at least when discussing this? Seriously, it's entirely uncalled for.

Second, as much as I greatly dislike a lot of people who are particiating in thsi discussion and think their games are shit, they are pretty much right about the harassing behavior and bigotry of those two. Mind you, things haven't been better here recently, but as far as I'm aware nobody here works for WOTC.

The entire thing is pretty shameful and disgusting.

MfA · Post by **MfA** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 5:24 pm

DragonChild wrote:First, can we not devolve into ... ableist comments

That boat sailed and made a couple trips around the world ...

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 5:56 pm

I can get on board with language policing the use of racist or sexist words as markers of displeasure. Saying that something is "like a girl" or "gay" to mean that it is weak promotes negative stereotypes. But you honestly can't language police the word "retarded." You simply can't, because people who have an actual disease that makes it difficult for them to think is not something that is ever going to be "not insulting" to be compared to under any circumstances.

You can create new words to refer to people with learning impairments. You can call them "different" or "handicapped" and it will still be insulting to be compared to them. You can even claim words that by themselves have a positive connotation like "special" and it will still be insulting. Kids will call each other "special" and it will be insulting. I went to school in the eighties and I know how this works.

Because at the end of the day, while there is nothing wrong with being a darker shade of brown or having ovaries instead of testicles or falling in love with one arbitrary set of human beings instead of another, there actually is something wrong with being retarded. It's a disease. If we could treat it, we would. There are forms of mental retardation (such as cretinism) that we actually can treat, and we do. Because it's a disease.

Pretending that there is nothing wrong with being retarded or that people shouldn't be insulted when they are compared to retarded people is a joke. Of course there's something wrong with being retarded. They didn't do anything bad, but there genuinely is something wrong with them and if we could cure that, we would.

-Username17

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 6:31 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqiGWd0-0Os

Chris Titus' definition of 'retard' which more or less fits how I think about it.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 7:31 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:As someone who hasn't actually played in any real 2E D&D PnP games, did people in the beforetimes really and truly try to get their characters killed off because their stats were shitty and the DM wouldn't let them reroll? I mean, I make a lot of snide remarks about the whole 3d6 in order crap but I can't imagine that actually being a thing in most games.

We joked about it in the way that we joked about rolling a character in private and showing up with all 18's.

As far as my anecdotal experience goes on each side of the DM screen: actual stat generation was typically fairly generous, and the DM would frequently work with you to get something viable. I'm pretty sure my most common rolling method when I DMed was 4d6, re-roll 1's, drop the lowest. I think we also experimented with 4d6, drop the lowest, roll eight stats, pick the best six.

You tended not to get shit characters that way.

Edit:
I did actually have one PC suicide as a direct result of me being an ass-hat DM. The stats were rolled, and just fine; however, this was during a stint of me using the tables to roll for height and weight. The player rolled a low height, a high weight, and he had already assigned a low Str (he was playing a wizard). He got pissed that he'd rolled a fat character, and I refused to budge (cuz what's the point in rolling if you just get what you want? Amirite?), so he killed his character instantly.

It was stupidly pointless, too, because it was an experimental character where he was going to get turned into a vampire at level 1. This was 2E, so we had no rules for that sort of thing. I'm pretty sure his Str was getting set to 18/76, just like the monster entry, which was why he had a low Str. We were totally cool with rule-bending and some obvious min-maxing... and I decided to draw a line in the sand about arbitrary heights and weights. God, I hate thinking about some of my ideas on gaming from when I was a kid.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 8:11 pm

Frank- I made my comment because the sexist stuff is out of line, esecially considering the conversation topic. And when some of the people in question you're talking about are actually mentally disabled throwing "retarded" around as an insult doesn't really help. It is particularly tone-deaf to the larger issues going on, and allows the people who are harassing others to paint themselves as the victims.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 8:47 pm

DragonChild wrote:Frank- I made my comment because the sexist stuff is out of line, esecially considering the conversation topic. And when some of the people in question you're talking about are actually mentally disabled throwing "retarded" around as an insult doesn't really help. It is particularly tone-deaf to the larger issues going on, and allows the people who are harassing others to paint themselves as the victims.

DragonChild: I still owe you an actual punch in the nuts for you claiming that I was a person who would in real life claim that a woman who was raped in real life had somehow brought it on herself in real life. I have not forgotten or forgiven that piece of bullshit from you, and you are on very thin ice with me.

When you condemn "ableist language," you are making yourself into a parody. That is a strawman that a paleoconservative would paint of someone who was in any way concerned with the wellbeing of minorities or disadvantaged people. It is not a hill you want to die on. It is not a hill that anyone wants to die on, because it is fucking ridiculous.

We call people blind who do not see. We call people deaf who do not hear. We call people lame when they can't keep up. And we call people retarded when they do not learn. And all of these words are used when we are saying that there is something wrong with someone became those words mean that there is something wrong with someone. Deafness isn't a personal identity or meaningless happenstance like hair color, it's a fucking disease. When we can cure it, we do. Because it's a disease. And if we developed new terminology to refer to disabilities, we would still use those new terms to compare people and objects unfavorably to standards of normality.

When you claim that it is in any way helpful to "fight back" against the use of words referring to disability to disparage people and things that have less ability, you are making yourself into a joke. And you're making every single person who cares about hurtful language used to disenfranchise people into a joke as well. DragonChild: you are a joke. And I'm not laughing at you any more. Now I'm just sad that you apparently got so fucking dumb when you grew up.

-Username17

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 9:39 pm

I call people cock sleeves when I hear their BF's cock speaking out of their mouth. Am I doing it right? This derailment is getting awefully suspicious.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:12 pm

hogarth wrote: From the thread explaining why he was banned from RPG.net:
You serially derail [..] threads with bad-faith arguments. You insist that nobody can ever make generalizations about anything ever (even when they're not), then post generalizations. You pull out arguments that boil down to "words don't mean things" like that's ever been constructive outside the philosophy forum. You're passive-aggressive and occasionally condescending, you post anecdotes as facts [..]. You're convinced that you're always right and refuse to consider otherwise, or at least that's the only explanation I can think of for why you keep making up strawmen to dismiss people who disagree with you [..]. You don't take anything that isn't agreement for an answer, and will argue in circles about it instead of making the positive contributions you could be until you get bored or someone makes you stop.
That describes 99% of people on this forum. In fact, I think that describes most people on any forum!

Amusing but at our worst we don't hold a candle to Shitmuffin.

I believe my argument with him that finally got me to put him on ignore consisted of him coming up with a houserule, like 40 people pointing out that it was shit, him insisting it wasn't, and through like 3 pages of verbal sparring I got him to admit he didn't consider it shit because he fundamentally redefined some concept of RPGs in his own head and because of that he could make factual declarations. When I asked how the fuck we were supposed to read his mind and what other arguments he was making that were based on arbitrary redefinitions and houserules he went full potato arguing basically that his game is the only game that matters so fuck rules and language and consistency man.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:24 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:As someone who hasn't actually played in any real 2E D&D PnP games, did people in the beforetimes really and truly try to get their characters killed off because their stats were shitty and the DM wouldn't let them reroll? I mean, I make a lot of snide remarks about the whole 3d6 in order crap but I can't imagine that actually being a thing in most games.

I suicided a character in 3rd edition Ravenloft for DM Neckbearding.

We were... 4th or 5th level and we were railroaded into what I calculated was an EL15 or so encounter. We had no way to flee and we literally couldn't find the bad guy and we weren't even *looking* to fight the bad guy. So he kicked all our asses and when he realized he TPK'd us without taking any damage (seriously, 4th level PCs against a flying, improved invisibilty mage in a 300 foot diameter permanent silence bubble with a silenced wand of maximized fireballs in a pit with no way out because we were teleported into a room with no exits), he retconned that all but one PC was dead and had the bad guy "retreat". My PC walked into the nearest fire to die because at that point all fun had been driven out of the game and wanted out.

He never understood why all of us were pissed.

Incidentally, that was the last game session he ever DM'd. The rest of the players basically said "I have no interest in continuing on".

Dean · Post by **Dean** » Thu Jul 31, 2014 11:12 pm

TheFlatline wrote:i believe my argument with him that finally got me to put him on ignore consisted of him coming up with a houserule, like 40 people pointing out that it was shit, him insisting it wasn't, and through like 3 pages of verbal sparring I got him to admit he didn't consider it shit because he fundamentally redefined some concept of RPGs in his own head and because of that he could make factual declarations. When I asked how the fuck we were supposed to read his mind and what other arguments he was making that were based on arbitrary redefinitions and houserules he went full potato arguing basically that his game is the only game that matters so fuck rules and language and consistency man.

Yes I dont spend my time on tumblr so I dont feel the need to attack Shitmuffin with the goal of proving my moral superiority over him. Being a bigot or not does not impact his ability to write rules so it doesn't matter. He's not advising on civil rights legislation he's advising on an RPG system. It also happens to be proven that he is comically inept at RPG design and belongs nowhere near any ruleset that didn't want to be hot garbage. So when I attack Zak S it will be for his many proven failings at areas he claims expertise in and not a tumblrite dick measuring competition to prove whos more socially conscious and thus a better human.

If Shitmuffin was a Klan member who could write one good rule he'd be a better resource than he is now.