RPGnet Forums

[UnsufficentBoobage]

Thank you very much! Checking it out now.

That thing made me feel so bleak, I opened some chick blog and started reading weight loss slapfight to cheer up.

 

[Flexo]

That thing made me feel so bleak, I opened some chick blog and started reading weight loss slapfight to cheer up.

Oh I'm tempted to do a running commentary.

I know why right-wingers want to hurt diverse groups of creative people, I do not have a handle on why diverse groups of creative people hurt each other. And I desperately wanted to.

And after all this did she stop to question whether she REALLY knew why right-wingers do what they do? Or even if they do? Did she stop to question her assumptions at all? (I'm betting not.)

As someone who has, in the past, extensively interviewed serial predators and murderers, I do not say lightly that what I found was genuinely despair-inducing in a way I never expected. In many ways the felons I spoke to in prison were easier to understand and less unnerving to interview.

I'm reading off and on this memoir written by a former prison chaplain. Yeah, he notes criminals are pretty easy to understand too.

 

[Mola Ram]

And after all this did she stop to question whether she REALLY knew why right-wingers do what they do? Or even if they do? Did she stop to question her assumptions at all? (I'm betting not.)

This line jumped out at me too. It's no wonder she's so shocked by the miserable behavior of the RPG community; insofar as she had any preconceptions of them at all, she likely assumed they were part of her lefty cohort, and therefore Good and Nice and Smart.

Oh I'm tempted to do a running commentary.

DO IT.

 

[EmpGulcasa]

Yeah, I don't really know much about the big names in TTRPGs but that article made me angry. I ended up in some old threads looking into it and the way people were talking about people there was zero evidence against makes my blood boil.

 

[Coo Coo Bird]

And after all this did she stop to question whether she REALLY knew why right-wingers do what they do? Or even if they do? Did she stop to question her assumptions at all? (I'm betting not.)

I admit, the hard part about reading this is her whining about 4chan and incels, and comparing someone saying the new Star Wars movies are bad to people deliberately destroying people's livelihoods with false criminal accusations. And she posts crap like this:

The story Mandy tells does not simply lack the ring of truth, it lacks any substantive evidence or reason to assume its validity. There just is nothing I could find, anywhere, that supports it. And I tried. I tried like hell to find something, anything, that would lead me to believe her. Because I really did not want her to be a liar. Because I never like it when the woman is the bad guy. We get enough negative press as it is, we have enough problems getting people to listen to us and believe us and we sure as hell do not need even one more example for misogynists to point to as proof that women are usually making it all up. So if I had any bias, really, it was to believe Mandy. And I could not. As hard as I tried (and you should not have to try that hard to believe a factual account), I could not get there.

How does she not see the obvious motives for tabletop developers lying about each other? It's a niche, competitive genre, now dominated by progressive politics. The best way to get competition out of the way, an to get prestige in the community, is to destroy each other's reputations. They're like lame Medicis.

 

[robobobo]

It's simple enough: this woman is your typical RPG.net mod at heart, utterly saturated in the kool aid. Being confronted by a pile of genderspecials ruthlessly destroying each other puts her in a cognitive dissonance loop, because they can do no wrong and yet she must produce an article about how they've wronged Zak Smith. I dunno if he's boning her on the side or has her cats hostage, but clearly he's got some kind of leverage here because usually the default would be to choose the side without the white guy on it, which is how these various grifting women made it as far as they did with some of the flimsiest #metoos conceivable against people like Avellone.

 

[Loose Goose]

She can't be surprised if she is in woke academia (and she is). It's the same exact behavior all the way down, and I would not be surprised if she herself had participated in similar campus politics. It is performative.

Parts of it are also clearly dictated by Zak. It references old Internet shit only Zak would care about, cites his decade old online feuds, and drags out obscure enemies who are completely unknown outside Zak drama. The length and obsessive detail is pure Zak. Is it unethical? Not for the reasons David Hill mentions, but it clearly is. She completely puts aside her scepticism for her "case study". The whole article is shit. It is not a research article, but if it is based on one, or the draft of one, it is only the kind of "science" that takes place in grievance studies. No rigor, shit methods, emotional appeals and enormous biases. It is an interesting look into the flaming dumpster of the RPG industry, but all that is coincidental. It is mainly another argument why the colleges need to be burned and the fleeing survivors gunned down.

At least we now know what it looks like when you cross the kind of "research" BPD college roasties do with Zak's immediately recognizable and completely unconvincing spergouts. I like "the he is dicking her" theory.

 

[Pedophobe]

Zak drama, in this day and age really?

 

[Flexo]

It's simple enough: this woman is your typical RPG.net mod at heart, utterly saturated in the kool aid. Being confronted by a pile of genderspecials ruthlessly destroying each other puts her in a cognitive dissonance loop, because they can do no wrong and yet she must produce an article about how they've wronged Zak Smith. I dunno if he's boning her on the side or has her cats hostage, but clearly he's got some kind of leverage here because usually the default would be to choose the side without the white guy on it, which is how these various grifting women made it as far as they did with some of the flimsiest #metoos conceivable against people like Avellone.

Actually I think there's a simpler explanation... (see below)

She can't be surprised if she is in woke academia (and she is). It's the same exact behavior all the way down, and I would not be surprised if she herself had participated in similar campus politics. It is performative.

Parts of it are also clearly dictated by Zak. It references old Internet shit only Zak would care about, cites his decade old online feuds, and drags out obscure enemies who are completely unknown outside Zak drama. The length and obsessive detail is pure Zak. Is it unethical? Not for the reasons David Hill mentions, but it clearly is. She completely puts aside her scepticism for her "case study". The whole article is shit. It is not a research article, but if it is based on one, or the draft of one, it is only the kind of "science" that takes place in grievance studies. No rigor, shit methods, emotional appeals and enormous biases. It is an interesting look into the flaming dumpster of the RPG industry, but all that is coincidental. It is mainly another argument why the colleges need to be burned and the fleeing survivors gunned down.

At least we now know what it looks like when you cross the kind of "research" BPD college roasties do with Zak's immediately recognizable and completely unconvincing spergouts. I like "the he is dicking her" theory.

There was a story I read last year of a journalist who decided she was going to write THE definitive article on JK Rowling's transphobia. So she spent weeks researching.... and came up with nothing. At which point she flipped and began yelling at people for lying about the author.

It is possible the author of the article is committed to academic excellence and is trying to be as "scientific" as one can be about this topic. It is also possible I'm a cat. What I would really put money on is that the author was getting angry and enraged at Zak constantly "getting away" with his lawsuits and accusations and decided she was going to write a definitive take down of him.

. . .And then as she dived further and further into the details, she hit up against that most fearsome enemy of all RPG.net mods: reality.

NULL loves to quote that the most alog haters of lolcows are those who were once former fans. Ergo I believe this lady's brain kind of broke, and she's taking her anger out on the community that once lied to her.

Why would someone lie about this? Why would someone willingly invite the judgement and attention of others on such a sensitive and painful topic?

So far this might be my single favorite line from the article. I wish I could marry it. Because in almost every, single, debate I've had with these types (save some hard nosed exceptions who I adore) this was always their mentality.

Them: "We should set up _!"
Me: "How are you going to filter out abuse of the system?"
Them: "Whaaaa... who would possibly abuse this? Why would they?"

Because it gives them power! Because it will give them an edge! Because people can be so amazingly petty they would stab themselves to death on the chance of giving you a papercut.

EDIT:
Oh man there's some even better parts after this. @Mola Ram will have to make an extra juicy sacrifice to kali ma after this.

If we are to believe accusations of abuse simply because someone made them, we would have to conclude that literally everyone in the tabletop RPG scene is an abuser, very much including all of the women. For any realistic view of the situation, we have to do better than that.

Wow no shit! It's almost like if you set up an easily abused standard (pun intended) then people will use it to gain power. Who could have foreseen this!

So I read as much as I could stand and then I went for a run because it made me so angry. Because there is nothing I can think of that fills me with more impotent rage than a fellow woman lying about abuse. And not just lying about it, but weaponizing her allegations to actively destroy someone. It is an affront to everything I believe in and everything feminism stands for. It makes it easier for people to dismiss truthful claims (of which an estimated 92–98 percent of all allegations are — or, at least allegations to the police — which her statement was not), and it changes the focus of the entire issue. Instead of supporting and fighting for women who are victims or survivors, we end up talking about one woman who made it all up.

Yeah and now you know why so many people when they hear "I was abused" immediately ask: "did you go to the police?" It's almost like it's a useful filter! Why it's like we have this... entire SYSTEM to ascertain the truth of matters and try to weed out the innocent from the guilty.

It's almost like society tried learning something from incidents like the Salem Witch Trials - and then you and your ilk freakin' said, "No! We should go back to death by accusation!"

“Opportunity costs” is what we call them in my field. Basically, if you spend time and energy on one thing, it is to the detriment of another.

It's not just in your field, sweetie. That's literally a basic economic term and concept.

And frankly I do not want to spend more time listening to and fighting for the rights of men.

Well thank you for at least admitting that men really don't benefit from feminism. I am deeply enjoying all this mask off moments. The door to my chest cavity keeps popping lose with all the "I told you so" I keep swelling up with.

I could not believe it. Rather I did not want to believe it: That people were this gullible. This easily swayed. But then I remembered that of course they are.

"We keep yelling and screaming and demanding 'believe all women' I just can't believe that folks would then go and... believe all women!"

You know that stereotype of how women are all, "Yes but no, but sometimes yes and maybe no..."

Here they are, living down to the stereotype. Only this time it is the entirety of society that was supposed to have read their mind.

Again I'm going to put these two lines right next to each other.

I could not believe it. Rather I did not want to believe it: That people were this gullible. This easily swayed.

Even beginning a conversation about false allegations gets my hackles up. It always, always, feels like exactly the wrong thing to be talking about.

 

[Hugbox Kommissar]

So this post isn't just an image reaction: this is a problem the left has in general with thinking that if you start with good intentions and desire a good outcome then the means along the way will be good too because people are inherently good, right? And if people especially non-white non-males are inherently good then the only reason they would act out is due to outside forces beyond their control. And if we remove those forces by creating leftist controlled safe spaces then the results should be utopian, right? Right?

 

[Flexo]

View attachment 5678951
So this post isn't just an image reaction: this is a problem the left has in general with thinking that if you start with good intentions and desire a good outcome then the means along the way will be good too because people are inherently good, right? And if people especially non-white non-males are inherently good then the only reason they would act out is due to outside forces beyond their control. And if we remove those forces by creating leftist controlled safe spaces then the results should be utopian, right? Right?

Literally says that:

I cannot think of a single woman of my acquaintance, myself included, who has been the victim of sexual assault who would not trade anything in the world to be able to forget it even for a day. And then you get sucked into this weird place where she could not possibly be lying and the proof she is not lying is that she is saying anything at all.

It's literally like watching Data trying to understand how bluffing works.

https://youtu.be/qDjaS_RJywE?si=egvEAC3bRLJLfjoV

Yeah these women don't mind the process. They are not suffering, they are making others suffer. THAT is why they lie!

EDIT

But to believe there is anything that someone somewhere will not lie about is naïve to the point of idiocy.

Just... read that sentence and reread above.

 

[The Grognard]

I think the gal who wrote that article is just utterly shocked by how brazen the sociopathy of struggle sessions is.

 

[Flexo]

I think the gal who wrote that article is just utterly shocked by how brazen the sociopathy of struggle sessions is.

I finished the article and intend to write a bit more later but it was kind of clear by the end she really was having a crisis of faith.

Communists believe you don't have bad people, just bad systems that make people do bad things. Ergo perfect the system => perfect the people.

Well here in the digital, online world you can be untethered enough from reality to make the communist utopia as real as its ever going to get.... and she has witnessed the people STILL being bad to each other.

 

[Next Task]

N World also locked down an apology one of the liars about him posted immediately.

If I recall correctly, at RPGNet and definitely on the apology guy's Twitter the response to it was: lots of people repeating the lies proudly, as a fuck you to Zak, because he can't silence all of them/getting a court ordered apology is just bullying/it's still all true, of course it is.

Early on in the article, this is a line that jumped out at me:

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.

Because that's a big, often overlooked part of the problem. It's not just all the lies and pile-ons and slanders, it's also that they are accusations that aren't allowed to go away as long as you have even literally one person in the world with a grudge. Under every mention or reference to Bad Person online, you just have someone saying, 'I can't support someone who did [horrible thing].' Or often, 'But didn't they do [horrible thing]?' so they can bring up the accusations but with plausible deniability, a more female response. Some, like Dave Hill, have moved on to wearily saying, 'I can't be bothered to relitigate person, if you don't know already about [horrible thing],' which forces the presumption that the accusations are accurate, not that they've been serially debunked.

All you need is one person more obsessed with ruining someone else's reputation than anyone else who runs into those comments in the wild is willing to counter them for the millionth time. In many cases, this has been going on for a decade or more, of a [horrible thing] that didn't happen, but still follows around its targets. Unsurprisingly, this benefits autists/troons the most, because they have the will, the free time, and the inability to let go of a grudge to constantly needle at their enemies forever. Because every time you show they're wrong and/or lying, they just do it again and again, elsewhere, and no one can beat whack-a-mole because they just keep coming.

Which is where troons/RPGNet comes in, because inevitably the hive mind of the cult requires everyone react the same, and if one person points the finger everyone else has to join in or get kicked out, so you've got at least a hundred moles. In the case of someone like Zak S, a lot of people also don't even really want to defend him, it's more of an obligation to the truth, or at the very least disliking him for the right reasons. So your arm gets tired and your attention wanders, and the moles just never stop. The liars still get a dopamine hit each time they bring it up, and can be refreshed by a search on someone's name returning the allegations.

We have all sorts of phrases to describe this behaviour, but it boils down to these people are just a pack of cunts and deserve to be muted forever for gleefully, knowingly making this their life.

 

[Flexo]

Man the article is really blowing up.

I laughed so hard at this Briana Wu tweet quoted.

 

[Hugbox Kommissar]

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/the-difficult-to-believe-case-of-zak-smiths-innocence.917026/

Thread was up for exactly 33 minutes. It will now be taken to a re-education camp discussed backstage by a team of qualified experts.

 

[Flexo]

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/the-difficult-to-believe-case-of-zak-smiths-innocence.917026/

View attachment 5681786

Thread was up for exactly 33 minutes. It will now be taken to a re-education camp discussed backstage by a team of qualified experts.

"Innocent beyond a reasonable doubt."

Jesus help these people.

 

[Tactical Wizard]

https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/the-difficult-to-believe-case-of-zak-smiths-innocence.917026/

View attachment 5681786

Thread was up for exactly 33 minutes. It will now be taken to a re-education camp discussed backstage by a team of qualified experts.

Welp!

 

[Hugbox Kommissar]

Welp!
View attachment 5682302

Thread has been completely erased from the forum, doesn't even show up on their posting history.

Mods really didn't want that doc getting spread around in their backyard, I don't think I've ever seem them completely erase a thread before, at most they'd redact and edit posts they didn't like.

Edit:


"Posting on behalf of a banned user" was the official charge. Referring to Zak I assume?

 

[ComStar]

Háu, fellow injuns!

Coyote And Crow are hiring and point out that a warbonnet and predisposition to alcoholism isn't required (except for some positions where it totally is)

Will C&C become a colonized company? Only time will tell!