A Response to Rascal News
A week ago, games journalism site Rascal News released a pretty scathing article about DriveThruRPG and our handling of the title
Rebel Scum from 9th Level Games.
Normally, when we reject or remove objectionable content, it is deeply anti-trans, homophobic, and often misogynist trash. We have made a practice of not talking about this work publicly. But in truth, probably over 95% of the titles we have blocked have been due to such hateful content. Historically when we have rejected these titles, we’ve been attacked on social media by the hateful writers of said content, saying things like (and this is a direct quote from a publisher we ultimately banned in late 2022), “They are woke and as incompetent as fuck.”
Our Partner Relations team is small but deeply passionate about our industry. If you are a publisher, you’ve no doubt exchanged emails or even met us at conventions and other gaming events. Helping people make and sell more games is what we want to do. When enough people complain about a title, though, it is our job to review it, and we try to remain as objective as we can. Adjudicating offensive or problematic content is without a doubt the least appealing part of our work, but we do it because people occasionally submit titles to our marketplace that break our content guidelines, sometimes promoting hate and/or real-world violence.
Many of the comments we’ve seen on social media surrounding this issue with
Rebel Scum refer to other titles on our store that the commentator finds offensive. For the most part, these are titles we have already reviewed, and the author(s) have already agreed to remove the most egregious, despicable, or hateful parts, which you’ll never see. That these titles are still for sale despite being offensive to some is a testament to our trying to balance freedom of speech and expression in art against the removal of expressions of hate and the promotion of real-world violence.
There may be some people who have already made up their minds about our company being an evil hegemonic corporation. All we can ask is that people actually look at the pattern of our past behaviour and the sum total of works removed from our marketplaces before making assertions as to whether DriveThruRPG or any of the people who work here are fascists.
In this case, with
Rebel Scum, a publisher’s foreword broke the rules set out in our site’s content guidelines, and in doing so they promoted real-world violence. Those rules have been in place for many years, since well before this book was first uploaded to our store.
Here is a timeline of the
Rebel Scum adjudication.
- Rebel Scum had been up on our site since November 2021. We have never had, and we do not have a problem with anti-fascist content in our store.
- Around April of 2024, we started receiving complaints about this title, specifically about one passage in the book’s foreword.
- We reviewed the title in August 2024. We unanimously agreed that the game itself was fine. It still is.
- However, the author’s foreword contains a passage that discusses modern US politics explicitly, followed by a statement that, in that context, promotes real-world violence against a broad group of US citizens. The offending passage is overtly political and thus clearly against our content guidelines by any reading of those rules.
- Again, our decision has nothing to do with the fact that the enemies in the game are “space fascists” or, frankly, fascists of any stripe.
- We informed the publisher of our concerns and told them that they would need to revise or remove the offending content, but that the rest of the book was fine.
- They declined to change or remove the foreword and chose to withdraw the title from our store entirely. It’s their right to disagree with our decision, and we don’t hold it against them. We continue to sell 9th Level Games titles on DriveThruRPG.
- However, nearly two months ago in early May 2025, the publisher started posting graphics advertising a new edition of the game, prominently featuring a “banned by DriveThruRPG” banner across the cover.
- Earlier this month, on June 9, 2025, Rascal News reached out to us for comment about a story they were considering based on information given to them by 9th Level Games. For full transparency, we are including all of the questions Rascal News asked us below, along with our responses in their entirety.
- Last week, on June 23, nearly a year after our business with 9th Level Games regarding their title Rebel Scum transpired, the Rascal News article broke. They stop a bit short of openly calling us fascists.
- During the past week, readers of this headline across social media have been asked to open Rascal News subscriptions in order to read the whole article.
- Readers have also been directed to the 9th Level Games store to pick up copies of their “banned by DriveThruRPG” game. The publisher is assuredly selling more copies of their game on their store this week than they otherwise would have. We don’t begrudge them the sales. We do take issue with the fact that they are smearing us to get those sales.
[Below we include the entire set of responses from our email exchanges with Rascal News.]
(1/4) Email Response to Rascal News [Jun 10, 2025]
Thanks for reaching out. You can find the entirety of our product standards guidelines for DriveThru sites here in our Help Desk:
https://help.drivethrupartners.com/hc/en-us/articles/12780748778135-Product-Standards-Guidelines
I expect the section in particular you’re looking for is the Product Content policy at the bottom of that page, which I will copy-paste here for quick reference:
Neither your Work, description, nor any promotional material, including blog posts or press releases, may contain racist, homophobic, discriminatory, or other repugnant views; overt political agendas or views; depictions or descriptions of criminal violence against children; rape or other acts of criminal perversion; or other obscene material without the express written permission of DriveThru.
Illegal and Infringing content is not allowed. It is the content creator’s responsibility to ensure that their content does not violate laws, or copyright, trademark, privacy, or other rights.
Please let me know if there’s anything else I can help with. If you’d still like to chat, either on or off the record, I’d be happy to.
(2/4) Email Response to Rascal News [Jun 11, 2025]
Sure thing. My answers are interspersed below. Let me know if you have any questions.
- Is DriveThruRPG’s report system automated? I.e. a game receives three verified reports and is then delisted (at least temporarily)? Or is all of that handled by employees?
Beyond the reporting tool itself, the process is largely manual.
- Customers can report only titles they have purchased. [N.B. - This is not quite correct. Customers can rate or review only titles they have purchased.]
- When a customer reports a title, we ask for specific evidence of their concerns with the product if they have not already provided it. It is not enough for someone to say, “This title is garbage” or “This is hateful.”
- Once a title receives multiple reports (usually at least two or three), we give it a preliminary review.
- If the title seems fine after a cursory review, we simply thank the reporters for their time and leave the title in play. If we find grounds for further examination, the title is suspended temporarily, and we inform the publisher that their title has been reported for being “potentially offensive” while we examine it more closely. This deeper review can take up to two weeks based on our team’s workload.
- If, upon review, we do not find any need to remove the title, we reactivate it and inform the publisher.
- If the majority of a title is acceptable but there are a few passages or specific sections of content that break our rules, we inform the publisher and offer them the chance to edit those passages if they so choose.
- Almost everything in the Standards Guidelines seems very reasonable and easily understood, except for “overt political agendas or views”. That’s a broad brush with lots of room for interpretation. Can you walk me through how Roll20 and DriveThruRPG define and administer this term?
It can be tricky to define, admittedly. But in short, anything that mentions or represents a real-world person, group, organization, faith, ideology, or political system is immediately suspect. We have lots of games on our store that use contemporary settings, some set in places that exist in our real world, in which player characters fight some made-up shadowy criminal organization, cult, or mega-villain who wants to take over the world. That sort of thing is generally fine.
However, it is problematic to make a game that is, for example, about a specific town in a specific province in Canada, where the mission of the player characters is to beat up or kill all of the Sikhs who live in that town. Such a game would be against our rules, and we would either remove the title or ask the publisher to revise it.
- What actions does a delisted game’s creator have to fix the issue? And is the company generally willing to work with creators who appeal, or otherwise express a good faith desire to fix the issue?
See the fifth point in the outline above. [N.B. —
This should refer to the sixth point, not the fifth.]
(3/4) Email Response to Rascal News [Jun 12, 2025]
Happy to help! Once again I’ve interspersed my responses to your questions below.
On the subject of reporting and moderation, I’m also curious about the adult tag that gets applied to some games.
- Do those follow the same rules from the Standards Guidelines, and the same “largely manual” process of review and judgment?
The “Adult” tag is normally applied by publishers to their own titles, although occasionally we have to remind folks where to find our guidelines on that topic (see below).
You can find our standards regarding Adult titles in the same “Product Standards Guidelines” Help Desk page I shared previously:
https://help.drivethrupartners.com/...dards-Guidelines#h_01HAAB7N0H8XFSNC01Z65M74H0
In particular, look for the section header
Caveat: “Adult” Titles.
If we receive a report about a title that isn’t behind the Adult tag that possibly should be, we generally follow a similar process to the one I’ve already outlined for reviewing offensive products generally. But evaluating adult content is a less onerous process than a full product review. The guidelines usually require less deliberation.
Upon review, if the title doesn’t follow the rules regarding adult content, then we would simply add the Adult tag and inform the publisher of what we’ve done and why.
- If not, what criteria is applied?
See above and the Help Desk page cited there.
- Can creators appeal the adult tag being attached to their games?
They can, yes. The guidelines for what is Adult, though, by the definition we use, are pretty easy to apply.
- When a game is labelled with the adult tag, I understand that is no longer discoverable in DTRPG or on the creator’s page unless users toggle an option within their account settings. What else is affected? Search and discoverability? Ranking? How it might surface in search engine results?
Correct. If a product is behind the Adult filter, then it cannot be seen on the site by a user that hasn’t signed in. However, once you are signed into your account, you can manage your account settings to make Adult titles visible like any other title listing.
The Adult tag doesn’t affect any other mechanics or functionality on the site, although we normally don’t include Adult titles in marketing, such as on site banners or in our weekly newsletter.
Let me know if you have any other questions. Happy to oblige.
(4/4) Email Response to Rascal News [Jun 17, 2025]
Thanks for letting me know. Here again are my responses, included inline below.
- Who ultimately made the decision to maintain the guidelines strike against Rebel Scum? Todd Gizzi reportedly communicated with 9th Level Games and took the matter “higher up”, where the conversation effectively ended.
Ultimately, I [Scott Holden] made that decision. Todd and I discussed the matter, as I had discussed it previously with other members of my team. But the responsibility falls on me.
- In fact, a Roll20 executive was invited to the last meeting with the publisher but failed to attend. Why is that?
I am not sure about that, and with Todd away for PTO this week, I can’t confirm, but I have to assume they had a meeting conflict of some kind. As a rule, we don’t turn away or avoid meetings with partners, especially when it’s a difficult subject such as this one. We would rather meet that difficulty head-on.
- In emails shared with Rascal, you personally told the publisher that you “have to apply [guidelines] evenly across all titles, whatever our own leanings, like it or not. :/” Why is that? Can you explain that logic in more detail as it pertains to Roll20’s business and ethical stance?
In all the time we have published games on DriveThru sites, we have removed only a handful of titles. In each of those cases, the deciding factor was hate: If the book professed or promulgated hate for people in the real world, outside of the game, it was deemed unacceptable. Hate has no place on DriveThruRPG or any of our sister sites. In most of those other cases, that hateful content has come from authors who have espoused strongly anti-LGBTQ+ messages. In this case, the hate is directed toward a political party.
Either way, any book that openly condones and celebrates violence against real people goes against our guidelines, without exception. It is our responsibility to the community to enforce these standards impartially, regardless of staff values or personal opinions. Once this door is opened, it cannot easily be shut again, and making exceptions would set a precedent for anyone to publish other hateful content targeting real people.
- Rebel Scum had existed on the storefront, selling copies and advertising its particular politics for years before this incident. Was that a mistake on DTRPG and Roll20’s part? A failure in the reporting and guidelines system?
Given the vast number of publishers and titles on the store (we average about 450 new titles each week), we could not possibly have enough staff to review every one of them. Once a partner has published at least two titles with us, and we’re confident they know the rules and understand how to make technically viable products, we verify them so that, thereafter, they can activate their own titles without approval from us.
In this case, as in similar cases, a title from a verified publisher can be on the store for some time before we ever receive a complaint about it. But once it does accumulate some complaints, we review it using the same method we would for any other title.
- Is Roll20 and DTRPG currently happy with the guidelines policy and how it is enforced? Any planned updates or revisions?
Our guidelines have been established through over 20 years in business. They’re not perfect. Nothing is. But they work pretty well, and given the resources at our disposal, they are the best version we can execute in practice.
Our policies themselves have evolved over time, and I expect they’ll change further as we see the need.
- Do you find anything remarkable about the fact that, after three years of existing on the platform, Rebel Scum was only reported and delisted in August 2024?
Again, this is not the first time something like this has happened because we allow publishers to post their own titles once they are verified. It’s a bit more unusual for an older title to receive this kind of attention than a newer title, but it’s not unprecedented.
- How is using a QR code within the document that links directly to the infringing content (which Roll20 allegedly recommended) substantively different from printing it within the digital file?
In hindsight, it’s not substantively different. I wouldn’t offer this sort of thing again. We suggested this in brainstorming solutions with the publisher so that they could publish the game — and to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with the game itself — understanding that our mandate is to not publish hate on our store. They chose not to take this route and instead withdrew the book from the site.
- What could have gone differently in the negotiations with 9th Level Games, if anything? Do you believe Roll20 represented and argued its priorities well in this issue?
Where I think we perhaps failed here is to help 9th Level Games understand that, if we permit them to publish a game on our marketplace promoting violence against anyone who supports a political party they dislike, then in fairness, we would also have to allow games that openly promote hatred and violence against any other political group or affiliation. That’s a very slippery slope.
- I cover a lot of indie games, and a fair few of them intentionally wear their politics on their sleeve. Their creators believe political art is a worthwhile and necessary endeavor. Would you say that DTRPG and Roll20 are not suitable homes for those kinds of games?
Yes, art can be political. Good art often is. Good satire even more so. We have numerous titles on DriveThru stores that tread up to that line graciously and deliver their messages without espousing real hate. Some go too far.
I want to be clear that the problem in this case came from the book’s foreword, not the content of the game itself. We have many games featuring Nazis or other sinister fascist organizations as the bad guys. That has never been a problem.
This title crossed the line in taking a satirical game and, via the author’s foreword, moving beyond satire into a real statement about hatred and violence toward the entirety of a broad political group.
