Excluding Others For Fun And Profit (No, Really!)
In the past week there had been quite the series of discussions about the Lawncrappers, and how Forge games promoted the arrival of particularly disgusting varieties of the same to our hobby, etc. etc. In the course of this debate, we had some of the Swine claiming that anyone who condemned these games or the type of people who were fans of these games were "intolerant", and were pointing out that this was "prejudice" because the Swine publishers had a free speech right to publish the game.
Often, the response from the other side was that no one was denying the free-speech right of the Swine to publish their games, or even the free-speech right of the Lawncrappers to express their sick fantasies in public, but that there is also a free-speech right to condemn these sorts of things. "No one is talking about excluding these people", the response often was, "But we have a right to say that we find it unacceptable".
This sounds perfectly reasonable. Its also unfortunately a quick hellride into RPGs becoming the territory of lawncrappers of the worst kind. What I mean is, saying "we condemn" without saying "we will try to exclude" is utterly fucking useless.
So yes, motherfuckers, I'm thinking about excluding those people, more than thinking about it, I'm encouraging it! I'm saying its not enough to just say you "feel bad" about people coming into RPG gaming because they believe it provides them a safe place to express their fantasies about neck-raping dead cabin boys or sticking broomhandles into prepubescent scantily-clad maids. If you don't fucking do anything about it, then you're contributing to the problem.
Shit, do you think that Furry fandom didn't have a whole shitload of people saying "I don't approve"? Of course they did. There were a ton of people who started feeling things had gone too far when "furries" in diapers started using these diapers for their designated purpose in public places, or when certain artists at these cons started drawing and promoting pictures of hyper-endowed "cubs" engaging in bondage play in supposedly family-friendly cons, or when "fursuiters" started enacting "yiff" scenes in the middle of the public venue. Tons of people expressed their disgust, and then did fuck all about it.
RPGs are in a particularly vulnerable place, as a hobby. The increase of self-publishing matched with the decline (collapse some would say) of the middle-tier of RPG publishers (meaning that what you have now is the Top-Tier, WoTC, who is Dr.Manhattan to everyone else's Captain Metropolis, and then a shitload of tiny publishers) creates a situation where only a few small publishers could create a whole subculture undercurrent in the serious "hobby" side of the game. People who play D&D and only D&D might never notice; that is to say, people who don't go to Cons, buy their D&D books from big bookstores, and only play with their own little group; but if you start pushing a particular set of mores in the "serious hobby" end then suddenly you could quickly end up having what happened to Furries end up happening to the RPG hobby: the game stores, the Cons, the gaming clubs, and the overall "community" will end up becoming infested with the worst kind of social retards and seriously fucked-up people that make the average geek look like he was motherfucking suave as Pierce Brosnan by comparison.
So yes, EXCLUDE. If you want to save this hobby, exclude.
What we need to do here is some serious motherfucking excluding, tapping into some of that indignation and letting it out in a concentrated effort as a "Not On My Lawn" movement.
Exclude these fuckers from your games. If you have a gaming group where people come or go, and one of them shows up that clearly has serious issues with hygiene, morality, legality, sexuality, communication, appearance or good manners, then kick him the fuck out. Seriously, you have no reason to put up with this shit if he starts wanting to rape orc-girls in your game, or if he smells of cat-urine, or if he clearly hasn't so much as walked near a shower since before the Democratic Primaries, or if he wears adult diapers "for convenience" rather than medical necessity, or if he says shit like "I don't believe in soap" or "I'm glad that in the gaming community people don't judge me for being a real-life Dragon-Vampire-Wizard with ADHD who gets sexually aroused by farm-animals".
PROVE THE FUCKER WRONG, please!
Of course, in the home, that is often easier for many; in your own gaming group, you're less likely to put up with this shit, and kick this sort of person out. But we have to go beyond that.
In your gaming store, gaming club, or gaming con: if you don't put up with this kind of shit in your house, why are you putting up with it there? The mere convenience of "Not making a fuss" and the fact that "i just have to put up with it during this demo, and then I'll never see this asshole again" does not make up for the fact that the mere PRESENCE of these Lawncrappers is harming the whole public image of the gaming community, and INVITING more of "his sort of people" to come into the hobby.
So we have to take this fight out of the house, and into the community as a whole. We need to develop the courage to exclude the socially retarded from our social activities; and not see it as something cruel or mean; stop having your stupid flashbacks to when high-school jocks picked on you and start figuring out that if you don't have the courage to say "we don't want these sick freaks here" then your hobby will end up belonging to the sick freaks and not to you. You see someone engaging in inappropriate behavior, obnoxious actions, words, or odours in a public venue related to RPGs, you should find someone in supposed authority and demand they kick the motherfucker out. Ask them why they are putting up with this shit, especially if the venue is one that is theoretically meant to be open to non-gamers and gamers' families? And if YOU are the one in authority, fucking do something about it!
We need to impose a odour test as a requisite for entry at gaming conventions, or that reek of the Lawncrapper will engulf us all. If there is one thing the Gaming hobby desperately, desperately needs to acquire, it is a sense of smell.
RPGPundit
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Comments (5)
On the one hand, I think complaining about Maid: the RPG is a bit bitchy. Mature content has a place in RPGs as it does in any other media type. Some folks like to listen to the "clean lyrics" version of songs and only go to PG and under movies; others don't, and it's a fallacy worthy of only the worst sort of zealot to call those who like R-rated movies dirty dirty perverts.
On the other hand, "who to game with" and the politics of exclusion is an interesting subject. There was a recent rpg.net article about "catpissmen" and what to do about it, which also links to a good article on the "Five Geek Social Fallacies" about some of the reasons gamers/geeks are often inclusionary to the point of stupidity.
Yes, that article is a classic.
I'm a little confused that you seem to regard smelly, crude jackasses as fruit of the indie movement rather than a component of gaming since its beginning. I'm all for excluding those people, but I haven't noticed the indie crowd, as a group, being particularly smelly. As for their emo-tourism or what-have-you, they do it, by definition, amongst themselves, so it's kind of hard to exclude them from their own games.
H: the point in my earlier rants that led up to this one was that the Swine from the Storygames movement are trying to attract some of the worst kind of Lawncrappers, the ones who aren't just socially retarded, but socially retarded and expressive of certain deviant behaviors that they can't help but publically express. Most Swine aren't Lawncrappers themselves, but they have no qualms about making games and trying to bring more Lawncrappers into the hobby, because they know that the apparent approval of these social retardations will help to keep the hobby from attracting normal people and will make the hobby smaller as a result.
Did a livejournal post where I said the same basic thing: http://narf-the-mouse.livejournal.com/3889.html
Except for the anti-Indie paranoia. Unthinking elitism can cause a lot of damage with 'Exploration of boundaries' all by its own self, without needing to be a conspiracy.