Origins Game Fair bans TSR Games from entry.
How did we get to this point?
(1) TSR Games announces their return, and with some big names, pioneers and innovators. Jim Ward is designing and creating GiantLands, currently being edited according to what he told me yesterday. He says it’s some of his best work.
(2) Ernie Gygax gives an interview. He’s talking about how he’s bringing these old top designers into his gaming design house, while illustrating that they are the old creative masters, who are now in their later years, and to illustrate their age and venerableness he uses the phrase “gender identity” while speaking in the context that these old designers don’t even have the concept. That is instantly taken out of context and used as ammunition to defame him and denigrate him personally as well as TSR Games. You can see here the original interview clip for yourself.
(3) A twitter mob forms, words are taken out of context. The *behavior* of this mob is called disgusting by the GiantLands twitter account, but this is twisted as a gotcha to say that the one of the participants in this mob, that person’s sexuality is disgusting. This is patently untrue and we have the source tweets archived as well as details in the same linked video.
(4) Ernie Gygax, TSR Games, and GiantLands repeatedly say that everyone is welcome at the table. This is not enough, and does not quell the mob.
(5) The dominoes start to fall. TSR Games and Ernie Gygax are cancelled from cons and blacklisted everywhere on social media.
Are social issues the crux of the issue, or is this in fact about power, corporate competition being eradicated, bearing in mind, that GenCon and Dungeons & Dragons were created largely by Gygax and his family. Is this a corporate move to cleanse history of their influence. WotC, Wizards of the Coast would be the sole arbiter of what is Dungeons and Dragons, roleplaying games, and it’s legacy. Looking at the accounts calling for the removal of Gygax and TSR Games, it is clear that many of these accounts are running with the lie to garner traction, power and attention from Wizards of the Coast to get book or module deals of their own.
What happens to the fans of gaming, fans of quality imagination products, creative endeavors? Is this another polarizing argument to draw lines in the sand and split fandoms? The only people who serve to profit here are those who stoke the flames of division and a corporation who has no real competition.
The first casualty of this polarized war is Imagination, Creativity, and the game itself.
Sources:
https://tsr.games/ols/products/xn-giantlands-1st-edition-boxed-set-8jb
https://twitter.com/originsgames/status/1409576625147154440
https://archive.is/lhhGt
https://archive.is/WWtLR
https://archive.is/atfX8
https://archive.is/GZF90
Related videos:
https://youtu.be/JxlLdomTYtY
https://youtu.be/8EogG7T9pyQ
