The Ravens Nest

Take Back Your Own Power

A comment crossed my path (not in a bad way) on my YouTube comment in the last couple of days and it gave me time to really think about what was said. I ended up kinda going into a long response but the video in question was our interview with James Raggi IV, author of the tabletop roleplaying game, Lamentations of The Flame Princess, a TTRPG that isn’t unified and doesn’t necessarily reside as most traditionally do; in the core rules. Instead, Lamentations offers it’s tone and what it’s really about in the adventure books published which can vary wildly in tone and scope at times.

The comment was that my quote of “We’re choosing our happiness over your feelings” shouldn’t be as profound as it is but it is profound.

My response was that, yes, I agree, it’s a profound statement. It’s origins come from experience. The Satanic Panic taught me things to look for. Things I can see happening today. I do tend to talk about this a lot but this is a point that needs repeating because it does need illustration.

First, in those days, the constant droning on ad nauseum about Dungeons & Dragons being “satanic” relied on “evidence” that was circumstantial at best. It was seated in a belief and an ideology, fueled by mass media at the time and the claims became more wild, unfounded and relied on circular logic and fanaticism. Anyone who went to investigate for themself was regarded with suspicion and anyone who attempted to expose the lies was labelled a “Devil-Worshipper.”

There were unpersonings, shunnings, ridicule, derision, you get the picture. The results were lost jobs in some areas of the country, targeted harassment in the days before social media became a thing, assaults on those who played and some were even driven to suicide. Much of it was the result of really terrible parenting and a desire to look elsewhere for answers as to why the kids “weren’t alright.”

With that picture clearly painted, the question becomes, what if one were to attempt to rejoin the fold of their respective community? Life did not become easier. In fact, it became the opposite.

Joining a church to dispel local rumor wasn’t going to cut it. Even regular attendance and knowing your Bible inside and out wasn’t going to do it either. You were to give the game up entirely. Flee from all appearances, indeed. By the time you’ve given things up in order to just make it all go away, you’d be surprised at how little you had and even that was going to be taken away. No t-shirts, no movies, no music that you liked, nothing was sacred with most of these crowds. Even if you managed to clear every hurdle, you’d fall victim to the “You Didn’t Go To MY Church” crowd which, you guessed it, more hoops through which to jump.

Ultimately, your comfort, happiness and mental well-being were absolutely dismissed if not ultimately discarded. It always led back to the question of how comfortable or happy would you be in a place of eternal torment? Every measure to put you in a state of anxiety of being shunned again would be used against you if you stepped ever so slightly out of line, is any of this sounding familiar yet? It should.

It’s the way it is with today’s political ideology as well. It’s become so perverse that it may as well be it’s own religion. In a previous post, I talked about how Cancel Culture Wasn’t Culture, But A Cult. I’m afraid nothing about that has changed. With the recent actions of Leyline Press, they’ve gone further to prove the very point I made with the Cancellation Cult post.

The media response that backed them in error has also overlooked facts and inflated their superfluous claims. You can also see adherents to the ideology like this, not questioning anything and being completely ignorant of the fact that, at the time of this post, Lamentations has sold over 20,000 PDFs with the print sale starting today:

Yes, this is the type of thing they’ll do. Fact is, Varg Vikernes wrote his own TTRPG called Myfarog (wonder why he felt the need to completely spell that one out?) and there’s plenty in there that none of us who like an old-school rule set find positive and that none of us will accept.

The rule on homosexuality being one of them. In this specific example, well, read for yourself. It’s not just distasteful but an absolutely useless thing to put in a game supposedly built for adventure and it reads as follows:

Myfarog, p. 123 under the heading of Homosexuality:

Males having sexual interaction with other males are executed (i.e. sacrificed to Tyr). The bodies of executed homosexuals are not buried normally but are, instead, thrown into bogs, to make sure that these ‘despicable degenerates’ are never reborn. Temporary close female companionships (common when women have lost their husbands, but still need support) are tolerated, but this is usually looked down upon somewhat, although there are no further consequences for them.

This is a specific example of actual bigotry in a TTRPG. The thing is, anyone that disagrees with today’s opposite extreme will face being lumped in with Varg and his game. The accusations are as baseless as they are stupid and rely on great mental gymnastics in order to fit them into the rather strange categories that these people assign. Likewise, I find Thirsty Sword Lesbians’ equally distasteful with the mechanics on converting straight people into gay people.

Why I would reject both games out of hand is that who one player character sleeps with is nothing that has ever come up in a game without being faded to black or treated as simply as the warrior impressed the barmaid enough that she did proceed to his room with him at the inn for a wild night. That’s it.

The difference is how we approach this material as gamers. Sane, rational and (key word here) Mature gamers will approach, see the things they don’t like and make a decision to leave it on the shelf, deciding not to purchase it. Enough people refrain from buying something and yes, eventually, it goes away.

But I digress.

The point of this entire thing is that the shunning has happened and the exiles have found out that they’re not alone and that’s the point. If you find yourself among the exiles over a failed purity test, well then you’re in good company. If you’ve seen past the lies and hysteria, the same applies. Now you can begin to tell these people that there’s no way in hell you’re going to be listening to them any longer. Raggi was able to show us that recently.

The point is to get you to stop, conform and never question. The only problem is that people don’t work that way.

My point is to not conform, keep playing what you want to play, read the books you wish to read, listen to those you wish to listen to. Live your own damn life and take back all of your power. No consent, permission or approval sought. Tell them, without controversy to go fuck themselves. Offer no explanations for the things you do because no explanation will ever be good enough and you will be put on the back foot. If their cries of “x-ist” and “x-phobe” truly have no meaning, then show them they have no meaning. Yes, they’re probably going to try to do everything they can to make you miserable but you will at least have some modicum of happiness somewhere in the day.

The alternate is total misery and stress.

I leave it for you to decide which one you’ll do.

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