#personalblog — Public Fediverse posts

Keeping This Positive.

Angry Rant Mode = Number go up.

I’m not going to apologize for anything I said in the Freedom Day article. With Dungeons & Dragons supposedly being the industry leader and most well-known brand, a lot rides on the state of that game and the company in charge of it. “DungeonTube” as we know it reflects the sorry state D&D and the company in charge of it.

I’m not doing any of this just for clicks. Somebody on YouTube put it best (I don’t remember who) when they said that we new live in an attention-based economy. Even though social media influencers might be on their way out, many businesses thrive or starve based on the amount of attention they receive. Advertising and marketing, as much as we might not like it, are still the name of the game, probably far more than 100 years ago.

What I would like to see.

In the vein of moving forward in a positive flow state, here are things I would rather be talking about on the blog here and on YouTube:

• Dragonbane.
  • Characters.Monsters.Spells.Book Reviews.Magic Items.World Building.
  • Conversions from other games.
• Twilight Sword
  • Check out this cool new TTJRPG!How does it relate to Fabula Ultima or other TTJRPGs?CharactersMonstersMagic ItemsEaster Eggs I want to insert from other OG Nintendo games.Entire new worlds.The map of Radia beyond the original 25 spaces on the map.
  • Running the game more like an 8-bit video game.
• Superheroes:
  • Outgunned Superheroes and how it stacks up to other games.
  • Simulating other franchises such as the DCU and MCU. Oh, and Kick Ass.
  • ICONS
  • Vigilantes For Shadowdark by the OG GM.
  • Capes, Cowls, and Villains Foul.
  • Setting agnostic supers world building.
• Outgunned:
  • Did you know you can emulate several genres with this one game?
  • Cyberpunk.
  • Mecha.
  • Something similar to Star Wars.
  • Something in the Star Trek or The Orville universe.
  • The Operators campaign for regular Outgunned.
  • Outgunned 1945.
• D6 RPG 2nd Edition:
  • Genre emulation at its peak.
  • Supers, Cyberpunk, Mecha, Space Opera, and more D6.
• Ruttigers Almanac is due out eventually.
• Setting agnostic fantasy worldbuilding.
• Player Generated solo hexcrawling.

Please note that I was using bullet point lists long before AI was a thing. I was also using Em and En dashes, which no one freaked out about until AI came along. I have what I consider to be a healthy relationship with AI tools, but they were not used in the creation of this article.

Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast gets cheap heat.

There are two terms in professional wrestling that you’ll hear thrown around sometimes if you follow it long enough. The first is when a good guy aka babyface comes out and hypes up the crowd by saying how happy they are to be here in (City) and how bout that (Local sports franchise.) This is called “Cheap Pops.” It’s good positive attention.

Then there’s what is called “cheap heat” when a bad guy wrestler, aka Heel, comes out and insults the city, state, and whatever local sports franchise that’s doing well at the time. The more boos the better in this case because it means the Heel is doing their job properly. And people become invested in the match hypothetically.

In TTRPG terms, cheap heat is what Wizards of the Coast generates for many of us every time they make any sort of announcements about future products. They also get cheap heat by starting drama on social media. A third term from pro wrestling that is good to know is “marks.” A mark is a sucker, easily duped, a stooge as it were. They fell for whatever it was whether it’s a wrestling move or in-character shenanigans.

Every time WotC rage baits half the OSR into freaking out about something? Marks. We fell for it. They got cheap heat because we were marks. They get at least one of us old guys riled up every time and then it’s all downhill with all of us getting annoyed.

Hey. I fall for it, too. I’m not sure how proud of that I am.

Send in the shills, those wacky, happy clowns.

DungeonTubers. I have lots of four and five letter words for these people. I’ll be nice and not call anyone out by name this time. It turns out DungeonTube fans are almost as maniacal and bloodthirsty as Critters, aka Critical Role fanatics. Who knew?

Shills are those marks that do a lot of WotC’s heavy lifting for them on YouTube. New product promotions, which are little more than 20-minute-long ads for a new official Dungeons & Dragons book, come through the shill crowd first. Then we get all the arf-arf parrot accounts that just repeat whatever the shills are saying. I’ve noticed other games don’t really have this problem as often. Every major TTRPG has a small group of loyal, die-hard fans who talk about the game, sure. But nothing beats a DungeonTuber shill who in some cases are likely being paid in money or free product to make sure D&D gets that great review. Heck, a bunch of these chuds are on WotC’s 12-person Community Council, aka The Council of Doom.

I’ve been hitting Thumbs Down and “Not Interested” on a lot of DungeonTuber videos as of late. I also especially hate the accounts who parrot Mike Shea (Sly Flourish.) Here’s a hint—He’s not telling you anything new. He’s just regurgitating old Dungeon Master advice from back in the 1980s and 90s. Don’t be a mark. Stop falling for it.

I’ve had to go so far as the dreaded “Don’t Recommend Channel” for some DungeonTubers. Some of these people are such obvious shills that I’m starting to doubt them capable of making an original video or character for that matter. Tell me you want to emulate Critical Role without having any of the chops to emulate a D&D group…

Back to the problem I was talking about in the Freedom Day post.

I frequently get lumped into the Grognard OSR camp far more than I would like. Yes, I bark in the dark or yell at clouds quite frequently. However I am not hung up on the OSR style of game or play style. I just want my games to be interesting and work with the players I have at the table.

Let’s get something straight: I don’t care who you voted for. I don’t care if your hair is blue and your face contains more metal than my fishing tackle box. I don’t care what kooky religion you might follow. I’m happy for you if you identify as LGBTQIA++ but it doesn’t have any bearing on my game or campaign.

I’m here to game. Period. I’m here and on YouTube to talk (tabletop) gaming.

There’s a catch, unfortunately.

You have probably already guessed what I’m going to say, and you’d be correct if you said that happy, warm, fuzzy articles about Game Master advice, various game systems or settings, and positive industry talk works less effectively with the YouTube meta/algorithm. The same is true to a lesser extent in print.

Sensational, usually negatively focused titles and thumbnails get more clicks. Discourse Minis proves it every time she makes one of her very click-bait videos. I can pick on her because I’ll be the first to step in front of a train for her. We get along pretty well, anyway from the few times we’ve chatted. But it’s true. She’s a pro when it comes to cheap pops or cheap heat depending on how you receive the hype.

I’m not just here for clicks or attention. I kinda get where Professor Dungeon Master was at with DungeonTube back a few months ago when he declared he was going to stop posting Hasbro/WotC news. The problem lies in building an audience.

Sometimes we have to play the meta in order to get people in the door for the fun stuff. Is it the audience I necessarily want? Maybe. We’ll have to wait and see on that one.

I have one additional component to consider in all of this: The Law of Attraction.

Without painfully rehashing the whole concept, Law of Attraction basically means you attract what you feel. Believing is seeing. It means constantly living in the house of high vibration so long as it’s not false positivity. It’s a whole new level-of-fake-it-til-you-make-it. I think it was Neville Goddard who said we must live in the wish fulfilled or something to that effect.

In short, it’s about feeling like all has been accomplished and is wonderful even if it’s not 100% true yet. LoA looks easy on paper and in YouTube videos. Right now my vision board only has a few targets on it, so it’s pretty easy to feel fulfilled while continuing to constantly build. But no process is ever perfect, and we do hit bumps along the way. It’s important to acknowledge what would be considered negative emotions without becoming totally wrapped up in them. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

It’s frustrating to watch the same guys with thousands upon thousands of subscribers and watch hours jump on camera every week and tell us how wonderful WotC/Hasbro is doing with D&D5.5E when I’m pretty sure the game is not doing that well. I’ve tried to tell them how to fix it. The solutions to some of their sales problems would be such easy fixes. But one guy barking in the dark at a large corporation has no effect, it would seem.

Onward and upward as my friend likes to say.

I’m going to be ramping up production of my DriveThruRPG efforts over the next couple of months. I’d like to get at least one project up before 2026 ends. You should have seen the list I started with. I have projects for the next few years and maybe stuff for my children to finish someday. (yikes!)

The balancing act will have to continue for the foreseeable future. I’ll do what I can to keep things upbeat and game focused, but I’m acknowledging that all is not well in the house of TTRPGs. WotC/Hasbro isn’t showing any signs of improvement or letting up on their shenanigans. If that’s an indication of where the “industry” is headed, then we will inevitably be revisiting this conversation.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!

Freedom Day September 2026.

Happy Birthday to Thunder Meep Kitten and Noche Moop Kitten.

Today we have cat pictures. They’ve grown so much since they were tiny little balls of fluff. We found them hungry, cold, and scared last October 19th. The Animal Rescue League guessed they were 2-3 weeks old. I bottle fed them I-don’t-remember times per day until they finally transitioned to regular food. Now they get the zoomies at least a couple of times per day when they’re not napping or getting into something.

Now for the rest of the story: Why I don’t fit into the grand dichotomy of TTRPG community.

It’s probably a good thing that I have four loving fur children. \They do keep my spirits up and when I’m lonely I can go pick on at least one of them. Lately I’ve chosen cats over people. Yes, I still need to find a therapist I can work with.

I know it sounds silly. We’re constantly at odds with each other over a game about elves with sticks. One camp we’ll call the Old School Renaissance, (Old School Revival, Resistance, Rebellion, R-whatever today.) The other side of the coin is what I call “The Cool Kids Club.” You know, those younger 5E players who follow the likes of Ginny Di, and who think old white guys like me “can’t leave fast enough for this hobby.” There’s actually a third and maybe some more outliers to this particular social dichotomy who get swept under the rug because we don’t fit neatly in either category.

I’m too liberal and open-minded for the OSR. The conservative right wingnuts what populate the OSR do not like my politics or my stance on LGBTQIA+ issues. I also don’t embrace old Dungeons & Dragons BECMI, !st Ed AD&D, 2nd Ed AD&D, Old School Essentials, Basic Fantasy, OSRIC, or Shadowdark like they’re old wayward pets who I haven’t seen in years. That’s not to say I don’t love those games and more, but my ethical and political stance negates any opinion I might have if X (Twitter) and YouTube are to be believed.

But I was unceremoniously ejected from the Cool Kids Club, too. Between Knigobi’s Discord server and a couple of other DungeonTubers I followed on there; I really got the impression that there’s not a place for me with the younger crowd. I found it especially ironic on BlueSky and Instagram when a white dude younger than I am was telling me I needed to get out of the hobby. (Just because I blocked you doesn’t mean I forgot you, Craig of Inspiration.) Your sentiment is going to age like warm cottage cheese and I’m still here, dude.

This dichotomy might possibly be hindering my YouTube growth.

I tried early on to capitalize on the new D&D5.5E Dungeon Master’s Guide before it came out by putting out some videos on why we need more Game Masters in the hobby and how it’s easy/fun to be a GM. In fact, I’ve been ahead of the curve on more than one topic on YouTube; just six months ahead in some cases. I mean, I come out with a video for new GMs. Ginny Di with her 935K subscribers does basically the same video only with more skits and cleavage than I have and gets thousands more views. Go figure.

I’ve been further shamed and ejected from the Cool Kids Club, demographics aside, because of my use and occasional defense of AI tools. This is a topic for a much larger discussion that neither side of the coin seems to want to engage with. We’ll circle back to in at a later date. The high personal cost of the AI debate has been painful to me. But dumpy old AI-loving me can’t compete with Diana of the Rose or Dadi from Mystic Arts, right? Who would you rather be friends with on YouTube or IRL?

At the same time I’ve done a few hot take views on trending topics such as the Jason Buhlman political comment disaster and more recently this WotC Dark Sun business. Usually the negative heat videos do better. I pop off on the Wizards of the Coast and Paizo stupidity because I think something needs to be said and because I am an old white guy from the Midwest flyover states. (I have not forgotten you, Tondro.)

I’m actually ashamed to admit that the Paizo video and some of the hotter takes have gotten better metrics than my regular TTRPG videos. Unfortunately it was a painful lesson that needs to be pointed out. Saying “I don’t want ______ (person, demographic, political group) buying my product” sounds exactly like “Don’t buy my product. I hate making money.” That’s why I popped off on that one. Maybe some aspiring game company president will hear my pleas and not go down the same stupid road.

I will also point out that at least on YouTube, any time someone quotes Mike Shea (Sly Flourish) or any other DungeonTuber shill from the WotC 12-member Council of Doom? Thumbs down, gone, deleted from Watch History to keep the algorithm from serving more crap. If I want Mike Shea’s opinion, I live in a state with lots of cows. I’ll go find the proper end of the bull and wait.

You already have thousands of DungeonTube subscribers and work for Wizards of the (bloody) Coast? Good for you. Want me to take you seriously regardless of what you’ve published? Make better career choices. Play stupid (LARP) games, get stupid experiences. Same thing goes for you, BOB!

So the depression is hitting pretty hard these days honestly.

It is what it is, as much as I hate that freakin phrase. I’m in the same boat as a handful of other guys on YouTube and all-over social media. I’m not in either OSR or 5.5E camp. Honestly both extremes are a bit much for me. Maybe it’s my various diagnosed and undiagnosed neurodiverse issues talking. I just feel like a man without a camp most days. I’m forever alone in whatever crowd I’m standing closest to.

It’s a good thing I enjoy solo roleplaying as much as I do. Just give me a good oracle and a few characters. It’s all fine and dandy. It’s all fine and dandy unless I’m at a convention. YouTube is kinda f’cked though.

I do YouTube for me at this point. I don’t know if it will ever get any kind of monetization going on there. I guess I’m just too determined to keep putting out videos. I don’t think Chin Pecker Maps (whatever it’s called) or anyone from that talent agency will ever be banging down my doors for sponsored ad space.

Rest assured, you belong here.

If you’re breathing air and you’re still with me at this point, you belong here. I want to get back to talking about games instead of real-world politics and religion. I would rather serve an audience that wants to hear weird world building takes or about some kooky Dragonbane monster I cooked up. I’d rather talk about the fun stuff instead of what dumb thing Wizards of the Coast did this time and what we can learn from it. Let’s talk about Dragonbane, Twilight Sword, mallards, cat folk, monsters, traps, treasure, locations, quests and maybe even some unrelated superhero stuff.

I want to start working on cyberpunk/mecha stuff again. I realized the other day how much I miss the cyberpunk genre specifically. Plus I still have that cool idea for a space game floating about just waiting for some love. It doesn’t always have to be about elves with sticks, although if you thought the fantasy crowd was rough… Try finding players for a cyberpunk/mecha game sometime.

Regardless, thanks for being here. This month has been crazy. A couple of guys on YouTube gave me a lot to think about. Shout out to King Waspinator over at Total Party Skills and Grim Jim. I also have to mention the Boss, The OG GM as always because he gives me a lot to think about, too. Hopefully your weekend is going well. Here’s to October always being good for a laugh or two.

I say it every year, but I think 2026 bears repeating it. This year I intend to write more, read more, and discuss cool TTRPGs as well as supplements. Most of all, let’s just have more fun. Let’s explore. Let’s save the kingdom from the evil warlord. Let’s discuss all the fun stuff in gaming that we love.

With the world in the state it finds itself in today, please be kind. Please be considerate to one another even if we don’t agree. Lastly, please pursue the thing that brings you the most joy without harm to others. Thank you!