@AndrasDeak Yeah, I saw that. :)

:P

cool stuff, though

Poor bees getting a bad rap when they just want hugs

Speaking of games that make people uncomfortable, what's the deal with Lamentations of the Flame Princess? The system seems to have garnered some popularity, and I somehow get the impression that it sees a bunch of convention play, but all the material I've seen of it just makes me suuuuper uncomfortable with how overtly sexual and violent it is. Yet there are lauded books associated with it like Veins of the Earth

@G.Moylan Oh dear. You aren't the only one who is uncomfortable with that game I promise you.

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@BESW I am curious to hear your thoughts when you get a bit

I don't pretend to really understand why Lamentations is popular, aside from a vague "grimdark edginess makes us feel like Real Adults" element to certain parts of the OSR spaces. And the author is good at surrounding himself with people who will amplify his voice.

But let's be real clear; that author is getting drummed out of almost every TRPG space, with good reason and far past time, and I don't think anybody here needs to justify why his work makes them feel squicky. And I don't want to give him any conceptual space in this community, either.

I'm just blown away by the juxtaposition of the majority of the base game and then something like Veins of the Earth. I get Veins is supposed to be grimdark, but at the same time that feeling seems kindof appropriate for the setting. I just find it unfortunate that 1) something with Veins' quality and content can be produced out of such an otherwise uncomfortable game, seeming to indicate that quality can be achieved if the authors really care to, and 2)

@BESW Out of curiosity do you know of any trusted voices that have done a teardown of Lamentation that could maybe be linked here? (no biggie if not or if you don't want that discussion to continue in that way)

that the game is just so much...... itself

@BESW I wasn't aware the author was starting to be excommunicated

@G.Moylan but based on what I've seen in Lamentations I'm not wholly surprised

@G.Moylan h*ckin' FINALLY, yes.

If you've seen any of the #FireMikeMearls stuff on social media, the final straw which set that hashtag off is based on Mearls' association with that author.

@BESW I heard Mearls was defending someone who made some bad decisions but I wasn't aware he was connected to PS

@G.Moylan Otherwise I'm not exactly clear on what went down, just that Mearls is out

Wait, Mearls hasn't actually been fired yet? I thought he had, weeks ago

I don't think this is the place to go into details about who did and said what, especially since some of the people involved are notorious for stalking, harassing, and threatening people who participate in conversations about their misdeeds.

Last I heard Mearls had been in unofficial exile to another part of the company for several months but they announced a couple weeks ago (possibly accidentally) that he'd be coming back to work on D&D stuff again, and that's when the hashtag got going.

But there's been a LOT of stuff going on and what I know about these situations is what's filtered through my feeds despite muting every variation of D&D/Wizards/etc that I can think of.

If I wanted to find out more on my own, do you know where I might look? I'm not super big into social media

I can give you a couple links in Discord.

TY, I'll do some reading

@Rubiksmoose I don't know of a good teardown off the top of my head; I did that research several years ago and can't remember my sources.

@BESW No worries. I wouldn't want you to have to dig through the minefield that would be searching for such a thing again anyways.

@BESW Yeah, I think this is pretty accurate. WotC basically didn't say anything about Mearls for a while, then they mentioned in passing that he had not worked on the tabletop side of D&D for a while, and then like a month later (or less) Ray Winninger mentioned in a stream that Mearls was coming back to the TTRPG side of things