Why a "Combat Wheelchair" does NOT fit with Dungeons And Dragons or fantasy TTRPGs...

"Hey, DM, I want a Combat Wheelchair - my Monte Cook contract says I can demand it..."

 

 For reference to how this works ...

 

 

 

George Alexopoulos - image - used with permission!

 

TL/DR - it's pure bullshit by so-called "Woke" tourists out to WRECK Dungeons and Dragons and the TTRPG hobby in general.

It's also proof of how uncaring they are about the game, the hobby, the source material and how vain they are with their "Identity Politics".

I've waited a while to type this - they want anger and angry reactions so they can scream "Hallp!  I'm being oppressed!"  And why NOT allow such in a game of high fantasy that superficially at least resembles our ideal past and romantic dreams of them?

Several reasons and I'll put them here:

FIRST - it just doesn't FIT.

Ever see the first D&D movie where they had Beholder monsters that were used as Guard Dogs but had seemingly a 10 degree field of vision and the ones leading them seemed to have a 30 degree vision?  If you don't get that you are a TOURIST.  This isn't "Rules Lawyer" stuff.  It's "Maan, this is PAINFUL to watch!" or "Cringe" as the "Woke" tourists call it when something hurts their Fee Fees...

SECOND - "If they can make it they don't need it"

The best way to explain it is that like a "Difference Engine" in real life - if you can build it you don't need it.

They technically can be made now and I think a few have.  Oh, back to the Abacus and that set of gears found in a Greek shipwreck from antiquity we've had them forever.  I mean the equivalent of a computer we are using today or early 70s home computer - it has memory, it can take instructions, it can run programs, it can change what it does based on memory and instructions.  The program can do anything from "Hello World" stamped out on paper or etched on plates or displays via a complex set of flapping cards on a plaque for an analog but digital screen or sent to an automata hand with a quill that writes in elegant Victorian Cursive writing...?

Babbage never finished it during his lifetime.  There were some issues with the man I won't get into but one of the big technical details was that even in the industrial revolution he simply could not get enough parts made to the precision required.  The tiny brass gears he needed were either way too expensive at the scale he needed them AND/OR they were NOT made to the level of precision. The modern age it's been 3D modeled and simulated, it would have worked though note his first device was to print tables for businesses so clerks and conductors who couldn't READ but could do numbers could gauge time, weights, prices...

Still - in today the information age, rather decades ago the Nuclear/Diesel age we had the technology.  And we had better fuel than coal and reliable electronics.  The technology to make a one ton nightmare of delicate gears that pulled more power than a dishwasher and oven to work at 1/10th the speed of an Apple 1 allows modern computers which are a fraction of the price and thousands of times the speed and memory.

It simply is not practical - I've even looked into tech to make it at the "Nanoscale".  

If we get to nanotech and are there to a point, we could make a HUGE but TINY computer of endless gears and rotary belts that could work as a computer.  It would take in energy and information and use the energy to process the information put into it.  It would be many thousands of times faster than modern computers even many supercomputer setups and fit in an inch or two.  The "Square Cube" law would make the gears and pulleys made out of hundreds of atoms (vs billions/trillions at smallest) be almost indestructible in their environment which also would be perfect, clean and sealed.  Square cube again only a tiny amount of energy would be needed to run the thing.

HOWEVER - to make it you need nanotech of a very fast and accurate control but able to sculpt at insane rates of speed at the macroscopic scale.  We are getting there...

BUT - and this is the sad spoiler to the "Steampunk" fans;  IF you can make that you can make an "Atomic Spin Computer".  Excuse me, I'm feeling like a kid again reading old OMNI magazines... We call them "Quantum Computers" these days and at last are making them.  

The difference?  Easier to construct and imagine an Apple 1 compared to today's best super-computers.  Not a "Cray" of the 80s we have that on our desktop in the 2020s if not our phones...  A supercomputer of today worth billions compared to a 1970s DIY kit with kilobytes and kilahertz clock speed...switches to program binary... At least...!

That's the difference in raw speed even if the Quantum one spends 99% of it's time error correcting.  Now imagine an AI working that out and figuring out an algorithm to eliminate some of the 99% of time needed...?  Then, the AI works out ways to use the Quantum Foam and stuff just under or outside what we see as reality.  It might help answer a last question...  Anyone get that last bit?

Going to the TTRPG world of the "Draconic" game - well you might hear how Tolkien fans complain it stole from him.  They had to name Hobbits into Halflings among other issues.  However the Tolkien stuff is the paint job.  The grand castle comes from many giants not the least of which is Jack Vance.  Read his Dying Earth especially Mazarian the Magician stories.  It sounds like someone put their D&D session to a story.  Except it was 20 years before the first D&D!

Vance's world (and Wells, Hodgkin, Clark Ashton Smith) is our world but the far, far future.  The sun is either gigantic in the sky and Earth has been moved outwards or it's a dim red ember.  Somehow humanity survives this far out and is on the surface the same.  However while many cycles have come and gone it seems on the surface a mystical medieval world.  How does it have "magic" if in the real world?  And not some rich drug addict more trying to summon Priapus than some angel or demon in a mansion but only really summoning scandal?  The Magic works, wizards can do many incredible things...  How?  Clarke's third law - "Any technology, sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic"

 

The setting of the world is that there is a REAL working magic and the "Gods" are real and thus clerical spells can heal people.  Sure you could get Gnomes to make a wheelchair that might somehow handle rough terrain and go through a dungeon with kooky devices to bypass simple pit traps and goblins sneaking up from behind...  BUT it would cost at least TWENTY times the Gold Coin it would take to go to a temple of a "Greater God" and get a healing of major wounds and restoration done.  And NO they aren't cursed or "special" not to be healed.  They can go to an EVIL god and at least pay a fortune (or promise dark deeds) if they PO'd a "Good" god.

A more fitting item would be at a low level campaign some pre-rolled "Wretched" zero level characters have various flaws to overcome like a prostitute who's face got slashed by a rich client with a magical dagger or a desperate peasant who has a sick daughter who needs healing magic so they will go into the dark dungeons that are ruins from up to many thousands of years ago to try to find coin.  That could start them to the path of adventure and make the players feel more for their sacrificial zero level characters in the "Meat Grinder" mission to get them into the game and flush out the snowflake 'woke' tourists.

THIRD - It's brutal brainwashing out of 1984

 

"How many fingers am I holding up, Winston Smith?"

I think the ONLY book they for real read in the Debt Factory aka a modern "College" that excretes the so-called "Woke" social justice warriors or whatever...  1984 by George Orwell.  They see it as UTOPIA, just as long as the BOOT in the FACE of humanity forever is RAINBOW colored from ethically sourced materials...  Dripping sarcasm here.

The "Woke" corporate backed fake Culture War is based around hammering their party line in one form or another until it becomes truth.  It is forcing by various means such as threats of being seen as racist, sexist, ablest ... whatever - to accept one of their stupid, ill thought out inserts.  It is a means of controlling the argument.  It is a means of trying to force a set of legacy on future players who try to pick up the pieces once the corporate behemoths move on to feed elsewhere.

The reaction against "Combat Wheelchair" and other madness like full flying PCs at Level 1, forced insertion of various mental and physical disorders is about keeping the hobby something that people will play on their own without a corporation saying its popular for a few years then shelving it.  These "Woke" will be gone soon, leaving some very ugly legacies and the true hobbyists will have to try to rebuild. 

So resisting the "Sparkle Troll" lies and agitprop is critical to us who want our freedom and expression in our games (and comics, video games, etc.) by denying their stupid ideas.  Sure there probably ARE "Combat Wheelchairs" somewhere or DMs that let a first level character FLY but somehow didn't wreck the campaign balance.  Fine.  It's still sane to resist the base game having this garbage meant to ram in their stupid fake ideals so they can virtue signal to their friends.  They are just adult babies and cry-bullies who want to break another's toys with some parent or elite corporate figure protecting them. 

No - that's not a call for violence - rather ever hear of "The List"?  For bad RPGs that are ruined by them?  Going to get it expanded (or an alt list made) that follows the so-called Writers and some of the Illustrators who have helped the corporate pigs wreck a decade of entertainment and hobbies.  When their Parents are gone aka the Corporation - well they'd better hope there is room for them to publish and stock RPG books (and comics, games) in some Seattle Coffeshop next to the college they went to.  Except woke don't buy their own "Change!" products - that tip jar is NOT that big.  Any company that wants to make MONEY will hear tons of complaints about them - no lies just "There are lots of other options, this person did this - proof - so I won't buy unless you dump them." - and they'll talk to them "There are a MILLION other artists, writers, managers out there all better than you and that's not even counting AIs.  Bye." 

Considering they openly try to "Cancel" anyone they don't like and have indeed tried to cancel me and my friends and things I like - it's only fitting.

---So - in your OWN campaigns have all the ridiculous sh-t you want.  But let's not let these sparkle troll vandals wreck our hobbies by turning it into a Cauldron of rainbow Monty-Haul and sparkle troll coffeshop university!

Maxx Feral

Gamergate 2.0 - a new Sh-tshow but different

Gamergate 2 is here...  Sweet Cheebuz...

 

 Ladies and Gentleman, Children of all Ages - I present you with "Sweet Baby".

Serious - as a person who was an adult for Gamergate 1.0 I'll brief you.  Not on 'facts' written mostly by the 'journalists' but as I experienced it.

I missed it, most of it.  At the time I'd uninstalled all games from my computers and those were mostly older games or late 90s/early 00s ones that ran super on my newer computer.  I was trying to complete some projects in between increasing work and family and  I'd of course play games all night while smutmining dirty pics on Usenet such as classic Penthouse and Hustler pics. 

However I still went to Software Etc (now Gamestop, ugg...) to buy older retro games, my local branch had tons of NES/Sega cartridges at various prices.  And I saw all the things people bought new high $ computers for and some soaked the boards in liquid nitrogen so they could overclock to speeds we'd have issues with today...  I'm glad I'm more a casual, retro gamer but I salute those who always push the envelope.  Lots of definition of gamers - I'm a lifetime player, kid during early arcade, Atari 2600 age, early computer games - etc .  See pic - this was "RPG Maker" way back - also programmed in code from magazines at the library in an Atari computer.

From them and my own late night usenet (remember that?) and various /chan lurking I got filled in.  I checked it out and put this through a huge personal filter.  However the Software Etc people informed me what was going on as it happened.  I feel I'm quite informed.  Was once a person with journalist aspirations but now it's a "Post-Truth" world so no one trusts any "Source" though they demand it then deny it or insult you as a fool they got to waste time looking it up.  So take it or leave it but I speak what is best to my ears, eyes and research the truth.

Long Form but broken into steps:

1 - Games had become a super huge business, rivalling or in some ways surpassing the gaming boom of the late 70s to early 80s.  Different world, the computers were SO much more powerful, it was easier to program and the colleges excreted tons of kids with 'degrees' in game design.

2 - There was huge competition which translated to brutal pressure on those doing the legit work.  They worked 80 hour weeks on slack time but sometimes health destroying 100+ hour weeks just to get fired in time for Christmas.  They'd been lured in by the dreams of the 80s where the designers of Pac-Man and ET for the 2600 got checks in the millions.  That was because they'd fought hard for a sane share of royalties AND there was about 25 people in the WORLD who could program a game for the 2600.

2a - for "Source!?" screamers try a book called "Racing the Beam" which gives you an idea of what it is like to program for an Atari 2600.  Rememeber it next time you want to complain a Unity tutorial or kit is too hard.  You are a FLEA on the shoulders of Giants.  Oh, and those giants - they stood on the shoulders of the NASA guys who made the equivalent of an Apple II with magnetic core memory by hand and troubleshooted it on the way to the MOON.

3 - Huge pressure by companies, middle managers on game devs.  The essence was "We'll pay you this BUT if you get that level of ratings and initial sales we'll pay you enough you might earn good money so when you lay off these suckers doing the work you can run to Tahiti with millions."

4 - This led to desperate game designers in a glutted market doign desperate and underhanded things like PAYING so-called Journalists aka "Game Journalists" for good reviews of their upcoming games.  These were published in the remaining game magazines most kids and some adults had grown up reading and the emerging virtual online versions.  Sadly these had been bought out early 00s but they still had "Street Cred"

5 - I've worked for Corporate America and one thing you learn the hard way;  "Today's bonus is tomorrow's METRIC."  aka "Ok,  you lazy scum.  You worked that hard to earn that gift card and a promise of a raise?  That means you CAN work that hard and  you'll do it to keep your job.  And we'll not give you a raise and TAKE BACK your bonuses.  We dare you to walk out, we got the colleges churning out more suckers.  And we are automating so Indians and other third world people can SCAB.  We hate you you SCUM."  

5a - I'm almost quoting some employers,but keeping the language more polite, btw...

6 - The cycle feed itself for a few years and for less and less money all these "AAA" titles were essentially shovelware.  The big $ people behind them had flooded the market, cut $ they put into games, cut more $ in between with them locked in contracts so they could back out but lose all the $ and be bankrupt.  The $ and time put into the games suffered but if they got to that finish line with a barely workable product they'd get just enough to break even.

7 - This destroyed the quality of the products.  Master of the Obvious.  So we had lots of AAA titles rated 95% etc. that were shovelware.  IF they worked at all.  Some hardcore gamers had release parties ruined or their day off from their job(s) waiting all day for the ENTIRE DVD-ROM to be downloaded from a website not setup for it.  I had this pleasure on an overhyped but not prepared release of some pro end 3D software  - I won't tell their name not wanting to promote them now that they help the "Subscription racket"...

8 - The fuel of this industry, the hardcore Gamers started comparing notes on boards the big business didn't control - the /Chan sites and such and boy were they getting MAD.  You spend $70-$140, take a day off from your job(s) and get shovelware at best but it was rated super big in that magazine you trusted as a kid or college kid...  Then you start comparing notes and find out these "Game Journalists" are dunderheads.  And they SOLD good reviews.  When you work the jobs you hate the stuff you buy you don't need had better be GOOD, eh?

9 - The notes started generating negative vibes so the "Journalists" panicked.  They of all people knew how easily they could be replaced.  The programmers at least while not as scarce as early Atari days still needed skills not everyone had and the foreigner slave labor force was not near their level yet.

10 - So the "Games Journalists" used their undeserved power to smear their critics.  Incels.  Nerds.  Neckbeards.  Haters.  Racist, sexist, misogynist...  And yeah they claimed they threatened them in dramatic ways.  My favorite was some diversity hire claiming that someone had hired a "Darknet Hitman" on her and she was looking out the window in fear since he'd EMAILED her about it while she waited for a ride to a safe house.  Excuse me - if there were hitman that legit let anonymous 3rd parties hire them to kill anyone...  Whoops, no cops, judges, officials. Curious - that means they are con-men since a hit contract is fraud at worst unless an official which it becomes a federal crime...  Or Fed Fuzz wanting an easy target.

10a - "Toxic Gamers" did and do some shit - but it's things like SWATting people.  Why didn't the "Diversity Hire" SWAT herself?  Because she a non-white with lots of non-white friends would have been shot Robocop style.  Sick, ugly and wrong but true and very sadly true.  Also if it was a fake it'd be easy to debunk.  Call the fuzz in her city, ask if on that date that time they got a report - simple yes/no as public record territory.  But a "Darknet Hitman" has NO record of it or its not Darknet.  Thus I think - "One man's opinion" she LIED.  My opinion for legal CMA of course.

 

TL/DR

Desperate game devs paid so-called 'journalists' for good reviews.  Eventually too many games came out shovelware but were rated AAA by people who obviously didn't buy or play them.  The hardcore gamers got sick of paying top dollar for that and compared notes hoping to bring change.  The so-called "Journalists" panicked and made up tons of lies and insulted the Gamers to cover their worthless lying asses.

.....

Anyways it devolved as there was a mini gaming recession not talked about.  Big sharks ate up smaller ones and continued.  Anita Sarkesian was funded overnight for her "Tropes" garbage.  Games got gradually more politically correct and bland.   The internet expanded ability to bypass big stores and retail chains.  Steam in desperation allowed adult games even some "Loli" content ones for a while.

Gradually the games got back but there were too many people being excreted by colleges hoping to make games and more foreign competition.  The Debt Factories, formerly colleges seemed to teach some toxic corporate form of social activism first, identity politics second and maybe they paid top dollar to learn 101 level Toon Boom or how to make simple programs.  They then got in the door (especially if non-white, women, some other victim/minority card) and sat around bullying the MEN mostly white but plenty of Asian/Real Indians and even some black/latinos who did the WORK at these companies.  Glad I missed that, they had cushions, arcades, delis to eat at - AND  - if you were one of the MALES that did the work and used them you got fired quickly.  Grind and grind and grind and be on guard all times while the "Diversity" hires lorded the place, added to your burden and did Yoga with free lattes all day while working on who to backstab next.  The level of burn out these places caused anyone expected to work to actually make games...

 

So now we are in GamerGate 2.0.

Where it's open that they legit EXTORTED game companies, already G-Rated corporate politically correct chowder - to twist games so they'd be less and less playable by Males, mostly straight and white ones.  How they'd force Fugly females and lectures on how "Da Patriarchy" is ruining everything...  I could post pictures of the "Forced Change" but they'd probably hit the flag for "Racism" even though these were approved by the SweetBaby people.

And it blew up on Steam with a utility to detect them - along with Google and here's a list of similar Woke-Stortion companies.

 

 

 Now here's my solution:

They want "Politics"?  Let's GIVE it to them.

But NOT like they think...!

Get some pens, papers, stamps.  Oh, you can use Google and a a word processor -but you need to make REAL letters.  Sign and date them.  The people you will be talking to are your reps in Congress and the Senate.

Write letters - polite, concise, to the point.  Sign and date.

Don't waste their time with this "Gate" crap.  It's crap and a distraction.  Also free speech, free press, free markets.  They want to make games for rainbow unicorn snowflakes from some debt factory "Safe Space" well let that market support them then.  I only want to be able to vote with my $ to NOT buy their crud and find or make stuff that I enjoy even if they'd not buy it.

So demand (politely)

1 - NO bailouts, tax breaks, subsidies to any Luxury or Media company.  We don't need to EAT Disney Star Wars or the latest "Woke" shovelware game.  Therefore they have near absolute freedom and we have the freedom not to support it.  This is not grain, corn, fuel...

2 - monopolies - there are a handful of big companies that cooperate instead of competing.  This is a financial conspiracy.  Our government has known about it and tolerated it for years but now we have "Shrink-Flation" and "Because we Can-Flation" for necessities (food, housewares, everything...) and various payment processors and HedgeFunds (like Blackrock) are abusing their power to "Force Change".  This needs to END.  They need to have huge competition and not have a share of the market they can force prices or content without facing the possibility of a backlash and competitors doing what they refuse.

3 - Financial Crimes.  I'll say "One Man's Opinion" for a legal CMA but I think Blackrock and others literally WANT these things to fail.  I've seen more BRICKS of unsold comics since  the end of the "Comic book boom" and they are crud that no way did any legit pro authorize.  I've seen piles of "Woke" books, magazines, etc. piling to the shelves or in 2nd end (like Big Lots) toy stores in less than six months after release.  These things keep failing yet they don't change:

--Thus (One Man's Opinion) I think they use a process called "Short-Selling" where they buy into something and set it up to fail then bet against it.  They used to do this to retail stores, I had the misfortune of working for one and saw it sabotaged step by step.  Per #1 the huge retail stores were major employers so the Government was about to get in but they jumped to fictions and franchises or hobbies.

Thus the SEC needs to investigate for Short-Sell and lock them up until a dollar buys a dime via inflation.  They can do this.  Normally a SEC agent can send a stockbroker into dry heaves even if at the same line at the Starbucks with no other association.  It's time they USED that power or be fired since they missed Madoff despite being warned twice and all the Sub-Prime and other sabotage.

4 - restore FREE MARKETS.  It's not so much about forcing this or that player out - we need to cut the chains between distributor, payment processor, publisher and creator.  There are too many gatekeepers that exist to protect themselves and they choke out the chance of independent creators rising or falling on their own merit and protect their own stagnated collection of properties that actively suppress new voices.

Mind you keep it simple - "I don't want luxury or media companies to have tax breaks, short-sell against their products or have monopolies.  I don't have to eat that Disney garbage these days I don't want to pay for it.  I wonder what we'll have if they face real competition again."

NO rants, threats, etc.  These are elected officials and basic respect is expected.

Stuff like that - consider a small donation also.

 

 Yes - it's a "Stagnant Swamp" - but most of it operates in the dark.  A lobbyist earns $70K for every $1 he spends.  That is when no one is watching.  More letters the Congress/Senate will act and even the corrupt ones will charge more.  Easily $1K a letter.  "This person will VOTE.  This person will influence dozens of others.   He wants your head.  $1K for each of these letters.  To . do . NOTHING.  Much more if you want me to turn him down..." - the corrupt ones can get $ from them and if they refuse they'll hurt them and pretend to be righteous.  That, IMO, is behind one Senator fighting a "Mouse" - IMO they didn't pay him enough years back.  Just opinion and keeping it abstract for legal CMA of course!

So let's break the monopoly so we get more stuff like THIS....!

Still here!?  Good!

We need to demand from companies if they want our MONEY that they turn back the clock to the late 90s and 00s.  I'm not going to force "Bewbs" in Candy Crush and the so-called "Woke" people's pathetic "Art" games.  It'd be fair's fair but vengeance or being the "New Norm" is just as bad.  We need to make sure they've just wasted a decade and from their rotted SOY minds have only made things WORSE and they'll hide and whimper the rest of their lives fearing people will go "So, you are the scum that wasted a TRILLION dollars and made the mid 10s to mid 20 boring with lousy preachy entertainment!?  I'm going to talk to your manager and make dead sure he replaces you with an AI maidbot or he loses my and my friend's regular patronage!"

Demand game companies make these changes or you won't buy or even STEAL their games.  Spread the word.  Spread lists of "Woke" SJW whatevers as "Don't Hire them" lists.  No threats save you will NOT support the company and will let investors know, will write  your Congress and Senate reps to stop bailouts...  Real quick they'll go back to making what sells.  Sex, damsels in distress, even worse "Feminine" women you'd want to have not fugly bitchy harpies of hate you get for free any visit to the Debt Factory aka College.

See?  Wench chained to wall.  Needs rescue.  Will reward you or you make $ selling her at the slave auction.  No my testicles do not drag that bad - but we need more of this for a while to purge the "Woke" virus.

 

For any game company demand a sane standard of NOT complying with Woke and RESPECTING the people who PAY their wages.  Likewise BUY what you like.  VOTE with your DOLLARS.  It's easy now, there are SO many Fugly Social justice games and so few cool ones out there you can go "Take my money NOW!" even if you are broke.

Maxx Feral