Where do we go from here?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Who the fuck is David Silverstone?

EDIT: Seriously though, I don't care, so don't feel compelled to tell me.

[owlassociate]

a bunch of baseless shit about someone that's made 35 posts on this site and joined a year ago

fucking epic

[Zinegata]

a bunch of baseless shit about someone that's made 35 posts on this site and joined a year ago

Oh I'm sorry so if you're so disinterested and uninvolved in this forum then why are you declaring yourself to be a defender of the community against this meanie whiner you hate so much?

Fact is, you're either a sad alt-account of one of the long-time losers here, or you're well on your way to being one of them.

Either way, you can't hide who you really are to yourself. That's why you're hot and bothered by all the real shit I said that you keep on denying to yourself and to the rest of your shallow peer group.

Have fun wasting your life.

[saithorthepyro]

Don't got much to add outside of I was lurking inside the MPSIMS forums for most of the past couple of years, and yeah, nobody named this Silverstone guy, I don't remember him coming up at all.

Honestly I don't mind if we never discuss politics again, I've got other places to go to get my news and analysis and after a while it mostly just got exhausting to read. Frank posting again just reinforces that for me because over half his new rant is just yelling about the crap he left over in the first place. Going after FBMF over him not supporting Frank about excluding people from threads. The Tara Reade crap. Trying to play the hero about he tried to push the "toxic" influence out.

On the Den itself, I'd prefer to keep it around so there's a place to go to argue mechanics with about pathfinder and shadowrun and such that at least is a bit more daring if not honest about the discussion, but I'm not sure how well that will go going forward, IMHO seems to have really dropped off in volume over time. I should probably contribute more myself.

[Zinegata]

On the Den itself, I'd prefer to keep it around so there's a place to go to argue mechanics with about pathfinder and shadowrun and such that at least is a bit more daring if not honest about the discussion, but I'm not sure how well that will go going forward, IMHO seems to have really dropped off in volume over time. I should probably contribute more myself.

On that note, I'll just say that K is technically still around and based on what I heard he actually did the lion's share of the work in the Tome series. Yet he pretty much never got as much credit or limelight because of all the Frank-wannabes.

I think people should mention him more to remind people that design is actually mostly about shutting up and doing actual work; not trying to argue how yours is the bestest design ever.

That said, I think K's largely moved on from rules-writing as well; because as I saw in another RPG forum recently: "4th Ed players are the grongards now".

Which points to the other problem aside from The Den's ultimately self-destructive culture and shouting-over-substance approach to design.

Quite a lot of the folks here don't want to admit it's no longer 2010 and most of the world and the hobby has simply moved on.

There's nothing wrong with loving old games or old system - I still play games invented in the 70s and participate in clubs that champion them. But there is something very much wrong with wanting to stay in the 70s, or the 90s, or whatever you imagine to be the "golden" years and refuse to acknowledge how the world has changed.

That's why I ultimately dropped posting regularly, and very much intend to not come back permanently after this thread fizzles out. It's been over a decade when I first started posting here, and yet pretty much all of the loudest voices still have not changed.

Nostalgia and appreciating the classics is one thing. That's an enjoyable hobby. Dealing with boys who never grew up however? That's just sad.

[Sunwitch]

Which is why the main point, as I said weeks ago, is that the actual political arguments were completely inconsequential. They accomplished nothing, and changed nothing.

I disagree, the politics were always there and it's only with it being aired and talked about that I feel OK actually expressing myself in any openness at this point. I think Kaelik understands as well as I do that this isn't about stopping Trump, this is about the deeper structural issues with the USA and other imperial core countries that can't be reduced to who's in the seat of POTUS. This has been stated multiple times. The real solutions are more complex than "vote for Biden", and all the rather horrendous things that ascribing so doing as an imperative comes with.

I believe Tara Reade, and I'm not interested in describing what's gone on in my life that makes being chided about my refusal to support someone I firmly believe to be a serial sexual abuser so nauseating. Especially from someone who vehemently and bullheadedly insisted that trans people are fundamentally delusional to the point where some people who knew better simply left the forum after being repeatedly and humiliatingly attacked, and never took any form of accountability. Instead we get some fake-ass effortpost casting Tara Reade as a Russian agent under the auspices of accountability for someone else sharing the wrong memes. If Frank thinks he's poisoned this forum, he's wholly misidentified the toxin he used to do so.

Sincere and open discussion on political matters is good. If a byproduct is that someone who can't handle legitimate criticism is made to take the implications of his bloviating seriously by placing it in context and he subsequently fucks off because he can't handle that, good riddance.

[maglag]

Sincere and open discussion on political matters is good. If a byproduct is that someone who can't handle legitimate criticism is made to take the implications of his bloviating seriously by placing it in context and he subsequently fucks off because he can't handle that, good riddance.

Except that Frank leaving didn't result in "sincere and open discussion on political matters".

It resulted in the political discussions getting even worst to the point the forum's owner just went "Fuck your noise, all political discussion is banned".

[Sunwitch]

Except that Frank leaving didn't result in "sincere and open discussion on political matters".

It resulted in the political discussions getting even worst to the point the forum's owner just went "Fuck your noise, all political discussion is banned".

Remember that time Crissa got rebuked and eventually left the forum for being one of the rather few people on this forum who actually had openly and correctly and sincerely progressive, feminist leanings? Where people were at the time kinda hung up over her making things "too political" and then over the span of the 2010s increasingly took on those exact same leanings she advocated and was punished for back then?

Political discussions don't really go away one way or the other, they just make their way into new contexts. We're clearly talking about political stuff right now. Partially because Frank legit just came back to the forum to beat a dead horse under the guise of clutching his pearls over a non-issue, but partially because this entire damn thread is full of political matters from beginning to end.

If your issue is that this forum by and large doesn't have a habitus conducive to talking about political matters in good faith you're probably right, but nothing about the point I was making is actually subverted by that. To my knowledge, fbmf mostly banned certain forms of political conversation specifically in the wake of Frank packing it in. I'm not going to step way out of line with what I'm pretty sure is the acceptable behaviour on tgd regarding political discussion, but I do think the awkwardness of engaging with political realities here has a historical precedent that stretches back to the beginning of last decade and that's not just because politics is a difficult subject that invites vitriol and controversy.

[Grek]

MPSIMS got so bad that fbmf locked it for a few days in order to sort out who needed punished for letting it get that bad, resulting in Frank deciding to quit the forums rather than apologize for his behavior, followed by politics getting banned entirely when it turned out that Frank ragequitting did not solve the problem and that things were still getting even worse.

[OgreBattle]

The search function is the main thing I do on here, so I’m happy to have 10+ years of interesting discussions on various mechanics. I think the mermaid centaur person left before I joined but I still know of them through discussions of various topics. Even if they’re long or recently gone they’ve left behind interesting notes to jot down

[MGuy]

"Citizen, did you visit The Gaming Den on March 3rd, 2020, around 7:13 PM?"

"Uhh, maybe? Sure, I guess. Why?"

"Citizen, do you recognize this meme?"

"Um, lemme see... oh, that one, haha, yeah, that was a good one, wasn't it? I think I got it from xXx_smokingbluntsforsanders420_xXx."

"TAKE 'EM AWAY BOYS, WE GOT OURSELVES A DIDDLY KIDDER."

"What?! What'd I do?!"

"It turns out xXx_smokingbluntsforsanders420_xXx got it from idrawcartoonhorsedickcommissionsopen who found it on reddit after it'd been uploaded by karmafarm919381 whose algorithms saw it when it was retweeted by a minor celebrity you've never heard of but who's trying really, really, really hard to be relevant... who retweeted it from David Silverstone."

"Who the fuck's that?"

"No idea, but says here he's a pedophile so you're going away for a long, long time, you sick fuck."

Basically the line of reasoning Frank was using there. I'd thought this thread was just zin still angrily complaining for reasons I haven't bothered to unravel. frank dipping back in to blurt out a weak justification of his actions coupled with this accurate translation of one of his arguments was good for a laugh.

Except that Frank leaving didn't result in "sincere and open discussion on political matters".

It resulted in the political discussions getting even worst to the point the forum's owner just went "Fuck your noise, all political discussion is banned".

That's not what sunwitch even said. I don't know why you quoted them then created a different argument right after. They said X is good. If Y is a byproduct then that's also good. Your response is basically "Y didn't result in X, it resulted in Z" which doesn't even fit as a criticism of the thing you quoted.

[Zinegata]

I disagree, the politics were always there and it's only with it being aired and talked about that I feel OK actually expressing myself in any openness at this point. I think Kaelik understands as well as I do that this isn't about stopping Trump, this is about the deeper structural issues with the USA and other imperial core countries that can't be reduced to who's in the seat of POTUS

People will always have their political views. The point isn't to say people are bad to have them.

The point is the actual political arguments that occurred here in this very forum were incredibly fucking stupid and more importantly, completely worthless. They bear absolutely no resemblance to the "valuable" political discourse you are describing. The fact you describe them as such point to the bloated egos and Alpha Male personalities which have long ago abandoned any pretense of "honesty" and instead simply tried to bully their way into winning arguments.

Because again: There was very little actual difference between Frank and Kaelik's position. Countering "it was actually about changing the system, not the president!" is just you throwing up another smokescreen to hide how pointless the actual argument was.

Frank is very well aware of the deeper structural issues of the US. He mentioned it too several times.

The only difference is that he doesn't think Bernie being the candidate will get you there. He thinks Bernie has made a lot of promises to address those issues, but he can't see how Bernie can deliver it. That's why he supported Warren.

When Sanders and Warren both lost, Frank pushed to vote for Biden because he believed it was the incremental step to getting change done, not because he believed that Biden was suddenly Bernie now.

As for Kaelik... again, he has no actual fucking interim plan I can parse. So if not vote for Biden, what now? Write more angry posts? Sorry but no one on the left of consequence is reading your material nor are they inspired by it except the cultists hanging out in your Discord Daycare.

In short, Frank wanted incremental change and his plan was vote for Biden. Kaelik wanted more sweeping change... but couldn't articulate how to go about it and more importantly neither can you. But both ultimately wanted the same kind of change, the only difference was the plan and rate to achieve it!

That Kaelik and his little cult could never admit to the fact that Frank was far closer to them politically is the primary reason I backed Frank in that debate though Frank and I never got along. And it was hilarious to me how the Kaelik cultists were bewildered by how Frank was seemingly ignoring me supporting him (I'm on Frank's ignore list because I call out Frank's BS all the time too), because they were clearly far more engrossed with "beating" Frank and any of his allies than they were of the actual political discussions.

Which is why really, get over yourselves. It was not a consequential debate. You are not Noam Chomsky. You are not even Chris Hedges. This is why people were all busy trying to deny Count's very simple observation that the "progressives" here are all just posers that most people have actually tuned out. Because the guy multiple people tried to dismiss as crazy was the one closest to the truth.

That's why even after Frank left, the remaining Alpha Male wannabes then turned on each other and kept at it until the politics board finally got completely nuked. The politics never drove the discussion. It was the infantile desire to be king of something.

In short, your politics are in fact just excuses to play social hierarchy games. Stop hiding behind them. This board is in fact still full of people who are too cowardly to face the simpler reality that their "politics" were in fact nothing more than bullshit excuses to get to act like bullies. They just tune out people who tell them this actual harsh truth and then start whining about how those who don't believe in their great cause should leave.

[Thaluikhain]

Biden supporters and Sanders supporters getting into heated arguments is hardly unique to this forum, and while they are, as you say, totally pointless arguments on the whole, being stuck in a terrible situation with no good answers means that's not too surprising.

[Zinegata]

Biden supporters and Sanders supporters getting into heated arguments is hardly unique to this forum, and while they are, as you say, totally pointless arguments on the whole, being stuck in a terrible situation with no good answers means that's not too surprising.

Look, it's true there's a lot of angry people on the internet debating Biden-Sanders.

But in this case, it very clearly wasn't the Biden-Sanders politics that actually drove the stupid arguments. This isn't Twitter or reddit where complete strangers shout at each other to farm likes and upvotes. A lot of the personalities involved had been here for years.

Indeed, quite bluntly during my direct observation of the debate phase both sides were pretty much just using the opportunity to call each other names.

And it's going to continue because people would rather pretend that it was about these high-minded politics than to admit they acted childishly. You can already see all the rationalizations on both sides about how they had bigger political causes to fulfill.

You let these rationalizations take root, and you'll just let the cycle of scapegoating continue. My bet is on Kaelik being the next "Frank" to be voted off the island; but I'll probably have long-forgotten this forum before that happens.

[Sunwitch]

too much, yet so far from enough

I thought you left the forum? Seriously, you're assuming so much about my motives with this last paragraph - stop quoting me if you're going to speak in several-paragraph diatribes without saying anything. I've barely used this forum for talking about politics for reasons I've already stated, but political matters take up much of my personal life. Say something substantive rather than repeating "you/the rest of this forum don't know how to talk about big adult stuff" over and over again. You're right that this forum has had problems with childish mudslinging from time to time - again, it's one of the reasons I've mostly lurked. Being nice is good, and repetitive put-downs are childish, boring and thoughtless. But transposing that into a larger question that gets debated widely about electoral ethics and where I've already stood at a position similar to Kaelik's for many years without this forum having anything to do with it is just silliness - stop that.

I agree with Kaelik's position - even as I might have different reasons here and there - and think it is more responsible than Frank's by an order of magnitude, and I have stated why. You ignored all of it so you could go off about how cool and against the grain you are. I'm not interested in you patronizing me with repetitive rants about all this. I know it's not a formal debate. I know it's not big-time politics. I think it's worth talking about anyway, because Frank's politics have been weirdly regressive in a lot of ways and it's about time we were sincere about that. That's a microcosm, but it's one that's very relevant to this board. That's why I was expressing things the way I was. Because it's relevant here. Quit being so patronizing and trying to convince me that I don't know what I'm talking about.

[Zinegata]

I thought you left the forum?

I choose when I leave, unless fbmf tells me to. Again, it's very telling how accurate Count's supposed "rambling" is about the "leftists" here. They claim they want freedom for everyone, and yet when someone says something that makes them feel uneasy they immediately want to control it and remove it.

Sounds like just a bunch of control freaks who use politics as an excuse to be bullies to me.

Seriously, you're assuming so much about my motives with this last paragraph

Your motives are as naked and as transparent by how much you keep going on about how Biden bad when nobody gives a shit; just as how pretty much everyone thought Frank's David Silverstone thing was an excuse for his own shitty behavior too.

I agree with Kaelik's position

He doesn't have a position, which is why I don't believe for a moment that you have any genuine political positions. He just copies talking points off real progressives like Chomsky or Hedges.

That's why neither you nor him can even define a game plan.

The guys who are actually active politically in the United States for the progressive cause are not in this forum. If you hadn't noticed they're actually in the streets doing something if they're really not cool with voting for Biden.

By contrast you're wasting your time on the Internet to "prove" your non-existent progressive chops, much like how Kaelik doesn't have any real chops either.

[Sunwitch]

lots of whining, not much of substance

You aren't listening, and you're not as smart as you think you are. Ignored for the sake of my sanity.

[Zinegata]

lots of whining, not much of substance

You aren't listening, and you're not as smart as you think you are. Blocking for the sake of my sanity.

Lol, that's your feeble retort? From the guy who was saying Frank can leave if he can't take the heat?

What you call your "sanity" is in fact just the silly fanfiction you wrote about yourself. It's your bloated ego talking.

In truth you are not some progressive champion with a plan. You probably aren't even a real progressive, much less a champion of it.

If you really were, such accusations would bounce off and your emotional reaction would be simple bewilderment.

Just as how I'm bewildered by you being such an insecure git that you think I'm not smart. I know I'm not smart. Why would you think that's an insult?

The thing is, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that you're just a hypocrite; and you don't like how it clashes with the picture of yourself that you created in your head.

[Kaelik]

As for Kaelik... again, he has no actual fucking interim plan I can parse.

...


It was not a consequential debate. You are not Noam Chomsky. You are not even Chris Hedges.

Hey, Tzor, Maybe the reason I didn't articulate "my" interim plan for transition to a better future in an election thread on TGD is because the debate on a TGD election thread was not going to have any effect on any part of the election precisely because the conversation was not consultants for political campaigns or prominent intellectuals deciding campaign strategy or attempting to sway public opinion.

But I guess that's a lot more boring then railing constantly about how it didn't matter and also people kept treating it like it didn't matter both of which prove you to be the one true correct hero.

[Grek]

Kaelik wanted more sweeping change... but couldn't articulate how to go about it and more importantly neither can you.

Not so! I am totally capable of articulating Kaelik's 'plan'. It's just that doing so is against the forum rules regarding advocating for the death of real world people. Which should tell people a lot about the level of political discourse on this forum and how much of it is people actually agitating for change vs taking the chance to be Internet Tough Guys peacocking their performative anger at one another.

[maglag]

To my knowledge, fbmf mostly banned certain forms of political conversation specifically in the wake of Frank packing it in.

Politics discussion was given a second chance after Frank packed it in by fbmf, and it just kept getting worst until it was permanently banned, despite being completely Frank-free for many weeks.

[Sunwitch]

Politics discussion was given a second chance after Frank packed it in by fbmf, and it just kept getting worst until it was permanently banned, despite being completely Frank-free for many weeks.

I stand corrected, but that's really not very important to what I'm actually saying here.

[Mord]

I never expected to describe Frank Trollman as "pathetic," but here we are. Quitting the forum "forever," changing your handle, and slinking back months later to issue a parting shot loaded with self-serving faux martyrdom - as though you haven't been reading every word since you "left" - is the kind of internet drama I stirred up in middle school. No other word for it. Pathetic.

[Zinegata]

Not so! I am totally capable of articulating Kaelik's 'plan'. It's just that doing so is against the forum rules regarding advocating for the death of real world people. Which should tell people a lot about the level of political discourse on this forum and how much of it is people actually agitating for change vs taking the chance to be Internet Tough Guys peacocking their performative anger at one another.

Lol, I suspected as much.

Funnily, I once pointed out that America's inability to have actual proper political discourse was pretty much putting it back in 1860 territory where a Second Civil War was highly likely; and yet Kaelik and his minions immediately dismissed me as crazy. Gotta love it when they attack you for being "crazy"... just so they can steal your ideas and make it their own.

But then again Kaelik's entire real "contribution" to this forum is to attack other people - dismissing their ideas as crazy - and then stealing their ideas after the dust has settled to prop up his own complete lack of originality or output.

Dunno if you're aware or remember - it's been a decade after all - but the big secret nobody has mentioned is that Kaelik was originally Frank's biggest fanboy and pansy. Anything Frank attacked, Kaelik also went after even louder, harder, and more stupidly. Indeed, though I don't recall it myself, it would not surprise me if Kaelik was part of the lynch mobs Frank organized against CeilingCat or other "progressive" voices that were driven away.

The thing is, Frank had always provided a steady supply of external enemies. The 4ed fanboy invasion - which various present Denners always try to play up as "their" achievement - was actually because of Frank going to other forums, stirring the pot, and leading to an angry mob of RPG.net/WoTC forum 4E players chasing Frank back to his home base.

None of Frank's successors were ever brave enough to step out of this forum with their ideas; and the Internet as a whole predictably and collectively decided to ignore The Den completely.

So folks here were pretty much reduced to picking on the occasional newcomer to sate their lust for Internet Tough Guy hormones. And when newcomers didn't show up they turned on each other.

Funnily, for all their posturing of being great debaters who keep out stupid, most of the old-timers here actually suck at debating. That's why they pretty much wilted and begged for the Ignore function when they encountered opponents who saw through their bullshit.

That's why most inevitably resort to accusing newcomers of being an alt-account of silva or whomever. They think it proves their chops of "defending" the Den against stupidity. In reality, it shows that they are garbage people who waste their lives attacking Internet strangers just to cover up how dumb they really are; and that all this "brutal honesty" talk is just an excuse to be bullies.

[Hicks]