Because RPGs Bring the Wank...
Okay, so Green Ronin put out an RPG book called Blue Rose. The setting is romantic fantasy (think Mercedes Lackey and Tamora Pierce and similar authors -- anime fen may think shoujo fantasy). The system is heavily modified d20 -- fans christened it True20.

Now, GR apparently didn't intend for True20 to be as popular as it was -- it got to the point where gamers who didn't give a whit about romantic fantasy were buying the Blue Rose core book for the system. Now, GR had a message board (The Noble Assembly) for Blue Rose set up, and many fans, being fans, registered at it.

Now, one would expect the non-romantic-fantasy fen to be respectful to the RF-fen that seem to amke up the majority of the board. I mean, one doens't start complaining about shonen on a Naruto board. Yeah... well.. this is RPG fandom. People are idiots here.

Meet Nisarg. He likes to use words like fascist (Does this count as Godwin's law?), insipid, saccarine, and a dystopia to describe the setting. He also set his signature to "Head of the Aldean politically incorrect resistence!" He really seems like he's trying to win friends and influence people here.

In which a darker version of the setting is discussed. Wank starts on page 2 when Nisarg complains that most traditional fantasy heroes and historical figures would be 'Shadow-aligned' (evil) in Blue Rose (note: Aldea is the world name, Aldis is the happy progressive heroic country (Valdemar, for Lackey fans)):

Except that any campaigns set anywhere in Aldea will still assume that your ne'er do-well swashbuckling rogue who's in it for the gold is INHERENTLY WRONG.

Likewise your bloody-minded priest of a god of vengeance. INHERENTLY WRONG.

Your crusader crying out "deus volt!". WRONG.

Your Elrics, Fahfrds, Grey Mousers, Corwins (or the whole amber family), Conans, batmans, etc etc. ALL WRONG.

For that matter, your Thomas Jeffersons or Benjamin Franklins. WRONG.

Unless you mean that the alignment rules are actually different on Aldea, depending on which country you're in... in which case that would prove that the core book is not really truth, but an Aldisian propaganda piece.

{...}

In my Port Blacksand campaign, what I actually changed is the alignment system, got rid of the absurd notion that collectivism is "light" and libertarianism is "twilight", and replaced it with a moorcockian "Order/Balance/Chaos" alignment.


Note, that this is said in a triple post. When a game writer tells him they will most likenly not remove the alignment rules in a future suppliment, he comments:

but doesn't it fit with te genre? I mean, I don't really know, having read very little feminist fantasy fiction, but I would just sort of assume that evil sorcerers casting patriarchal politically incorrect magic would end up horribly deformed or go nuts because of it (i mean more nuts than they already are for being so evilly patriarchal and all).

This goes over like a sack of hammers with board member McCoy, who tells Nisarg to quit being a jackass (in most of the threads Nisarg posted in)and they get that he hates the setting so he can STFU, and there is a long argument, with a bonus tangent on the meaning of feminism.


In which the fluffiness of the setting is discussed. Wank doens't really get going until Page 4, when Nisarg butts in, but previous pages have quotes like "What's so unmanly about gays? If you ask me, that's like, double-manly." Anyway, Nisarg wonders why everyone's being so hostile and other forum posters inform him that what he calls blunt and forthright they call derailing multiple threads to whine about how he hates the setting. More wondering is done here, when he posts a suggestion to make a separate forum to discuss the ruleset sans setting. He hoenstly doens't seem to get why everyone hates him. I'm boggling over here at the fact he doens't seem to grasp the basic concept of not insulting a genre that most everyone else likes.

A favorite exchange:

Nisarg: (in a thread about another non-BR suppliment GR is planning on putting out): It would also have been a perfect way to introduce people to the system who wouldn't buy the politically correct, preachy-fascism fest that is the Blue Rose setting with a 49' pole.

I almost was among them, but found the system so promisingly irresistable that I dove in anyways, and I'm glad I did. But I still dislike the fact that I have to enjoy my True 20 system rules in a book tied in with such a horrid setting.

Nephandi: Fascist? I thought pluralistic left-wing totalitarianism was associated with Communism. Red Aldis forever, comrades!


In the end Nisarg gets what he wants -- a True20 forum on the main GR boards. Which makes me feel ambivalent. I like the system (but the world isn't that interesting to me) so I like the new forum, but I don't like it when whining and being an asshat gets someone what they want. Stop being on my side.

On the other hand, one of the admins did end the argument with this quote: "Oh for goodness sake, people, don't make me come in there and use my Mom Voice! I'll turn these boards around, mister, don't think I won't!" Which pretty much sums up the entire exchange.