The Discourse is Dead: Long Live the Discourse

Joining the long list of things declared dead that are not actually dead (including, but not limited to; punk, the OSR, shitty chain sit-down restaurants, and media literacy) I figured it was time for another evocative headline. I haven't blogged in a while, mostly as a consequence of starting a new job and hey it turns out that working a full time job while doing part time school is actually quite challenging. I also have some sort of lingering compressed nerve situation with my right wrist which limits the amount of time I can spend at the computer typing my thoughts away.

During my few weeks off from blogging, I got to watch several small and large scale internet discussions go south in a hurry, the most notable of which was probably the decision by Goodman Games (of Dungeon Crawl Classics fame) to announce their latest Kickstarter project. That project would be City State of the Invincible Overlord, a venerated 3rd party module from the 70s published by Judges' Guild.

In case you aren't terminally online (in which case stop reading this blog before it's too late I beg you), the current ownership of Judges' Guild has more than a bit of controversy. In 2020, it was revealed that the current owner, Bob Bledsaw Jr., was making all sorts of vile comments on his personal Facebook; everything up to and including antisemitic conspiracy theories. First it was revealed by third party publisher Bat in the Attic, then in later statements by both Frog God Games and Goodman Games themselves acknowledging both the controversy and the fact that they would be ceasing future work with Judges' Guild. Frog God, to their credit, promised that royalty payments due from their printing of old JG adventure Tegel Manor, would instead only be used to refund backers of Judges' Guild's failed Kickstarter to remake the famed City State for Pathfinder 1st Edition. That of course, never fully happened (although it seems unlikely that Tegel Manor made enough money to fully recoup backers of the failed project).

Why then, five years after the fact, is Goodman doing business with Judges' Guild again? The best good faith reading is that 1. Goodman really likes the original CSIO and wants to preserve it for future generations of gamers (it is at least somewhat historically relevant to the history of the hobby) and 2. Joseph Goodman himself wants to make the backers of that original project whole for some reason. Of course, one will only get to that conclusion if you read multiple updates and corrected statements about the project and also watch an hour long live stream featuring a crying Joseph Goodman explaining how hurtful he found Bob Bledsaw Jr.'s statements.

Patently, I don't agree with the decision and I won't be backing this project. A quick google search can get you multiple editions over the years of the original JG materials (which are otherwise not for sale anymore because of gestures broadly), and while I feel for people getting scammed on Kickstarter once again it hardly seems worth it to wade into this mess just to refund roughly 1,000 people a paltry sum of $85.

That said, I have seen people use this as a rallying call to throw out all kinds of shit at Goodman, calling for boycotts, book burning, saying that Goodman is just trying to pay the debts of Nazis, and even people calling Joseph Goodman a Nazi himself. Like most controversial internet discussions, it isn't so much a discussion as it is a bunch of really angry, self righteous, terminally online people screaming at each other. And that sort of brings me to my broader point here.

State of the Discourse

The term "Discourse" has its roots both in organized religion as well as in social theory, a descriptor I find most apt given the circumstances. Over the last few weeks, I watched discussions get incredibly heated over a variety of topics, including, but not limited to;

• Adobe's dominance in the software industry
• A discussion of verisimilitude and immersion vs. game mechanics and balancing in RPGs
• A blog about how American White people could use TTRPGs to aid in generational healing so that they can be more productive and useful in mass social movements
• A critique on a newly released rules-lite game's dice and probability curve

If you are not terminally online (and again I beg you please close your browser you still have time), you might think to yourself "Well none of these topics seem all that important or worth getting angry about?". And you would be right! And yet, here we find ourselves because there is no longer a single topic on the entire internet that will not lead to an insanely intense argument. Everything from In-N-Out vs. Shake Shack to "Should human beings have healthcare?" and any angle in between is now the site of an all out war whether you want it to be or not. And it fucking sucks!

There is no more discussion, no attempt to understand or learn about our fellow human beings, or even to engage in good faith debate over topics whether they be benign or controversial. Now, to be clear here on 2 points;

1. The above statement is, of course, a sweeping generalization. Plenty of people engage in healthy discussion all the time, although as the years go on you are less and less likely to see that in public online spheres.
2. I am not, with the above statement, saying that we should put down our pitchforks and instead break bread with Nazis, White Supremacists, and other obvious bigots.

The fact that I even have to put those statements out, or the fact that I am still scared despite clarifying my stance that people are going to assume that I am some sort of shithead, or at best a shithead enabler, is probably one of the more telling things about the internet at this exact moment in time.

I am also aware, despite my privileged status as a cis straight white male, of all the "Nazi Bar" arguments and the fact that there is a very real subset of people out there trying to erode and eventually destroy the right to exist of many of my closest friends. That is not something I take lightly in the slightest here.

What am I Actually Saying Then?

What I AM advocating for is that we actually go back to listening to other human beings again. That we seek to understand each other, rather than simply seeking to react. That we stop painting everyone we see with broad brushes or dividing people into camps of "with us" or "against us" when we don't even KNOW them. And that, for the love of whatever higher power you believe in, we start simply logging off the internet rather than engaging in discussions we know are going to upset us.

None of this is easy; the real world sucks for a whole lot of people right now, and much of the internet is algorithmically driven to magnify that anger and frustration rather than soothe it. I urge anyone reading this to log off, talk to real human beings, remove yourself from whatever the hot button topics being discussed online. You will soon find out exactly how little these things matter and how much better you will feel.