I've been really siloed from the greater RPG community, and even the OSR the past few years. There are a handful of blogs I read regularly, and a bigger handful that I read occasionally. I'm not active on any forum sites, and don't watch a ton of RPG YouTube content. Actual gaming with my friends have been enough to scratch my gaming itch for the most part. Yeah, I blog here occasionally. I tinker with my house rules document for a potential public release. That's about it.
I've been using Treasures, Serpents & Ruins (TSR) as the name for those house rules for several years now. I thought it was clever to have a game title that abbreviated to the same acronym as the original company. And the name is fitting, as well. Dungeons & Dragons is a great game name, but it leaves out the most important part of the game - finding treasure! My name has all three! So clever, right? [Yeah, I know, I know...]
Anyway, thanks to Pauli Kidd's post on Facebook, linking to this video (also Pauli) and also to screenshots of social media posts they posted, I learned about just how terrible the "new" "TSR" group (TSR3 some are calling it) really are.
Tenkar's Tavern has been posting about them from mostly a legal-ish standpoint. Or at least what I've seen has been. Apologies to Erik, but since he appointed himself the Kickstarter Police many years ago, I don't follow his blog as closely. But I have read some of his posts exposing Justin LaNassa's attempts to steal the TSR trademark. So I knew they were sketchy grifters, but I didn't know anything else about them.
Thanks to Pauli, I know now just how disgusting some of the people LaNassa is working with really are. Seriously, the guy who wrote their version of Star Frontiers is a blatant white supremacist, often posting Nazi symbology and slogans on social media.
I want nothing to do with that crowd, and as was suggested by Donjondo a while back, it's probably confusing enough having two companies trying to be TSR already. With one of those companies being blatantly white nationalist, I need to find a new name for my game if I plan to release it to the public.
This is probably a dumb idea, but reordering it to Ruins, Serpents, & Treasures would abbreviate to RST (alphabetical order!) and would be in the order that these elements are usually encountered within the game. Or maybe I can just call it something else entirely and stop trying to be clever/cutesy with the name.
After the racist BS out of Judge's Guild and MAR Barker turning out have been a neo-Nazi supporter for years (and his inner circle covering it up after his death, and maybe before) I can't even be surprised by this sort of thing any more. Just appalled, angry and baffled. When did openly espousing this sort of white supremacist garbage make you (quite rightly) anything but a pariah?
ReplyDeleteAppalled, angry and baffled. That's a good way to describe it. I'm feeling the same. And it's just a guess, but I'd say being openly Nazi became a thing around 2016. At least now that they're more comfortable being open with it, we can identify them and exclude them from our circles. It just sucks to know that they were always there, lurking in the background the whole time.
DeleteI've never understood why owning the name TSR without the IP would have any value.
ReplyDeleteI think name recognition is still a thing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the shout out. FYI I think TSR2 realised how tarnished the name had become after TSR3's antics, that they rebranded as Solarian Games (TSR2 that is). Regards your thing, I think RST is certainly better than TSR but does it do your game justice? There's always a danger of becoming so attached to a working title, that it makes it hard to choose another. Good luck in your quest!
ReplyDeleteThis is why we can't have nice things.
ReplyDeleteExactly!
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