Superman, Fantastic Four, Etc. movie thoughts.

 

Having grown up a comic book wonk I always have thoughts on what is going on with comic book movies, especially these upcoming ones. When I was a lot younger comic book movies seemed designed to break a fans heart. The 1970's Superman was a stand out, and of course the Tim Burtons first Batman gave us a serious take. Though not perfect. Batman not being able to move his head but still win in a fight was the least of its issues. To me Batman Returns was a quick downturn. It was OK to me at the time, But I for sure did not like a Penguin that staggers around the sewer in long underwear that has a 3 foot shit stain up the back. There was nothing about the character that would suggest a strength or charisma that would get well dressed poodle trainers and circus clowns to be happy living in a sewer. OK, it's a comic book. But looking back on it now in modern day it seems like some kind of gritty emo transgender Cirque Du Soliel. 

Batman Forever had its good points. But I could feel things heading in a spiral. I liked Kilmers Bats, and Jim Carrey was the usual tour de farce playing the Riddler, one that seemed very much like my favorite Riddler Frank Gorshin. But the neon Tokyo themed Gotham kind of confused me. Was this set in Hong Kong or the future? A Robin who was pushing 30 years old? Ugh. A Two Face whose aging actor seemed to be trying to emulate The Joker, and probably a dose of desperately trying to compete with the zany Carrey. But what the hell it was fun and cool to look at. 

Later Batman and Robin brought back the full heartbreak. If only they had based things, Mr. Freeze, Bane, and Poison Ivy on the 90's animated series, along with a bit more serious tone, and it could really have been great. But geez, the suck.

Snipes Blade and Raimi's Spider Man got us back on track with good stuff. Though their part 3's were dog shit. 

Then with the Robert Downey Iron Man we got a new age. A character not well known to normies, we comic fans loved the character and loved the movie. So the Marvel Cinematic Universe went into full swing. It was great, but after about a decade it had its issues IMO. Iron Man 3, with its fake out Mandarin, was mostly forgettable. And the final stages of Avengers was problematic. The "snap" of Thanos, taking out half of humanity, just made things very awkward. A world where half the planet was wiped out but came back after 5 years? In following films this should have been front and center. What happens when half the world comes back and their lives are mostly gone? Who lives in their houses? Just the squatter issues would be front page news for a decade. But it hardly gets brought up. 

Then the Woke Disneyfication. Man oh man. Trying to make a plank of wood actress, Brie Larsen, the new face of the franchises was complete dog shit. It began the age of the Marvel girl boss. Whereas classic characters who had to go through hell on their journey, the new ones barely had to strive. A great real life analogy is how for the godawful Thor Love and Thunder, Chris Hemsworth had to be in the gym everyday for 6 hours to prepare, while new female Thor Natalie Portman god muscles through special effects. The new Miss Marvel, the Indian stretchy girl, literally got her powers in the mail. 

The TV shows were mostly awful, especially compared to the Netflix series from a few years back like Daredevil. She Hulk, a character I collected back in the day, and shows like Echo, were just identity politics bullshit. Just like Disney Star Wars, the Marvel shit started bombing. And man, all the hyuka hyuka constant snarky joking around, as if left behind as a curse by Downey's Tony Snark. They lost their legacy fans in pursuit of a Rainbow Coalition audience that didn't really exist for it outside of online forums.

When the shit failed, they cried "racism" and "misogynist" and blamed white males, even though they themselves did not go out and plunk down the cash to see the stuff. 

I'm not going to count the new Captain America movie as part of the upcoming items this year. It's out now and not doing so good. This movie is a couple years late, and its budget doubled from endless reshoots. It may do better than its original versions, where I understand it was going to be yet another Donald Trump analogy that so much product, such as Amazons The Boys, where indulging in. But after seeing that half the country at least supports the new prez, they switched that analogy out a bit I understand. Was Red Hulk going to originally be Orange Hulk? 

OK, this Cap is probably going to be a popcorn fart, but what about the upcoming stuff? This is for both Marvel and DC; both of them having fallen from grace to a large degree. I actually like Batman v. Superman, and loved the Snyder cut, but by the awful Wonder Woman 1984 things went off a cliff for DC. So what about...Superman...?

Superman Legacy - I love Guardians of the Galaxy, and Peacemaker and the second Suicide Squad were pretty good. But James Gunn for Superman? I dunno. I like what I see in the trailers. Krypto the Supergod is a big gamble, a dog with a cape and all. But I love it. It seems like it is going to be a big nod to Golden Age supes. And it being an ensemble, with Guy Gardner, Hawkgirl, Metamorpho, etc may also be a gamble. But with the other heroes being kind of corporate and working for Maxwell Lord, such as in the old Justice League international comics, I think this is going to have some kind of juxtaposition between the selfless Superman and other heroes who are in it for the money. I am very hopeful for this.

Fantastic Four - also hopeful. I dunno about the casting. I am getting sick of Pedro Pascal, and don't know that he is a good Reed Richards. Especially with the mustache. The fucking stache better not stretch. Johnny Storm looks nothing special, and Ben Grimm...I dunno. but its the ages that bother me. The Actress playing Susan Storm is pushing 40, and Pedro is like 50. Reed should be at leat 10 years older than trophy wife Sue, but she should be no older than 25. The actress is lovely and all, and looks a lot younger, so maybe it will be ok. What I do like is the retro 60's setting. It for sure reflects early FF, where it's the 60's but interstellar travel, time machines, flying cars etc exist. My guess is this is happening because the FF have not appeared in previous films, and maybe Galactus will destroy that setting and they will come to the modern MCU. That might be awkward though.. Also, I guess this is where Doctor Doom will appear. 

Doomsday and beyond - so Robert Downey jr. is Doc Doom. Speculation has it that this will be an evil version of Tony Stark, perhaps adopted by the Von Dooms. Whatevs. I just hope he is not a snarky jokey Doom. Chris Evans is set to return as well, maybe as an evil Cap America. 

Everything will be leading up I think to an entirely new Marvel Universe after Secret Wars. A reset with new actors for all the top gun characters. But it is all kind of down the road though. I'm not super excited for Superhero shit anymore. Much like I hardly ever pick up a comic these days. Great, good, or bad, I won't be waiting with bated breath anymore. Like a lot of people, I go back to older stuff rather than buy new product and consume more new product. Old shows, old movies. 

Much like my mild wrestling fandom, I like the real life behind the scenes stuff more than the filmed product. Personality clashes, and big stars acting like divas. I guess you could say I do have a mild interest, but I really don't think I will every actually be eager to see whatever the finished product is. What they are doing with it, and its potential failures and losses, are kind of more interesting to me to eventually see. YMMV.

Cheers

Isle of Dread - gotta do the Giant Crab

 After around 10 games in the city and around 3 on the boat ride, the party is on the Isle of Dread. 

The first time I used the module as is was when I was a teen. A long time ago. Since then about 120 years of character continuity has gone by, and things change. Not the island, really. I have had adventures there several times over the years. Maybe a couple or three with expeditions to the plateau. 

But the villages have had some changes. For a couple of decades in game time there was the Pagos Trading Company that had a trading post on the beach near Tanaroa and the great wall. It was mostly run by characters over a couple of campaigns long ago. But it went out of business eventually. But the trading post remains, run and pretty much owned now by old Pagos employee Trader Tim. Tim has lived there for over 20 years, and is a friend to the tribes. He helps with trade negotiations and even keeps the tiki bar going. He can even provide fairly comfy accommodations in some huts on site. There is even a hot tub!

But the big fun of last night's session was emulating one of my favorite scenes from the old Mysterious Island movie I have loved since childhood.

I think the last time I did the Isle, it was giant crabs but the size of Shetland ponies. But I wanted to do this big one. It was chasing some village girls when the party came across them. 

I gave it 18 AC and 60 hit points. The characters are 4th level now, and they hit it hard with magic and stuff. The AC helped keep it around awhile, but web and damage spells made fairly short work of it. But the characters had fun with it. We ended the session with a hot tub party, and the grateful native girls showing up with a nice big pot of crab bisk!

The fun on the Isle has only just begun.

Cheers

D&D Wokeness issues gets more and more media coverage

 

The whole wokeness invading D&D thing has been discussed on blogs and such for a good while, but it was when Elon Musk recently tweeted the possibility that he might buy it from Hasbro is when I realized this issue was going mainstream. 

The popularity of the game thanks to things like Critical Role has also led to the discovery of famous people having been players at least in the past, which Musk clearly was. Sure, figures such as Vin Diesel and even leftist late night shill Steven Colbert have been known about for a good while. But along with Musk we are finding more. 

Since I started watching a lot of Youtube because I mostly work from home, I have bits of clips I like to watch. One of these is The Hill, a news show that is one of the few balanced options for such. It is usually hosted by one leftist, and one on the right (more or less). 

Host Robby Soave often brings up being a boardgame and DnD geek. So he certainly chimes in on these issues of woke takeover of his beloved pastimes. 

I almost get chills with this stuff. When I was a kid I had to hide my geeky loves. I would leave football practice and sneak off to the history hall (where I knew no teammates would be lurking) to hang out with my dork friends and get my DnD on. Who would have thought it would ever get so mainstream that actual news journalists would be talking about it in a way that was not about satanic panic and dudes getting lost in college maintenance halls?

Isle of Dread - Sea of Dread

 

So the party is on the 2 to 3 week journey across the western ocean, heading to the sea of dread to adventure on the Isle of Dread. At the border of the sea of dread is a very large area that has a massive seaweed forest beneath the waves operating large blankets of floating seaweed on the surface. This area is known about, so the captain of the ship is aware of it. Not just a dangerous area because of potential large ocean wildlife that could attack, but ships tend to get stuck in these great blankets of seaweed, but it’s the time of year, early summer, where the seaweed breaks up for a while. So rather than take the three or four extra days to circumvent the area its decided to travel on through it.

And not long into that first day a ship that has been stuck in seaweed for a couple of weeks is encountered. The journal label will eventually find when they get in there says thusly..

Last date: two weeks ago

“This is first mate Prellis. I continue this ships log post death of our respected Captain Barrat. We remaining crew of The Black Gull, proud buccaneers of the West Pacific trade routes, are wounded and out of food and fresh water are fading fast. While looking for our own prey, We came across an Ottonese vessel far from its home waters, full of foreign pirates, and found ourselves in conflict with the devils on these most remotest of waters. They blasted our lowest back deck with a strange fiery missile from a cannon with the visage of a devils face. Then they came aside and we took to a brief man to man battle on our main deck. Our dear captain fought with the ferocity of 5 men, but he was felled by a backstabbing attack. The rest of us bravely rallied and the intruders retreated to their ship, preparing another cannon blast. We have no cannon, but we do have Silas, our ships wizard, who summoned a thick fog to cover our limping escape.

We were not pursued, and we soon knew why. It was nightfall, and in the chaos we forgot we were near the great seaweed rivers. We immediately got stuck in the thicker mats of the green weeds. With our lower level taking on some water. we cannot hope to escape. To get free into the open water would mean the Black Gull shall sink fast. We are slowly dying now of thirst, great hunger, and festering wounds. We have left the ships warchest in the cargo hold. Though the hold is more and more exposed to the sae, we care not. What good is coinage to the dying?

Last date: one week ago

I am the last alive, and my nightmarish thirst and hunger will soon do me in. Over a handful of days those of us left thought we could hear the captain's voice. Telling us we will rise again and once more wreak havoc on all living things. They say the seaweed forests are a place those who die may rise as the angry and jealous unliving. Is this how we brave seadogs of The Gull go into the darkness?

Now I alone can hear. I thought I saw him, a ghastly and foul figure. He said I will soon be at rest but shall rise again to hate all life. What a fate. What gods of good would allow this? "

Trapped in seaweed, undead and giant octopus haunted,
and waiting for characters to enter. 

So this western pirate ship was attacked by an eastern (Asian) pirate ship. Wounded and stuck in the seaweed they eventually are all dead and are now undead. Several zombies and the captain has become a wight. They await any living beings to enter the crew deck for them to destroy out of the hatred they now have for the living.

Once in there, the zombies all failed their saves against the turn from the Dragonborn cleric. But the white stepped up and is a little more powerful than typical so he put up a good fight. Also, since I’m treating the ship sort of like a haunted house every turn a barrel or a bunk would get thrown at a character. but they took care of everything quite easily then they made their way down to the cargo deck, which was partially open to the sea. Clearly the seaweed blanket was holding the ship up and keeping it from sinking the last couple weeks. But as the seaweed’s been breaking up, it’s getting a bit dangerous do to the breach. But the journal says the ships war chest is down below so down below they go. 

cool animated water effects (you cannot see)

So in the cargo hold an octopus has been accessing through the breach caused by and enemy cannon. As the ship is tipping a bit it is at a slant and the water around where the octo hangs out is about 10 feet deep. I used tentacles from the free online image library that I could stretch out to grab at characters. 

Gotta put on pants for the island. Centipedes
and other stuff can crawl up into your biznezz..

                                                    

The female Tiefling bard was caught, and with bad rolls was in real danger of being dragged under by the now wounded octopus. That is an instakill.

One of two drow who are on this trip. Going
to the tropics at the beginning of summer. It will be
bright and sunny a lot of the time. Smart. 

spring fishing look

but Jevan the drow coastal ranger jammed over, using a potion of freedom of movement and used his extra on Spira to free her. The octo sucked itself back through the breach to escape. This violent action of course caused the ship to go into full sinking mode, but they made it off the ship with the chest loaded with pirate treasure. They will open it up to find lots of gold and stuff beginning of next game. 

In the city sessions and this ocean voyage I have been using small random tables with like 3-5 possible encounters. For the city I would have items that had to do in part by what was going on in the campaign so far. Maybe an enemy or gang members they previously dealt with, or an NPC. For the sea voyage it was just this stuck ship encounter, a sahaguin attack during a storm, or a dragon turtle. I had maps and info to do any of it, and kept the details as basic as possible. I can always use one of these other encounters on the trip home. 

So next session its arrive at the island. Unless I feel like tossing another sea encounter in there haha.

Cheers. 

James Gunn Superman - A hopeful Superman and now so am I

 

I love Superman unapologetically. Sure, Batman is cooler. And Spider-Man, who I collected from childhood into my early 20's, though amazingly popular (classically due to many decades of cartoons, and more modernly from a shit bunch of movies) is still second class worldwide compared to the big blue boyscout. It will always be thus.

But he gets done so dirty cinematically since the original film back in the day. Most recently by Zack Snyder. Don't get me wrong, I (mostly) love Snyder. I am one of those fanboys who loves Batman V. Superman. I was all in on "Martha" and I got what that was about. And what WB and Joke Boy Joss Whedon did to his vision when a family tragedy struck was grotesque. But the Snyder Cut (I was a release the Snyder cut enthusiast) was an amazing real life story and epic 4 hour film and we got to see his true vision and more. I loved the gritty DC films. 

But the Superman in those was not the endlessly cheery and hopeful Superman I grew up with. But he had some great moments in all these films. 

I love James Gunns work the last few years. The Guardians of The Galaxy had action and great humor Joss Whedon could only dream of. His Suicide Squad was awesome, and the Peacemaker show, though having its problems, was a great diversion. But I had my doubts about him helming Superman. I just did not think his style and humor would lend itself well. 

But I watched the new trailer and boy howdy, was I wrong. Gunn has shown he can summon up sentimentality, and I was feeling it in spades here. I almost teared up in a way I rarely do for film anymore. Like the opening moments of LOTR and Watchmen. 

So here is the trailer.

And its not just the sentimentality. They have Krypto. Mother fucking Krypto! With the cape and all. Gunn is clearly not afraid of comics' accurate corn like almost everybody else has been. I mean, he is tossing in batshit crazy comics accurate stuff like the side characters. Like Mr. Terrific..

And one of my faves from the old Justice League cartoon, HawkGirl..

Last summer was Hawk Tuah summer. Next 
summer is Hawk girl summer..

Comics accurate Guy fucking Gardner...

And...Metamorpho from Batmans Outsiders! Goddamn!

I am totally giddy for this. I was so worried about it. Even the Lex Luthor (who I thought was Tom Cruise at first) is great. I am so looking forward to this. Growing up a comic book nut, its so great when you get another bite of the tasty apple. Like this Superman, I am hopeful. 

Cheers

To the Isle of Dread! But not so fast..

 

The Opportunity to start a new DnD campaign happened awhile back. And by opportunity I mean that I did all the usual legwork to try to gather and vet for hopefully several players. And by legwork I mean the pain in the ass process of putting a group of strangers together for online play in Roll20. 

The looking for Players forums on Roll20 have really become a wasteland of Critical Role-trained younger people looking for Matt Mercer experiences, GM's wanting to run their weird homebrew such as a slasher film RPG, a very odd recent fad of players looking for a DM to run solo sessions for them, LBGTQ-only groups wanted, and the occasional stand out who seems normal and maybe based and might be a valuable player (more often than not they disappoint, so manage expectations). The latter is what I shoot for.

But this time I went outside the box and tried a couple other places as well. A DnD Discord that seemed promising, and also the DnD Beyond forums. Over some weeks I vetted and vetted and vetted. Were there the usual red flags? Hell yeah. I vetted harder than Jerry on Seinfeld vetted his dates (you know, like when Jerry rejected a lovely gal because she ate her peas one at a time?). 

But besides heavy vetting, I made some decisions to help me vet people within actual play (you don't really know until somebody is in your actual game and how they behave), and to kill some time before heading to the Isle of Dread. I wanted some solid, all in, players to go the distance with that. 

So with some help from an NPC patron, academic Merlot who I have used before, I got characters together to have mini adventures around the city proper. Go get some kobolds in the storm drains who stole an item of academic value. Go to nearby sea caves with von Tanmoor to look at some runes on a cave wall. Go to the undercity and to some old Acherian statues that granted things good and bad. 

Within that handful of sessions, a couple of players (damned window shoppers) came and went. But I was left with three solid players. Kris (the girl who was looking for a new group to play in and I contacted her to team up to make this group), an Englishman who apparently does not sleep. And a player who is running the first dragonborn in my games (you know, old school world turning 5th ed world). He also got a girl he knows from another game to come in several games later and she is great. And then another girl I think from the Beyond forums several games in who got right on the bandwagon. So yeah, two gals came in to play after those first session and are a great addition, and they round out the group well. After the session last night they swore fealty to the group and campaign and add a great energy. So yeah, group set. 

So the final adventures in the city before leaving for distant shores included a night at the opera, and just lots of city stuff. A night at a banquet; fighting assassins there and later in the streets. Spending most of their off time at Merlot's manor house lounging and partying in one of his dens..

Back in the day I had multiple campaigns that were taking place in the big city Tanmoor. But in recent years it has been more rural in my campaigns, so this was fun. Lots of emergent role play like those 7-8 hour sessions of old with face-to-face friends. Really, been like 5 years and 4 campaigns since I had any character or group hang out in the big city. I think even after all these many years city gaming is my specialty. Probably in part due to growing up on comic books and all that city action. 

So tickled pink with this group. Lots of chatter on the Discord. It feels like it could go awhile. And for the first time in a long time the girls outnumber the boy players. Ha. 

Merlot. The Patron. Have used him 
in other campaigns to bring PC's together for
"Endeavors." He's from oooold money, is a 
professor and all around academic. Has been 
gearing them up for an Isle of Dread visit. 

 

The coastal ranger. He is a drow. Heh. Drow. 

Rangering on sunbaked beaches. Eyes burning 

                                        out of his head

 

Tiefling bard. Very roguish. From rich human
family so an entitled mean girl. Throws charm
spells around like candy. Troublemaker? Well,
she got some of the party to help her pick pockets
at a special invitation opera house where the queen
was in attendance. 

                                

                                     

                                      

A gnome wizard and archeologist from

a large town a couple days from Tanmoor city. 

Seems sweet and friendly, but quickly kind of

got a bit corrupted by the murder hobos of the 

group. 

His origin is the that he was found in a 
shipwreck as a baby on the shores near the city. 
He got adopted by the clerics of Billick, god
of healing. Of low rank still, but he has been
a special child since he is the first Dragonborn
to be seen (or to be in in my games). 

 

 (cannot find the token version) 

Drow wizard. Lolth worshipper. Lawful evil. Presents 
as neutral. Calm and stoic. When the party ran to escape city watchmen
after a street fight in which deaths were involved, she was the only one 
not caught and arrested. 

So a nice diverse group. No humans though. But whateves. We entitled humies had our time in the sun. 

Cheers

James Raggi and The Albatross?

 

Yah, its weird to me to be making a post regarding LOTFP stuff two times in a row, but I saw something that got my goat a bit and got me thinking.

Like I mentioned at one point in that last post, I've gotten to like James Raggi. I never disliked him, I never knew him other than a small contact online with him a decade and a half ago. 

But as I show in that last post I've got a bit of interest in some of the stuff he has brewed up. Plus for some months I have followed him on his FB, looking in to see what he is up to with his business and life in general. Health issues (the guy apparently has leg problems, but travels the world for con appearances to sell boxes of merch, so good on him). What seems to be very early jaunts to local small heavy metal shows. And making the occasional youtube video, often out in the snows of Finland. Yeah, I have developed a sort of fascination, but also a certain fondness. I think in the last post I stated he had a sort of "grotty charm," and that if he did live plays of him GMing his stuff, I would watch them. A fan? I dunno. I have never used any of his stuff in my games, but that does not mean I have no interest. 

I guess I have paid attention for some years. When the Zak Smith cancellation thing went down (Zakgate?), I read about him somewhere having to cut ties with Smith for the sake of his business, and in the following year or so him suffering personally from it. Crying in his sleep, soiling the sheets. I don't know enough to be able to determine for myself if this was hurt over a true friend, or just frustration with cancel culture in general. But hell, he seemed to recover from it. He seems to be doing fairly well in recent years without his association with Smith. 

Before I looked at his Facebook, I did see a thread reprinted somewhere a couple or three years ago. An argument between James and Zak apparently about James not working with him anymore. It was kind of brutal. I don't remember all the details, but the gist seemed to be poor James getting gaslighted over it all, and James at one point stating simply "all I know is your life keeps hurting my business." To the point, and yeah pretty fair. Protect the business. An actual money making business. 

Then in more recent times I noticed that James would complain about some regular real-world issue, and often ZS would chime in "what are you going to do about it?" I mean, it happened all the time. Like, this guy is supposed to be his conscious?  It was happening enough that I wondered if it was just some kind of performance art. Often ZS would just fully make it about himself and start laying out his own misfortune and why isn't anybody helping and doing anything about it? Ok, whatever. The guys are friends I guess so you tolerate a certain amount of things for the sake of the friendship. But it kind of smacked of the bullying of a fairly mild dude to me. 

Fair enough, but now James has tied his business back in with Zak. He gives ZS a couple of minutes to have his say about the new relationship.

Big news, in some circles. OSR? I'm kind of out of touch. In the last 5 years I have been using 5th ed, and I have mentioned both Zak and LOTFP in casual conversations about various gaming themes, and not a single person has heard of them. But I guess there are enough people in those certain circles, because as I said before James seems to be doing well. 

But some things about Zaks comments here kind of got my goat. Not just the simple "weird metal head who says and does fucked up shit" comment. But he called Raggi "stupid and cowardly."

Was James stupid and cowardly for breaking from working with Zak? Or was he being a smart businessman having to make a hard decision like many businessmen do? But whatevs, to me the standout here is that James Raggi is offering Zak Smith a new lease on his work (Zak made a post about being "brought back from hell") by bringing him back into the business that seems to be doing very well without him. The insults are kind of harsh in light of that. It kind of bothers me.

OK, so on Raggi's FB we once again have his friend making something that is positive for James all about himself and the negatives of his life. Will it hurt the business? Who knows. James is elated at somebody making a positive review of LOTFP, and because the person/people in question were part of the "hate mob" (I'm no expert and really don't know who most of the actors in all this in the last 5 years are) Zak makes it about the negatives in his life and seems to endorse people bothering the reviewer about it. One commentator on the thread does just that, in fairly nice terms, but yeah makes it all about ZK and his issues. 

Christopher 'Staples' O'Dell

Done. This is what I posted:

Great to see you continuing to review LotFP material.

I recently heard that you used to have reviews of three of Zak Sabbath's books – A Red and Pleasant Land, Vornheim, and Maze of the Blue Medusa, the first two of which are LotFP – but I'm not seeing them in your Reviews playlist anymore.

Between the court cases and the Clio Belle Weisman's Medium piece, it seems to be clear that Zak is innocent of the abuse charges that were leveled at him in the OSR community.

Would you be willing to put your reviews of Zak's material back up? If not, would you be willing to explain your reasoning?

I'm a very happy backer of Knave 2e and have been using it for my gaming. It's a great system and I want to be able to continue to support you with a clear conscience. Thanks!

Oookay. Honestly, Zak has a handful of super dedicated faithful (one guy who I think is named Semen in Ukraine pops up a lot as a staunch defender in Zak threads and has a blog that seems entirely about repeating Zaks talking point) who seem to step right in line with ZS's wants and I don't know if this guy is one of them. But yeah, somebody who was positive about Raggi's business is suddenly targeted with Zakness. Old negatives being hauled out. Of course, not being stupid nor cowardly James is not happy (I could screenshot some stuff, but I don't want to do that from somebody's social media, but here are snippets)

James Edward Raggi IV

oh for fuck's sake if the result of Ben reviewing LotFP is him getting bombarded by people bugging him about Zak (pro or con) the fucking result is going to be him not reviewing LotFP stuff anymore.

Zak Smith

James Edward Raggi So you let the bad guy who participated in cannibalizing your company because you want his attention. I am not in on that

Me, me, me. 

Look, I have no dog in this fight. A decade and a half ago I posted about Zak and company and was fairly complimentary, though I was not especially informed on everything regarding it all. Back then I had come off of years of listening to Howard Stern and that leaked into my blogging vibe. Now I'm a lot older and kind of identify as a Buddhist because of my constant search for balance and peace, so I don't want to judge. But I simply cannot wonder if James has made a major boo boo by essentially going backwards at a time when things seem to be going well. People (including humble old me in my last post) saying positive things about him and his work. Is it all going to have a taint of somebody else's apparent negativity and life problems attached to it from here on out? 

I mildly followed the Zak controversies in recent years. I'm not that informed these days on the general gaming community out there. I mainly look at some posts by Tenkar and one or two others. But it is a fascination story, and at some point I found myself having some sympathy for Smith. I saw a post where he had teeth pulled and an eviction notice due to lack of funds (sadly for the most part probably lining the pockets of lawyers). I get it. He got me too'd pretty hard. But is what he now brings to the table going to be an improvement for Raggi and his bottom line? If that line gets damaged, will it be out of his sense of friendship, or raging against the machine that cancels both a person and their works? I dunno. I could not offer advice because in my life I have not always made the best choices in terms of the friends I chose or the causes I championed. So I will try not to judge others in those regards. I can only wish Raggi the best with his business. I'm actually thinking of buying one of those 300 buck prestige format Virginia game packs i would likely never run just to more quietly support him. And I'm going to hope, like I would for anybody, his choices don't hurt him. Whatever those choices are, I won't think of him as stupid or cowardly. 

Cheers

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