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

All reactio

A True Relation of the Great Disastrum of Virginia

Since starting to work mostly from my home office the other year I watch a hell of a lot of YouTube. I have to be honest. I find it fairly distracting. All these 10 to 20 minute bits on all kinds of subjects I like or have interest in.

So every now and again a short, James Raggy video will pop up. So kind of more in touch with his stuff than i've ever been really. I had moments of fascination about some lotfp stuff such as years ago, hearing about the module, Death Frost Doom being a rip off of one of my old favorites, the Lichway from White dwarf magazine (as it turns out, only the ending gimmick was, but otherwise the Lichway was a far more approachable and gameable adventure module in general).

So, the other year he had a giant PDF sale with rock-bottom prices and I picked up a handful just to finally satisfy my curiosity about some things I didn’t want to spend more than a couple of bucks on. I still haven’t brought myself to read even the barest fraction of the stuff. There might be some tiny bits to steal, but overall a lot of the stuff just doesn’t fit with how I do things for my old school game world but I do believe that old style DND in itself is generally fairly weird unless you really try to make it not so. Back in the 80s I remember us playing albums with our games like John Michael Jarre’s strange Zoolook which is pretty weird and inspired lots of creep. But certainly not “your characters penis turns into a live eel” kind of creep. 

Over a decade ago in the early and chaotic beef-filled days of my blogging I remember messaging James regarding how he found players for his game in the city he was not native to. I got a quick reply and he seemed like a nice guy. I didn’t explore his stuff over the years because I generally don’t really purchase a whole lot of game material, again, I really don’t know how much use I would’ve gotten out of any of it. I supposed at some point, I’ll take a closer look at some of those PDFs bought for a song. I think I got Red and Pleasant Land and I'd like to see what the fuss is about. Vornheim just kind of baffled me. I run a lot of city stuff and certainly not how that is presented. 

So some time ago a Raggi Youtube video popped up. I always tend to pay a bit of attention. I kind of like the guy. I knew a lot of metal heads back in the day in Venice Beach, but he seems fairly harmless and amiable compared to those sketchy chuckleheads. It was mostly the metal loving surfers I got in to scrapes with in the beach parking lots (the movie Point Break had a lot of true to life bits in it). I mean there is some ick there. I mentioned in a previous post some time ago about his comments about "why would you bother cleaning the inside of your toilet"(uh...maybe cuz it is in the house, and maybe a girl will come over?). But fair enough. I don't think he drinks, but I could see having a beer and a shot with him and talking some games. Since I've been of a mind to leave the country in recent years I would probably also ask his advice on being a stranger in a strange land. 

But anyway, he introduced this...

“Being an Account of the Rising of a new Star to the West of the Virginia Colony,
And its Derangements of Space,
The Engines of a Second Creation,
Rains of Fishes and burninge Coales,
The Mazement thus brought to Heathen and Christian,
And the Prodigies, Sports of Nature, and invasive Creatures from Spheres beyond,
Now disportinge upon the Earth

After years of raids and massacres, the Powhatan Confederacy and the Virginia Colony find themselves in an uneasy peace. The people of Jamestown and outlying plantations again trade with Powhatan neighbors, and English planters again ship tobacco to markets across the Atlantic.

Then the land to the west of Powhatan territory seems to rupture skyward, a new star rising into the sky. Down the James River soon come reports of strange happenings, strange beasts, and stranger people.

The English were not the only ones seeking a New World.

A True Relation of the Great Disastrum of Virginia, 1633 is a campaign for use with Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Role-Playing and other traditional role-playing games. This set comprises a sourcebook for the Virginia Colony, rules for exploring an altered wilderness, keyed encounters both in Virginia and far beyond, new Magic-User spells and miscast tables, and more than eighty new monsters”.

So, a high-quality campaign set, some kind of prestige format, and very different it seems from his usual modules with titles like "The Whores Bloody Guts" or "Honey, I fucked the kids."

Super interesting, I think. Colonizer days? Possibilities there (probably triggering in our current soy-boy society. Inspired by "Annihilation?" Cool. Super high quality and something like 300 bucks? Yow. Do you get a pdf with it so you can wrap the books in lead and put them in a safe?

My first thoughts though when I heard about it was "how the hell would I get players for this?" Is there a LOTFP forum with a player search thread? Because its getting hard enough to get players for DnD in the Roll20 forums. I want to do some Runequest and am mostly afraid of being to find enough players for it. Or at least a mixed gender group. I hate sausage fests. But not sure how the ladies, or even dudes I guess, would feel about running characters in buckle shoes and big stove pipe type hats (also with buckles). Stuff usually associated with Thanksgiving. Though The Witch (VVitch?) film was cool. I might use that as an example. 

It has struck me that this might work for Call of Cthulhu, and couched with that in mind may be the easiest ways to approach players. I do have a thing for different historical periods for CoC. I see Drive Thru has the PDF for 25 bucks, and I'm thinking of getting that just out of pure curiosity. 

I sure as hell would love to see some live play of this. It has been out awhile, but I see nothing. Not even a review. So maybe this is so far just being bought in the expensive form by the faithful and placed in protective plastic on shelves. But Raggi himself, with his odd, grotty charm, should be doing videos of him running this for some people.