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

Playing D&D with Pub Stars

I guess if a fortune teller told me a couple of years ago that I would be running a Dungeons and Dragons session in a busy pub, I would have told her not to listen to those spirits again, because they were full of shit. But there I was, at a Santa Ana British Pub, running a sort of Tegel Manor prequel game for seven players, and drinking pint after pint of delicious Elvish brew (Bass Ale).

Cyclopeatron put this together, and it was an interesting experiment. Basically, we took over a back area, slid some tables together, and I did the 5 hour session while Trent Foster ran at another table nearby. It was a stormy day in Southern California, and I really thought I might face the prospect of this falling through if a lot of players decided not to forge out into the weather. I told my regular player and designated driver Terry, and great trooper, to bring along her Mythos card sets in case I had to go ahead and fold whatever players showed up for me into Trent’s session (who was willing to have up to 12 people play).

But as it turned out, I had a full boat. Seven players including Terry. Wow. I think Trent ended up with a couple players less than I had, which surprised me. I think some kind of word of mouth, somewhere, is getting around about the breezy little OD&D sessions I’ve been doing since last year. It was really gratifying to me to have such a great showing.

At Around 11AM the pub was filled with hollering and shouting soccer hooligans, but before long the TV matches were over and it quieted down a bit. We took our time getting characters set up, I ordered up two pints at a time, and tore into some delicious Cod and Chips when it finally showed up. I had a nice cozy booth type seat to adjudicate from, and it was the perfect amount of players for the space we had. Just enough room for everything and everybody.

The pub manager was a hilarious Manchester lady names Jackie, and her often mean and sarcastic attitude in the morning blended nicely with her more warm and friendly chatting in the afternoon when things quieted down a bit. Personally, I think she had tilted a few herself in the back, which is always a bringer of cheery feelings. One of my players that day was also English, from the London area (there was an old London map in the bathroom that he could see his old neighborhood on), so the combination of the Euro accents, pub atmosphere, and rainy day was super conducive to good gaming feelings. It was all quite perfect. After making sure of taking care of Terry’s Cod lunch and a couple of pints for being my designated driver, the day cost me around 90 bucks, but it was well worth it for a great day out. To me this was more fun than a day at Disneyland or Knott’s. Limey manager Jackie said that for next time she might arrange a buffet and some booze discounts to cut back on costs a little.

As far as the scenario, I did a sort of Tegel Manor prequel, set in a time before that mansion become the most haunted place in the world. I used some of the Tegel personalities from the 100 portraits in the Tegel Manor adventure, and had them still be alive, and a family trying to hold off the encroaching curse of the area.

Later this week I’ll post a bit about that Tegel Manor Prequel session, and also about tomorrows Night Below session, which I think will be quite brutal and very likely the last game of the campaign.

Meanwhile, go to Cylcopeatron’s site to see a couple of photos of the sessions from that day.

Too Many Blogs?

When Bob over at Cylcopeatron first posted a list of gaming blog rankings (by follower) some time back, I was surprised by two things. First, that my blog at that time was somewhere around the top 25 percent of such blogs. And second, there seemed to be less blogs than I thought out there. Bob posted such a list again recently, and two things stuck out at me. Firstly, there were now a lot more blogs out there. Secondly, a lot of low-follower blogs had grown substantially in the amount of followers.

Now, my blog hasn’t exactly grown that much since the first list, despite fairly regular posting. Well, here’s the thing; I don’t think amount of posts, nor necessarily the content, matter that much anymore. A couple of years ago it did. Grognardia has such substantial growth in large part because of sheer amounts of posting, not necessarily the content. Other large follower blogs were either around a long time, or had a female or porno connection of some kind. Not to say by any means that these guys did not have great posts, which of course they do. But it is kind of arbitrary in many cases. If Playing D&D With Porn Stars was just “Zak’s D&D Musings” without mention of gangbang girls running elves, he’d probably have somewhere around 200 followers (or less). Don’t get me wrong, he is obviously a smart and talented dude, but lots of smart and talented dudes (and I don’t necessarily consider myself one of those) often have only around 200 followers.

After that first list at Cyclo’s, I saw one blog that was basically just a dude posting text from Edgar Rice Burroughs with no personal commentary, shoot up fairly quickly from around 20 followers to around 50. Perhaps that is in no small part because Bob at Cyclo asked that his readers support these low-follower blogs (many of which had few followers for obvious reasons). I saw another blog who had followers somewhat less than my count, shoot up past me soon after that Cyclo list. Why? Well, the content certainly did not necessarily improve. But I’ll tell you what, every new blog I look at has this one guy as a recently subscribed follower. He figured out that the more you sign up on other blogs, the more of them will do you a solid back and follow you. His comment in Bob’s recent post was “wow, I’m inspired to try harder!” Harder doing what, signing up for every other blog out there? All that takes is having time on your hands.

That’s all great, but I don’t personally care about amount of followers. It is not at all indicative of my content, nor that all of them are actually reading it. I tend to look at and subscribe to the folks who comment on my post. That is how I learn about and join other blogs. I have no interest in starting my own low-end fanzine nor advertising some new game or scenario I have created for sale. I’m just a gamer doing some gaming, man.

I think the blogosphere as a community thing is great, but in the case of classic gaming I think we are starting to have a glut of blogs that don’t have much to say or much to offer. It is becoming more important to some to have a blog and have a lot of followers than it is to game.

I personally don’t have the time to join up all the others blogs out there, and especially to actually read them all. And to join just to get followers would seem kind of hollow to me. I just do my gaming, and do some blogging because I’ve been at it a long time and feel I have a lot to say. This blog has become a place for me to vent about gaming past and present. A lot of negativity has come out of that, but that is part of the vent. The truth is I love gaming, it has been a big part of my life, and it has mostly been a positive experience for me. The blog, not always so much. One guy freaking out epically on his blog because I tore up one of his creepo players some time ago actually cost me a few followers on my blog . Did he have a point? To a degree. Did I? To a degree. In our own ways we overreacted (and both of us could have talked to the other before acting, but we are dudes and dudes can be dumbasses sometimes). Do I care that some people found my rantings too offensive to continue with? Not a wit. I’m not fully the person I sometimes appear to be on my blog any more than I (or anybody) am always the person I am when I get ticked off at something in life in general. That is why I do that blog. Good or bad, I always have something to say. Either something happy about my gaming experiences, or to let off some steam.

In real life I am usually the biggest person in the room, both physically and in personality. I live large no matter what I do. But do I care if I am a big dog in the blogosphere. Hells no. I have something to say for now, and I hope at least a handful read and have something to say back to me about it (good or bad). I’m actually getting something out of blogging about gaming that I think a lot aren’t. I care not for amount of followers. I care about what I have to say and what others have to say back.

A lot of blogs will be gone in a couple of years (I don’t plan on doing this forever). But as long as I do it I will try to live it by one thing – “blog because you game. Don’t game because you blog.”

That makes sense. I think…

EDIT: I also should add that in the last couple of months I have had two unrelated computer problems that slowdown my own joining of other sites, and my commenting on them. First, my home computer got hit by the Thinkpoint virus and is still messed up, so I spend less time on it. Second, many comment functions on other blogs do not work on my office computer. Only those that allow a pop-up can be commented upon. Other problems exist, such as Bob's Cylopeatron site not loading due to adult content (which he told me does not exist on his site), and also my links to his site don't work for some reason. So to those whom I don't respond to as far as joining your blog or commenting upon, I plead severe tech problems! If you visit my blog and comment and I don't check out your stuff, be sure and remind me to give it another try!

"That porn chick slew my elf!"

I said "slew," right? Whew!

Zak Sabbath, an avant garde artist, activist, and performer in several “alternative” adult videos (I’m not sure “porn star” should apply to Zak, but I guess that is subjective) has a blog page hit on his hands with his Playing D&D with Porn Stars site. How could he not with a title like that? Not to take anything from Zak; he seems intelligent and capable when it comes to the usual niche talk about gaming. But there can be no doubt that his blogs popularity has more to do with the fact that he knows porn girls, strippers, tattoo artists, and other alternative types than his post looking at what monsters start with the letter “f”. The fact is, having grown up here in Venice Beach and living in LA my entire life, I have known a pretty good variety of these sorts myself. But for Zak these type of people orbit around the things he is into, and more power to him for getting some of them to game with him.

With the video series I Hit it With My Axe at The Escapist, we get a glimpse into the actual gaming Zak does, namely, Zak’s DM’ing for a motley crew of underground misfits, including a hair dresser, a stripper (who doesn’t look much like the glammed up strippers at most higher end clubs), some punk rock guy you barely get a glimpse of, and a couple of “name” starlets. One is Kimberly Kane, a name I had actually never heard of, but Is apparently the winner of several AVN awards for Gang Bangs and facials and all that great stuff. Also Sasha Grey, a name I have heard of, who I have to admit seems like a gimmicky tack-on to the entire proceedings. I didn’t get the impression she was there because she wanted to play D&D. I kind of doubt she had ever heard of the game before that day. Outside of Sasha (who has a great “girl next door look” similar to that pregnant chick from “Juno”), none of the group are the good looking cutie dolls of mainstream porn, but seem more likely involved in labia piercing and nipple chain goth porn that doesn’t usually show up on shelves next to the latest opus’ from more big name stars. I suppose I shouldn’t say, because I haven’t seen anything with any of these people in them (and believe me I watch my fair share), but as far as my tastes go I like girls with much less of a “hard” street look.

In the background of the very small room that the game takes place in, a sort of wary looking dude sits on a bed and reads Zak’s comic collection, looking up occasionally to scrutinize the proceedings. He is the boyfriend of one of the girls, and his very presence outside of the game seems to indicate to me he is there more like the guy who goes with a stripper to a bachelor party – there to watch out for the girls interests and protect her. His presence there really give me the impression that at least one girl is there more as a publicity thing than as a player. Kimberly, however, does come across as a seasoned player.

We don’t get a ton of idea of the game play, but Zak at least sounds like a capable DM.At one point he starts the game of saying “let’s skip the usual do what you want city stuff, and cut to the chase.” All us DM’s have been there, so you for sure get a “shared experience” vibe from that. But other people’s game are rarely all that interesting to us, so the gimmick here has great importance towards the number of people who have watched and commented on the video. Hopefully we’ll get more detail on the gameplay itself in future eps, or even better some of the girls will start taking their clothes off and making out. Either or.

I have to say the camera work and editing are total shit. No bones about it. Sure, it’s nice to have a Blair Witch thing going on, but the point should be to see more of the gaming and get more of an idea of the characters and situations. But bottom line – this is just another project by a guy with a lot of irons in the fire. Of course this is totally gimmicky, but the truth is Zak does play D&D with some porn-related folk. I’d like to think that Sasha would show up to a game that had no cameras, but I seriously doubt it. But even without Sasha, the whole thing does hold interest for some of us who would like some actual pornie babes at their games. All I get to my games are good girls who only know of “facials” as something you get while you’re getting a pedicure.

Over the last few days there has been some kind of controversy in the old school community regarding this videos presence on The Escapist. I really don’t have time to do all the research, but I guess some folks are up in arms because gaming is a “kids” thing, and sure, that is where most of us start our gaming life. But I for sure have no problem with it (I don’t have kids, nor do I want to game with them), and the video itself has nothing salacious about it (sad to say). It’s just some lower end adult industry people playing D&D. Nothing more.

I want to say finally that from what I understand Zak has a few charities that he is personally involved in, and not just on a “wish I could do something about this” level. He actually donates sizable amounts of money from his endeavors to these charities, so he isn’t just talking the talk. If you give money to a cause, you ain’t no poser.