Recent spoilers of Star Frontiers: New Genesis on the Tenkar’s Tavern YouTube Channel have gamers fuming mad.
It’s not Tenkar’s Fault. He’s just being honest. I think he also did the community a favor. You can watch the video here while it’s still available. News of the drivel in the manuscript being discussed has gone viral in the last two or three days.
If I had made the mistake of backing any “NuTSR” product on Kickstarter or elsewhere, best believe I’d be asking for my money back.
Dave Johnson and Justin LaNasa are proven racists. I’m appalled at the fact I even have to mention them on this blog or anywhere. These two clowns took over the old Intellectual Property for Star Frontiers Role Playing Game. The “product” that they are supposedly developing is showing to be some hardcore racist Nazi propaganda.
NoHateInGaming is very good at what they do. In this case, they’ve exposed Dave Johnson for his racist beliefs. I wouldn’t buy a game from this guy. Sorry not sorry at all. It might not be legal to outright censor someone, but we can expose their garbage.
If Star Frontiers: New Genesis ever hits the shelf anywhere, and all of the racist garbage is still within its pages?
The outcry in the #TTRPG community is going to be outrageous. There might not be a court case made against “NuTSR,” but damned if some of us won’t try anyway. Regardless of legalities, a lot of us will be on social media, at conventions, and harrassing sellers for carrying Star Frontiers: New Genesis if it still contains all the racist garbage shown during playtesting.
Not kidding, I can’t believe Wizards of the Coast, owners of much of the old T$R original property rights, let it get this far. There are already other lawsuits in the works between “NuTSR” and WotC, but no mention of Star Frontiers yet as far as I know. This has gone well beyond some small time game company trying to bring back an old classic RPG and well into insanity in my opinion.
What year is this again?
“Negro?!?” Are you serious right now? And then the clowns go on to portray this “race” as physically able, but less intelligent. Come on. Really?
That’s bad enough, but then there are the “Nordics.” They may as well have not beat around the bush and just said, “Aryan.” It would have been more transparent.
They didn’t apparently think any of this book through.
Even though Star Frontiers: New Genesis contains parody races, they still did a damn terrible job. Don’t get me started on how little justice they did to Grays and Reptilians. The injustice they did to humans and the “Negro” is bad enough. I didn’t think people still used the word any more. Sad. Really sad.
It gets worse, if that’s possible.
Unfortunately “hate speech” is still protected under the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. However, I would remind everyone that even though it is protected speech, so are the thousands of voices shouting down this racist nonsense! As long as there are no threats of violence, we can call these clowns almost anything we’d like and get away with it just like they do. That said, I still urge patience and tolerance when possible.
Otherwise, loud outrage does quite nicely in this situation. I hope no platform such as DriveThruRPG will even consider allowing this book if it contains all the racist prattling of lunatics. It might be legal, but I know for a fact OneBookShelf controls their own platform and what is allowed on it. Even if it wasn’t a direct violation of their Terms of Service, do they really want thousands of gamers mad at them?
Wizards of the Coast at least has the wherewithal to put a disclaimer on their older products to reflect that fact that beliefs and values have changed. This disclaimer is even on the Star Frontiers products listed on DriveThruRPG:
You know? I wish we could say, “It’s just a game. No big deal.” But that opens the floodgate for racism, homophobia, transphobia and just plain hate loose all over the industry. TTRPGs are supposed to be about friends and fun not hate and fear. And if it’s prevalent in our games, what stops it from being that way in society?
More on this topic later. Thank you for listening to my rant. I really appreciate you being here. Thank you!
Jeff's Game Box 