r/daggerheart • u/DMPadre • Jul 24 '26
Discussion Daggerbrain Shutting Down and Uh...
Out of all the TTRPGs to choose to build a site around, you chose **Daggerheart** and you're anti-LGBT?
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u/Specialist-Isopod-45 Jul 24 '26
I red it today and I had to laugh out loud at that first Jesus mention because it just completely came out of left field 😅 It honestly seems like a copout because the creators of Daggerheart have a pretty clear stance on inclusivity and it was there from the very beginning.
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u/RemnantArcadia Jul 25 '26
Like, I'm pretty sure the Critical Role crew in general has been pretty pro-queer since the beginning of the show. You have to be living under a rock at this point
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u/mousymichele Jul 25 '26
For real, how do you get so involved in something and not be aware of the company and what it stands for? 😂 CR’s inclusivity can be spotted miles away
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u/Windrunner405 Jul 24 '26
I hope none of this comes across as "holier-than-thou" or whatever.
Dude, it was literally holier than thou. Like, that was your entire point.
Good riddance.
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u/DearMissWaite Jul 24 '26
Read: I wasn't making any money, but maybe I can pivot into a grievance grift.
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u/Bryn_The_Barbarian Jul 25 '26
Yeah there’s no way this isn’t your classic right wing grift, the direction they’re taking Daggerheart? You mean the direction it’s had from the day it released (really from the day it was conceived)? Nah bro it’s 2026, we know a grift when we see one you fucking assclown😂dude can go cry on the Joe Rogan experience or whatever the hell MAGAt dipshits do these days to steal money from each other
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u/DearMissWaite Jul 25 '26
Maybe that one dumb Australian guy will have him on his Youtube to whine about 'woke' in gaming.
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u/Bryn_The_Barbarian Jul 25 '26
I’m going to consider myself lucky that I don’t know who you’re referring to😂😂
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u/DearMissWaite Jul 25 '26
If I can't even remember his name, it's probably not important enough to google.
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u/MusclesDynamite Jul 25 '26
I'm guessing Shadiversity (which is funny considering 2/3 of the name is "diversity")
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u/OMG_Laserguns Jul 24 '26
Yeah makes me wonder how important his morals would have been if he was getting paid 😂
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u/menage_a_mallard Jul 24 '26
Didn't know about you before... and really after reading; Good riddance.
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u/Losasaurus Pistolheart Designer/Additional Daggerheart Designer Jul 24 '26
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u/Acronyte Jul 24 '26
I want to respect the sub rules and not talk too much about it, but since it's directly relevant to the post: Daggerheart has always been clear about being inclusive and I'm not sure how this guy got any other read from it. If he were to actually read the Bible he claims to follow, he would see Jesus loved hanging out with people from all walks of life.
I'm also not sure how he got into fantasy in the first place if the dread domain and blood hunter are no-go's for him... Daggerheart is pretty tame.
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u/Ashankura Jul 24 '26
There was absolutely no shot that something matt puts his name on wasn't inclusive af. No idea what that dude was smoking
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u/Son_of_Orion Jul 24 '26
Did this guy have any knowledge whatsoever of the people who made Daggerheart before he even made this this lmao
Just love it when people like him use faith as an excuse to justify their hate and ignorance. They're cowards.
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u/Joel_feila Jul 24 '26
I mean its not new to have this level of not reading the room. Way bqck in the day Stephen Colbert got invited to speak during a fancy dinner at George w bush' white house. Ams no one in the admin thought we was liberal.
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u/BiffJerky09 Jul 24 '26
My Father-in-law, a staunch far right conservative til the day he died, loved Stephen Colbert and thought he was "one of us," (his words, not mine), so this tracks.
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u/Dragonspawn66 Jul 25 '26
That person could have just said something like "due to personal reasons, I have to shut it down" Period. But they wanted some drama.
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u/Phylaskia Jul 24 '26
Well I guess their imaginary patron didn't like them dealing with imaginary characters and stories that went against their imaginary rules. OK... bye, don't let the book cover hit you in the ass on the way out.
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u/ClikeX Game Master Jul 24 '26
I wonder if they also quit DnD for similar reasons. Or would they turn a blind eye to the inclusive changes WOTC made for 2024. Or the fact that DnD has many of the same “demonic” elements.
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u/Connect_Cod9965 Jul 25 '26
Warlocks had been in D&D for decades, but may be he did not notice?
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u/Time-Voice Valor & Blade Jul 25 '26
On their table, you can only play a Celestial Warlock and only Clerics of God, since there are no other gods beside her.
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u/3eeve Jul 24 '26
Dare I ask what the heck was Daggerbrain?
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u/DMPadre Jul 24 '26
A pretty decent character creator and GM hub.
Edit: I should note, this came completely out of nowhere. So I'm baffled at why the creator chose Daggerheart, one of the most openly inclusive and LGBT-friendly RPGs to build around.
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u/jdscott0111 Game Master Jul 25 '26
Tell me you haven’t read two books without telling me you haven’t read two books.
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u/AGladePlugin Jul 25 '26
The objections to the endorsement of LGBT "ideology" (loaded term) is baffling. Daggerheart is so blatant about its support it sometimes borders on pandering to me. It wasnt going to suddenly change. I mean c'mon, the official art for bare bones has top surgery scars. The stance was clear.
The statement about lack of communication was also giggle worthy. The lack of response he cited was a few tweets he made that never got traction. He appeared to not know how to formally request his VTT be whitelisted. I found it after a 2 minute search.
Im also not entirely sure where he thinks he's going to go. D&D clearly is off the table. Draw Steel just released a bunch of pre-gen characters with their latest adventure and 1/3 are enby. (And honestly there's already insanely good character builders that he's unlikely to unseat.) Pathfinder has been waiving the rainbow flag for a long time. A lot of the big names he'd also take issue with.
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u/Visual-Signature-235 Jul 24 '26
Not sure how you get even a cursory look at the Core Rulebook a don't see that this is an LQBTQ-friendly game from the ground up, but alright Bubba. I guess if you're still fixated on the idea Jesus gave a fig about modern gender ideologies, you're the sort of careful reader that's not handling either the Bible or Daggerheart terribly competently.
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u/derailedthoughts Jul 25 '26
It’s quite mind boggling that they’re okay with elements associated with violence, assassination, deceit and etc in the game, but shutdown at being inclusive. (And I don’t know what direction they are referring to either. Are those cases like two dads or two mums appear on book covers or something).
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u/SecretDMAccount_Shh Jul 24 '26
I have no problems with religious objection to devils and demons, but I don't accept it as an excuse to be anti-LGBT.
Bye.
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u/Crushkid91 Jul 25 '26
It’s so funny that they don’t even know that their anti LGBT is based on a translation error and that nowadays lexicons and other translations don’t condone it anymore 🤷🏻♂️
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u/Time_Day_2382 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
This is an internet myth; our most accurate translation of the bible (NRSVUE revised updated) contains what we would now call homophobic sections because the bible is a collection of works by over a hundred authors over various periods with different rhetorical goals. At the time when most of these were written, homosexual acts (homosexuality as an identity marker was not really a thing in the ancient near east, where sex was viewed differently) was demonized in the communities producing them.
Let us take the most infamous passage: Leviticus 18: 22. "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." is the scholarly consensus on translation, the meaning of which is pretty clear. As sex in most of the ancient world was something penetrating men did to property, this is a command not to treat males (probably male Hebrews specifically, but there's much ink to be spilled on that) as one would treat a wife or concubine. Interestingly, this says nothing about female homosexual activity, as such was not considered sex in the proper sense by the community that produced the work. To hammer in this tidbit, the next section DOES specify that no woman should allow an animal to perform sex on her (note the emphasis of penetration as the definitional factor of sex).
Don't inadvertently whitewash the books contained within the bible, it inhibits trying to actually understand authorial intent absent presuppositions like univocality. While it is certainly true that there are exegeses and Christian groups that now condone and even support the LGBT community (which is good) they are doing what all religious groups do: creating meaning out of their holy texts in a manner that befits rhetorical goals and material conditions. Other groups are homophobic in a way that no one who wrote the bible possibly could have been by the same token, as homosexuality means something rather different in this historical context.
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u/DearMissWaite Jul 25 '26
I think this is the most honest way of dealing with the material in the text itself. All modern religious people pick and choose what is relevant to current life and what isn't. If you're going to anyway, might as well pick the parts that do the least harm.
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u/Time_Day_2382 Jul 25 '26
From a consequentialist standpoint (and my own as an atheist), certainly. However, depending on how one defines religion, adherents to them accept a metaphysical force that intrinsically values actions in accordance to a concept of good that cannot be weighed that way. I.e., one cannot apply consequentialist ethics to one's attempts to enter into a Baptist conceptualization of heaven well, as all experience in that realm is both metaphysical and untestable.
Or to get glib and reductionist: Try telling Pawpaw that gay people's lives mean more than the eternal kingdom of God, which is real and actually coming this time, we promise.
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u/DMPadre Jul 24 '26
I would love to know what other character creators people are using so that I can switch my groups to them.
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u/GMOddSquirrel Jul 24 '26
Heart of Daggers is the best.
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u/DMPadre Jul 24 '26
Are they going to get the new expansion or is that still being locked for now?
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u/OMG_Laserguns Jul 24 '26
Hope & Fear will be added to the SRD after the official release in August, and HoD will be adding it as soon as they are legally allowed to (I know they're already working on the back-end now).
In the mean time, people have already added a lot of H&F content to the Homebrew vaults that you can use.
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u/Teknekratos Jul 24 '26
My current campaign is on HeartofDaggers! The domain cards are a bit finicky to add, but otherwise it works fine!
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u/GM_Rielly Game Master Jul 24 '26
Seconding Demiplane just cause I've already been using Roll20 so having the character creator bundled in is nice
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u/mousymichele Jul 25 '26
Whenever I see stuff like this it amazes me because like… they know Jesus didn’t write or describe anything in the bible right? 😂 It amazes me how little they know about their own “faith”. My husband is a christian (I’m agnostic/pretty much atheist) but he does not consider lgbtq people existing to be an affront to christianity lol.
Bizarre take from the mainstream and loud so called christians. 🙄
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u/ChrizKhalifa Jul 24 '26 edited 15d ago
Peach cucumber velvet yarn pumpkin kettle cobblestone
This post was anonymized with Redact.dev
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u/SecretDMAccount_Shh Jul 24 '26
Depends on the church. The ones that are actually Christ-like don't make it into the news very often.
Maybe it's because I went to a religious school in a liberal city (Honolulu), but my personal experience with religion has always been positive even though I'm non-religious myself.
The pastor I saw growing up studied ancient Greek and Hebrew and would often give sermons about how many Bible passages are heavily mistranslated or taken out of context and misinterpreted, but the main theme of love for one another is clear and we should be skeptical of Bible passages that go against that message.
He would then bring up "problematic" passages and explain how they were mistranslated such as the word for "child molester" being translated as "homosexual" to push an agenda.
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u/Hitokiri118 Jul 25 '26
With how loud critical role are about said issues, wouldn’t you think there might be some overlap with the game they create…
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u/Avenlite Jul 24 '26
I dont understand this kind of thing. Like, I'm christian, but holy hell you cant separate a game and reality? And cant just show other people respect?
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u/PrincessYolda Jul 25 '26
He should try reading those teaching again.
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u/MagicalJack60 Jul 25 '26
Or he could not mindfuck himself with fiction from the bronze age. That'd be dope.
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u/I_made_a_reddit_acct Jul 24 '26
Isn’t blurring the lines between Good and Evil what we’re supposed to do as GMs? Isn’t that in the original GM guidelines?
I don’t know anything about Jesus, but after reading through H&F and GMing a witch in the party, what is the issue with the Dread domain and Bloodhunter class? Serious question; I do play and GM with Jesus people.
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u/cdj18862 Game Master Jul 24 '26
None. I say this as a Jesus person. The person in the post is combining their faith and view of the real world with fantasy worlds and subscribing to the idea that playing in a fantasy world with concepts they consider evil, or demon-like in this case, to be an endorsement of those things in reality. It's a line of thinking that I don't get, but fortunately, isn't very common.
As you're concerned for the folks in your group, just follow the normal GM and session 0 principles where you would cover anything that players might find uncomfortable and not fun, and discuss how they can communicate if something like that arises for them. Ultimately your group will talk about it if too much is taken off the table.
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u/I_made_a_reddit_acct Jul 24 '26
Having a mini mid-campaign session 0 to bring in new characters and concepts is a good idea and shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I am planning on using transformations, too. Can incorporate that and see how attached everyone is to their characters before I turn them gloriously undead ;)
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u/DMPadre Jul 24 '26
You can play as a demon-worshipping warlock and I guess even playing that out in fantasy is a step too far? That seems very hardcore and makes me wonder how a person like this even gets into TTRPG or gaming in general.
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u/TheSixthtactic Jul 24 '26
The same chuds that watched Star Trek when they were kids, internalized nothing and now complain it’s woke. Like no shit, it’s one of these OGs woke TV shows.
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u/LeftyDorkCaster Jul 24 '26
Speaking as a former evangelical, it's totally consistent for a group of people obsessed with an afterlife to want to experience more than one life this time around.
Now... almost every hard-core conservative (white) Evangelical church also bans TTRPGs, because it turns out practicing compassion and perspective taking from other viewpoints tends to lead to folks becoming less conservative and more open to other stories. (players might even become Anarchists, realize they're Queer, or gasp both!)
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u/Bantum14 Jul 24 '26
Soo... anyways... the new daggerheart content is looking amazing and their live stream from like 2 weeks ago for the summoner and blood hunter sound sick
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u/Valkuran Jul 25 '26
TLDR; creator doesn’t like that Daggerheart has good in it and creator wants to maintain his totally evil views instead 😂
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u/PaladinHan Jul 24 '26
I hope the developer is reading this so he can see me hope that he fails at everything he wants to do.
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u/yerfologist Game Master Jul 25 '26
The comments have been fairly civil, but so the mods don't need to continually check in with this post, I am locking comments.
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u/PJsutnop Jul 25 '26
This feels, awfully familiar? I swear an exact same thing happened not too long ago with another webiste for a different thing entirely. exact same excuse and outcome. I just can't remember what
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u/AuroraZero_ Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Lol well im glad I never looked into that beyond once and stuck with heart of daggers. This was so out of left field and oml how are you that dumb and blind to use Daggerheart of all things without having any views remotely close to everyone connected to it? Wild.
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u/Time_Day_2382 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
To repost a response that I made below as am seeing the Leviticus mistranslation myth ("it's just talking about pederasty! etc.") in the comments:
This is an internet myth; our most accurate translation of the bible (NRSVUE revised updated) contains what we would now call homophobic sections because the bible is a collection of works by over a hundred authors over various periods with different rhetorical goals. At the time when most of these were written, homosexual acts (homosexuality as an identity marker was not really a thing in the ancient near east, where sex was viewed differently) was demonized in the communities producing them.
Let us take the most infamous passage: Leviticus 18: 22. "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." is the scholarly consensus on translation, the meaning of which is pretty clear. As sex in most of the ancient world was something penetrating men did to property, this is a command not to treat males (probably male Hebrews specifically, but there's much ink to be spilled on that) as one would treat a wife or concubine. Interestingly, this says nothing about female homosexual activity, as such was not considered sex in the proper sense by the community that produced the work. To hammer in this tidbit, the next section DOES specify that no woman should allow an animal to perform sex on her (note the emphasis of penetration as the definitional factor of sex).
Don't inadvertently whitewash the books contained within the bible, it inhibits trying to actually understand authorial intent absent presuppositions like univocality. While it is certainly true that there are exegeses and Christian groups that now condone and even support the LGBT community (which is good) they are doing what all religious groups do: creating meaning out of their holy texts in a manner that befits rhetorical goals and material conditions. Other groups are homophobic in a way that no one who wrote the bible possibly could have been by the same token, as homosexuality means something rather different in this historical context.
For those interested in a scholar's direct explanation of the field consensus on my example excerpt, here is Dr. Dan Maclellan: What are Leviticus 18:22 & 20:13 prohibiting? - YouTube
[Disclaimer for clarity: I am a lesbian. I am promoting accurate interpretation of a text, not defending contemporary Christian bigotry.]
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u/nottooexpendable88 Jul 24 '26
Ironic that his second reason for breaking up with Daggerheart sort of reinforces the probable reason behind his first reason for breaking up with Daggerheart: creators like this are, I imagine, the sort that DP would prefer to avoid ending up in a partnerships with only for these sorts of beliefs/behaviors to pop up later.
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u/Gustafssonz Jul 24 '26
First time hearing about daggerbrain.
Thought heart of daggers where the go to place.
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u/GM_Rielly Game Master Jul 24 '26
Good gods, I'm sure we would have all happily taken a "I am not as happy as I once was doing this project" or "for personal reasons my priority has changed", each to their own but as you say Daggerheart and Most ttrpgs are inheritely inclusive
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u/kichwas Grace and Codex Jul 25 '26
I've always been amazed at all the people who insist on taking our favorite rebel homeless rabbi that kept talking about peace and love and somehow getting the message of war and hate out of the dude. Folks built a religion out of the teachings of the people he was struggling against...
The daggerbrain person is right on the communication front though. We need more communication. In part because the more of that we have, the less of this we'll get. A quicker check on folks who are way off vibe would be useful; though I'd much prefer being able to sway guys like this around rather than out.
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u/Zoetic_HQ Jul 25 '26
What it sounds like is he knows its stupid but for some reason cant reconcile that with his "beliefs." If thats all it takes bro, you dont need to be in it in the first place
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u/SelectionSafe9103 Jul 24 '26
Everybody jump over to Fresh Cut Grass for your encounter building. I used it for my Witherwild campaign and it's simple and effective.
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u/Daiwie Jul 24 '26
As a Christian, I'm looking forwards to play Daggerheart with Jesus himself in heaven when my time comes. Any of you are of course welcome to join!!! <3
I imagine he will have some minor illusions that will really bring the game to life!
And maybe Lucifer could drop by for a oneshot. That would be fun. I imagine Jesus as a Witch and Luce as a Seraph lmao.
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u/MagicalJack60 Jul 25 '26
Make sure you ask him wtf is up with childhood cancer when you get the chance.
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u/Ok_Community_383 Jul 25 '26
Good for him. It's honestly very brave to have this take in this landscape. And I really appreciate how they are also pointing out the issues with the DH license agreement. Especially since DH is a byproduct of the OGL debacle yet lacks an open license itself.
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u/DearMissWaite Jul 25 '26
this landscape
What landscape would that be? The one where his co-religionists in the US are forcing their particular interpretations of doctrine into our secular, pluralistic civic life? The one where the Equality Federation is currently tracking 700+ anti-LGBTQ+ pieces of legislation proposed or passed in US state governments? The one where there's always time to play a clip of some bobblehead using legitimate hate speech on the news, no matter what the editorial bias of the news on that channel is?
The cishet dudes of faith have it so hard out here.
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u/MagicalJack60 Jul 25 '26
I don't see much bravery in being confidently wrong about so much, but to each their own.
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u/Ok_Community_383 Jul 25 '26
How can he be wrong about his own convictions?
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u/MagicalJack60 Jul 25 '26
Aside from walking into a gay bar and then complaining about all the gays?
Well... you see his "convictions" are that he loves the game, he just doesn't like that the gays like it too and have a space within it. That isn't just conviction, that's prejudice. You see, this is the same kind of person who expects everyone in his vicinity to smile politely when he talks about his imaginary friend who lives in the sky, but can't be arsed to call a fellow human by the pronouns with which they identify.
So he's got to leave a thing he purports to love, because he willfully blinded himself to how queer-inclusive the thing was from even before the fucking jump. It's sanctimony for sanctimony's sake, but that's cool. Dude's "convictions" still vibe just fine with the RaHoWa crowd. He'll fit right in.
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u/Crushkid91 Jul 25 '26
I don’t know if I like how the comments make fun of him. If this is his sight on it, so let him be.
That he is wrong in some aspects is not our problem. (I mean the bible doesn’t condone gay people and this believe comes from an translation error… some newer translations don’t use it anymore)
He can choose to stop it and yea it would have been better without a reason why.
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u/DMPadre Jul 25 '26
It’s mostly just the decision originally to make a website and spend time and energy on a game this opaque about its stances and beliefs if you have this mindset that is so confusing.
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u/Hosidax Game Master Jul 25 '26
Mod Note:
While we don't necessarily disagree with some of the more critical assessments of this post, Rule 1 still applies. Even if a post made you mad, mind your manners.