OGL = TSR Lawfare Threat

As an indy RPG developer myself, I can tell you chances are I will not break even for how much labor and time I spend making a quality RPG product. When doing a cost-benefit analysis on weather or not to produce an RPG product, one consideration is ALWAYS: will this get me sued? Because if I have to get a lawyer to publish, that's a lot of money I have to raise that has nothing to do with making or distributing the product, before making any money from the product, and I already know odds are against me breaking even on what product is going to cost me in time.

Once upon a time there was a Game Company called TSR, who were really mad that anyone but them published table top RPGs, because they owned the original table top RPG, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D.) TSR decided to sue Palladium, who in turn decided to sue so many other new RPG system developers that in the 1980's and 1990's people were scared out of trying to get into the table top RPG market.

We (the team known as the Game Arts Guild, previously known as Galbraith Games,) were one of these groups in exile. Before 2000 our plan was to make a computer game version of our RPG first (the precursor to Squawk RPG and The Dark Woods,) and then make a computer game hand book that could coincidentally double as an RPG book, to try to avoid all that threat-of-lawfare we could not afford.

Then in 2000 the OGL came out. It ended the two decades old threat-of-lawfare preventing indy RPG development, and we entered the golden era of indy RPG publishing that we are in today, which has grown rapidly because of print-on-demand technologies and services. We at the Game Arts Guild never did embrace the OGL however, and instead relied on traditional open source licenses such as the LGPL and later Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike. As Quake 1 Total-Conversion developers we had started one of the world's first open game projects called "The Free Models Project" (the inheritor of which is Open Game Art who we endorse,) and as a result of that experience we realized at the time the OGL was suspect.

That's right, THE OGL WAS NO-DAMNED-GOOD ANYWAYS. The ONLY thing it did was end an age of lawfare-threat preventing indy RPG development. The problem then and now is the OGL grants Wizards of the Coast the ability to revoke your right to use the OGL at any time:

Hasbro (the now owners of Wizards of the Coast) has a parallel process going on with their most popular product, the board game Monopoly; they really think like that game, hate competition, lock down intellectual properties in ethically questionable ways, etc. What all of this "new proposed OGL 1.1" drama described in the above video has really signaled, is their intention to reengage in TSR style THREAT OF LAWFARE by way of OGL-license-revoking (remember it is only the THREAT that prevents indy game development as per my first paragraph of this post,) to shut down indy RPG development. The current OGL everyone seems to want to preserve will NOT prevent them from doing just that!

As a byproduct of working on Squawk 2nd Edition for the last 10 years we have produced a role playing game system we call "Resilience" (www.ResilienceRPG.com) licensed under the Creative Commons Share-Alike license (which is set in the modern day but has been designed to adapt to other settings,) which I hope disgruntled indy developers will consider as they exodus D&D.

Apology for Gas Lighting Alcoholics

Earlier this month I posted my views on alcohol consumption. I have heard my views may have hurt your feelings. This is my response.

I know that it annoys drinkers that the stereotype is they are all alcoholics. However the most basic fundamental question of ANY addiction, especially with substances, is "did they continue using even after they knew it was harming them?" This is why the lies about alcohol being "good for heart health" are particularly nefarious. 

Once the general public faces the reality that "alcohol is a level 1 carcinogen, right alongside tobacco and asbestos", anyone drinking past that point will technically be an alcoholic. The main reason why most drinkers aren't classified as alcoholics now is because alcohol's causing of poor memory recall is blinding alcohol consumers to the problematic experiences they are having when they drink. 

I know people don't like to be gas lighted, being told they are crazy when they are normal. However the DSM is the DSM, and Substance Use Disorder is clearly defined therein. If you don't want to be called crazy, don't roll around in piles asbestos, don't play in burning tobacco fields and don't drink, ever.

Grow up and take your life seriously; we aren't laughing with you, we are laughing at you.

Alcohol Kills YOU

There are NO health benefits to drinking alcohol, AND alcohol is deadly for you to consume on a regular basis. Virtually every health study that says alcohol is good for you divides people into three categories:

1. Those Who Don't Drink.
2. Those Who Drink Lightly But Regularly.
3. Those Who Obviously Have a Drinking Problem.

When studies show this, what happens is Those Who Obviously Have a Drinking Problem have the most health problems, but Those Who Drink Lightly But Regularly have the least health problems. 

The problem is that they have put two TOTALLY DIFFERENT groups of people into category 1. The two groups are Those Who Never Drink on a Regular Basis, and Those Who Were Forced to Stop Drinking Because of Alcohol Related Health Problems. If we separate these groups from each other, we then have the following groups, listed here in order of most healthy to least healthy:

1. Those Who Never Drink on a Regular Basis are by far the most healthy statistically.
2. Those Who Drink Lightly But Regularly are starting to have some health problems likely related to their alcohol consumption.
3. Those Who Obviously Have a Drinking Problem almost always have alcohol related health problems that could be potentially fatal.
4. Those Who Were Forced to Stop Drinking Because of Health Problems have already had their health wrecked by alcohol.

The fact is Alcohol is a deadly poison, and the more you drink, the more it harms you. That's what the science actually says. Back in the 80's in public schools we were shown videos of what alcohol does to the human brain: turn into swiss cheese, literally putting liquid filled cavities where there used to be gray matter in the brain.  Science never has refuted that drinking reduces brain volume:

Nothing is more YOU than your BRAIN. Alcohol attacks THAT, Alcohol attacks YOU. Those who are selling you alcohol are directly undermining your existence. You voluntarily drinking is literally self-destruction!

Alcohol is one of the few drugs used for recreational use that can penetrate through all of the cell walls in your body's tissues. Some of the Ethanol when digested is converted into Acetaldehyde which can damage (if not destroy) all types of human cells before the human body can purge it. Alcohol wrecks some parts of your body (brain, lungs, liver) more than other parts (bones, muscle,) but it's bad for ALL of your body parts:

Consider the typical alcohol-related health problems that you normally hear about such as: 

"High blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, and digestive problems. Cancer of the breast, mouth, throat, esophagus, voice box, liver, colon, and rectum. Weakening of the immune system, increasing the chances of getting sick. Learning and memory problems, including dementia and poor school performance." 

When alcohol is brought up, people almost always forget to mention that it is a "Level 1 Carcinogen" on the level of "tobacco and asbestos" known to be a risk for every type of cancer. There isn't any "moderate" amount of Level 1 Carcinogen that you should be intentionally exposing yourself to:

What if I told you I had a combat strategy that could shrink my enemy's brain volume, put them at much higher risk of cancer, and attack every cell in their body? That's what drinking alcohol actually does to any enemy of mine without me doing ANYTHING. Opposite of self defense, drinking reduces:

• your ability to think strategically, both long term and short term.
• your ability to reflect and learn.
• your brain's over all health.
• your body's over all health and performance.
• your ability to stay out of prison.
• your ability to avoid dying in a violent crime.
• your ability to avoid dying in an accident.
• your ability to live a longer and more enjoyable life.

Near or total abstinence from alcohol should be training strategy of any serious self defense system or martial art. "What about drunken Kung Fu?" Those kung fu practitioners are intentionally pretending to be drunk to throw off opponents, to get their opponents to underestimate the Drunken Kung Fu Practioner. Actual drunk people per say are known to be clumsy, awkward, make poor decisions and otherwise be bad at defending themselves.

On a deeper level I must say my religious views have been even more reinforced by study of addiction: If there is any Higher Power out there that is benevolent towards you, wouldn't that benevolent Higher Power discourage you from drinking?