Article

2019-11-22 Home Front: Culture Wars

Tabletop games designer, JR Honeycutt, another 'punch Nazis!' male feminist leftist, gets accused of being physically and sexually abusive towards women - gets cancelled, deletes his social media accounts

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Posted by Herb McCoy 2019-11-22 00:00|| || Front Page|| [7 views ] Top

#1 More MeToo ?

What I don't understand is what his treatment of women has to do with the stupid game industry. It's another of those 'We won't associate with that kind of man' things.

He uses his position in the industry as a tool to lure women towards him.

Wonder what kind of women these are. The kind that select the long eared dwarf in video games.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-11-22 00:35|| 2019-11-22 00:35|| Front Page Top

#2 Also, he could be an Antifa gnome.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-11-22 00:36|| 2019-11-22 00:36|| Front Page Top

#3 Erb follows these things.

Posted by Skidmark 2019-11-22 01:01|| 2019-11-22 01:01|| Front Page Top

#4 I see... most interesting.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-11-22 01:34|| 2019-11-22 01:34|| Front Page Top

#5 Since when gamers are interested in 3D women?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-11-22 03:18|| 2019-11-22 03:18|| Front Page Top

#6 I designed a tabletop game once. WarGame it was called.

You had to roll different kinds of dice and spin a dial; which together made numeric codes that allowed you to order types of strikes from a tactical menu. You had to draw the moving pieces in with a pencil and eraser, on a grid on the only sheet - and it had to look good. You could use yellow pens for fire, black for debris or bodies, and red for blood. At the end of every game, the 'battlefield' was a work of art that told a story of tactical follies. It became a cult thing and people used to pin up the war sheets on the school board. They even asked me to draw them custom units and teachers suggested I publish the thing.

I was 15.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-11-22 03:47|| 2019-11-22 03:47|| Front Page Top

#7 I designed a whiffleball game when I was 10, but it was reality-reality, of the physical sort. Grass, sky, bats & balls, bases.

Didn't think of "using [my] position in the industry to lure girls", but maybe that would have made the game even more fun.

Posted by Lex 2019-11-22 04:37|| 2019-11-22 04:37|| Front Page Top

#8 I invented Lego-Tetris.

Posted by Besoeker 2019-11-22 05:59|| 2019-11-22 05:59|| Front Page Top

#9 You can laugh all you want, but the computer game industry is bigger than Hollywood. This stuff matters.

Posted by Herb McCoy 2019-11-22 06:20|| 2019-11-22 06:20|| Front Page Top

#10 This week in MISS! Magazine, 7 Clues You're Following Your Bliss a Little Too Closely:

1) "he slapped me so hard his wedding ring cut my cheek"

Posted by Harry Smith2396 2019-11-22 06:24|| 2019-11-22 06:24|| Front Page Top

#11 I'm not laughing. Every year my wife wants to play the new Assassin's Creed game for three hours a day until she liberates a small country and owns all seven pieces of the golden monkey.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-11-22 06:27|| 2019-11-22 06:27|| Front Page Top

#12 You can laugh all you want, but the computer game industry is bigger than Hollywood. This stuff matters.

Matters, of course. When distillation was invented drunkenness and alcohol related mortality reached picks unseen since then - it's called natural selection.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-11-22 06:33|| 2019-11-22 06:33|| Front Page Top

#13 Herb, tabletop games are not computer games. Tabletop games are not growing at the rate of computer games, and are nowhere near as large an industry.

The GenCon mentioned in the article got its start as Lake Geneva Convention -- as in Wisconsin -- for players of Dungeons and Dragons. For the last ten or fifteen years, it's been held in Indianapolis.

Honeycutt isn't a Big Name even in tabletop games. BoardGameGeek.com connects him to two games in the top 1000 -- which isn't bad, but one of them was designed as an ensemble, with many authors contributing storylines. The other is a "restoration" of a thirty-year-old game -- new pieces and layouts, but still the game someone else wrote decades ago.

This story is as important as the dating habits of a minor league baseball player, and even less relevant to Rantburg.

Posted by Rob Crawford 2019-11-22 06:53|| 2019-11-22 06:53|| Front Page Top

#14 But MEN BAD, which suits Erb's purpose

Posted by Frank G 2019-11-22 08:04|| 2019-11-22 08:04|| Front Page Top

#15 ...and I worry about being banned from Rantburg.

Posted by Skidmark 2019-11-22 10:05|| 2019-11-22 10:05|| Front Page Top

#16 You guys are just mean to him because you know you'll never be as intelligent as he is.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-11-22 10:45|| 2019-11-22 10:45|| Front Page Top

#17 I thought it was kinda interesting. Perp has a cool name (stage?). Nice photo.

Posted by Lex 2019-11-22 11:22|| 2019-11-22 11:22|| Front Page Top

#18 I liked the article!

Always fun to find male feminists are always manipulative abusers who'll say anything to get laid.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2019-11-22 11:23|| 2019-11-22 11:23|| Front Page Top

#19 Male feminist abusers / manipulators get lots o' nookie. Worked for Warren Beatty. Also that abusive left-wing radio show host in Toronto, Jian Gomeshi (?sp)

Posted by Lex 2019-11-22 11:49|| 2019-11-22 11:49|| Front Page Top

#20 I work in the tabletop game industry, and have done so for years. It's what I do every day when I'm not reading Rantburg! So does my wife, who knows JR Honeycutt and Victoria Mann slightly. I don't know either of them, but I'm pretty sure I did see them drinking at the Big Bar On Two during the Origins Game Fair this year with Matt Fantastic, the guy who assaulted Jeremy Hambly.

I'm not going to comment in too much detail on either the JR Honeycutt/Victoria Mann accusations or the Matt Fantastic/Jeremy Hambly assault. Matt fantastic ended up apologizing formally in print to Jeremy Hambly for calling him a Nazi. Hambly became famous in certain circles for a hot minute for getting assaulted - which was probably what he was after in the first place. Hambly is a troll, and Matt is a New York leftist with very short fuse. So that's the story on that.

Victoria Mann was a somewhat naive and very young woman having an affair with an older man who turned out to be a violent creep behind closed doors. Her motivations seem like fairly normal ones based on her own words: travel, career advancement, and maybe catching a husband and starting a family. This is a pretty old story in any industry, including mine.

Speaking of which: since this is my actual area of expertise, let me clear up some misconceptions expressed in this thread. Tabletop gaming is a thriving seven billion dollar-a-year industry that employs tens of thousands of people in the United States full or part time. It is also a subculture unto itself: an affluent one with real social influence. And yes some gamers are indeed attractive young women. In fact, young women are one of its fastest growing demographics.

Herb was right to put up this article. A lot of the issues society at large is dealing with (and that Rantburgers like to discuss) are being dealt with within that subculture. It's a process. We're better at dealing with certain issues constructively; worse with others. (We are all geeks, after all.) But like any group we have issues, and Victoria Mann has a right to tell her story if that's what she feels she needs to do.

Posted by Secret Master 2019-11-22 12:51|| 2019-11-22 12:51|| Front Page Top

#21 #16 You guys are just mean to him because you know you'll never be as intelligent as he ~~is.~~ thinks he is.

Drone, you forgot the /sarc

Posted by Skidmark 2019-11-22 13:00|| 2019-11-22 13:00|| Front Page Top

#22 She was banging that creep while he was still married. Let's play a little board game I call "Reap What You Sow."

Posted by Regular joe 2019-11-22 13:53|| 2019-11-22 13:53|| Front Page Top

#23 Drone, you forgot the /sarc

Where's the ~~perverse~~ fun in that ? 😈

It's true. You'd each have to knock off a digit from your IQs to be as blissfully naive.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-11-22 14:44|| 2019-11-22 14:44|| Front Page Top

#24 Secret Master, that's ... Wow ! I actually enjoy the designing of games. In fact I see it as story telling with a non-linear approach. Unfortunately never got the time or companions to enjoy playing anything. But I really respect the love that goes into what you do. It's high art.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-11-22 14:52|| 2019-11-22 14:52|| Front Page Top

#25 #20 Secret Master - wow, thanks.

Q for you: where do most of the economic returns (profits) in the tabletop gaming industry go-- to the inventors? The companies that license the games? The retailers/distributors?

Posted by Lex 2019-11-22 14:54|| 2019-11-22 14:54|| Front Page Top

#26 I play calvinball...

Posted by Seeking Cure For Ignorance 2019-11-22 15:00|| 2019-11-22 15:00|| Front Page Top

#27 I think I read something about this quite a while ago. IIRC, the writer's take was although he was not much of a fan of Honeycutt, he was pushing some leftest ideas into the nominally neutral industry, that years later without anyone else having knowledge of this event Mann started throwing the Believe All Women card about in a bid to increase her profile.

And its all fun and games until you are creating your character and you have 16 genders to choose from, Luigi and Wario have a kiss session, or the NPCs in your new VR game treat you poorly because your computer has cookies from bad wrong sites.

Gaming is the future, especially as movies continue to bleach and tank. Why watch the latest Aliens hash where the plot climax is two dudes kissing, when you can be a colonial marine, team up with Hicks, and VR recon the terra forming station - and that's it no stupid subplot about how the planet used to be earth like until global warming and a species mutated into the Aliens.

Don't believe me? I've heard rumors that the gold standard Dungeons and Dragons is already incorporating the 57 genders and sexual preference as attribute modifiers.

Posted by swksvolFF 2019-11-22 16:27|| 2019-11-22 16:27|| Front Page Top

#28 Yeah, well I designed a game over 50 years ago. Six players altogether, somewhat like Calvinball. It was called "Invisible Baseball". My five younger siblings all remember it.

Posted by Bobby on the road 2019-11-22 16:57|| 2019-11-22 16:57|| Front Page Top

#29 People making up shit AGAIN about me. I'm not a "men bad" feminist and seriously WTF. I am a staunch anti feminist. Why do you think I posted this article in the first place, genius?

Jesus.

Posted by Herb McCoy 2019-11-22 18:23|| 2019-11-22 18:23|| Front Page Top

#30 Have a great weekend, Herb. Thanks for posting.
seriously

Posted by Lex 2019-11-22 18:25|| 2019-11-22 18:25|| Front Page Top

#31 ^Don't believe me? I've heard rumors that the gold standard Dungeons and Dragons is already incorporating the 57 genders and sexual preference as attribute modifiers.

Only if there is a *LOT* of money in doing it! (Though I suppose you could do a supplemental rules book without a lot of risk. Maybe a short print run of a few thousand and see how it goes?)

Posted by Secret Master 2019-11-22 19:26|| 2019-11-22 19:26|| Front Page Top

#32 Q for you: where do most of the economic returns (profits) in the tabletop gaming industry go-- to the inventors? The companies that license the games? The retailers/distributors?

Definitively not the retailers and distributors. Being a brick-and-mortar game store retailer is a tricky business. Most of them fail. If you're really, really good at it - have Magic nights twice a week, Pathfinder Society meetups once a week, run minicons, and the whole nine yards - you're still looking at being solidly lower middle class after putting in regular 60 hour weeks.

And tabletop game distributors live off tiny margins of 11 to 14 percent. It *may* be a little higher for Alliance when it comes to selling D&D stuff (they have an exclusive on that), but distro still barely gets by.

Game designers are generally poorly paid, and investors often disappointed by their returns in my experience. No: the real money goes to those publishers who are lucky or smart enough have a string of hit products. If you even have a few small hits, it's like printing money. Also, printers and manufacturers do very well of the tabletop gaming business - especially with Kickstarter funding thousands of projects that wouldn't have gotten made back when I've started. They always get paid whether a game sells or not.

Posted by Secret Master 2019-11-22 19:34|| 2019-11-22 19:34|| Front Page Top

#33 Thanks!

Posted by Lex 2019-11-22 20:04|| 2019-11-22 20:04|| Front Page Top

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