Clownfish TV: Audio Edition
Dungeons & Dragons FIRED the Guy Who Wanted ’White Guys’ Out of the Hobby?!
Kyle Brink is no longer at Wizards of the Coast, leading to speculation that he was fired from the Hasbro-owned company that makes Dungeons & Dragons. Brink infamously said he couldn’t wait for white guys like him to get out of the hobby, and it couldn’t happen soon enough. Seems like Hasbro was happy to oblige... ➡️ Tip Jar and Fan Support: http://ClownfishSupport.com ➡️ Official Merch Store: http://ShopClownfish.com ➡️ Official Website: http://ClownfishTV.com ➡️ Audio Edition: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qJc5C6OkQkaZnGCeuVOD1 There is controversy surrounding the firing of Kyle Brink from Dungeons and Dragons for his comments about white males, and the company’s shift towards diversity and inclusion in the tabletop gaming industry. 00:00 Kyle Brink, former executive producer of Dungeons and Dragons, is no longer with Wizards of the Coast after making controversial comments about white dudes needing to get out of the way. 01:24 Kyle Brink fired from Dungeons & Dragons for comments about white males leaving tabletop gaming, new boss Jess Lanzillo hopes to avoid same mistakes. 03:36 D&D fired a guy for wanting to remove white guys from the hobby, causing controversy. 04:53 Wizards of the Coast fired a person pushing for diversity in D&D, upsetting fans, and may be shifting focus to AI and virtual tabletops. 06:40 The company celebrated the 50th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons by revealing the face of the Warrior from the cover of the red box basic set, which was a chunky black woman, but the speaker disagrees with this decision and criticizes the current employees of Wizards of the Coast for alleging that the originators of the game were racist and sexist. 08:10 Dungeons & Dragons fired creator for diversity push, speaker criticizes corporations for not respecting franchise history. 10:02 Dungeons & Dragons has a history of misogyny, cultural appropriation, and disrespect towards women and minorities according to Wizards of the Coast. 11:26 Hasbro fired a guy for wanting to remove white guys from Dungeons & Dragons, as it was costing them money and they are ashamed of their history, while companies disrespect creators and want to give long-standing franchises a makeover. Expand About Us: Clownfish TV is an independent, opinionated news and commentary channel that covers Entertainment and Tech from a consumer’s point of view. We talk about Gaming, Comics, Anime, TV, Movies, Animation and more. Hosted by Kneon and Geeky Sparkles. Disclaimer: This series is produced by Clownfish Studios and WebReef Media, and is part of ClownfishTV.com. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of our guests, affiliates, sponsors, or advertisers. ClownfishTV.com is an unofficial news source and has no connection to any company that we may cover. This channel and website and the content made available through this site are for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. These so-called “fair uses” are permitted even if the use of the work would otherwise be infringing. #Games #TTRPG #Hasbro #DnD #News #Commentary #Reaction #Podcast #Comedy #Entertainment #Hollywood #PopCulture #Tech
Hey guys, this is the audio edition of clownfish TV. If you guys are unfamiliar with clownfish TV, please check out the video versions of these episodes on the clownfish TV YouTube channel and also on the clownfish gaming YouTube channel. Please subscribe for more podcast. Check out D-Res, that's our other podcast. The episode will begin in a couple of seconds. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Hey guys, welcome back to clownfish TV. This is neon. I am not here with geeky sparkles. We're gonna talk about Kyle Brinkie slash him, no longer being with Wizards of the Coast. This is the guy who was one of the dudes in charge of Dungeons and Dragons. And he's also the one who famously said on a podcast, I think it was last year, that white dudes basically needed to get out of the way. Right, we're gonna talk about this. This news broke, I think last night. So he is the former executive producer at Wizards, according to the Creed Savertooth here on Twitter. We're gonna look into the situation, see what we can make sense of here. And look, D&D is not in a very good place with fans for a variety of reasons. I don't need to retread everything, but Google, OGL, Google, Cynthia Williams, Google of the Pinkertons, that was more magic gathering. But you know what I'm saying? There are a lot of things going on here. So let's talk about this before we end today. Further, please subscribe for more pop culture, news, views and rants. Yeah, so apparently he's not there anymore. Kyle Brinkie is out at Watsy, according to Chris Howard. This is his LinkedIn page. His replacement is Jess Lanzillo, and there's an article about her. So we have a new boss. I don't know if she's any better than Brink, but hopefully, hopefully she is not going to say the same stupid stuff that Kyle Brink set, Kyle Brink, of course, demanded that white males leave tabletop gaming, according to bounding in the comics, right? He was on a podcast with, I think it was three black gamers, is that the name of the podcast or something like that? But yeah, he said, this is not the face of the hobby anymore. And I think there's been mistakes made in years past where people assume that D&D players were all, you know, white dudes in a basement, which has been a faulty assumption for a lot of years and gets more and more false every day. And so my viewpoint, guys like me can't leave soon enough. And yeah, he's gone. He's out the door. He talked about how they had a lot of issues with the OGL debacle that might've actually had more to do with his getting gone because Hasbro, look, Hasbro is all in on the DEI stuff. They're all in on throwing white dudes under the bus, in my opinion, that seems to be the way that they've been working lately. We've got Three Line Studio, which is actually the studio of Robert J. Coons. And he is posting it too. He said, just a reminder of the real racists in the hobby and their own words. And also a reminder that it was white dudes with the help of white women that created this hobby for everybody to share in no matter their race, color, or create a member of that as Watsy and ilk slay the egg. RPG pundit, Kyle Brink has gone from Watsy, farewells, wheat prints, and many huge numbers of white dudes who will keep on playing D&D in the hobby, sing the to die next job. Watsy doesn't want to announce their number two man, Kyle Brink said, but they sure don't want customers to see what he said. They're now blocking anyone who dares to share it. Yeah, this is last year. Last year they were blocking people and he's protected, protected. So you can't really, you can't really ask him what's going on. Now, for a guy that's supposed to have that much influence in the tabletop space, he only got 237 followers. It's kind of weird. Now, I want to point this out. This is Brian Urso, a long time friend of the channel. He picked up the 50th anniversary D&D book, right? And he actually pulled, he actually pulled out, ripped out a couple of pages from the book that were going on about white middle class men being problematic. These are the guys that created D&D. And they talked about this in a podcast where they were celebrating, I'm using air quotes here, celebrating the history of D&D by throwing the original creators under the wheels of the bus. And it was not a good look and they got a lot of blowback for that, rightfully so. Because again, the table has always been welcoming. Anybody can play D&D. Anybody except white dudes, you know, that's the thing. Historically, look, that has been the predominant demographic. I mean, you don't have to like it. You don't have to think it's right. But it is the way that it's been for a long time. And these are the guys that dropped, you know, serious coin on the hobby. And you basically wizards told your existing customer base. You don't want them. Lucasfilm did the same thing with Star Wars. They don't want their audience. They want this other audience. There's nothing wrong with branching out. There's nothing wrong with trying to reach other people. But you can't do it at the expense of your core demographic or you're going to go out of business. And wizards has kept stepping on this rake over and over and over again. And what's going to happen with D&D? One of two things. One, they're going all in on AI and, you know, the virtual tabletop. They're going to turn D&D into a shitty mobile app. It's going to be like Monopoly Go. It's going to be like D&D Go. Go dungeon, go. That's what it's going to be to Hasbro. That's going to be actual D&D. And then they'll probably license out the tabletop version to somebody else because Hasbro's licensing and all their stuff out now, aren't they? They don't want to make toys. They don't want to make games. They just want to print money. So they'll let somebody else take the risk. I absolutely positively think that's what they're going to do. They'll be like, hey, Paizo, you know, do you want to, do you want to make D&D? OK, well, we'll license you the D&D name. And anything you make, we can use it in the tabletop version or whatever, or in the virtual tabletop version, like the mobile version. That's what they'll probably do. I mean, I hate to be that guy, but that's probably what's going to happen to D&D. I don't think Hasbro's going to really mess with it too much. It doesn't seem like they're that interested. It doesn't seem like they're that interested in fans anymore. It doesn't seem like they're interested in the history of it other than to try to milk it. Again, they celebrate the 50th anniversary of D&D by finally revealing the face of the warrior from the cover of the red box basic set. And it's a chunky black woman. Obviously, that is not what was intended. Even according to Larry Elmore, that is not what was intended, especially in the early 1980s. But that's what they're going with. Anyway, back to Brian Erso, right? So a book I backed finally came in. He says, and is making the original Dungeons and Dragons. So it's making of the original Dungeons and Dragons. The book is all the notes and early drafts that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and more compiled to make this legendary game. But when I got my copy, I noticed the forward was by two current employees of Wizards of the Coast. And then they're two forwards. They alleged that Gygax and Arneson and the originators of this awesome hobby at TSR were all racist and sexist. These two pricks who have created nothing of value have the audacity to allege Gygax and Arneson are sexist and racist because they're viewing their notes through the eyes of the 2024 Wizards of the Coast Marxist who is obsessed with identity politics. So I took those two pages and promptly destroyed them. The rest of the book is the notes of Gygax and Arneson and they're splendid. But I find it abhorrent that they got these notes from the surviving family members of Gygax and Arneson. Despite the trust they were given from the surviving members, they treated the creators with abhorrent accusations with little to no validity whatsoever. Fuck these activist classes. Fuck Wizards of the Coast. Just play first edition TSR forever. Yeah, they're ashamed of their history. They really are, and we've seen this time and time again that some corporation comes in and buys something that's popular that has become popular because of its audience. And then it proceeds to not only shit on the audience, but they also shit on the people that made the thing. How long until George Lucas is a racist or a misogynist? Oh, it's already kind of happening, isn't it? It's already kind of happening. They're like, well, Star Wars just wasn't progressive enough. They're running up women and people of color and Star Wars. And he had to correct them at Khan's Film Festival. Gygax is not here to defend himself. Walt Disney is not here to defend himself from these people. But this was what was in the book. I didn't pick this up because of this. I actually was looking into this book and Watson employees shot their mouths off and I'm like, hell no. So they're taught that this is basically a disclaimer. They have a sensitivity disclaimer, a trigger warning in the D&D 50 of the anniversary book. They sit with a few exceptions. Every page reproduced in this book is from a first printing with no attempt to correct the original pages. Some language in the first iteration of D&D presents a moral quandary. The documents reproduced in this book include many charts and tables, alongside a list of monster spells, magic items. But the game content also includes a virtual catalog of insensitive and derogatory language. Words that are casually hurtful to anyone with a physical or mental disability or who happened to be old fat. Wait, they can say that? Not conventionally attractive, indigenous, black or a woman. They can say fat. Some people have charitably ascribed this language to authors working from bad assumptions in the 70s, historical war gamers in America were predominantly white middle class men. It isn't surprising then that they would dub a class of soldiers the fighting man. But when in the pages of Greyhawk, the description of the queen of chaotic dragons, includes a dig at women's lib, the misogyny is revealed as a conscious choice. It's an unfortunate fact that women seldom appear in original D&D when they do, they're usually portrayed disrespectfully. Slavery appears in original D&D not as a human tragedy that devastated generations over centuries, but as a simple commercial transaction. The cultural appropriation of original D&D ranges from the bewildering, like naming every sixth level cleric, Alama, to the staggering gods, demigods and heroes, not reprinted in this book, includes game statistics for sacred figures revered by more than a billion people around the world, were players expected to fight Vishnu? Kill 'em and loot his plus three sort of demonsling, despite these shortcomings. D&D has always been a game about people choosing to be someone unlike themselves. What the fuck? So yeah, he ripped up toward out. Yeah, fuck that. White middle-class men, you are the problem. And one of the guys who is behind this is gone. Is it because somebody it has broke, decided that this has gone far enough, it's actually costing them money now. It's costing them money to be so woke it hurts, 'cause it's hurting their bottom line. And it's fake anyway, it was never real. You can complain about the orcs being racist stand-ins or whatever the hell you wanna do. But when you send the Pinkertons to a guy's house, because he opened the pack of cards early on YouTube, you got bigger issues. When you try to change the terms of the OGL, to steal everybody's shit, you've got bigger issues than whether or not the orcs, the orcs are racist stand-ins, racist caricatures, and this is a company, again, is ashamed of their history. It's not Hasbro's history. This is what's so infuriating about this. Same with Lucasfilm, same with all these corporations that buy these great things that lasted for decades prior to their corporate overlords buying them. You didn't build it, you didn't grow it. You didn't care for it in the decades but it wasn't a hot thing, it wasn't popular. You had no hand in making it. You just wanted to give it a makeover. And same with Star Wars, same with this, same with Star Trek. I guess Star Trek, to some extent, 'cause we're talking CBS or whatever, but a lot of people that are running it now have the same mentality, they're not Gene Rottenberry. Tolkien. I mean, they have no respect for what came before. We're running into this with Tolkien now. Tolkien is a racist, misogynist, homophobic, you know, whatever, and it's disgusting. It's these companies buy these things. They buy these things and they disrespect the creators in the process. And I think it's disgusting how I believe it's Watsy has gone out of their way in the last five to 10 years to try to throw Gary Gygax under the bus. You wouldn't have a game if it wasn't for him. There wouldn't be a Gen Con if it wasn't for him. Yeah, it's really, really disgusting. But yeah, white guys like me can't leave soon enough and you're out the damn door, Kyle Brink. So don't let that door hit you on the way out. I'm sure, I'm not being facetious. I am 100% sure this guy is going to land at one of these other tabletop gaming companies because they agree with his politics and they agree with the shit he's saying. But by his own admission, he should be gone from the industry, right? And make room for somebody else. I'm just saying, I'm going to wrap it up. Please subscribe. We'll talk later. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Thanks again for listening. More news and videos are available on our website at www.clownfishtv.com and on our YouTube channel, ClownfishTV. You can buy official merchandise, clownfish comic books and more at shopclownfish.com. If you like this show, please consider subscribing and leaving us a positive review on iTunes and other podcast platforms. If you're looking to help support this show financially, go to clownfishsupport.com. If you'd like to sponsor an episode of this show, send us an email at business@webrief.io. 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