A Response To The Daniel Fox Interview

The only thing I can definitively recall about Daniel Fox is that he is a wokist who pinched out a lackluster and politically correct Warhammer Fantasy derivative many years ago, and was also blocked at TheRPGSite of all places for I'm pretty sure shilling waaay too much (even by Pundit's standards).

These underachievements aside there are also various rumors, such as the source of his money and contacts, as well as something about using freebies and discounts on DriveThru to game the system and keep his shallow shit plastered on the front page for as long as possible (which I think even caused DriveThru to change how that all works to mitigate future abuse), but to his benefit these incidents and statements have all been muddied or even lost over time, so it's been difficult to dig up any concrete facts.

And try I did: there are multiple threads on TheRPGSite concerning his behavior, but every external link I found that would have presumably led to content supporting one claim or another was gone. Even content that was seemingly archived was removed or deleted. Fortunately, this time around every stupid thing he says will be more or less immortalized in video format, though I'm going to download it anyway. You know, just to be safe.

The topic of piracy crops up around 14 minutes in. Dan says something about taking money from designers and preventing them from putting food on the table, which I find amusing because very few...well, let's say "people that make digital things that happen to have game-related words in them" do this as a primary or even meaningful source of income, and most of the people that Dan could ideologically relate to live with their parents or constantly e-beg, so it would be more accurate to say that you're maybe depriving them of overpriced coffee money.

Even so, despite Dan saying that piracy is a "complex" topic it's really not. If you make something people shouldn't be able to just steal it because they're "too poor" or, something I've found to be much more common, it's overpriced vapidware trash. As with video games and movies, I've almost completely stopped buying because the overwhelming majority is merely woke shit heaped on top of standard-grade shit, so why would you even waste your time and bandwidth stealing it?

Ryan states that if creators can't get paid they will cease to create and do something else. This isn't universally true. Creators whose primary impetus is money will stop, but people like myself, my wife, and my kids, who feel a need to put our thoughts to paper, processor, and/or digital canvas will do so regardless of any compensation (I think the guy that does Basic Fantasy gives away all his stuff for free). It's certainly nice, but not required. 

Something I do agree with Ryan on is that the "new blood" of gamers, which would be more accurately described as hobby tourists that don't actually game at all, are so entitled that they think everything should be handed to them, even though they won't do anything with it even if they could be bothered to log out of social media long enough to watch a YouTube video on how to use it.

Dan suggests that the "younger generation" might pirate PDFs because they don't have the disposable income that older people do, which I find hilariously out of touch because I know a lot of older people that don't have much disposable income. Hell, Kyle has stated on the show multiple times that he is selling blood plasma for some extra cash.

Ryan's response is to "work harder", which is certainly true, but given a lot of the younger generation that I used to interact with, I'd say work, period, because while they might lament being poor none of them could be bothered to lift a finger to get something even loosely resembling a job, probably because part of that entitlement is that they believe they deserve high-paying jobs where they don't have to do much, if anything, despite having no motivation, skills, talents, or experience.

Another bit of advice I would give is to stop pissing away your parents' money on stupid shit, like streaming services, DoorDash, food that is overpriced even when you can be bothered to step away from social media for a bit to get it yourself, junk food in general, and simping for e-girls and other hobby tourists pretending to be players and/or game designers.

They both mentioned giving away free PDFs when asked. I've done it without asking, just to random people on a whim, though a good way is to offer up an actual review in exchange: Melissa and I like to hear what you don't like about our stuff, so we can improve upon it in the future.

Unsurprising that Dan is a believer of Session 0, which is an utterly retarded and pointless concept, and "player agency", which just means players not wanting specific bad things to happen to their character, such as briefly losing fingers and eyes due to regeneration, being stunned for a round, or dying without permission (even though like missing limbs and parts it's generally a speedbump). I'm also not surprised that he has warmed up to James Desborough after he left Inappropriate Characters over "covid protocols", given that he compared not wearing a mask that didn't do anything anyway to walking into a mall with a gun and shooting in random directions.

Finally, at 25 minutes Ryan brings up this tweet (which I screencapped from the video):

Dan response is to attempt to frame it as "just a prank, bro", while rambling about Cracked and Mad Magazine:

"I remember uh when this when this post came out axios and I was thinking what how this feels almost like a farce. It almost feels like satire. I was I was reminded of kind of the absurdity of Mad Magazine at the point a longtime reader of Mad Magazine and Cracked as a kid and I was like all right I'm gonna post something just completely backwards like and I'm I'm curious to see people will react."

Dan is yet again being disingenuous, not that you would or even could expect anything more of him, attempting to conflate selling a product as-is to people he does not completely align with politically (though he would probably not get along with, anyway), with opportunistic degenerates attempting to force someone to use their artistic skills and talents to create something from scratch specifically when it goes against their religious beliefs. 

The whole bit is almost as hilarious as watching Ryan's face while Dan tries to push this bullshit excuse, and he eventually cuts him off with a simple question:

"Where's the punchline?"

Ryan is clearly trying to be polite and probably trying to avoid Dan just flipping his shit and leaving the interview early, but all Dan does is nod, chuckle, and state that it was "probably not a good thing to post", not that I believe that he believes that. No, I think that he was completely serious at the time, and did so in a pathetic attempt to virtue signal for sales and attention, which is also not what I'd expect from someone confident in his product and financially successful. Rather, it reeks of desperation.

Leading credence to this theory is that he then feigns surprise at this Amazon sales allegedly "skyrocketing", however he defines it. But I've known several indie creators to lie about their success and income before, and while I can't say for certain how much Dan might be exaggerating I wholeheartedly believe that money was both the desired and expected outcome.

Dan goes on to elaborate that he felt "really terrible about it" because he "offended people that he trusts and knows and loves". First, I don't think he felt bad at all, nor do I think he feels bad now. Second, I don't think he is capable of loving anyone, not even himself, which is largely what fuels his behavior. He also claims that this post is why he left twitter, and while I can believe this, that he left twitter, I think it's more that it was due to a wounded ego, as opposed to suddenly realizing that social media is terrible for most people.

Which, it is, but people like Dan are narcissists and this is why they "live" online doing anything and everything they can to farm attention.

At 34 minutes Dan says that, while he doesn't think there's a massive group of Nazis--ie, people that he and wokists like him just don't completely agree with--in the hobby, he also doesn't think that there's a bunch of SJWs trying to gatekeep conservatives, which I find amusing because while he is spouting this brand of utter fucking nonsense Ryan has this tweet displayed for everyone to see, including Dan:

While it's all well and good that Dan pulled his head out of his own ass long enough for the interview, if he bothered to look around he could see plenty of other evidence beyond this: just look at what WokeC and Paizo are doing, and even the very recent Sweet Baby Inc controversy. Anyway, when the tweet is pointed out Dan just rambles on for a few minutes, but at no point admits that what Tanner said is wrong or harmful, not that I expected him to. What I did expect is for the conversation to shift at some point to cultural appropriation, which happens at around 39 minutes.

In case you're somehow unaware, this is an arbitrary term that SJWs invented in order to try and prevent white people, and only white people, from interacting with other cultures in any capacity. This can mean preparing and/or consuming food that they believe--sometimes mistakenly--to "belong" to another culture, wearing certain clothes, and even styling your hair a certain way, but given my actual passion for actual game design I typically witness it as a means of stopping white people from creating game material even potentially, loosely inspired by another culture.

The lie is that cultural appropriation will somehow "take away" from another culture, and perpetuate incorrect beliefs and/or "harmful" stereotypes, but really it's about some combination of control, money, attention, and jealousy, because generally you just have to pay certain people to give you the okay, tuck their name in the credits, praise them on social media for merely existing, and you're probably good to go...at least until they invent some reason to throw you under the bus, anyway.

Around 42 minutes Dan asks:

"Is it right for someone like myself to be able to write a supplement like this?"

Yes. Absolutely, unequivocally yes, and the only ones telling you you can't, or that you need special permission from some arbitrary authority, are lazy, untalented woke losers that want to impede or extort you, or both. And the extortion doesn't have to be money: sometimes it's a "guy of asian descent" that, despite a complete lack of qualifications and never leaving the States, wants you to pay him to write shallow material for a book that he has no business contributing to.

It might come as a shock to Dan, but asians, indians, and other "minorities" don't possess magical blood that instinctively imparts upon them racial memories and cultural information. A Japanese guy doesn't pop out of the womb knowing the Japanese language, Japanese mythology, history, religion, culture, martial arts, etc. He has to learn it like everyone else, which is something that anyone with sufficient intelligence and desire can do.

"...because I want to do it right."

Which, again, anyone can do by simply doing the research. That's what we did for our Oriental Dungeons & Delvers supplement. It's not 100% accurate to, well, anything, because it doesn't need to be and due to conflicting myths and translating it all to game mechanics that would be virtually impossible, anyway. Instead, we took elements that we thought were neat, chose the ones we liked the most where they contradicted each other, and changed thing that we didn't like. 

Which is fine, because actual Japanese people that actually live in Japan do this as well.

"At the end of the day and I say do it right not about it's not about like getting sensitivity readers you know to check off the box to say hey white man you've done it right."

Except this is precisely what Dan and other white woke cowards like him do, pissing away money on sensitivity readers and consultants to give you approval, to ideally, hopefully shield you from frankly meaningless criticism. They're utterly terrified of being "cancelled" by self-proclaimed professionals with self-diagnosed disorders and self-inflicted issues, who don't really give a fuck about the hobby, and so submit and perform all of the necessary humiliation rituals demanded by these other racist grifters whose only concern is getting their nebulous "protection" cut without offering anything of value, not that they ever could.

"...finding the right people to write it and I just couldn't find the right people."

Dan or anyone could have just done the research themselves, but he's lazy and untalented, and knows that if he were to somehow muster up the energy to even bother trying would get labeled a culturally appropriating racist by all the other racists.

Around 45 minutes Ryan essentially asks if you need a guy who possesses magical asian blood to write a book with asian and/or asian-themed content. Daniel predictably begins his noncommittal response with "it's complicated" even though it isn't, before claiming that there are "a number of asian RPG writers who get passed over" by both WotC and Paizo. Ryan asks whether this is because they're asian or because they're shit.

Now, we know what the answer is. Dan knows what the answer is, he's just not "allowed" to say it, because he is a dishonest coward and the number one rule of the woke religion is complete submission and conformity, at least in word and action. You can think whatever you want, and I'm sure in many cases their thoughts come nowhere close to aligning with their deeds, you just have to stay in line and keep pushing the woke narrative.

"...I feel in the RPG industry which I think is the barriers are breaking down, has nothing to do with identity..."

It has everything to do with identity, just not in the way Dan is implying: identity is how these untalented, mentally ill hacks get hired in the first place. However, something I noted was that while Dan accuses WokeC and Paizo of not hiring asians he never suggests that this is due to ethnicity, but given that these are two major companies that people like to shit on for even imagined reasons I would think that someone at some point would have openly accused WokeC of racists hiring practices, unless they weren't hiring white people because as we all know it's okay to discriminate against the evil whiteys.

But that just leaves us with them not being hired because they're unqualified, which I also don't think is correct because both WokeC and Paizo hire people that aren't qualified all the time (even Dan admits to this later on). So I just think Dan is also lying about this: WokeC has engaged in racist hiring practices before, so in their defense at this point, even after firing so many people, they probably still have more than enough unqualified, mentally ill, pronouning minorities on their payroll.

"...I think it has to do with bringing in new blood and new writers into the industry..."

Writers whose only qualifications are skin color and mental illnesses.

"I think that um the is a little bit off topic but I think that at least up until about like five years ago uh there there was a very small cluster of writers who wrote everything for D&D yes um and that and that has changed..."

While I think that many of the older writers weren't very good, I'd say overall this change has been for the worse. Just check the D&D sales and reception over the past several years.

"I'm not a big fan of fifth edition however I do respect um the direction they've went with bringing new voices into the room..."

Because, as I just hinted at, it's worked out so well for WokeC, hasn't it? Hiring people solely on meaningless traits such as race, mental illnesses, haircuts, and who or what they want to fuck.

"I think that it's also equally difficult um and I don't have this experience I'm not Asian I don't come from that culture..."

Neither did Daniel Kwan. But then it doesn't matter if you "come from" a culture: if you understand it, you can write about and for it.

"...and that's not just a culture it's it's not a monocultural multiple cultures and what have I have heard from people who I respect and trust who um come from different cultures they say you know Oriental Adventures is harmful to me..."

I would love to know how it is "harmful". Or, more accurately, how they are bending over backwards to pretend that it's harmful. Because, yeah, I know they're liars: I just want to hear the bullshit they'd try to come up with.

"...and I'm like well I don't understand that because I don't have that experience..."

Dan doesn't understand it because on some level he knows it doesn't make any sense. He just can't say this because he's an ideological coward.

"...but I'm going to trust in your judgment."

Because you're not only also a lying, racist grifter, but also a coward. You could have called them out, asked for an explanation, but you didn't because first of all you knew there wasn't one. Second, and this is far more important, in accordance to your woke religion you know the consequences of stepping out of line, and since you're a narcissistic coward you won't unless at some point you become financially secure enough that you can afford to pull a 180 on your fellow ideologues, maybe have a change of faith and pretend that you were against them the entire time.

You just gotta hope that you can make the first move before it happens to you.

"So um this kind of brings us back to where get the question started is like do you need a project manager to lead that I think the answer is probably yes..."

No one asked if you need a project manager to lead a project. But the answer is no, you don't need one. One may be useful, depending on the size and scope, but it's not required.

"...but with the caveat that that person has to be um understand uh to be a good writer I think foremost."

A good writer and non-white, of course, because how could an evil colonizer ever hope to read about asian history and mythology and possibly understand any of it? No, he apparently needs that magical minority blood to impart upon him...something, I guess.

"...um second to to do to to bring that history whatever it may be in the game to to bring to bring it to fruition by understanding the history."

I know I've mentioned magical blood several times but I'm sorry to say that, sadly, it's not a real thing, and anyone can learn the history and culture.

"I think those things are important..."

They aren't, and you know they aren't because you can't even begin to explain why they are, but your ideology requires you to utter this lie and so you do.

"...um I I don't know like I probably had a very different perspective when I was younger..."

One part of this is because when you were younger you weren't exposed to woke ideology. You might have also been a more honest person then, not largely motivated by greed and attention.

"...when I never thought about like writing RPGs like I remember being a kid and being like Oriental Adventures is awesome I love big trouble little China like this is like my favorite film like I want to do this at the game table and it's there's nothing wrong with it when you do at your game table."

There's nothing wrong with that in general, and you know this because you are unable to explain why it's only okay "at your game table". However, you don't even believe this because you were wanting to ban people that don't completely align with your degeneracy from buying your vapidware trash.

At 48 minutes Ryan brings up an important distinction between publishing something that is attempting or at least claiming to be historically accurate to some degree, or something that is merely influenced by this or that culture. This distinction is only important in the context of what you're trying to create. As in, if you're billing something as a historically accurate whatever, then I expect it to be historically accurate. If not, then it doesn't really matter, though in neither case do you need to have magical minority blood in order to produce it.

Around the 50 minute mark Dan poses a question:

"...My son loves Dragon Ball Z all right so he runs in his Dragon Ball Z pajamas is he culturally appropriating..."

No, because cultural appropriate isn't an actual thing.

"...the answer is no no um he has no concept at this point of like right you know like of of of any of the the the cultural sensitivity around this..."

Just because you believe that cultural appropriation is real, doesn't make it real.

"However um you know when I talk to people who what you know in the industry who are who are uh Japanese who may be Korean um who are Filipino and I say um is this appropriation the answer is well you're pretending to be me it feels like cultural blackface..."

What disingenuous Dan doesn't want to say is that when he asks his fellow mentally ill, narcissistic race hustlers who stand to benefit from the bullshit cultural appropriation narrative, they of course say it's real. Additionally, note the part of their response where they say "you're pretending to be me". No, we're not. No one is. First off, I doubt any of these people have any relation to "their culture" beyond magic minority blood, but even if they did they are not the culture. They are merely people that possess an understanding of it.

"And and I have and I have to respect where they come from because I don't have that experience..."

I to do not have the experience of being able to declare anyone that doesn't like me as a racist, or getting college grants due to race, or getting hired for a job I'm wholly unqualified for due to race. 

"I don't know what it means to grow up in America being you know of a being of a minority um group I don't have that perspective so um I have to trust that they know what they're talking about um and in publishing especially I think I think..."

Given all the free stuff and being able to get away with even murder sometimes that sounds like a pretty sweet deal...well, not to me, I like working for what I have, but I'm sure to a lot of people it's a pretty sweet deal.

However, you don't have to trust what they're talking about, and you shouldn't. If some guy who just so happens to be of asian decent but doesn't even have a surface level understanding of any specific part of whatever the fuck he defines as "asian" culture? Okay: how? Because if I crack open Oriental Adventures it's to play a samuari, and not some whingy race hustling, privileged narcissist who was born and raised in America.

"It's incredibly important to listen to those voices in the room..."

No, it's not. The only voices you should listen to when writing an oriental-themed supplement are people who possess the information you need.

"So this turned into this like massive 30 person writing team..."

Thirty people to do the work that one person could have easily done. Dan is so smart.

"Where I managed to gather um a number of indigenous writers RPG writers who had never written RPGs before..."

Okay, so diversity indians who aren't RPG writers at all. Again, Dan is so smart.

"Uh who could write about the specific tribes mentioned inside of it."

Ah so apparently, according to Dan, indian blood can also magically convey information that apparently doesn't exist anywhere else. Or maybe it's that the indians had to go into their sweat lodges to commune with their ancestors for information that couldn't be gleaned elsewhere? Gotta bang on their drums and commune with the spirits, is that it?

"Um so it brought it to me it made the game richer..."

Not any richer if than if you had anyone else do some basic research. Actually, given that you paid 30 grifters for work that they weren't even qualified to perform, it sounds like it just made you poorer. 

"So I think that you know if if we would have worked for with Tetsubo um you know if we had people who understood the culture were of the culture could write about the culture and that experience um it would have been a great..."

Anyone can understand a culture. Skin color and ethnicity are irrelevant, and again blood doesn't and cannot magically impart knowledge. Additionally, minorities are not part of some hive mind, so they dont' all think and act the same, nor is there a "universal" asian experience (or black, indian, etc), so you can't just pluck some random asian off the streets to write whatever the fuck you think that might be.

"But I didn't feel confident at the time that uh that I could do it alone and that I could find the right people for it."

Wait, you mean you couldn't find another batch of thirty unqualified racist grifters? Why not just rehire the indians? They aren't white so it should be okay, yeah? Maybe just hire one they/theming check box and pay zim as if ze was thirty dipshits?

"If you look at the publisher market and I'm not talking about RPG publishing talk about book publishing in general every book publisher and president of publishing will tell you you know we have to be considerate of our audience who's our readership and will that readership buy this book."

I don't believe this, because we've seen numerous times publishers pushing messages that get rejected by the public (resulting in hilarious pathetic damage control articles). Hell, how many have admitted that they are doing or changing this or that purely to aggravate the fans, to exclude straight white people? This is why comics, movies, and many games have been failing for years.

If publishers were honest and solely interested in money, they wouldn't continue to behave in this manner. But wokists have largely taken over, and they're only interested in pushing a false narrative and degeneracy. It's why they change up women to look like troons, and make everyone and thing gay and lame.

"Um this is why I think that we've seen this massive swing online in particular with um D&D studio uh toward how what D&D looks like today."

Hahahahahahahaha. 

"Um it's not a a bad thing..."

Oh it's an incredibly bad thing, both for the hobby and the pockets of woke companies.

"It's just the way that this just the way that publishers work."

Yeah, it's the way that it is when woke ideology infects major companies and tries to push degeneracy. Even Ryan knows that this is bullshit, responding with:

"How's that working out for their book sales Dan?"

Disingenuous Dan then tries to run damage control:

"Well it's funny you should mention that because I have access to the data that shows D&D sales have been in decline..."

"...but I don't think it's because of that um I think it's because they're at the end of their product life cycle..."

Riiight, it can't possibly be because WokeC gayed everything up and then hired a bunch of unqualified check box grifters to pinch out gems like Radiant Citadel. Dan also tries to chalk it up to a new edition just over the horizon, even though sales have been in decline well before that was announced, but luckily Ryan yet again calls him out on his bullshit:

"Oh really really they could have printed three five forever and I'm not a fan of 35 I'm not a fan of 3.5 at all. I don't buy the life cycle on this one."

Maybe not forever, but for quite awhile longer, especially if they spread releases out a bit more and republished older settings. Would have been great to get an official 3rd Edition Dark Sun. Ah, well.

"I have a lot of dear friends who work at D&D um and and I am a product manager at the end of the day like that's where that's my background that's where I come from."

Which means nothing, as plenty of people hold jobs that they aren't qualified for. Hell, Dan admitted to hiring thirty people to do a job they weren't qualified for. Dan also has lied in this interview, has every reason to push a false narrative, and offers no evidence, so why the fuck would you believe him at this point?

After this the conversation kind of peters out. Ryan theorizes as to whether the decline in D&D is intentional, Kyle asks if Dan has ever doxxed someone, Dan gives a very carefully, weasel-wordy response so that if anyone later points out how he in fact did he can just shrug and say something like that he never said he didn't, he just "didn't remember", and eventually they get into talking about his revised woke derivative trash game.