Scandals In the Cottage

' the Hell is wrong with TSR people?
So like some guys bought the TSR company name because the other guys that bought it earlier didn't refile. Meanwhile, the newer guys, the Nu-Nu, don't have any control of the brands that have been produced using the TSR logo over the last few years. Star Frontiers is held by WOTC and given away with the logo attached because of authorship issues, while they sell the scenarios because the authors are known. Gangbusters ownership was sold a couple of years ago and is thriving using the BX model of its original rules. Top Secret has been produced by the older new guys, let's call them the NuToo, with its original TSR guy involved still. And we all know that they ain't touching Dungeon & Dragons.
So instead of starting with some NuNu products, possibly sneaking in some supplements of their own to the brands mentioned above to make some cash, they offer selling seats for sessions at a table with "legendary GMs." Then they start telling the TSR Fan Club to take down the TSR logo or else. Really? I bet they're planning on trying to shake down the creative people behind the named products for licensing fees next.
I suppose, I will be buying TSR next because whatever these dudes paid for the title, it's now not worth a Canadian dollar. Even Luke Gygax is distancing himself from the Nu Nu while his brother, Ernie, is either involved in the strategy above or is too timid to speak up and try to steer his new ship away from the shoals. I suppose they could sell seats to a duel, a death match even, between the Gygax Brothers to bolster their funds. To paraphrase a friend, how can a "company" shoot itself in the foot before they even try to produce a product?

Ken St. Andre won't fight racism, or not.
I am not sure what he was thinking, but apparently Ken got annoyed when someone on Twitter called on everybody to fight against racism after the murders to two people who were practicing Muslims in Canada. I didn't know about this until I read Scott Malthouse's blog post casting aside all Tunnels & Trolls because of its authors actions. I really don't know what to say here, but you know that I just have to.
It is a personal drama for me. These are two friends here.
I haven't been happy with Ken, one of the best game writers in the world, since he agreed with my assessment of the debacle that was Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls but wouldn't speak up or else the folks at Flying Buffalo wouldn't cut him in on the money they had garnered using his name. Then he tried to sell me some notes of his like he was a superstar and I was struck fanboy too bedazzled to not give him more money. But he's not racist and has been on the social change side of things since at least when he released Monsters! Monsters!. He'd even was the one to remove the Yassa-Massa (Charm Person) spell name from the rules system when he published the 7th edition because he believed, and I quote, "This sort of humor is wrong."
Heck, the man has been working with Mark Hunt and myself on Hunt's Gangbusters: BX material before all this happened. One scenario in particular, PCs get to disrupt a KKK rally and exposing its members publicly in the town that they try terrorize. 
Werdna, my nickname for Scott, got a lot of blow back for his stand. Mostly idiot froggies, that already got upset when his Perilous Lands featured a black person on the cover of the book. Still it wasn't fun to see him get derided for taking a stand on his own beliefs by folks just wanting to turn the whole into a Mexican soap opera while eating the soup their mother brought to the basement for them.
How do I feel? I already have been fighting against racism since the 80s so I am good there. I won't disavow St Andre because anybody who knows him knows he isn't a racist and really believes in peoples freedoms in their own lives. These two things should not contradict each other. Sadly, it is though when others live in a world where everything is a sales pitch disguised as ideology.
As I have T&T-compatible products out there, I can always say "Meh. I sell a game not the man." The folks at FBI have been trying to remove Ken St Andre for years any way. But I won't. To quote Malthouse, "it's his creation and has his DNA all over it."