Original D&D Designer Blasts Paizo Director's Comments Trying To Push Conservatives Out Of Gaming As "Anti-Social"
Paizo came under scrutiny after one of their game designers implied Republicans/conservatives should not be allowed to play their games. Now, Dungeons & Dragons creator Robert Kuntz and ACKs creator Alexander Macris have responded by welcoming all gamers to play their TTRPGs.
Much of the tabletop RPG industry has a woke mind virus problem, highlighted in 2024 when Dungeons & Dragons came into the public eye after Wizards of the Coast Senior Designer Jason Tondro penned a forward to a history of the game trashing the original founder, Gary Gygax.
Upon examination of D&D, gamers found the new edition to be pushing woke insanity such as BDSM safe wordplay, replacing “race” with “species,” and other ridiculous concepts such as humanizing Orcs and making them into Mexican culture.
Pathfinder from Paizo Games was always seen as a major alternative to Dungeons & Dragons, with the whole premise of the game being a reversion to edition 3.5 of the game when the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons upset players with radical changes to the gameplay.
Unfortunately, the company has historically been more woke than Wizards of the Coast, pushing extreme leftist identity politics for a long time through pronouns in their games and worse.
Paizo’s Director of Games Jason Bulmahn came to gamers’ attention when a post of his from the 2024 election went viral attacking J.D. Vance saying “If Vance has played Pathfinder, I want him to send his books back. No space for fascists in this game.”
The implication is that the vice president and everyone who supports him is a fascist, and shouldn’t be allowed to play Paizo games, an insane marketing move for his position in the company where half the company now feels ostracized and hated by the Paizo company.
Several gamers wrote to Paizo in protest, and the company and Jason Bulhman personally have been blocking players on X who are voicing their frustrations, adding fuel to the fire and the perception the company hates conservative gamers and doesn’t want them playing their games.
Original Dungeons & Dragons designer Robert J. Kuntz replied on the topic, saying, “No game company before TSR, TSR itself, and those after TSR up until this point, has EVER indicated that only select players are welcome to partake in and enjoy a game. Gaming is the last bastion in culture of the common folk; and to suggest that all folk are not welcome in a historically neutral social construct is as dangerous as it is perplexingly anti-social.”
As much as Paizo and companies like it love to signal that they’re “diverse and inclusive,” it becomes obvious that they don’t hold those values whatsoever when they’re attacking such a large portion of the country over their political persuasions. Kuntz understands that everyone should be able to have fun at the table together, something modern woke culture can’t grasp.
Kuntz is currently making books through Three Line Studio, with RPG rules and supplements he’s developed after working under D&D founder Gary Gygax.
Alexander Macris, a game designer famous for his ACKs system and Ascendant RPG, also chimed in on the topic, saying, “Gamers of all political persuasions are invited to play ACKS II! Whether you've sided with the Optimates or Populares, Blues or Greens, Guelphs or Ghibellines, Royalists or Parliamentarians, Jacobins or Girondins, Mugwumps or Stalwarts, you are welcome at my table.”
It appears as if the woke have overstepped once again in trying to exclude too many people from tabletop RPGs, and Paizo is paying a hefty public relations price when they could just apologize to gamers and ensure gaming is for everyone.
What do you think of the the responses to Paizo designer attacking conservatives? Leave a comment and let us know.
