I find myself being a lot more careful than usual this Black Friday, I usually toss dollars at a lot of indie creators, the problem I have now is stealth wokeness, which is becoming prevalent. Willow (module, probably the new movie too) for example is some woke shit but you only know that by analyzing the text, so I watched Ben Milton's weekly RPG giveaway and paused the video to analyze the contents.
So I'm thinking about what I can do to mitigate this issue. And it is a problem because wokeness is the natural enemy of quality in the same way censorship is the natural enemy of freedom of speech. The exact same way, come to think of it.
The first thing that springs to mind is to go check Exalted Funeral and if you can get it in print on there at any point in time ever, it's like 90% chance woke shit. There are exceptions mind you, but they are very few and far between. Best just to disregard anything they produce to save yourself potential wasted money. Yes I'm saying never buy from Exalted Funeral.
The second thing that springs to mind is trigger warnings. If there's more of a trigger warning on a product's page than "Mature content, reader discretion is advised." then you're probably looking at woke "mature" shit. This is even worse than usual wokeness because it's attempting to be transgressive wokeness, which is effectively impossible and produces the mildest shit. See Terrifier vs Terrifier 2 to see what I'm talking about. The first was produced with authorial intent and talent before money and Hollywood influence. The second was after. The horrific elements of the first were horrific, the second were comedic and goofy. The entire series has been destroyed by the encroachment of wokeness into the artist's brain. But that's what you get for having the balls to cut a naked girl in half with a hacksaw in a movie in this day and age. You will be twisted by the money and focus groups that comes from the sequel.
WotC has been nice enough to trigger warning all their old stuff, this is a good reminder to NOT GIVE WOTC ANY MONEY EVER. If you like something and/or are interested go to the aftermarket and get it from ebay or the like. WotC should never make a dime from someone pledged to the OSR.
The third thing is simple - short corebooks produced after 2015. While again there are exceptions, the woke brain can't actually produce anything worthwhile. If they're based on Knave, Maze Rats, Into the Odd, Electric Bastionland, The Black Hack, White Hack, Mork Borg, Index Card RPG, or fucking 5th edition they are definitely garbage. Six of these mother fucking woketards produced the incandescent turd that is Unconquered, a nearly 300-page game with equal completeness to the average FKR game somebody wrote in an afternoon after a day shift. If it's a game that's sub 100 pages I would heavily scrutinize it. And then avoid buying it either way because it's just another fucking coregame you'll never play. With apologies to John Stater, the only guy I know who's produced short coregames recently that aren't totally woke shit.
Last thing: if you note combative types in any artwork that are depicted as women, immediately disregard the work. Only woke morons put women in armor as the exemplary fighter/warrior type. The cover of Ironsworn should make you realize what you're getting into - complete trash. WFRP4 with all the riverwomen and depictions of cartoonishly fat bitches being a legit character choice someone would want to play in a RPG is an example. This is shit people who don't play RPGs think of. Should sound all the warning bells. Woke fuckers have no imagination, so obviously don't actually play RPGs in a way that's recognizable to the average gamer or even the average normie. It's all about representation and fucking shopping trips with them. Buying an imaginary house and decorating it. If it doesn't look like a gamer put it together, don't buy it.
Quick and dirty, at least I got this out before Cyber Monday.
