Reading this, you may or may not be aware that I, via Misfit Studios, recently organized a charity bundle on OneBookShelf to help raise money for RAICES, a nonprofit that helps with legal representation for illegal immigrants and refugees. (I can’t link to the charity bundle itself, as it has run its course and is no longer visible to the public.) The reason for doing so was to fund legal aid to help reunite families being separated at the southern US border, especially children on their own, without a parent or lawyer, facing a judge in immigration court. Given that the 14th Amendment of the US Consitution guarantees all people, regardless of citizenship status, fair due process while in American jurisdictions, I felt that helping aid those being denied this Constitutional right was a good thing.
Fortunately, a bunch of other great publishers felt the same and donated a lot of products to the charity bundle. At the end, over $700 USD in digital product had been added to the bundle.
(EDIT: I’ve finally received word from OneBookShelf about how much the charity netted. Turns out it was less than origianlly calculated because, due to a glitch, some of the charity bundles were not sold at the proper price. The amount of funds directed to the charity is $13,381.34 USD. Thanks, everyone! That’s an amazing accomplishment!)
Let the Shitposting of a Charity to Help Kids Begin!
Unfortunately, not everyone agreed that the charity bundle was a good cause.
When the charity bundle went live, I and other participating publishers set out to spread the word via social media and the like. Now, I can’t speak for what the other publishers encountered, but I immediately saw backlash. From people just giving their (negative) opinions of the cause the charity supported to people promising never to buy a Misfit Studios product for our role in the charity bundle, there was a lot of blowback.
Here are just some examples (note that the following were posted publicly, so retaining the account names in no way “outs” anyone — these people posted the attached comments to public digital spaces all on their own, for everyone to see):
(The following are just some of the comments left on the charity bundle’s product page. As it is no longer public, I can’t screen capture them but will post some of the email notifications I received as the publisher to give you an idea of some of the things posted.)
Derek W says:
Donated. I hope the money goes to building really nice big cages to house entire families of illegal alien invaders, and to a wall to keep them out so they don’t get separated from their precious little ninos in the first place.
Gregorio M says:
This is a scam. They say they are donating money to organizations who are working to get children reunited with arrested parents who are in jail. There is no way anyone is going to remove a child from a CPS-style housing situation and place them in a jail cell with an arrested parent.
Wayne R says:
Interjecting politics (and that is all this is) onto this commercial rpg site might not be a wise decision. DriveThruRPG might want to rethink their participation in such activities, and consider whether enough of their patrons really want their hobby politicized.
Jason P says:
So I came here to look at some old 2e Ravenloft titles, and find that DriveThruRPG is going to jump on the political bandwagon too huh? How original. It would be nice to be able to purchase a few titles from my youth without being subject to all the virtue signaling. Maybe Sir Hopesalot and the Beast can unite their powers in the form of a Cerebral Solar Angel and together mount their magical winged Unicorn (with a combined HD of 6+3, DAC:2) and soar the ethereal plane to rid the universe of the evil deplorables that have ravished our once harmonious land. When are company’s like this going to learn that some of us are Human Barbarians Alignment: Neutral? I’ve spent way, way too much $$$ here in the last few months anyways. DriveThruRPG, I just rolled a Nat 20/ Crit Hit on your A**! Hand over your character sheet! and go set up a go-fund-some-thing page if you want to pretend.
Matthew M says:
Amen. Supporting an organization like this is inherently political. Most of the “separation” of children from their families is being done by the parents themselves as a scheme to get into the US. If they came here legally, they wouldn’t get separated.
T. M says:
I see this has gotten a lot of commentary already. Let me add my voice of disapproval for bringing a politicized and virtue signaling product like this. There are many perspectives on the issues of the day, and many places for discussing whatever outrage-of-the-week. Thank you for reading.
Pierre S says:
Yeah, DriveThru claim to cater to diverse tastes, but they banned E. Reagan Wright’s old-school revival game SH**LORD: THE TRIGGERING, which pokes gentle fun at Social Justice Warriors and makes them monsters and stuff. (Author commentary: for those who don’t know, E. Reagan Wright also goes by the online name “The Alt-Right DM,” and has a number of publications, including a blog I won’t link to here, that posts all manner of (sometimes violent) opinions against immigrants, claims women “ruin everything” (specifically, the hobbies and other things ERW enjoys), and is generally just a horrible human being.)
There were also many posts along the lines of “don’t mix politics with role-playing games,” which didn’t surprise me on some levels but did on others. The charity bundle’s socialization very carefully addressed the problem itself and avoided mentioning (or hinting at) blame or finger pointing to any agency, administration, or political party. But people bring their own baggage, and so cries of “the Dems did it first!” and accusations of me hating on ICE and other law enforcement quickly followed. There were also plenty of positive and supportive responses, but (beyond the actual bundle purchases, which is what really mattered), they were outnumbered by the negative.
My responses were always measured — sometimes I purposefully insulted the poster and at other times I debated with them calmly and logically. How is the former measured, you ask? Because after quickly realizing some of the negative feedback the charity bundle would see, the social media marketer in me kicked in. I know that some negative feedback can be reasoned with and turned around, but other instances cannot. In the latter case, I instead opted to discredit the negative feedback and/or turn to humour to make use of it. By poking the bear, so to speak, the people behind the aggressive negative feedback became increasingly agitated, outrageous, and illogical. I then pointed my other social media channels at these people along the lines of “want to see horrible people in action? Follow this link.”
Why do this?
Because it made decent and compassionate people who are sympathetic to the charity aware of the sort of push back against it that existed. As a result, the more the people posting negative feedback got angry and vile (and sometimes just plain racist), the more social media traffic I could track from their posts and the more charity bundles we sold. In other words, I turned the negative feedback on itself so it helped the cause it sought to oppose.
But that didn’t mean the negative feedback stopped or disappeared. The people who posted it (and those who feel like them) are still out there in the world, being awful people, and supporting the sort of thing this cause is fighting against. In this particular instance, yes, this means encountering people who actually argue for putting young children in cages. Literally.
My Biggest Take Away from this Charity Bundle?
Helping people can be difficult. It can be exhausting. It can also be rewarding.
Despite spending many hours dealing with the blowback and striving to manipulate it into positive marketing, the end goal was a significant amount of money that will now help some kids and their families. No matter how hard I think the experience was for me having to deal with this crap (and the logistical nightmare of arranging the bundle to begin with), I didn’t lose sight of how that is nothing compared to what these kids and their parents are being put through.
It has to end. And we, the publishers who contributed product and the people who purchased the bundle or otherwise support the cause, need to end it.
This charity bundle may have run its course, but the problem still exists. And there are still people out there who are all too happy to have this horrific situation continue. They have to be stopped and the victims of their selfish nationalism helped.
We need to be the agents of the change we hope to see, and every person who helped with this charity bundle in any way needs to keep on fighting. Don’t let the people who try to shout down causes like this silence you for reasons of nationalism, zealotry disguised as patriotism, “us versus them” ideology, or the idea that something must be just simply because it is the law.
Thank you for reading this, and thank you to every publisher who helped with the charity bundle or spread the word, and to every person who purchased it. You’ve helped.
Steven Trustrum
Steven Trustrum has been writing in the RPG industry since the end of the '90s and publishing via Misfit Studios since 2003. Aside from writing and publishing role-playing game content, he ... dabbles ... in content and social media marketing.