Someone on TheRPGSite.com made a list or index of woke and apolitical companies on their forum. It's been making the rounds and getting some traction and according to the original poster is a 'living document' which will be updated.
[List] TTRPG Guide to Woke Companies
[List] TTRPG Guide to Woke Companies
Ocule said:Green
These are entities that have not engaged in any known anti-consumer behavior and generally have remained apolitical.
- Amarillo Design Bureau (Prime Directive RPG)
- Arion Games (Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e and Maelstrom)
- Autarch/ACKS
- Ben Laurence (Through Ultan's Door)
- BRW Games/Joseph Bloch (Adventures Dark and Deep) Strongly recommended on original thread, has taken an official stance to be apolitical Official Stance
- Columbia Games (Harnworld, Harnmaster, Block War Games) Aims for historical realism based on the medieval period.
- Tenkar's Tavern/Eric Tenkar (Blog and Community) A "neutral ground" for an rpg community. Had some drama a few years ago about getting something pulled from one book shelf for it's description having ACAB on it, which ruffled some feathers on the anti censorship side however he has contributed so much good to the hobby. He has produced a few supplements on DTRPG
- Far Future Enterprises (Traveller 5th Edition)
- For Gold and Glory Nothing
- Free League Publishing (Tales from the Loop, Symbaroum, Coriolis) Standard "Gaming is for everyone" spiel, but otherwise has not done anything
- Frog God Games (Swords and Wizardry) Had an all female printing of Swords and Wizardry. This book is apparently referred to as the Vagina Book in house, and they seem to have learned their lesson. New information says that they were not pandering but they greenlit a sales pitch from the team of authors and artists that worked on that book. The company and creator both seem pretty solid.
- Goblinoid Games (Labyrinth Lord)
- Greg Gillispe (Barrowmaze)
- Ice Crown Enterprise (Rollmaster, HARP)
- Immersive Ink (Delving Deeper)
- Kort'thalis Publishing/Venger Satanis (Alpha Blue, Cha'alt) Anti SJW, Strong stance on free speech
- Lamentations of the Flame Princess Edgelords, cannot be contained. They were on the receiving end of the cancel mob and twiterati for a while.
- Necrotic Gnome (Old School Essentials) Officially Apolitical
- Basic Fantasy Has asked to remain neutral and not get involved in politics or drama
- OSRIC
- Palladium (Rifts) Does what they have always done, make gonzo worlds
- Mongoose Games (Paranoia) Has a don’t be a dick section in Paranoia rpg
- North Wind Adventures (Astonishing Swordsman and Sorcerers of Hyperborea)
- Petersen Games (Cthulhu Mythos among others) They tried to cancel him for thinking that men shouldn't compete in women's sports. Seems like a genuinely nice dude
- Pinnacle Entertainment (Savage Worlds/Deadlands) Removed the CSA from Deadlands and removed a lot of the old art that might offend anyone particularly anything with partial nudity or more risque outfits. Allegedly made sure there weren't "too many white guys' ' in their core rulebook. Otherwise generally treat all of their customers with respect and strongly encourage 3rd party products and even allow them to keep all of their work as intellectual property.
- Post Mortem Studios (Tales of Gor, Punk RPG, Grimdark) Visit the storefront, can't imagine them giving a shit what people think
- Precis Intermedia (Genre Diversion System)
- Riot Minds (Trudvang, Lex Occultum)
- RPGPundit (Lion and Dragon, Arrows of Indra, Dark Albion): Authentic Historical games, doesn’t mix his political views in his products. Outspoken Anti-SJW, and advocate for free speech and expression.
- Sasquatch Studio (Primeval Thule)
- Seffner Games Owned by veterans and has stated that they wish to be apolitical. It's a new company with only a few supplements that are basic D&D compatible so far, so go check them out.
- Schwalb Entertainment (Shadow of the Demon Lord)
- Sine Nomine (Scarlet Heroes, Stars Without Number)
- Studio Agate (Shadows of Esteren) Had some trouble with timelines on fulfilling crowdfunding, however maintains good relations with fans.
- Swordfish Islands (The Dark of Hot Springs Island)
- The Design Mechanism (Mythras, Mythic Earth, Classic Fantasy) Created a humorous video that featured some known politicians and social figures as part of an indigogo campaign. The video was not well received and was taken down; they have remained firmly apolitical since.
- Troll Lord Games (Castles and Crusades/Amazing Adventures/Siege Engine) Supports vets with big discounts, regularly interacts with fans.
- TSR Hobbies Takes a stand to be pro free speech and anti censorship. This is the new incarnation of TSR headed by Justin La Nasa and Ernie Gygax.
- Whitebox (FMAG)
- WizardThiefFighter (Ultra Violet Grasslands)
Yellow
Entities in this section have engaged in some questionable behavior, taken a political stance that may have alienated some customers or preached in their products. Entities here have not caused any harm or engaged in anti-consumer behavior.
- Atlas Games (Ars Magica) President of Atlas-Games has total TDS and is another blue checkmark. Unsure of how badly it shows in their games. For now it's yellow bordering on red.
- Catalyst Game Labs (Shadowrun) Giving them the benefit of the doubt for now unless someone shows otherwise but this was posted last year Statement on Social Justice
- Chaosium (Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon) "Chaosium has Lynne Hardy who labelled Masks of Nyarlathotep as racist and therefore Larry DiTillo as racist also. She did this while acting as Chaosium's political commissar on the 7e version of Masks the results of which were BLM supporting additions and gender and race swapping NPCs to conform to woke quotas... In RuneQuest Glorantha they are progressively removing white people. At first the Pelorians were to remain pale but given recent artwork I doubt that. I think the only one that could still be white are Ygg Islanders who are a sort of Scandinavian people. But since the Opening of the seas most of them have left the island as Wolf Pirates and have now thoroughly mixed with other cultures. Cults (and game mechanics) have been rewritten to please the leftest females around Jeff Richards as well...growing Sandy Petersen under the bus on social media despite official response on this forum that Chaosium has people with wide ranging viewpoints that are supported by the company. What should tip them over is Pendragon 6e given that David Larkins is heading this up and there have been calls for all NPCS to be a 50%/50% gender split and it's a given that female knights will be mandated."-Gagarth
- Cubicle 7 (Age of Sigmar RPG, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition, Wrath and Glory, Adventures in Middle Earth) - Not as bad as the others on this list, they're definitely woke. Their art design generally shows it, having extremely odd choices for portraits in warhammer fantasy line and ignoring in world cultural practices like female dwarven artisans aren’t generally a thing. Ticks diversity checkboxes, pronouns in the bio. I haven't seen them harassing customers yet so that's a win.
- Edge Studios (Star Wars, Genesis RPG) Acquired all of FFG rpg line, they toe the standard line and employ quite a few hardcore post modernists
- Enworld (Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition) Tagline is "DIVERSITY. DEPTH. CHOICE" and amongst new classes it promises "A new approach to heritage; characters are a diverse lot" & "'Race’ separated into heritage and culture.” Unleashed Pitch fork mob on Ernie Gygax after interview with nu-TSR by poster.
- Fantasy Flight Games (Board Games, Star Wars RPG, Star Wars Legion, Legend of the 5 Rings 5th Edition) They gender and race swap established characters, ban words that they considered offensive like shouting “Banzai” before a TCG event, and generally allow people to take over the forums and run away with their trade dress etc. They don't constantly harass potential customers and tell them how much they hate them at least. They no longer produce RPGs or Star Wars Legion.
- Gallant Knight Games (Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells, the Tiny RPGs) Partnered with Diogo Nogueira. Has a strong relationship with Diogo as far as I know but I can't find examples of them actually doing anything wrong other than that.
- Goodman Games (Dungeon Crawl Classics) - Tried to protect itself by distancing itself from Judges Guild and donating to ADL. Other than that, I can't really find anything else on them. Praised BLM last year and donates to woke charities Charity Drive
- GURPs/Steve Jackson Games Signed October Surprise/Gamers for Hillary in 2020, which makes the stance official. However their products remain largely apolitical.
- Hero Games Hires sensitivity readers, otherwise hard to tell.
- Heroforge Miniatures They pander hard, are not overt about it but i'm sure they will do something stupid soon.
- Reaper Miniatures Had some drama about an employee getting into a fight with some antifa sympathizer. Read this and make up your own mind Accusation
- Talsorian Games (Cyberpunk 2020, Cyberpunk Red) They lean really heavily into IDIC (Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations) it's on their page rules. Lots of pronouns in bios, They haven't gone full crazy just yet. Mike Pondsmith, the owner, has been criticized by the cancel mob for not denouncing all cops and even being supportive of good cops.
- Uslisses Spiele (Torg, Fading Suns, Dark Eye, Adventuria, Myth) Robert Adducci is their community manager, and is pretty much everything you’d imagine from your standard though he’s a bit less actually vocal about it but he also ran Adventurers League for wizards of the coast. He gatekeeps pretty damn hard banning anyone who doesn’t toe the line of wokeness. GIven that he is Ulisses Spiele community manager I don’t doubt for a second he brings that attitude over. They also do a lot of work with people from other known companies, so I imagine they’re gonna fall somewhere in the middle. But don’t be surprised if they go full crazy in the near future. Employees - Ulisses Spiele (ulisses-us.com)
Red
Entities who are categorized as Red may have engaged in anti-consumer behavior, deceptive business practices, interfered with other creators or taken a strong political stance or alienated large portions of potential customers. This also includes actual racists or sexist entities. Let the buyer beware.
- Arc Dream Publishing (Delta Green) Delta Green Handlers guide has a whole section on Trump. They are actually more hostile to Trump than actual historical nazis.
- Arcanist Press Only make diversity products, they based their company on their politics
- Brittania Games (Chivalry & Sorcery, Land of the Rising Sun for 5e D&D) "... In this edition of the classic medieval fantasy game we have drawn on modern [i.e. Intersectional Marxist] research to present the Middle Ages as they really were; diverse and rich in cultural influences and visitors from outside Europe. If this does not reflect your vision of the Middle Ages, this is not the game for you." and "... In this edition of the classic medieval fantasy game we encourage you to break away from the bland white, male Middle Ages of yesteryear and make your game as rich and varied as the Middle Ages really were. If this does not reflect your vision of the Middle Ages, this is not the game for you” -Marxists automatically go here.
- BurningWheelHQ/Luke Crane (Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Mouseguard) It was painful to put this one here because I remember I sort of enjoyed reading burning wheel back when Burning Wheel Gold first came out, it had some interesting ideas however I cannot ignore the fact that Luke Crane and his company have extremely close ties with Anita Sarkeesian (Feminist Frequency). You can find their selfies together online, as well as a report of her position being official on their old forums and any support of gamergate was forbidden. If you’re a masochist here is a link however the old forums are gone and there is no link to the original post however you can easily find the interview with anita on youtube with Luke Crane.
- Evil Beagle Games/Sean Patrick Fannon Evil Beagle “Games is dedicated to the principles of Inclusivity, Diversity, Representation, and Kindness in the gaming community.” and went rambling on about critical race theory being a driving factor. Asked to be on this list as red. Also SPF has accusations of sexual harassment, see here
- Evil Hat Productions/Fred Hicks (FATE RPG, Swords in the Dark)- Another poster child for woke gaming. Embedded in everything from their forums, to their products and staff. Also produces Thirsty Sword Lesbians with Gay Spaceship Games. Has gotten products pulled from one bookshelf, and tried to deplatform others. Has official stances on politics and must be intersectional feminist to play his games. Openly tells you if you don't like their politics don't buy their games. Too easy
- Gencon A convention, but honorary assholes nonetheless. They go a bit ban happy, see Jeremy Hambley and the whole thing with "nu-tsr" despite being short lived. Jeremy Hambly AKA The Quartering on youtube was assaulted by someone at Gencon, and banned for being the victim of a crime at the wrong place at the wrong time. It was founded by Peter Atkinson, former president of Wizards of the Coast.
- Green Ronin (Blue Rose, Song of Ice and Fire RPG, Dragon Age RPG) - Chris Pramas is a self described member of ANTIFA Link (see his bio on twitter), has a vitriolic hatred for white people, and his products reflect this. Publishes "Blue Rose", the gay RPG. Proto SJWs, they were making political statements in their games before anyone else was.
- Grim and Perilous Games (Zweihander, Flames of Freedom) Freakin Dumpster Fire, Official discord and forums heavily enforce Daniel fox’s politics down to having a bot that blocks any message using banned words. A bunch of names are on that list. Flames of Freedom openly preaches against colonialism and white people, and has a heavy dose of historical revisionism, which is a fair critique of a supposed historical setting. Has allegedly stated if you are anti sjw or anti woke that you do not buy or play his games and will pay you for your copy. Also allegedly a self described “anarcho communist” both of these need citations but based on my own interactions and findings seem like reasonable assumptions
- Judges Guild (Bob Bledsaw II) Anti Semitism, see Judges Guild Controversy
- Kobold Press Chapter 2 of “Guide to Gamemastering” has a whole section telling the reader to "check your privilege" and the whole thing kind of reads like a gender studies course or something. Actively disparages cis white males. Also known to charge writers for the chance to write for them, and then prides themselves on paying them a penny per word.
- Magpie Games (Avatar Legends RPG) Way into BLM and "Diversity and Inclusion, also hired Daniel Kwan from Asians Represent Youtube channel. They tried to get Oriental Adventures banned from one bookshelf and other storefronts. Market their game as non western storytelling.
- Modiphius (Infinity, Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition, Fallout RPG, Conan etc) Publishes some woke products, and feminizes Conan the Barbarian. Allegedly hires based on race. THese are also the current license holders for vampire the masquerade, which has been a trip to keep up with. See this Changes to Conan the Wanderer
- Monkey House Games/Jeff Dee: Enormous asshole and activist. If you are republican or conservative or Christian this hates you.
- Monte Cook Games (Numenera) Partners with Shanna Germain and wrote consent in gaming. Anything with Germain's fingers on it is automatically red
- MyFarog/Varg Vikerness Owns the blog Thulean Perspective, did time for murder, self described Neo Nazi, regularly posts anti semetic remarks. There is a good case to be made for these ideas to be actually in his game as well.
- Ockult Ortmastare Games/Stockholm Cartell (Mork Borg) - Uses OGL to shoot down authors they disagree with. Supports BLM and bailing out rioters. View their License for yourself but we need some concrete examples of them actually using this Mork Borg 3rd Party License
- Old Skull Publishing/Diogo Nogueira (Sharp Swords and Sinister Spells) Was previously placed here for an unsubstantiated rumor, however has expressed a strong desire to remain in this category due to a strong feeling to those who don’t specifically share his views. Keeps close relationships with self described communists as well. It’s public on his twitter feed.
- Onyx Path Publishing (Chronicles of Darkness) Heavily enforces political requirements in their communities, games are full of post modernist and leftist themes and preaching to no end.
- Paizo (Pathfinder)- Has whole pages in their books telling you how you must play their game and be inclusive. Harasses customers, aggressively moderates forums against anyone to the right of stalin, Retconned Golarion lore to be more inclusive, starfinder even had an adventure where you needed to get a professor at a university to apologize for being insensitive despite being factually correct. No lie, first adventure path. Another AP for Pathfinder showed all men as incompetent, read like a tumblr blog and all the women were super powerful and if you didnt bring the black, lesbian, disabled ranger with you then you automatically lost. Iron Gods or something like that.
- Pelgrane Press (13th Age) "The thing about SWGs (Straight White Guys) is that they make great punching bags. " Still need a citation for this but for now it's going red. Also published #Feminism
- Renegade Game Studios (Vampire the Masquerade 5e) I believe these guys are the current name of who owns VtM. Not sure where to start with these guys, nonstop preaching, large chunks of their books will be ranting about fascists, right wing, and pretty much everyone they disagree with.
- Roll20 (Virtual Tabletop) Strongly supports BLM and woke titles, participates in fund raisers for those causes. Also refused to sponsor a live play by taking20, dawnforged cast and a few others because they "didn't need any more straight white guys." Not sponsering the video isn't the problem here, it's their reason is racist as fuck
- Sigil Stone Publishing (Five Torches Deep) Just read the last page in FTD Origins. Titled: "BIOESSENTIALISM, RACISM, AND COLONIALISM
Stygian Fox (The Things We Leave Behind, Occams Razor, New Tales of the Miskatonic Valley) A transgender owner and fully inclusive team including a sexual and bisexuals. Hires favouring trans, people of colour, IDIC, and other minorities. Each book contains a trigger warning system and most covers has 'for mature gamers'. Produces Lovecraftian horror roleplaying books and often makes statements via twitter of inclusivity and stating 'if you're not like us, don't buy our books'. Definitely Red. Almost infra red. 'Woke' AF.- Tuesday Knight Games (Mothership RPG) Published the Dissident Whispers Zine the proceeds of which went directly to bailing out BLM rioters. Has threatened violence against people they disagree with.
- Wizards of the Coast (Dungeons and Dragons) - Harasses customers, diversity checkboxes, hires based on race, pedo judges, bans anyone they disagree with on social issues from all sanctioned events. True dumpster fire.
