The manliest promo video ever: MEN, a game so FUCKING good it got us kicked out of Drivethru! Get your copy of MEN – the instant cult classic role-playing game by Dick Pound – from Lulu or Big Geek Emporium (it’s only $9.90 until the 27th):
Big Geek Emporium (pdf):
Lulu (print on demand):
If you find the game that kicked us out of DriveThruRPG too pricey, no problem. This weekend you can buy it at the censor-free shop Big Geek Emporium for a much more affordable price. Get your MEN now!
It’s #TwinPeaks Day! Have you heard about Welcome to St Cloud, the Twin Peaksiest role-playing scenario of them all (now with a brilliant cover by Jon “The Basic Expert” Torres? No? Well, today is the day! Get it at Big Geek Emporium:
MEN – The Manly RPG for Manly Men is now available for print at Lulu. Go check it out if you have the balls! (metaphorically speaking, if you don’t have them, you can still buy it).
Though the core book is not a new release, the Wretched Darkness line has just started with Welcome to St Cloud. Here’s a promo video for our horror/ dark urban fantasy game.
Until today we have refrained from contacting OneBookShelf; I saw no reason to waste time talking to them after being banned. However, since other people have emailed them and the official reply has been it was our attitude rather than “hostile marketing” or book content that got us banned, today I sent them the following:
Sir,
It came to my knowledge that several friends and customers have contacted you during the last few days. First of all, I would like to assure you that they did it of their own volition. Perhaps they are afraid a similar thing might happen to them (and they are probably right to fear it). I asked no one to reach out to you and would rather they didn’t. I know your decision was final, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. Unless the company changes hands, I have no wish to sell at Drivethru again.
Nevertheless, in your replies, you have insisted that the reason behind the Red Room’s banning from OneBookShelf wasn’t the content of the books and not even hostile marketing, but my aggressive behaviour towards your staff. However, you have yet to produce proof of that. Are you even aware if there is proof of aggressive behaviour? Or are you just trusting the word of (possibly) over-sensitive employees? I have already posted on my blog print screens of all my email contacts with your staff, and those who read them could find no trace of hostile behaviour in there. Also, I NEVER had any contact with your social media administrators. None at all, hostile or not. I didn’t even reply to this email at the time I received it because I assumed the “hostile marketing” was the reason for the ban. What constitutes hostile marketing is dubious enough to encompass a lot, and that includes some of my promotional posts, even though there was NEVER a first warning about it, as mentioned in your company’s guidelines. The only mention of “hostile marketing” from OneBookShelf came in your email of February 16, which I received at 7.51 PM, about an hour after the account had been already closed and my royalties transferred via Paypal. But those are just small details. I suppose OneBookShelve doesn’t really need a reason to ban a publisher, only an excuse…
So if you insist on claiming “aggressive, bordering on abusive” treatment, I would like to know where and when that happened and, please, provide concrete evidence of that. Otherwise, OneBookShelf is just slandering me without even clarifying what “bordering on abusive” means. It certainly doesn’t mean the same thing for you as it does for me, and I don’t think this is only related to cultural differences.
And the reply was the following:
Miguel,
As part of investigating what we initially considered a case of hostile marketing, we uncovered many Twitter and Facebooks posts as well as YouTube videos in which you and your partner have attacked, ridiculed, and insulted both DriveThruRPG and its staff over the past year. I will say that you have always seemed polite via email, which makes your demeanour elsewhere shocking by comparison. Your animosity was relegated to social media and thus previously seen largely by those few team members who manage our social media accounts.
You have demonstrated that you will not respect the confidentiality of any communications, so you can understand why I am not prepared to share any further details with you at this point.
(yes, he’s right, I do not respect the confidentiality of any communications. Fuck, I worked for a tabloid; they watch all of our videos, they should know that!)
I guess this is good news for all of your publishing through OneBookShelf/ Drivethru: As long as you don’t joke about them in public, you are probably safe! They can’t take jokes…
Now that you know, show you have a sense of humour and support us by buying at:
BIG GEEK EMPORIUM: https://biggeekemporium.com/?pr_author=redroom&wpf_fbv=1&all_products_filtering=1
LULU: https://www.lulu.com/search?contributor=Miguel+Ribeiro&adult_audience_rating=00
In the Adityan homeworld, The Cronos, an ancient power source, has awakened and disrupted from its slumber by events taking place far away on the remote desert planet Cha’alt. The Cronos will drag its Adityan Guards all the way across the galaxy and into the path of a group of scoundrels forcefully recruited to police the ass of the Galaxy – also known as the Outer Rim – as part of the Wretched Legion. Neither Adityans nor Legionaries are interested or prepared to save the Galaxy. First and foremost, they must survive the threats and treachery of Theta Blue, the most infamous space station in the system. This Wretched Space scenario was written for the Cha’alt Game Jam and it is the first episode for Wretched Cha’alt, a series of adventures mixing the two universes. EPIC! is inspired by Alpha Blue, and takes place mainly in Theta Blue, a wretched knock-off of the famous space brothel.
It’s not really a secret, but repeating it once more won’t hurt. You can now purchase our books in digital format at Big Geek Emporium:
…and you can buy hardcopies at Lulu
Since a lot of people are taking Drivethru’s accusations of hostile behaviour as a fact*, in this blog post we include the content of our emails directed at their Publisher Support Team.
*This is the statement from Scott Holden’s email about cancelling the Red Room’s account:
Miguel, we have tried our best to work with you for the past year, but your stance toward our company and your treatment of our social media administrators has always been aggressive, bordering on abusive. We will not tolerate it any further.
We’re certain that if you have taken Drivethru’s side so far, you will still not believe the Red Room, and assume that these emails are not the only contacts we had with them. Or you will consider these emails to be extremely hostile, bordering on abusive, in spite of the fact that they are NOT.
The first one is about the product description for Wretched Bastards containing the word “rape”.
Drivehtru’s email:
Our reply:
Drivethru’s Publisher Support email when Sexual Holocaust was “temporarily suspended”:
Our first reply:
Our second second reply, after they repeated the same thing:
Drivethru’s Publisher Support email when someone reported Wretchploitation Quickstart as offensive:
Our reply:
There were other reports from (two or three more), but Drivehtru only contacted me after the review was done, informing me that the product was briefly taken down while they conducted a review and was up again because they had found no harmful content or other infringement of their guidelines. I didn’t reply to those, so there’s no need to post them here. I didn’t reply to the latest email warning me that MEN has been taken down. Next, here’s a full list of my contacts with their social administrators during my entire life
…
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I never had any contact with their social media.
Now that I have wasted a bit of my time, keep believing Drivethru’s statements. They are on the Right Side of History, and I’m one of the Bad Guys, after all. Maybe you can ask them for proof of their claims. I’m sure they will not provide since they do not exist.
For those of you who support us:
Star Wretched!
