Not to dunk on this person specifically, but to point to a larger issue:

See how absolutely *reflexive* it was to center D&D in RPG news? D&D isn't just a more successful game, it's building a cultural monopoly that actively harms/excludes other creators, esp marginalized ones. https://twitter.com/claudiopozas/status/1317569494089347072

It's not just that they're another shitty corporation who maybe shouldn't get your entertainment dollars.

They've also sculpted their fanbase to default to D&D whenever they think or talk about RPGs. They take the oxygen out of the room, and use their fans to do it.

It keeps becoming more and more normalized to respond to every gaming desire with "How can I do this in D&D?" instead of "What game lets me do this?"

And it's becoming normalized to treat any pushback as "gatekeeping."

THIS IS WHY PPL ASKING YOU TO TRY OTHER GAMES ARE IRRITABLE

Like, the author of the quoted tweet said they thought Into the Motherlands was "a setting".

Meaning a setting for D&D.

Because D&D culture says anything in the RPG sphere is an add-on to D&D. That's the default assumption. It's becoming a damn *worldview*.

And every time somebody takes something very not-D&D and makes it an add-on to D&D, they help build that fortress.

The fortress that keeps other games OUT of the conversation by default. Such as the game that tweet was originally about.

You wanna make an RPG about, say, fairies in the park playing with dogs w/o being seen by humans?

Great!

IT DOESN'T NEED TO BE D&D.

When you make it D&D anyway, you reinforce the unspoken cultural tentpole that D&D is for everything and everything is for D&D.

Note that I'm not talking about representation. If you want to work within D&D and try to make it stop excluding marginalized people, that's a whole different thing.

But "people who like genre X" is not a marginalized group, and your hamfisted D&D mod isn't an inclusion effort.

So when you take your game idea and playdoh-smash it into the D&D box instead of doing literally ANYTHING else with it, you're helping reinforce the all-D&D culture.

You're helping build a hegemony that hurts other creators.

You are causing harm.

Honestly there's probably a similar argument to be made re: blogs, videos, thinkpieces, heck even memes that take broad concepts of roleplaying, fantasy, or social gaming and make them about D&D, but that's a deeper topic and I'm getting tired and hungry.

So anyway, go support @MotherLandsRPG.

And when you're done doing that, find more marginalized creators to support.

And if you've still got something left, maybe check out my work too.

And ffs ask yourself "Does this really have anything to do with D&D?" once in a while.