Tabletop Library: Now You Can Keep Your Shirtless Heroes Where Your Husband Can't See Them

The post title is my unsolicited attempt to create fake banner ad text for the new Tabletop Library. It was inspired by this real banner ad:

Tabletop Library: Digital games that won't stack up where your wife can see them.

This ad ran on what I assume is a gaming discussion board or at least was grabbed by someone from somewhere and put up on the board. The screenshot is from RPG Pundit:

The Pundit also captured Christopher Helton's silly attempt to show off his feminist, or anti-genderist or anti-whateverist cred.

I'm sure this is an extremely minor tempest and that Tabletop Library wasn't trying to be ideological or political or anything else. I'm not saying that Tabletop Library has any particular agenda or would even necessarily agree with what I'm saying here.

But that's sort of the point. It's just an ad.

On RPG Pundit's post, Tenkar* commented that it's simply a fact that 85% of all RPG gamers are men--a proportion that's probably even higher in the OSR.

That of course is absolutely true, even though it's a general fact and not true in every particular case (as most general facts are not true in every particular case).

But even to the extent (15%) that it's not always true, the ad is still, well, funny. To lift my own comment from the Pundit's post:

You should be able to joke in a friendly way about silly differences between the sexes even when they're only general differences. And the joke is partly self-deprecating. It's just as much about men being silly hoarders of stupid stuff. It's also a silly joke about the minor "strains" (which of course aren't really strains) of marriage. That anyone would have a problem with this sort of thing is insane.

That 14 people (or whatever) would "like" Helton's dumb comment--"yeah, you tell those sexist bastards what's what, Chris!" is just another example of how busybodies with nothing else to do love spoiling things.

On a brighter note, it looks like the new Tabletop Library is doing quite well. Now I just have to figure out how to hide all those $3.99 digital gaming purchases from my wife when she looks at the credit card bill.

*At Tenkar's Tavern, there is also a funny self-referential riff on this.