Alex, I'm with you. I never could put into words what I disliked about halflings before I read your take. My main complaint is that they're supposed to be small/weak, but I started with 3.x and so inevitably the highest damage dealer was some bizarrely kitted out halfling which always bugged me. I think the last straw for me was the Pathfinder Cavalier, a class built on charging with a lance, where it inevitably made more sense to take the minor strength hit to be a halfling so you could ride a mount that could actually come with you into the dungeon.
[quote="DrPete"] Wicked Witch. Evil Queen. White Witch. The seduction of a "Dark Lord" who is not a military leader is really more of a female thing, is it not? I'd remove much of my objection if this were a "Dark Mistress" class in the Auran Empire and in the book art, since it would be much less an attempt to reflect a real life dude. Can we all get behind that? [/quote]
A dark lord is a well established trope, although I've always assumed it was less about your abilities and more about your state of mind. Wizards and Clerics can easily be dark lords. Mechanically, minion masters are a time honored tradition that, alongside heal-over-time spells, have never been able to make a satisfying jump from videogames to pen & paper. Conceptually, it's fine.
The WEIRD part is how strongly this guy identifies with being a dark overlord. And not just a sympathetic or dynamic villain, the world is full of pubescant boys with the Joker as their online avatar. No, everything that came up involved him referring to himself as the dark lord, as well as an unhealthy obsession with a certain political figure he refers to as "God-Emperor".
Now I'm going to nip in the bud that, between what I just said and people's objections to the faceless minions eating SJWs the idea that "this liberal has no sense of humor." To Quote Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force: "I get it. It ain't makin' me laugh but I get it." I understand that the "joke" is that the "SJWs" consider him so awful that they think they're ACTUALLY being consumed.
I've got some analysis on this topic to make in the form of two points.
First: Fantasy games and art are full of jokes. the DCC rulebook features a piece of art of a female warrior in a chainmail bikini next to a fully armored fighter asking "why does your armor give the same AC?". These are plays on existing tropes that have emerged from play. The SJW "joke" is inserting humor not largely shared by the tabletop audience, and even for those who get it, I don't think it's unreasonable to say it's a bigger challenge to suspension of disbelief than most jokes.
Second, I have had the misfortune of sharing hobbies with people like this elsewhere, especially Paradox grand strategy games. It's all fun and "DEUS VULT" and "0/10 did not Remove Kebab" until someone actually spraypaints "Deus Vult, Saracens Go Home" on a mosque in europe. There are a few (just a few, I'm not making broad strokes here) who are happy to use the smokescreen of fake awful humor as a way to test out their actually awful beliefs. They know they can retreat into irony if someone responds with "oh god, that's horrible". I'm not saying we should give up on awful humor, what I'm saying is the people who go "wow, this guy is messed up" are not necessarily overly sensitive or humorless when they're suspicious of guys like him.
But as I re-itereated earlier in the thread: I'm not going anywhere. This is my hobby too. Theodore doesn't get to taint my association with a game I love just because he has a lot of people willing to spend money on his behalf. I don't think less of my name being in Sinister Stone of Sakkara as compared to my other backer listings because that one happens to share space with him. If he bought the same car as me, I wouldn't feel compelled to buy a different car (maybe I would if he was being paid to promote the car). I certainly considered it when I first learned about this guy, though, so I hold no judgement for people who decided to withdraw their pledges, and I hope they won't think less of those of us who choose to stay.
Anyway, ranting aside: I'll re-iterate a question. If I go into the comments and type "For the Chosen One" or "I'm one with the Force, the Force is with me" or whatever, do I have to pledge additional money to contribute to the goal, or does some/all of my existing pledge get put into a bucket?