As part of his quest to try to prove that he was someone who should be listened to and treated as an authority in table top role-playing games (“TTRPGs”), and push the owner’s deplorable politics into the space, TSR LLC and associates (“NuTSR”) tried to create a rating system. They way he did it was a very funny chapter in the TSR Saga.
Game Rating in the USA
Justin is a yankee who cosplays as a southerner, which is to say that he is an American who seems to only really be aware of systems and politics within the USA. To what degree he is aware of these is highly debatable, but he wanted a career in politics and so it seems intuitive that he’d base a rating system off those in the USA.
As much as fans of various TTRPGs love to talk about the Satanic Panic of the 80s, the real impact on media in the US came from the video games scares in the early 90s. In response to see growing pressure for a legal solution, major players in the video game space formed the Entertainment Software Rating Board (“ESRB”) and committed to having their games rated through it.
The ESRB is a non-profit that relies upon fees for doing the rating to continue to sustain itself, and the expectation is they will maintain consistent standards and retailers will promote these and handle the products appropriately. It is legally recognized in Canada, but there’s no real interference. This is in contrast to places like Australia where a government board issues ratings, and can refuse to classify a product – thus barring it from retail sale or requiring it to be altered in ways that are frequently baffling.
As above, the S in ESRB stands for “software”, so they don’t really do board games etc Thus the TTRPGs space has generally just operated on people being up front about their content and retailers using their own judgment. Remember, most places that sell them also sell things like Pokémon cards so they have a vested interest in not having to deal with angry parents yelling about their child having seen a boob.
The nuTSR solution
Unsurprisingly the approach by nuTSR was to emulate the ESRB’s model, if you can call copy-paste then vandalizing emulating. Quality was not a priority, as showcased by this hilariously janky images for the ratings:1 TSR LLC “The TSR Rating Meter” TSR Hobbies (Wisconsin USA, Archived: 30 May 2023) <https://web.archive.org/web/20230530023350/https://tsr-hobbies.com/tsr-hobbies-rating-meter>
- 1TSR LLC “The TSR Rating Meter” TSR Hobbies (Wisconsin USA, Archived: 30 May 2023) <https://web.archive.org/web/20230530023350/https://tsr-hobbies.com/tsr-hobbies-rating-meter>