2026.05.27 I Finally Did It: Watched One of Kenny's Gawd-Awful AI Videos.

As a rule I avoid actually trying to "consume" any of Kenny's terrible AI drivel "content" and view just enough to document, but I came across a video for someone I know and was relatively friendly with (several night's out drinking at Origins or GenCon and a few get-together's with mutuals).

After watching the 4'43" video on Brian Jelke, all I have to say is that there is no way I believe this crap had been fact-checked....at all. Pretty sure Kenny didn't even watch the video before posting. I assume it is entirely automated.

While I'm NOT going to provide a step-by-step armchair common-sense fact-check, I will say that at an absolute minimum, the video could at least attempt to pronounce his name correctly!

The video bounces around a lot, lacking any type of direct focus, and tries to attribute things to Brian (pretty sure I'm allowed to call him Brian) that were not his idea/design. More "facts" were just wrong and a simple check of a couple of rulebooks would've easily disproven the statement.

Don't even get me started on the graphics.......nice use of NotebookLM there....not.

Can't wait to see what kind of hatchet job he does on David Kenzer tomorrow!

2026.05.25 Personal Statement Re: Ken "Whit" Whitman's Use of AI Generated "Content"

Statement from Suzanne Stafford and Chaosium regarding a recent AI-generated article about Chaosium Founder Greg Stafford

Chaosium and the Stafford Estate are disappointed in 4 Pillar Games' recent decision to post an AI-generated "historical archive article" on Chaosium founder Greg Stafford, who passed away in 2018.

The piece reads as a lightly edited compilation of existing online sources, and offers no meaningful insights, analysis, or original engagement with Greg's work.

While we understand AI tools are now common, using them primarily as a shortcut to generate content about a creator who embodied imagination, intellectual rigor, and deep respect for myth and storytelling feels particularly misguided. The result lacks the human care and creativity Greg himself always brought to his writing and world-building.

We also find the AI-generated images of Greg unfortunate. They fall into the familiar uncanny valley and feel disrespectful to his memory. A simple outreach to us would have provided authentic photographs and better context.

Had the article demonstrated genuine engagement with Greg's legacy, properly credited its sources, and included contact information for corrections, our reaction would have been very different. As it stands, it represents the opposite of the innovative, heartfelt spirit Greg championed throughout his life.

We acknowledge the Sisyphean task of pushing back against AI misuse; however, we felt it important to publicly express our disappointment.

— Suzanne Stafford and Chaosium

This statement does a good job of directly stating just how Kenny's "AI Slop" affecting people in the real world. I also think the overall characterization of the material is spot-on, and if anyone was in a position to quantify the quality of Ken's "articles" I think it would be the family and coworkers that knew Greg Stafford better than Kenny or his AI ever could.

2026.05.19 Looks Like Kenny is not Just Making the Kool-Aid, but Drinking it Too!

We've already seen Kenny doubling tripling down with his AI generated slop...and we're calling it like we see it here, it is basically low-hanging fruit that Kenny has done minimal effort to sell/plaster in multiple places online. There has been a fair amount of negative reaction to the Facebook Group & YouTube Channel, and it's only a matter of time before that spills over to the various non-social-media websites getting feed these posts & videos.

It seems like Kenny hasn't quite understood the reasoning behind these negative reactions and he's decided to simplify everything to something along the lines of "people just don't like AI". While there may be some small amount of truth to this, the majority of the problem as I've seen it, runs more along the lines of, "People don't like the way you (Ken "Whit" Whitman) have used AI". Anyone who has followed NAD, or Ken directly, for a while knows....for example, his ability to spell or use grammar worth a damn, is.....lacking. I think if Kenny just used AI to help organize, and properly spell, his own thoughts, there would be no complaints.

Case in point, this Facebook post from yesterday. We've added some placeholders for notes in red:

"The AI Fight in Tabletop Is Already Moving Underground

A loud part of the tabletop game community has drawn a hard line around AI.(1) Not a soft preference. Not “please disclose your tools.” A hard moral line. Use AI in a product and you risk being labeled, shamed, boycotted, review-bombed, or quietly excluded from rooms you used to be welcome in.

I understand why people are angry.(2) Artists and writers spent years building skill, style, and reputation. Then a new machine showed up, trained on the creative exhaust of the internet, and suddenly people were being told to compete with tools that may have learned from work they never agreed to provide. That is not a small thing. It is not silly. It is not just fear of change. But here is the part nobody wants to say out loud: AI is not going away.

This is not a fad. It is not NFTs. It is not a weird little corner of tech that can be mocked until it disappears. AI is a trillion-dollar industrial shift. Governments, defense contractors, banks, studios, universities, publishers, retailers, and every major platform on earth are already building around it. There may be lawsuits. There may be settlements. Some artists may win checks. Maybe the courts force new licensing structures. Maybe new rules come. They probably should. But history suggests the machine will not be put back in the box.

That does not mean the ethics are simple.(3) They are not. It does not mean creators were treated fairly. Many were not. The ugly pattern of every major industrial shift is familiar: the rich get richer, the platforms rewrite the rules, the lawyers get paid, and the people who made the culture are told to adapt after the money has already moved. But AI has one strange difference from most industrial shifts: the small creator can use it too.

A solo designer can now do work that used to require a team. A tiny publisher can prototype faster, edit faster, format faster, and test ideas faster. A filmmaker with no studio can build pitch materials. A game designer with no art budget can mock up a world. That matters more than the current conversation allows.(4)

The real damage right now is not only the tool. It is the silence forming around the tool. Fear is teaching people to hide their AI use instead of teaching them to use it well. The industry does not get cleaner because of that silence. It gets less honest. People still use the tools, but they stop talking about them. They remove the fingerprints.(5) They learn which words not to say. They get better at passing as pure while quietly building faster than the people trying to shame them. That is not an ethical victory. That is a transparency failure.

The better fight is not AI or no AI. That battle is already too blunt. The better fight is where AI belongs. Using AI to clean a spreadsheet is not the same moral event as using it to counterfeit an artist’s style. Using it to organize production notes is not the same thing as replacing credited creative labor without consent. Using it to test rules, summarize feedback, or manage workflow is not the same fight as flooding a marketplace with low-effort sludge.

Allow it for production support. Ban it where it exploits living creators. Require disclosure where it matters.(6) Protect artists from style theft. Protect writers from being erased. A union could fight for that. A fan community could fight for that. A company could build policy around that. But “no AI anywhere” is not a long-term strategy. It is a protest slogan, and protest slogans do not survive contact with economics forever.

The builders who embrace, learn, and adapt will outpace the people who only resist. Not overnight, and not in every category. But over the next 24 months, the gap will become visible. The AI-assisted creator will produce more drafts, test more products, make more mistakes, learn faster, and ship more often.(7) By the time the anti-AI crowd pivots from rejection to reluctant adoption, many of them will be starting from behind. That is not a moral judgment. It is a calendar problem.

The tabletop industry needs to get honest.(8) Not softer. Honest. AI is here. It will be misused. It will be overused. It will create slop and threaten real livelihoods. It will also open doors for small creators who never had access to the old production machine. Both things are true.

The question is not whether AI should exist in tabletop. It already does. The question is whether the industry can grow up fast enough to separate the fights worth having from the fights already lost."

This writer was able to actually read this post and I didn't see any spelling errors, which is a pretty strong tell that AI was used to produce this. How much is actually Kenny's words...who knows, but I have yet to hear a single person comment on any of these posts as far as readability goes, and I know enough people that have far worse opinions of the man than I do!

(1) "Community"......the tabletop gaming community extends much further than the creatives producing TTRPG content! Community also extends to the people consuming said content. If the people making and the people consuming don't want something......

(2) No....no I don't think you do, which is literally the point of this post. People are angry at how YOU have been using AI & how you've largely (until recently) been hiding behind it. 

(3) There's like 11 years of posts here at Not Another Dime (for Ken Whitman) that would indicate that you're one of the last people that should be talking about ethics in any way, shape, or form.

(4) Every....single....example you used in this paragraph was about AI being used to assist creatives to generate content, not to use AI to create content for them!

(5) This is arguably the biggest reason people are pissed at you! At you, not AI! You using AI to create content and hiding the fact that you're behind the effort to begin with! Someone even invented a term for this: Whitwashing! You've only recently even acknowledged this content belongs to you, and I'd argue you've only done so because you got sloppy with your code and announcing content of your personal Facebook page well before it was actually posted publicly.

(6) Yet again, why people didn't like your work....because you Whitwashed it for so long. 

(7) Hands-off content creation at rather quick speed seems to be your priority, which has led to so many problems...

(8) Maybe, but the issue at hand is that you've not been honest and now you're putting yourself "out there" and it feels more like damage control because you got caught.

"here’s the deal, if you have millions like WOTC pay people. But don’t scold up-and-coming people who are trying to figure out how to make a living. Or just don’t have time because other things are more important.

AI shaming should not be tolerated"

Ken, you're not being scolded for "trying to figure out how to make a living", and the sooner you figure this out, the sooner you can try to not make a quick & easy buck off of the gaming community. I think the argument for people "scolding you" is because of how you've been using AI to generate a bunch of sloppy content that is getting posted all over the place, with the clear effort being on quantity over quality.

We've already pointed out the sloppy "Loe Zachhii" video posted not even a week after the man's death, and while you have since taken the video down (well after we pointed it out!) and we've gotten word that you have made some article corrections, we cannot believe you've actually taken time to do much, if any, quality control....much less actual fact checking.

Case in point: A Most Influential Tabletop Game Icons's post(s) today:

Today, on more than one occasion, you've multi-posted the same exact post. This one on Alessio Cavatore you did three times (1st, 2nd, and 3rd), but the one on Alfred Mosher Butts was double-posted (1st & 2nd), as was Frank Mentzer (1st & 2nd).

If you cannot manage to only make a single Facebook post, how can we expect you to fact-check all seven posts you made today (or should we say 11?) over at Most Influential Tabletop Game Icons?

2026.05.12 Kenny Has Yet ANOTHER Website

Seriously, this is basically whack-a-mole (not my words, but I'll use 'em). We've all but proven that Kenny is behind the Most Influential Tabletop Game Icons Facebook page, and the re-hashed Most Influential Tabletop Game Icons YouTube Channel, but now we have a bit of a three-peat with a dedicated Tabletop Game Icons Website.

The really-rich part of this new effort is that the Page Title is "Fact-Checked Icons"...now personally I do not believe that these entries are actually fact-checked, at least not in a traditional sense. Kenny has already said it would cost $$$ to have these entries written "properly" (ok, by a person at least) and he's said he's open to uploading corrections, but that's not the same thing as being actually fact-checked.

At least with this particular effort, Ken has actually "signed" his name this time (emphasis is ours):

"Our Mission

We are an AI-assisted website dedicated to tabletop gaming and to the designers, creators, artists, publishers, and voices who helped make it great.

This site celebrates their accomplishments, preserves the stories behind the games we love, and gives fans a place to remember the people, companies, worlds, and moments that shaped the hobby.

Our community standards are simple: be respectful, be constructive, and keep the conversation focused on appreciation. We are building a place for tabletop fans to share memories, discover history, and connect with like-minded people who understand why these games still matter.

Because the stories we played helped make us who we are.

© 2026 Ken Whitman. All Rights Reserved. corrections@tabletopgameicons.com"

Now I wish I knew what Kenny's angle was here, but all I can do is assume this is all an effort to integrate himself back in to the TTRPG community that he's fleeced over the last decade or three (seriously, just look at the Kickstarters....it's not really just an opinion anymore) and profit off of the exposure. Maybe it's all about potential ad revenue, or it's about ego...making himself out to be more important that he is.....I do not know, so it's all just speculation, but trying to get back into GAMA, as an official no less, makes me think it's a little of both. Will this site eventually have a webstore?

At least he's still using the same domain registrar, which helps strengthen the ties to some other websites.....what are the odds of every questionable site we've come across here at NAD, AND Kenny's proven site all using the exact same Registrar and 3rd party Registrar Contact.....statistically close to 0%.

Special shout-out to the reader (you know who you are!) that shared this info because this could've slipped under the radar easily enough......

...and if you have anything appropriate to share (not you Kenny!), feel free to use the blog's contact widget or send an email to:

2026.05.18 EDIT

Took a quick look at one of the pages....didn't read it, just looked, and it's laughable. I particularly like how every graphic is labeled both "Fact Checked" and "Watch on YouTube", but as of the writing of this post, almost a week later than the site's creation, there is not a single YouTube link to be found, even thought at a cursory glance it does appear that all of the entries have YouTube videos.....

...and for being "Fact Checked"? Here's the documentation at the end of the entries:

"Hey this was published from a 'revised' package and we slapped a label on it specifically on this date!" (clearly paraphrasing) is so, not "fact checking".

2006.08.09 The Great Squirrel Flood of GenCon 2006

 

A rather long thread of a recollection of one of Kenny's failed business ideas from "back in the day" (i.e. 20 years ago): I'll save you the slightly disjointed read from Ken Burnside:

"In 2005. I give a seminar on this technology at GAMA Trade Show (the old name of GAMA Expo). Marcus King and Ken Whitman are sitting in the audience as I explain the benefits. Steve Cole is also in the audience and nodding along. (ADB had already adopted this process by then.) But basically, by buying the equipment we did, you could make soft-cover RPG books with black-and-white interiors of good enough quality to sell through distribution (think of pre-2004 GURPS supplements) at a price that didn't cost you money.

The d20 glut was raging then...

By 2006, Ken Whitman had somehow lined up the funding to get the higher end version of this equipment; it had to have been a lease. This was four blocky things the size of dishwashers that linked like LEGOs that could take two files (cover and interior) and spit out perfect-bound books. Ken's business model was to go to conventions and print your RPG book while you waited and hand it to you hot off the press. No inventory, just load the equipment up on the moving truck he already owned, pay for electricity at the convention, buy paper in bulk from a distributor to cut costs.

For all of Ken's myriad faults, he has exactly the level of technical expertise to wheel the four-part gigantic printing and binding machines togehter.

He set this up at Origins 2006, and it kinda-sorta worked. He ran into a problem that people who buy books want to see the books before they buy. (editor's note: I remember seeing Ken's setup & spoke to him at his booth at this convention)

He packed the machinery and paper up on the truck and drove it to a parking lot halfway between Columbus and Indianapolis, where one of Marcus King's employees was waiting to drive him home. This means his business critical equipment is sitting in a locked truck. In another state.

In the 6 weeks between Origins and GenCon, he's taking book orders off of his website, and 'hustling' to line up more publishers for Convention Print On Demand. And his goal is to get to GenCon, print his backlog, ship them, bring his laptop with the updated files and have More Books to Sell.

Gather 'round, because this is where it gets *good*.

He's got two of those printing plants; this is about $400k of hardware. It's in a locked second-hand U-Haul truck. You know how some U-Haul trucks have a milky white skylight over the "above the cab" part of the back?

Ken's had that.

A squirrel managed to get through that skylight. And discovered 8 washing-machine sized parts of an expensive printing plant. And several dozen boxes of paper. This was a great place to have squirrel babies, store nuts, make nests, and nobody can eat you or your babies!

After being opened by squirrels, the skylight was no longer water-tight. There was a gigantic rainstorm the weekend before GenCon. Ken got driven out to where his locked truck was, saw that the lock was untouched, and never opened the back of the truck before driving to Indianapolis.

Ken gets to the Indiananapolis Convention Center late on Monday, goes and hangs out with the very early GenCon crews from the very big publishers. (And by 'hang out' I generally assume 'be in the same space with people who are actively avoiding him').

Tuesday morning comes. Ken takes his second-hand U-Haul to the marshalling area. Which isn't open yet. He waits. He waits longer. He's sitting in an un-airconditioned cab in August in Indianapolis. He gets out, he tries to find someone who can let him get to the freight area of the ICC. A day earlier than anyone else.

Around 3 PM, he gets told to get out of the marshalling yard, and to come back no earlier than 5 AM on Wednesday. He drives out, goes to his _very_ offsite hotel and sleeps.

He still hasn't opened the back of that truck. It rains _again_ overnight. He also oversleeps.

We got to GenCon and got an early slot on the marshalling lot, and moved all of our booth stuff in and were setting it up. We took a short break.

Ken Whitman backs his U-Haul up to the freight docks, with all the freight doors wide open. It's about 1 PM, it's hot, it's sticky. Nobody's happy. (The vendor's hall for GenCon is a series of concrete floored ballrooms, and they don't run air conditioning on load-in from the freight docks. It's a muggy August day. A bunch of middle aged dorks are moving heavy pallets of books in a humid concrete box and setting up displays) We happened to have a clear line of sight from our booth as Ken finally opens the back of the truck.

Three things happen.

First, a flood of water comes over the lip of the back of the truck, splashing over Ken's feet in his shorts.

Second, Ken starts shouting "Fuck, fuck, fuck..."

Third, squirrels, unable to climb out of the truck since Ohio, scrambled out onto the freight dock and scattered for any place they could hide in the concrete jungle of the Indiana Convention Center. They came charging IN at first, saw people moving and dashed the crawlspaces of the airwalls.

Ken pleaded for people to help him unload his truck. Nobody did. He used his pallet jack to unload the truck, but has to manually stack cartons of soggy paper, since it wasn't palletized.

He gets yelled at by ICC staff for taking far too long unloading his truck.

Eventually, he gets it unloaded, and then leaves his stuff at his booth while he goes and moves his truck to where it'll be the entire con.

He returns...with mournful desperation...assembles both of his printing stations. He opens the paper drawers. There's tanding water in them. And squirrel scat. And we hear Ken say "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...."

Lots of people hear this; it's a concrete box, Ken has become the Schadenfreude Entertainer of the Hour. Then Ken discovers the electrical hasn't been hooked up, and trudges over to Geo Fern to get it turned on. There's an argument of some sort. Ken goes to the Titan Games booth and pleads with Marcus King, they go back to Geo Fern and I presume Marcus pays for Ken's electircal hookup.

While this is happening, some squirrels with babies come out of his waterlogged paper supply, see way too many people and bolt, trying to find any way out. Ken comes back, plugs in his two printing stations, and runs a diagnostic.

Friend, if I told you that very high end dye sublimation printers with lots of onboard electronics don't like having water damage and squirrels living in them, would you be surprised? Ken Whitman apparently was.

Ken Whitman pulls out his cell phone and calls his service rep. In Michigan. Who rightfully says "We don't make service calls out of state, but let me see if we can find another vendor in Indianapolis..." Ken is mordantly unhappy. And desperate. His service rep finds an Indianapolis vendor.

So, these service techs have manuals for the printer models they service. Service tech shows up on Thursday morning at 8 AM. Dealer's hall opens at 10 AM. Ken somehow manages to convince GenCon to let the service tech in two hours early.

He's still there when the rest of us are allowed in at 9 AM.

Ken is arguing with the service tech. Both "head ends" of his printing stations are open and partially disassembled. The service tech is at a loss for words. He doesn't have the parts to fix this, he's not sure it *can* be fixed, and is gobmacked at this entire mess. Ken is threatening to sue.

The service tech, who doesn't work for the company providing Ken's contract, and is out here as an intra-company emergency favor, just looks at him, packs up his tools and cases, walks over to an ICC staffer so they can escort him from the vendor hall, and leaves.

Through the rest of the convention, Ken sits in his booth on a stool, next to two $200k printers that are totaled, surrounded by cartons of waterlogged and squirrel-chewed paper, with tables full of his promotional materials. He can't even load up his truck to leave before Sunday.

Meanwhile, the squirrels have taken to staying in the airwall gaps and coming out at night to forage for food. We (and several other vendors) discover that squirrels will chew books. So all books go back in boxes at night, inconveniencing everyone else in the hall.

I have no idea how Ken survived that financial debacle.

Remember, he had an outstanding backlog of books to print at the show and ship from the gap between Origins and GenCon. Plus the cost of the booth. Plus the cost of electricity. Plus the financial hit of his leased printers being waterlogged."

There's a bit more back & forth with other posters, with several remembering the "Great Squirrel Flood of 2006" and the OP adds one more salient observation:

"By that time, Ken had screwed over everyone who'd been in business with him, through somewhere north of 20 failed businesses. The fact that *nobody was willing to help him* when he needed help unloading his truck? Yeah. That's a *big* tell in the games industry."