Holy Shit,

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Okay, first off... yeah.. I know that this article I'm mentioning is likely just the Slate writer trolling to pump up readership. Right... got it... no need to state the obvious. But there are just some limits that people should not cross.
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Normally I really don't pay much attention to the Role playing game world these days, yeah I played D&D back in the 80s (yeah I'm fuckin dating myself agewise) and I actually knew Gary Gygax and worked on a few of his products for other game systems (I'm cited in his Legendary Journey's game as a matter of fact)

But I was bopping around and read this article on Slate... and just about burst a fuckin' gasket.

Last I checked, pissing on someone's legacy (especially one which brought a lot of fun and laughes to peoples lives) is grounds for meriting a good solid cockpunch delivered in brutal manner.

All I can say is this... this writer needs a fucking 2x4 upside his head for sheer cluelessness and a good swift kick in the ass, which I'll be happy to administer if I EVER run into this cockmunch.

Check out some of these comments.

First off, this asshat has the temerity to claim (while working as a syndicated east coast yuppish rag like Slate) that he's a geek... while also using the word Homies. Excuse me, Mr douchebag, clearly you don't know shit. Likely you're misidenitifying yourself out of a hope of using this supposed solidarity with geeks as a platform to lend yourself credibility, with the sole purpose of sniping at a deadman.

Likely this idiot does this with other groups.. doing so because noone else will LET this asshole associate with their group... mainly because insulting the innovative work of a dead man pretty much casts you in the light of being a bitter little troll of a person.

Second, Gygax hasn't had anything to do with D&D since the late 80's when he was forced out of his company by his ex wife.

Holy shit. When someone has JUST INVENTED something it's not going to be perfect first time out. D&D was first on the market... and was about the only developed system for a good long while. As such... it defined the genre. Yes, as time went by RPGs changed... but initially it was designed as a fucking wargame.
A Little factoid for people not in the know... TSR.. the company that made D&D... stands for Tactical Studies Rules. D&D came about in this order
1. Gary and other gamers were playing miniture war battles (historic ones like French vs English wars during Napoleon's time)
2. Some people in the group wanted to create rules for fantasy type wars using minis like dragons and wizards.
3. Rules were created.
4. Dave Arneson created the First Fantasy Campaign. (which was a mini wargame fantasy world)
5. Gary and others loved Dave's Blackmoore campaign (Even though the egg of coot was created as a joke about Gary's pate) and decided to make D&D

As such.. no fucking wonder the game has the mechanics of a wargame.

Besides, this author goes off about artistic merit and crap.

D&D is simple.. it's about having a good time, killing monsters and takin' their stuff.

I encourage you to read this article just to see just how bad of an ass someone can make of themselves.

 

Thing is, if Gygax hadn't died, you wouldn't have cared. Or at least, you wouldn't have cared enough to start a thread like this.

Someone doesn't become a better person just because he dies. His 'legacy' doesn't become untouchable. He just fucking dies. EOF

 

Why do people from other parts of the US use "east coast" as some sort of insult?

 

He's using east coast as an adjective. NYC and specifically Wall Street are where the term yuppie became popular. So it's not really a slam on the east coast.

You're absolutely right, it's not untouchable. But it's a very low blow to degrade someone's life work (someone's really, really successful life's work). Can he criticize it tactfully? Yes, but from what I read, he was a complete dick about it.

I don't play D&D. I don't have any idea why someone would want to play it, but I still respect people enough not to piss on their graves.

 

The first part is true. That if he hadn't died I'd likely said nothing... because he'd have been around to defend himself.

And I'm not saying that you "become a better person" because of death... it's just that it's disrespectful as shit to smack talk about someone and criticize them as disrespectfully as this cock mongeler did, when the person in question isn't around to defend themselves anymore.

 

Frankly, when this guy mentioned GURPS as a more 'artistic' game I think anyone who actually plays RPGs identified him as a brain-dead cockgoblin.

GURPS is the game where people load up on stupid, meaningless disadvantages just for the points so they get more l33t skills. Where you have to have a scientific calculator to whip up stats for vehicles because you have to calculate the fucking SURFACE AREA for no particular reason.

In short, the author's pet system is ass and he can go die in a fire.

 

Most of the article is just rubbish....

What the writer forgets is that in most fantasy worlds orcs are mere "monsters" driven by blood thirst, mindless killing etc etc . They don't sell their shit because the local "shoppe" because they probably cant speak english(or whatever the local language is )

 

Maybe they have thier own "shoppes"? Maybe it's to power a renewable energy source in thier underground utopian society? Or you could go completely off the WTF scale and say they like it for the very human reason of gold-fever?

 

Right on lol.

But really, I probably wouldn't have cared all that much about this article if the guy hadn't just died. If he had a valid complaint he should have complained earlier.It's horribly disrespectful to voice this just after he died...

 

In the words of the Dude to Walter Sobchack: "You're not wrong. You're just an asshole."

 

Well, to be honest, D&D is no longer the best game on the market by a long shot. However, GURPS isn't either, and this dude seems to be writing more as an excuse to plug his personal favorite and establish credentials as "unafraid to tell blunt truths and go against popular opinion." He's actually a hack. You can tell because he's equating the XP=+lvl system with atrocity and morally reprehensible violations of basic human ethics.

Gygax wasn't exactly as great as the obits make him seem, but he is the father of an entire subculture in the US, and is respected by gamers all across the board, from hardcore D&D hack'n'slashers to emo White Wolfers. Besides, tabletop gaming has become more mainstream over time, and I don't know anyone who will automatically dismiss someone these days simply because they do or used to play RPGs.

Except for LARPers. Those people are freaks.

 

I haven't played it in a long time, but were it not for D&D and it's popularity, it's doubtful there would be World of Warcraft, Everquest, or the Diablo games.

It was the game that catered to the geeks back when the best computer on the market was a commodore and the console of choice was the Atari2600.

Edit - I read the article and looked at the messages in the thread. Steve Jackson of GURPS fame actually weighed it and went after the author.

http://fray.slate.com/discuss/forums/thread/987227.aspx?ArticleID=2186203

 

i've played D&D, i've played AD&D, i've played DSA (German roleplaying system called "Das Schwarze Auge), i've played Shadowbane, heck i've even tried the warcraft RPG on a lark. Frankly the Guy is an idiot. D&D was the FIRST roleplaying system. it isn't necessarily the best nowadays (actually i'd probably make a point arguing that it isn't by a long shot, and that the time of classical roleplaying games has passed but bleh that is because i have gotten old). Slamming it because it wasn't good back then, shows that you either have no idea whatsoever on HOW big it's impact on the entire industry is even now, or that the writer has some sort of pathetic need to belittle someone elses accomplishments.

don't get me wrong, i left D&D behind because it was too focused on combat for my liking, but that doesn't make it a bad ruleset for combat based role playing. For that it is still one of the best rulesets.

 

I agree with this guy, and the guy he quoted.

Fucking amateurs...

 

I agree with some of you that the timing of the article was bad, but honestly I don't give a damn, anybody with sense and who has played DnD will know that the article is rubbish so the opinions of the people who agree with the guy who wrote the article really don't matter.

On another point DnD is a great system which is easily 'tweaked' to suite different people’s preferences, how good the games are is entirely dependant on the players and mostly the DM. With a really good DM and good players it is easily the best of all the systems (after a bit of tweaking), or so I think.