D & D How to respectfuly disagree with EGG?

[Gentlegamer]

Originally Posted by Umbran

Sorry, I don't agree with that. A "rebuke" is a sharp criticism. Saying later versions of the game were a rebuke is rather like saying that making strawberry ice cream is a rebuke to those who make chocolate. I can partake of one flavor without saying or implying that the other is wrong, or bad.

What happens when those making strawberry call it chocolate? As in, "this is the way chocolate is supposed to taste, it's better than that older flavor."

[aurance]

I'm quite frankly surprised that so many people take Gygax or anyone else's opinion so seriously, about a game you sit around and play with your friends. I can appreciate that he essentially created the hobby, but we don't "owe" him any more than that.

[catsclaw227]

Originally Posted by Gentlegamer

What happens when those making strawberry call it chocolate? As in, "this is the way chocolate is supposed to taste, it's better than that older flavor."

Respectfully, I am not sure that is a fair analogy.

If your example person had said "this is the way ice cream is supposed to taste", and not the way a particular flavor is supposed to taste, then the analogy makes sense.

A chocolate (cocoa?) bean is a physically different substance than a strawberry and therefore wouldn't be mistaken for one.

But ice cream has many flavors and the edition wars are more about how one flavor is better than the other. When it devolves into discussing how strawberry ice cream is not ice cream, then it just gets silly.

That's how I feel when someone says that X edition isn't D&D.

/thread-tangent

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Originally Posted by Rechan

This extends to things like "School wars". If you go on Dragonsfoot, they refer to 3etards and 4orons. I am certain that you can easily find people, even those here, that think Old School is the only way to do it, and when you deviate from that, "It's not D&D".

Except that one of the commonly held principles of "Old School" is that when you don't like something - change it, if it's missing something - make it up yourself. The wider implications of that principle are that it doesn't matter what version of the game you're playing.

Dragonsfoot is dedicated to versions of D&D PRIOR TO 3rd Edition. Yes, they can get downright rude if you express any interest or admiration for later versions but that's because that community was formed around those who DESPISE 3E (and 3.5 & 4E) and wanted to specifically exclude it. It's heavily centered around 1E AD&D. It thus shouldn't matter what they call players of other editions - they clearly don't want them discussed there so there's little excuse to take offense at the reactions they have.

Anyone who expounds that Old School is the only way to play is no more correct than anyone who expounds that 4E is the only version anyone should be playing. I've said it before - NO VERSION OF D&D HAS AN EXPIRATION DATE. Also, as it says in the sig - old school has much less to do with what version you play than HOW you play it. But there is still no single Gary-approved way to play even the Old School style. Back in the day the hobby was RIFE with varying approaches to the game. I firmly believe that the "Old School" movement is simply a natural reaction to the continued mistaken suggestion that the current version (whatever it may be) is the version everyone should be playing, that it can be (and is) all things to all players and therefore there's no excuse for preferring other versions, and above all WotC's continued championing of a Rules Above All approach.

And while their opinion has little baring on ME, that doesn't mean I don't want to argue with them. I just want to be able to say I don't care what Gary said/thought without being accused of speaking ill of a dead man.

Speaking ill of the man would be something along the lines of "He was a jerk," or, "He was an idiot." Simply saying, "Gary got it dead-flat-out-wrong," is not an insult to him - just be prepared to support your opinion.

One of the frequently recurring topics on Dragonsfoot is 1st Edition AD&D initiative. It is not surprising that it should keep coming up because that system is (IMO) needlessly complex, frequently vague and ill-explained, and has its details spread EVERYWHERE. After years of debate there are still points of it that simply have to be decided by personal interpretation. And yet Gary himself had stated that he didn't even use it himself. He used a much simpler system. So which is the Old School way - to use the simpler/simplistic approach that Gary himself used, or to fanatically adhere as closely as possible to the system as presented (poorly) in 1st Edition. The answer is that both are legitimately "Old School" as is making up your own system or borrowing/combining from other sources.

This is what stands in marked contrast to 3E and 4E where on such an issue there seem to be only two possiblities - the correct answer as determined by WotC Rules Specialists, or the "incorrect" answer that you decide to use in defiance of what you are told is correct.

Gary would almost certainly have approved of ANY style or choice that YOU decided was what was the most fun for you, and disapproved of the idea that there was only one worthy version of the game and only one way to play. Just because he personally didn't care for WotC's versions doesn't mean that honoring the mans memory means you should only play AD&D forever.

You SHOULD, but...

[Raven Crowking]

I imagine that some people feel that roleplaying games are analgous to ice cream, and that D&D is analagous to a particular flavour of ice cream. As there are many varieties of chocolate (or chocolaty) ice cream, so there may be many varieties of that "D&D flavour".

When a person, in my understanding, says that "X isn't D&D" it is analogous to saying "The package says chocolate, but this is karob bean at best".

Of course, unlike chocolate/karob bean/strawberry, there is no objective measure of "D&D flavour" -- people use different metrics. And that's okay. It no more devalues the term than, say, "New School" or "Old School" are devalued by people using different metrics as relates to those terms.

As far as the OP goes, respectfully disagreeing with Gygax should be simple enough. AFAICT, the man encouraged it while he was alive. Disrespectfully disagreeing with Gygax, and trying to get people to accept it as respectful disagreement might be a bit more difficult, however.......but not more "wrong" than disrespectfully disagreeing with anyone else.

IMHO, of course.


RC

[Ariosto]

"Ice cream" is a generic term (even more so around the world, as I understand it, than in the USA). There is absolutely no parallel I can see between distinguishing strawberry from chocolate flavoring on one hand, and on the other distinguishing a different game from what Gygax designed.

Dungeons & Dragons was "by Gary Gygax" on the covers of the primary Advanced books. For better and worse, his name was wedded to D&D -- which cast into shadow his own last departure in design, Lejendary Adventures.

I didn't see rebuke in 2e. It was not as if things were (at least at first) wholesale turned upside down. My dislike of some revisions is not necessarily in agreement with Gygax's view of them.

WotC designed a new game from the bottom up, one with quite different priorities than the D&D of Gygax's years with TSR. The designers' reasoning is often laid out pretty clearly in the books. A notable (to me) shift from 2e is the degree to which the newer philosophy is "hard wired" and the older effectively excluded.

With 4e, the corporate attitude was pretty blatantly expressed -- and "rebuke" may be too mild; "derision" seems in some cases more accurate.

[Umbran]

Originally Posted by Gentlegamer

What happens when those making strawberry call it chocolate? As in, "this is the way chocolate is supposed to taste, it's better than that older flavor."

What happens? Well, in the best of all possible worlds, readers would stop and consider whether anything useful would come out of arguing the point. The answer generally being, "No," the point would drop, and folks would go on to live happy, constructive lives.

It is contingent upon the reader to help make this the best of all possible worlds.

[Ariosto]

I don't think it's disrespectful to observe, for instance, that Gary's prose was sometimes very opaque. That's not peculiar; the assistance of a capable editor (and of blind-testers) is indispensable. The first three or four AD&D books -- but especially the DMG -- suffered from some shortcomings. I was rather surprised that some revision was not undertaken well before 2e, especially considering that material was added in later printings.

[Raven Crowking]

Originally Posted by Umbran

What happens? Well, in the best of all possible worlds, readers would stop and consider whether anything useful would come out of arguing the point. The answer generally being, "No," the point would drop, and folks would go on to live happy, constructive lives.

It is contingent upon the reader to help make this the best of all possible worlds.

In the best of all possible worlds, of course, those making strawberry would not call it chocolate, and the creation of strawberry wouldn't put chocolate out of print. Nor would anyone believe that strawberry is chocolate.


RC

[Maggan]

Originally Posted by Man in the Funny Hat

This is what stands in marked contrast to 3E and 4E where on such an issue there seem to be only two possiblities - the correct answer as determined by WotC Rules Specialists, or the "incorrect" answer that you decide to use in defiance of what you are told is correct.

That's where much of the explanations of the difference between "old school" and "the other school" stops making sense to me. Since I started gaming, we've changed whatever we wanted to, whichever way we wanted to, disregarding what the officials said was the correct answer if we wanted to. And that is irrespective of whether the official source was AD&D1, D&D3 or D&D4. Or any other game else for that matter.

To me RPGs have always been about making it my own, either by choosing to adhere to rules, like we did during our AD&D1 stint, or house ruling it to fit our style of the day, like we did during D&D3e.

And I simply can't recognise myself, or most of the gamers I know, in the old school description of how 3e or 4e is played.

Some people adhere religiously to the rules, others don't. Same as it was before, IMO and IME.

YMMV and all that.

/M

[Umbran]

Originally Posted by Raven Crowking

In the best of all possible worlds, of course, those making strawberry would not call it chocolate, and the creation of strawberry wouldn't put chocolate out of print. Nor would anyone believe that strawberry is chocolate.

The best of all possible worlds is not about everyone agreeing, and having the same opinion. Quite the opposite - everyone agreeing is boring, and boring is clearly not 'best".

The best of all possible worlds is about how people deal with each other when they don't agree.

[nedjer]

I respect his contribution to inventing RPGs and to putting them on the map. Both his writing and the massive effort/ energy he put into making D&D happen shaped the billion dollar videogame rpg industry and a good deal more.

Sony's latest kid's RPG Free Realms is basically junior D&D. Assassin's Creed is D&D on a stick. Then there's the effect on the comic book industry. . . toys . . .

Doesn't mean he was always right or a saint. But he did shape much of the fantasy content that we get today.

[Doug McCrae]

Originally Posted by Raven Crowking

In the best of all possible worlds, of course, those making strawberry would not call it chocolate, and the creation of strawberry wouldn't put chocolate out of print.

They're printing chocolate now!!? What a world we live in.

[Raven Crowking]

Originally Posted by Umbran

The best of all possible worlds is not about everyone agreeing, and having the same opinion. Quite the opposite - everyone agreeing is boring, and boring is clearly not 'best".

The best of all possible worlds is about how people deal with each other when they don't agree.

I agree with this, but I don't see how this addresses my point at all.

My point is not that everyone should agree that strawberry or chocolate are best, but about the harm done to chocolate (and, thereby, the lovers of chocolate) by equating the two terms, and then trying to pretend that chocolate was always strawberry.

Sorry if that was unclear to you.

RC

[Umbran]

Originally Posted by Raven Crowking

I agree with this, but I don't see how this addresses my point at all.

Let me try it this way. Do note that this is an analogy, not a full-blooded detailed metaphor. I don't intend that one of these flavors is exactly one of the editions, or anything that picky.

One person is allergic to strawberries, or otherwise really doesn't like them. To this person, there's a load of difference between chocolate and strawberry.

Someone else may feel that, really, ice cream is ice cream. Milk, cream, sugar, churned and frozen - that's the essence of it. The differences between the flavorants are negligible, a note so minor that they don't impact his experience of ice cream.

The second person may well claim that the two are the same, because for all the intents and purposes he sees, they are the same. The first disagrees.

In the best of all possible worlds, these two people still don't get in each other's faces. They do not need to agree that chocolate and strawberry are or are not the same in order to get along.