E. Gary Gygax Dead at Age 69

amryll said:

http://www.slate.com/id/2186203
discuss.

Click to expand...

Sounds like the guy never met a competant D&D GM in his life.

I've been in D&D games where we had loads of fun, and barely looked at our char sheets or rolled a die. And if you killed a bunch of hobgoblins in their camp, it was because they were attacking travelers and you'd been hired to do so, and the only treasure you'd get were what hobgoblins considered important, like a really sturdy club. Or maybe that staff thrown over there with the firewood because they couldn't figure out what to do with it and it was too skinny to be an effective club.

I've also been in GURPS games where the players whined about not getting enough points for killing the wyvern and that buying magic items in a shop just isn't much fun especially when the chars never seem to get enough money, and that the only really effective use of points is to save them up to increase a basic attribute so that all of your skills in that area can go up at once. Like, uh, levelling.

D&D is stat heavy. It came out of traditional wargaming, where you'd damn well better care about the stats on the units in your stack before you sent them into battle, and the whole point was the battle. Role-playing was the add-on, and yeah, that can show. But there's nothing that says you can't fiddle with the balance on your own.

There will always be somebody out there who wants to be the 'rebel' and rain on everybody's parade. He thinks he's cutting close to the truth, and avoiding all of the forced sentiment by saying what's Really going on. We're all the masses, and he and his 'homies' are the' real geeks'. In short, he's an idiot. I glanced vaguely at some of his stuff; he's on his own little pedestral, trying to make himself out to look like he's a better critical thinker; and in some ways, he's got his critical thinking skills down; D&D isn't the paragon of gaming. But he missed the point. Gygax pioneered the field; I argue this case with Freud all the time. Even if the stuff the man made wasn't the best, it was fresh, it was new, and it can probally be traced as the source for a great deal of what we know as gaming (Or psychology, but that's just the analogy). i don't track the field; I just play with it. I may be wrong. But that's the sense I get.

I like this guy's criticism of D&D; it's accurate enough, he hits some key points. But it will always be in poor taste to attack the legacy of a man, when mourning is still quite fresh. 'Unrepetant hack.' Right. We should acknowledge him and his homies, because they're the 'real' geeks. He's a writer with a power trip, making an article in poor taste. Do what you always do with people like that. Take an honest look at his arguements, see the strengths, see the weaknesses, understand why he believes what he does, see the ways in which he's missing the point completely, and move on. Consider it an attack against D&D, not a deceased man.

Personally? I stopped giving any credibility to this the moment the man wrote "The real geeks out there—my homies." Those words right there are his pedestal. His select group of friends know the light. The thousands / millions of the rest of us are ignorant. M'kay. Do you need anything better to justify ignoring him?

edit: something in me forces me to add that there's more to that statement on Freud then I put in there, but...Let's be honest. That would be..Sidetracking just a touch. Anybody wanna hold a discussion on it? I'm all there. just...in another thread

I dont know about you guys but that little article had me laughing so hard. The guy sounds like a kid that wants attention. Ok....so yeah, the first version of D&D isnt the best, the most popular game out there anymore. But if not the first version...then what? You can't have the blackberry without that hilariously huge box of a mobile phone, y'know?

So those are my opinions any one agree?
(raise your hand if you disagree so I can shot you down! )

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The writer and his "homies" don't like D&D - that's fine. There are plenty of other games out there.
But, as Aesynil pointed out, Gygax and Arneson pioneered the field. Even an inspiration that makes you say "I will do it better" is *still* an inspiration.
The RPGs mentioned would most likely not exist - or would exist in drastically different formats - if it weren't for D&D.

And, as Trelian pointed out, it all depends on the DM. Or GM. Or Judge, Narrator. . .Some groups like a good Dungeon Thump, some like more of a story. That goes for any game.