The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[trappedslider]

who knew that there so many grumpy old people on this site.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

who knew that there so many grumpy old people on this site.

Everyone who looked at that "how old are you?" poll thread a while back?

 

[Cadence]

who knew that there so many grumpy old people on this site.

FTFY?

[Although the answer now should be everyone who ever participated on it a bit.]

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

You can write a novella for a backstory if you like, but it doesn't mean squat until you actually play the character at the table. Your group will remember your in-game actions not your creative writing exercise, no matter how heartfelt it may be.

 

[Thomas Shey]

who knew that there so many grumpy old people on this site.

Well, I used to have "grumpy grognard" as my title elsewhere, but at least I'm aware of it.

 

[MNblockhead]

(In Germany it was Tuna on Pizza at the Pizza Hut.

I'd try that.

Clumps of canned tuna :-/ ).

Ugh, c'mon Germans, you almost had me!

 

[Cadence]

Heh. Come to Japan.

OG Iron Chef just had squid and eggplant pizza. Judges loved it.

 

[prabe]

Oh, haven't seen you around for a while. Welcome back! It's good to see so many universities mentioned so glowingly!

 

[MNblockhead]

Uhhh...

Bad attitude to have if you are trying to convince fans to buy AD&D, instead of the older rules where you have to share profits with Arneson.

TSR Gary was a very different Gary than the wargaming community organizer Gary and the aging, mellowed-out Gary.

 

[MNblockhead]

Agreed. He had written quite positively to Lee Gold in Alarums & Excursions early on, and then after the success of D&D, he wrote to the APAzine threatening them with legal action for their D&D/AD&D coverage of houserules. I suspect as time went by he decided "his" version of the game (the one he was running at home) was the correct one and others were "playing it wrong" -- a very common attitude among gamers at the time. Heck, Ron Edwards basically says those same things when he talks about the games people play: "you're playing it wrong," "you don't know what good gaming is," "stop having fun with things I don't like!" (Okay, I made that last one up.) This is one of the reasons all of the new classes in Dragon were "NPC classes" -- if they're meant only for the NPCs, then there's no impact to the player-facing side since only the DM will ever need to know the specifics of abilities.

But his home game was not run RAW. There are many posts by Gary here in ENworld and elsewhere, as well as stories shared by those who played in his games, that he ignored many rules, made things up on the spot, and otherwise did not run his home games following all the rules in AD&D.

My eyes are, however, sore from rolling over his comments on angels. He didn't have any problems publishing Deities & Demigods, which stated up gods that people in current real-world religions worshipped. I don't know the date he wrote his answer to the quote in screen-cap above. I know TSR later changed the name of Deities and Demigods to Legends and Lore to avoid upsetting religious people.

Then again, he's distanced himself from that book, emphasizing that he didn't write it and didn't use it in his games (TSR - Q&A with Gary Gygax). Seems like a bit like throwing Kuntz and Ward under the bus. And he was still running the show at the time. Who cares if he didn't write it. He greenlit it.