There is that, and as a publisher, I can tell you we get rabid attacks from people, and it's weird that say they are "defending" some other game, when that other game's designer is on your friends list, you share videos, pictures of family gatherings, gentle words of encouragement, and even sometimes ran in the same circles as kids in the NYC punk scene. Gary was a guy, made a game, raised a family, lived his life, and now has gone to where we all will go.
It's a wide-spread phenomenon outside of hobby gaming as well. You get fans complaining about artists "selling out" by making good money when "it should all be just about the art, man. <bong hit>" I mean, who needs to make a living, amiright?
Given some of the things that Gary was responding to, I also have gained some sympathy for his latter position.
As a greasemonkey who was involved in many Web 1.0 & 2.0 car forums, the hostility towards people posting a question that had already been asked was very intense. Bumping and thread-necro was likewise a good way to get banned or booted.
Car people are terrible $&%#-talkers, I ran a racing board 25 years ago. RPG'ers aren't quite as bad, I think most fandoms have their moments though. ENWorld is a good forum, and good for general news about the hobby, people friendly enough too.
It’s weird, I honestly can remember when the internet was basically just game, car, firearm, & computer “fandoms” for a lack of a better term.
I'm kind of struggling with what constituted "the community" Gygax exploded. If you're talking the RPG community - that didn't really exist before D&D - there were separate wargamer and sci-fi/fantasy communities that had member that were attracted to D&D and formed a D&D/RPG community. D&D breaking out into a fad product certainly would have exploded that community further, but D&D was pretty much the community's big bang in the first place anyway. Grumbling about the expansion to incorporate more "normies" would have been the equivalent of a gatekeeping/old geezer backlash.
Honestly, I think it is the wrong question. I think we* are too in love with the idea of geniuses (we as a culture, but even moreso nerddom fandom and those who show up in forums like this). There's something to be said for someone who sees a good idea and then just plain puts in the work. The amount of playtesting that went into oD&D is genuinely astounding. Some of the adventures Gary wrote, similarly, clearly have lots and lots of effort behind them. The places that get the most critique in oD&D (the editing and organization) and AD&D (the organization, some clearly untested subsystems), are the places where they look genuinely incomplete. Much of the later material like Unearthed Arcana that we generally consider of poorer quality is likewise Gary going through the motions or trying to cut corners. Going past Gary to this board, effort clearly matters. Is our own beloved Snarf a genius? I have no idea. I can tell you though, they put in ten times more effort on their columns alone than I spend thinking about TTRPGs in total, and it pays off. Mind you, if you don't start with a good idea, you are unlikely to come up with a good product (and that seems to define post TSR Gary).
From context (has a fantasy supplement), I assume you mean
I find cross-forum drama unseemly, so take this with a grain of salt. However, I've found the culture at DF has vacillated over the years. Like anywhere else without an entrance requirement and unextreme ban policy, it's just anyone who chooses to be there. That said, it's been not remarkably better or worse than anywhere else.
