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<blockquote data-quote="Melan" data-source="post: 2985360" data-attributes="member: 1713">Garnfellow -- I know what you mean. D&amp;D was mercilessly criticised, dissected and pooh-poohed in each and every aspect. I have seen it myself, read it in fanzines (well, fanzines from 90s Hungary, okay) and on message boards. But the criticism usually seemed to come from people who didn't like the whole of the game. People who decried it as &quot;unrealistic&quot; or &quot;childish&quot;, people who thought it didn't simulate the kind of fiction or historical/mythical corpus they wanted it to simulat (most often Tolkien) and so on. I don't think it would have been wise at any time to cater to the wishes of these groups (just like it wouldn't be wise today to replace 3e with a reprint of OD&amp;D, for instance, although I sure would get a kick out of it <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />)I think Dragon is relevant because it was the kind of forum where you would find criticism from people who were fans, even dedicated fans, who nevertheless felt something was wrong and needed fixing. In short, a bit like ENWorld. So yesterday evening, I went through the Dragon archive and read everything thata) had to do with rust monsters or ogre magesb) was found in a reader's feedback or game designers' soapbox area.There was no criticism. A lot of suggestions on how to use rust monsters as a DM or as a player (tame and train them for your army, for example <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />), but for a magazine which ran a lengthy debate on whether female dwarves have beards, or how fireballs really work, the question was conspiciously absent.Maybe I should also do a search of rec.games.frp.dnd, but there is no time for that now.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Melan, post: 2985360, member: 1713"] Garnfellow -- I know what you mean. D&D was mercilessly criticised, dissected and pooh-poohed in each and every aspect. I have seen it myself, read it in fanzines (well, fanzines from 90s Hungary, okay) and on message boards. But the criticism usually seemed to come from people who didn't like the whole of the game. People who decried it as "unrealistic" or "childish", people who thought it didn't simulate the kind of fiction or historical/mythical corpus they wanted it to simulat (most often Tolkien) and so on. I don't think it would have been wise at any time to cater to the wishes of these groups (just like it wouldn't be wise today to replace 3e with a reprint of OD&D, for instance, although I sure would get a kick out of it ;)) I think Dragon is relevant because it was the kind of forum where you would find criticism from people who were fans, even dedicated fans, who nevertheless felt something was wrong and needed fixing. In short, a bit like ENWorld. So yesterday evening, I went through the Dragon archive and read everything that a) had to do with rust monsters or ogre mages b) was found in a reader's feedback or game designers' soapbox area. There was no criticism. A lot of suggestions on how to use rust monsters as a DM or as a player (tame and train them for your army, for example :)), but for a magazine which ran a lengthy debate on whether female dwarves have beards, or how fireballs [i]really[/i] work, the question was conspiciously absent. Maybe I should also do a search of rec.games.frp.dnd, but there is no time for that now. [/QUOTE]

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