Joshua Dyal said:
Actually, the message I got from his posts was that D&D 3e as formulated encourages that type of mentality, and thus a lot of the folks who play are indeed hack-n-slashers, or "vidiots." However, I don't believe he ever said that anyone who plays the game is one (after all, he plays it too) and I know I'm not a vidiot. Since he didn't specifically call me one, and he left room for those of us who (presumably) aren't these "vidiots" to also play the game, he didn't insult anyone directly on the boards.
And yet, a lot of people feel insulted. Either way, I don't think it's any big deal, as I said. Even if he had called me a vidiot directly, it'd be pretty easy for me to formulate a fairly nastyish response wherein I explain that I don't even play computer games (with the occasional exception of turn-based strategy, which is hardly any kind of analogue whatsoever for D&D) and then I move on. Here, on the other hand, it seems a lot of folks who weren't directly insulted aren't wanting to let it die.
I actually think there was a lot of interesting discussion on the merits of Harn vs. other campaign settings, and this thread also rekindled my ongoing investigations on how d20 could be tweaked for a low fantasy gritty feel. Seems a shame to let it all get wasted on endless finger-pointing, though.
Thanks for reading between the lines and seeing what I was trying to say.
As someone else stated, it was the system I was taking issue with, not everyone who plays it (myself being one of them). The 3e system, IMO, does TEND to turn out a specific kind of player, what I call a "vidiot" (aka: power gamer or munchkin). This is not meant as a blanket indictment of all D&Ders, but a flaw I perceive in the system and its "back to the dungeon" focus.
Many of you seem to have exceptionally thin skins, or you would have seen the well-intentioned humor in some of my remarks (FR being about cheap thrills & high magic, for example--which, in any case, is a complaint about the way FR is set up, rather than a slam against everyone who runs the Realms--I have played in FR for many years since the 1e gray box set--I became disdainful of it after the Time of Troubles fiasco, and resented having to constantly alter my FR to avoid what I saw as mounting stupidity in the official products). Yes, I threw a few barbs out there, but not nearly as many as the ones who posted and insulted me. Nearly all of my (badly) misconstrued comments were well-intentioned and meant in good humor to "spice up" the debate. If you knew me in life, you would have an easier time interpreting my phraseology, which, admittedly, can easily get misconstrued online without benefit of body language, tone and facial expression. Not even emoticons can help, apparently.
Certainly, I'll try to be more careful in my semantics in the future, but it's really not so simple to change the way I talk/communicate when posting... I am very passionate, and my emotions sometimes get in the way of clearly expressing my opinions without ruffling feathers. I've already apologized.
I like d20 and 3e, but it doesn't work for me on all levels, or I wouldn't constantly be trying to tweak it. The official settings (and unofficial ones like Scarred Lands) for D&D are all far too improbable high fantasy and magic for my taste, and that is one of the main reasons I turned to Harn (it being the opposite). The other reason was the minute level of detail Harn has--not detail in the same way that FR is (over)detailed, but detailed in every facet of daily life and listing every village in every kingdom with all the info you could ever need. This is something I have not gotten in other settings, which seem to be more preoccupied with presenting hack-n-slash opportunities than creating a logical game world. That is my experience--I'm not saying everyone should switch to Harn, or switch to HarnMaster from D&D. That's silly. I'm not even saying that I will never play high fantasy again, because I almost certainly will. But right now, I need a break from what I perceive as 3e's "video game mentality". This is not news--there have been a number of threads advocating "low fantasy/low magic" D&D since 3e was released and a number of alternative systems, such as Ken Hood's Grim-N-Gritty rules.
I think many of us will have to agree to disagree... Those who keep trying to fan the flames and provoke an irrational "flamebait" response from me with thinly-veiled (or not so thinly!) insults will be disappointed, I'm afraid. I gave in to that a few times before, with predictable results.
The point of this thread (after Falstaff was sidelined early on), was to discuss the differences between HarnMaster and D&D3e/d20 and the HarnWorld setting "vs." all 3e settings. Can't we get back to that, instead of endless bickering?
Maybe I'll start a new thread on this, but I suspect it will be quickly swamped with flamers trolling for a fight, rather than allow for a productive discourse. I hope not!
