Impromptu Stream with Ed Greenwood, Tim Kask, & TSR CCO

[Malmuria]

The comments earlier on discussion over argument make the point that, while the unacceptable has to be called out, extended finger wagging just leads to everyone sharpening up their existing arguments. Reminded of a BLM group in NY set up by black and brown moms. Their eager white allies felt they knew best and took all of a couple of months to hijack the group, hold an event of their own and start to gather cash. Convinced to this day how they helped out. The moms not so much.

Relatively speaking full on smiting Tim or Ernie for want of a quick cmos update seems kind of harsh.

Tim Kask, Erine Gygax, or Ed Greenwood are not, as is obvious, women of color. They could have a tremendous role in foregrounding new and diverse voices in the hobby. Instead they put their names on stuff like this, and take personal offense when people point out the implicit colonial stance of 70s/80s dnd scenarios and settings. They are not victims.

 

[nedjer]

Tim Kask, Erine Gygax, or Ed Greenwood are not, as is obvious, women of color. They could have a tremendous role in foregrounding new and diverse voices in the hobby. Instead they put their names on stuff like this, and take personal offense when people point out the implicit colonial stance of 70s/80s dnd scenarios and settings. They are not victims.

I compared them up to a point to the white allies and recommending an approach focused on solutions and regenerative culture has nothing to do with overlooking inappropriate behaviours and everything to do with preventing them. At no point are they identified as victims, instead I suggest explaining to them why some of their views are in need of review.

 

[aramis erak]

I refuse to watch the video in the OP. Why? Because I'm sick and tired of witchhunts by both ends. By folk at both ends not understanding that now is drastically different from then.

I watched the 2 hour GaryCon Q&A with Mr. Kask. He seems likable. He also is politically incorrect by modern standards. And he's not in favor of woke culture - and let that slip a couple times. He's openly derisive of 3.X fans and playstyles other than those he uses. None of those make him a bad man. He also admits AD&D development was fueled by whiskey and weed. That is an admission of a federal crime (albeit well after the statute of limitations limit expired), but even that doesn't make him a bad man.

Is he a bigot? Doesn't seem to be. But probably is. To some degree, almost everyone is. I've watched kindergardeners self-segregate by ethnicity on too many playgrounds... Preschoolers, too.

So, I went back to my DragonCD contents... and looked at the first year of Dragon.
Different XP tables and ability tables for the same classes for female PCs? (Dragon, Iss 3., pp7-10)
Entire classes gender restricted? Yep.

Let's be honest: D&D in the early days was filled with Testosterone Poisoning. Because it was socially acceptable and socially expected.

Tim Kask also noted one very progressive (for the 70's) thing: His wife worked to pay the bills, so he could pursue his career in gaming. Key thing? "She let him." He admitted dependence upon his wife's permission... a rare thing for that era.

He, like most of us, is a flawed being. Doesn't make him bad. Just human.

It is time that the witch hunting ends and the education begins. Think about collateral damage. Think about how the hunt for flaws can wind up hurting innocents working for/with them.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Let's be honest: D&D in the early days was filled with Testosterone Poisoning. Because it was socially acceptable and socially expected.

Sexism in rpgs -- artwork and different attribute limits for female characters -- was a contested issue in the 1970s and 1980s. Taking one side or another was a choice. My post on the subject from an earlier thread, with several examples and quotations from the period.

By folk at both ends not understanding that now is drastically different from then.

What struck me, reading the arguments in the White Dwarf letters pages in the mid-80s, was how similar they were to arguments today.

 

[MGibster]

He's openly derisive of 3.X fans and playstyles other than those he uses. None of those make him a bad man. He also admits AD&D development was fueled by whiskey and weed. That is an admission of a federal crime (albeit well after the statute of limitations limit expired), but even that doesn't make him a bad man.

There are plenty of people here at EN World who enjoy games or playstyles that I do not particularly care for. But I don't speak of them derisively because it's okay for others to enjoy things I do not. In fact, I usually encourage them to keep doing what they're doing so long as they're having a good time. Being openly derisive of fans of a game you don't like is disrespectful. And maybe that doesn't make him a bad guy in the grand scheme of things, but it's a character flaw that makes him look like a jerk. If he doesn't respect me then why should I respect him?

 

[MGibster]

I am of the firm belief that people saying to leave politics at the door are speaking from a position of privilege because you can't escape politics (since it permeates nearly everything we encounter), and they aren't the ones being disparately impacted.

I sometimes wonder if people think different things when they say keep politics out of gaming. Generally speaking, I think I keep politics out of my games. Usually. I mean I have a Cyberpunk campaign planned featuring a demagogue politician running for the mayor clearly patterned off of the previous administration here in the United States. For most people, I think they're just thinking, "I want to have fun not think about real life stuff." Which I think is fine. But, as you said, if the inclusion of gay people in a game is political and you're insisting on keeping that out because it's political, that's not cool.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Sexism in rpgs -- artwork and different attribute limits for female characters -- was a contested issue in the 1970s and 1980s. Taking one side or another was a choice. My post on the subject from an earlier thread, with several examples and quotations from the period.


What struck me, reading the arguments in the White Dwarf letters pages in the mid-80s, was how similar they were to arguments today.

Wow thank you for linking the earlier post, that's absolutely fascinating. Gygax's take on alignment is fascinatingly horrific and was non-viable as of 2E, if not earlier, but it is interesting as it does match one DM I played with, who had started with 1E and played 1E a fair bit (with older 1E players) who had identical attitudes of the "genocide is Lawful Good" type.

Attitudes which were immediately unanimously rejected by the players, and the DM essentially "overruled" (in part because the DM decided to try and make it a philosophical argument, which he soundly lost - Gygax openly notes he's evading that), in the first real "player revolt" I ever saw in an RPG.

The stuff from the letters column of WD is really interesting too.

 

[MGibster]

Sexism in rpgs -- artwork and different attribute limits for female characters -- was a contested issue in the 1970s and 1980s. Taking one side or another was a choice. My post on the subject from an earlier thread, with several examples and quotations from the period.

I remember the attribute limits for women characters in 1st edition but my group never used them. We weren't particularly enlightened or anything it's just that AD&D had a lot of fiddly little rules we never bothered with.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I sometimes wonder if people think different things when they say keep politics out of gaming.

Absolutely they do. For example, most of us don't view someone's gender or sexual orientation or ethnicity as political, because we view them as human rights, and basic human rights isn't political. But some people who want to keep the status quo or want to exclude certain demographics of people who exist in the real world make their simple existence political when it never should be, because then it gives them a tool to be exclusionary.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Gygax's take on alignment is fascinatingly horrific and was non-viable as of 2E, if not earlier, but it is interesting as it does match one DM I played with, who had started with 1E and played 1E a fair bit (with older 1E players) who had identical attitudes of the "genocide is Lawful Good" type.

In the Dragonsfoot thread, Gygax regards lawful good as very different in its approach to neutral good or chaotic good.

The non-combatants in a humanoid group might be judged as worthy of death by a LG opponent force and executed or taken as prisoners to be converted to the correct way of thinking and behaving. A NG opponent would likely admonish them to change their ways before freeing them. A CG force might enslave them so as to correct their ways or else do as the NG party did.

Source

Upthread, Gygax says that the second lawful good option "taken as prisoners to be converted" can be followed by immediate execution.

As I have often noted, a paladin can freely dispatch prisoners of Evil alignment that have surrendered and renounced that alignment in favor of Lawful Good. They are then sent on to their reward before they can backslide.

Source

This seems to be inconsistent with the account of good and lawful good alignment in AD&D 1e.

Players Handbook (1978), emphasis mine:

While as strict in their prosecution of law and order, characters of lawful good alignment follow these precepts to improve the common weal. Certain freedoms must, of course, be sacrificed in order to bring order; but truth is of highest value, and life and beauty of great importance. The benefits of this society are to be brought to all.​

To a lawful good character, life is of "great importance" and benefits "are to be brought to all."

Dungeon Masters Guide (1979), emphasis mine:

Basically stated, the tenets of good are human rights, or in the case of AD&D, creature rights. Each creature is entitled to life, relative freedom, and the prospect of happiness. Cruelty and suffering are undesirable.​

​

Creatures of lawful good alignment view the cosmos with varying degrees of lawfulness or desire for good. They are convinced that order and law are absolutely necessary to assure good, and that good is best defined as whatever brings the most benefit to the greater number of decent, thinking creatures and the least woe to the rest.​

The first paragraph is about all good alignments, the second only refers to lawful good. In the last sentence of the second paragraph there is a suggestion that "creature rights" might not apply to orcs and other humanoids, because they would not be considered "decent".

Gygax has been consistent about the idea of a paladin immediately executing converts. "From the Sorcerer's Scroll", Dragon Magazine #38 (1980):

A Paladin could well force conversion at swordpoint, and, once acceptance of the true way was expressed, dispatch the new convert on the spot. This assures that the prodigal will not return to the former evil ways, sends the now-saved spirit on to a better place, and incidentally rids the world of a potential troublemaker.​

In the same article, he discusses a lawful good ranger protecting a wounded wyvern. Wyverns are of low intelligence, 5-7, in AD&D 1e.

To assert that a man-killing monster with evil tendencies should be protected by a lawful good Ranger is pure insanity. How many lives does this risk immediately? How many victims are condemned to death later? In short, this is not good by any accepted standards! It is much the same as sparing a rabid dog or a rogue elephant or a man-eating tiger.​