"in 1st Edition...every DM...assumed that Corellon Larethian put out Gruumsh's eye"?

[Delta]

My guess (I don't have my books, or my Dragon Archive CD-ROMs in front of me) would be in the counterpart elven articles, which were in issue #60 (burned into my mind, because it was the very first issue of Dragon that I bought).

Read that article carefully earlier today. It's not there.

 

[Kerrick]

Further, the Drow are *definitely* Greyhawk. G1-4 were set in Geoff and the Crystalmist mountains, the Underdark was under the Crystalmists (iirc), and there are hex references for the Greyhawk hexmap for the locations for all of these. The drow did not originate in the Forgotten Realms, though again it was FR which expanded and IMO overused them to the point where people identify the Drow with FR.

I knew that... I didn't intend to make it sound like drow had originated with FR - I've got the GDQ supermodule.

I think you are making the common internet error of assuming that "most" means "every." He didn't say "every" he said "just about every." In other words it was very common. It doesn't mean that there weren't exceptions.

No... I know exactly what he was saying. I'm an English major. And yes, I know that there were exceptions. My point is that I think that there were quite a few more than he thinks there were. I mean, making a statement like "just about *every* DM" did such-and-so is, bluntly put, not very smart given the tendency of gamers to say, "Uh, no... we didn't do that." Saying "Many DMs did such-and-so" would be a better blanket statement.

Folks, there are some assumptions that need to be made just for the sake of freaking communication. If not, then what the hell do we have to talk about?

You know what they say about assumptions, don't you?

But the AD&D Deities and Demigods states that arrows fied from Corellon's bow "never miss their target." So he must have hit.

It could mean that he was prevented from shooting out Gruumsh's eye, too. If the arrow left the bow, Gruumsh would be out an eye, so it stands to reason that somehow corellon was stopped, or hit something else, or something happened and he didn't shoot out Gruumsh's eye. (Yeah, I'm being a pedant. I'm bored.)

 

[Glyfair]

No... I know exactly what he was saying. I'm an English major. And yes, I know that there were exceptions. My point is that I think that there were quite a few more than he thinks there were. I mean, making a statement like "just about *every* DM" did such-and-so is, bluntly put, not very smart given the tendency of gamers to say, "Uh, no... we didn't do that." Saying "Many DMs did such-and-so" would be a better blanket statement.

I stand corrected.

I will say he was clearly using hyperbole. If you want to dismiss using hyperbole, especially on the internet, then you will be cutting out most communication and end up arguing about completely irrelevant points (yes, this is probably a large part of internet communications ).

Also, he did get a fact wrong. I personally don't feel that it's an important fact to worry about. That the fact was incorrect doesn't directly affect the point he was making. All you need to do is substitute in a fact that is correct (say that almost every DM had a character named Tenser who was a magic-user in their D&D games).

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Strange, i would have sworn the Faiths & Pantheons picture where Corellon takes out the eye RIGHT THERE is "correct" - seems that the story about the incident changed a lot through the editions. As a DM who started with 3.5, i find the details of the developing fluff highly interesting.
I could have enjoyed the thread more without the usual "... and for me, this is a clear sign that WotC doesn´t care about tradition and has fired me as a customer" part, but there´s no battle without hurt, eh?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I think people are missing the point - it's mythology! With all mythologies there are different stories and different interpretations. So if on my world the people felt that Corellon and Gruumsh were best friends who drank tea together, and Gruumsh actually lost his eye as a result of a childhood accident with a Red Rider BB Gun*, that would be okay and not necessarily impact anyone else's mythology.











*Which, in fact, is actually how he lost it, despite the many warnings from his parents and teachers.

Rumors that Corellon was seen 'touching Gruumsh's gun' are of course wildly exaggerated. Corellon had his tongue stuck to a light pole at the time, and had to be freed by the fire department. It was Garl who stuck the gum in the barrel.

The Auld Grump

 

[Tewligan]

No, I don't, and I never wrote that.

But I am tired of explaining myself. If you can't understand what I wrote, tough.

But I DO understand what you wrote. You said THIS:

The error itself says, "I feel comfortable making flat out wrong statements about 1st Ed., because...who even cares about first edition. Its forgotten, irrelevant. I can get stuff totally wrong about 1st Ed. because no-one even cares."

Which is the same thing as THIS:

Do you REALLY think he just intentionally tried to pass off incorrect information because he just didn't care?

If there's a difference between these two statements, I don't see it. Can anyone help me out with what I'm missing?

 

[Set]

The design diaries are full of unusual commentary. 'If you use Profession, your game probably was boring.' Stuff like that.

Just accept that they aren't the most adroit communicators on the planet, and think that the best way to hype us up for 4E is to make it sound like everything we liked about 1st Ed, 2nd Ed and 3rd Ed is lame and 'so last week.' Ignore the piddly detail that the people saying how boring or lame the current edition of D&D are happen to be some of the same people who *wrote it and sold it to us.*

It's like the political campaigns going on right now. If you don't have anything positive to say about your own candidate, tear down the current system, and hope no one notices that your candidate *is part of the current system.*

It's not malicious or even condescending, so much as just sloppy logic.

 

[RedShirtNo5]

I recall a version in which Corellon deliberately missed Gruumsh's eye to teach Gruumsh a lesson about his vulnerability. Anyone else remember reading that? Maybe Complete Book of Elves?

 

[Scribble]

From what I can tell the "lost his left eye" comes from 2E Monster Mythology. If Carl Sargeant wants to re-write D&D the way he feels like, its no big deal, though Gruumsh's right eye "migrating" to the middle of his head is a pretty lame ret-con.

Monster Mythology didn't come out until 1992. 1st Ed. Deities came out around 1980/81. So no 1st Ed. gamers "assumed that Corellon Larethian put out Gruumsh's eye", because that story wasn't around at all during 1st. Next, some 2nd Ed. gamers didn't think that either, because 2E was around for years before Sargeant's MM was released.


So hearing that makes me think "Is he pretending to be a 1st Ed. gamer when he clearly isn't? If so, why?
Does really know the history of the game?"

Here's my question though... Is his statement incorrect simply because the actual text says otherwise?

What I mean is, although it says he missed did most 1e gamers assume that was just the orc's version? And that he actually hit despite what the book said?

He's talking about a shared idea, not necessarily what was written on the paper. There are a lot of things that happen like that.

Like the old saying: "Play it again Sam..." It's a common quote used in reference to the Movie Casablanca yet never once did Bogart actually say those words... (He said play it Sam, and Again Sam, but never "Play it again Sam..."

So even though the story was that he missed, did most gamers just decide he hit?

Maybe thats how they decided to make it the 2e myth... It was already what most gamers had decided so why not make it the truth?

I just realized what it is. That statement is a window into how these designers think.
It sounds like they think 1st Ed. is classical history or something, like using a telegraph to send messages. They feel comfortable making these wildly inaccurate generalizations offhand, because 1st Ed. players, like dinosaurs and trilobites, don't exist anymore.


Wow. That statement and what it implies, more than all the weirdness of 4E from designer weblogs, tells me what WotC really thinks of me as a customer.

Or perhaps you're attributing too much of a motive to someone that isn't there?

I think really the important thing was the idea of what he was saying, and not the actual text.

The idea was that everyone had a shared experience despite what campaign world they ran. The idea was the important part, and not the specific location that it happened.

To me, the idea is to make the game as a whole more 1e like... Instead of having multiple types of D&D, perhaps they're trying to bring us all back together, as players of D&D.

 

[billd91]

From Deities and Demigods, for all of first edition, and part of second edition, cyclopean Gruumsh had one eye. That is all he ever had. He never had two eyes in the first place.

Well, to be even more pedantic, Gruumsh isn't always depicted as having a single, cyclopean eye. Dragon #62 on page 29 portrays him as having a single eye on the right side of his head, the left one being covered with a patch.
So if even 1st edition wasn't getting it "right", why does it matter so much whether or not Gruumsh started with 2 eyes or one? Personally, I prefer him with one put out. It's more interesting and implies a story. But the end result is ultimately the same... Gruumsh has one eye for all intents and purposes and everything that means symbolically. How he ended up that was is a bit of fluff that some campaign worlds will accept and others will not and many more will not care about.