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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7692865" data-attributes="member: 4937">Dear werecorpse:Since you've become the catalyst for a discussion of this, I thought it fair to address your point a bit more fully.I myself had for the longest read the 1e AD&D DMG and dismissed much of its advice as being poor or incoherent.  His approach to handling players seemed a bit harsh, some rules seemed to positively get in the way of good gaming, and the standards of play he discussed often seemed somewhat odd.  I had devised my own approaches over the years and disregarded much of his advice, taking only what seemed sound and ignoring the comments that seemed ill-thought out.I had a revelation though when one summer I sat at a table in a gaming store and hosted open gaming sessions, where anyone could show up with a character and play the game.  And the longer I did that, the more respect for the 1e DMG and Gygax's insights I started to have.  I began to realize that what I had found less than useful advice, wasn't aimed at the DM who is hosting a game for 3 friends who show up every week.  Much of the advice in the DMG is aimed at DMs in Gygax's situation, which was hosting games six nights a week for a revolving cast of players and characters who show up 12 or 20 at a time.Once you realize that there is a vastly different approach you can and often have to take to roleplaying when there is a single player, or 2-3 players, or 4-6 players, or 7-12 players, or more than 12 players you start to realize that Gygax's advice in the DMG is no less and probably much less dysfunctional than what you find in Burning Wheel or FATE or half a dozen other Indy RPGs where the author doesn't realize almost everything they are saying is predicated on at minimum not having more than 2-3 players in a high trust environment.  Once your group size grows, once that high trust social contract has to go out the window, things get much clearer.Indeed, one of the things that is most deficient in most modern RPGs compared to Gygax's writing, is that while modern RPGs are far more organized and coherent in their rules presentation, they often fail to really describe and demonstrate play as effectively, leading to perfectly coherent rules that are perfectly unable to obtain the results they are intended to produce.  Or at minimum, unable to tell a would be GM what they need to do to turn these rules into the game the rules intend, because they fail to realize how much more there is to an RPG session than the rules.Be very very careful of accusing as experienced and celebrated GM as Gygax of 'making mistakes'.  It may just be that the aren't playing in the same environment you are playing in with the same constraints or lack thereof you have.   Until you've trudged a few miles on that GM's side of the screen, you may not have the perspective to critique them.  And you already know one should be careful of dismissing others play styles.  So practice your own advice.Or to put this more bluntly, you sir are not Gary Gygax.  Show some respect.</blockquote>

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