MtG, D&D and Me TITLE NAME EDIT-The thread where Joe apparently offends everyone

[Loonook]

I feel the pain... but I don't think it is really so much an issue with rules in general... just a way that kids have begun acting.

Yes, there are children who read... and they read well. However, we have an enormous amount of anti-intellectualism going around in the country (and possibly the world) and it hurts those who enjoy reading. Bill Hicks had a great bit about being stuck in a no-account town and having a waitress ask him what he was reading for.

This was a humorous bit to me until about 5 years ago, when I started getting asked that question at work. I've worked with kids for a good portion of my adult life (social work, secondary education, the wonders of tutoring) and see that there is a very interesting trend in information. This trend has been brought about by our faster society, but really it's everyone's fault.

Kids process an enormous amount of junk data. I remember being a kid and baseball stats, car knowledge, and plenty of other things being the big data mine for guys of my age. There was also a lot of general practical knowledge to be sorted through from hundreds of different conversations of various topics, schoolyard jargon, and plenty of more... interesting sources.

Now, this information is available on the Net, and everything is seen as sooth. Which is kind of sad... but it is our little bit of weight to carry. The Internet and the generalities of this Information Age have done a lot of good and a lot of hurt for most facets of our lives and D&D is no different. Character Optimization (which used to be the province of a guy with way too much time on his hands) is huge on various messageboards. On the other hand... we get some excellent setting material from the likes of DannyAlcatraz, Jack, and others who produce some really top-notch stuff.

---

Okay, this became way longer than I wanted it to be because it's 3:15 and I have a substantial buzz going from late night activities. My real point is that there are good and ill turns when it comes down to all of this... but there's just a new set of gripes to come up with. I hated Tolkien and Salvatore inspired characters before... now I get to hate a bunch of manga inspired characters.

Each generation has its fanboys, fatbeards, insufferable twits... and each also have their geniuses, scholars, and solid all-around mensches. Find the ones which suit you .

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[Ariosto]

Arneson = Wozniak (a la Charwoman Gene) seems to me a bit off. Gygax, I think, was not only the salesman but also the "techno". I bought Dave's Adventures in Fantasy, and it was less like a new development than like a sort of alternative OD&D: brilliant kernel ideas half baked in a thin crust of linguistic and logical order that quickly dissolved into a stream of consciousness that was more to be swum in than merely read.

I have enjoyed some of his historical war-games, but must give some credit to the developers. The telegraph was more than just a lightning rod in a storm!

All the accounts I have encountered of him as a player of games attest to his gift for "thinking outside the box", winning the game that others did not even realize they were playing.

Such a creativity depends for its power on not being constrained by dichotomies, on being free to wander into a previously unrecognized dimension. That aptitude by its nature is not often consonant with one for conventional grammars.

Woz perhaps earned his "wild man" reputation. However, the most exotic of his exploits may have been his getting out of the "scene" (after throwing the Us Festival) to devote himself to teaching. There's a grounding to him that suggests to me that his brilliant innovations were but byproducts of mastery of a craft. Had there been no Apple, there would still have been a microcomputer revolution. What was odd about Woz was that he had interests so much more compelling to him than being an "industry leader".

So, I would not short-change the Gygaxian mind in terms of also being one perennially "at play".

 

[S'mon]

I get it. You're saying that old people are better than young people.

To be more accurate, Generation X are better than Generation Y.

 

[ppaladin123]

Good lord, no! In high school my group played hulking muscle-men and graceful elves, because they were reflections of what we wanted to be but were so far from, just as kids do with 4E races. I find no fault in that at all.

My point is the same as yours: "as gamers get older what they want and what they expect out of their rpg experience will change." I don't agree, though, that "The current rules (3e and 4e) are flexible enough to allow their games to evolve as their tastes change". On the contrary, my strongest objection to 3E and 4E is that they are overly prescriptive and inflexible. That however, is part of a debate we've all had and are all tired of.

Fair enough. I disagree but yours is certainly a reasonable position.

 

[mach1.9pants]

[sblock=I'm drunk]You see, Joe. May I call you Joe? Maybe "Mr. thelawyer" would be better.

There is a great feature on ENWorld called a "blog." It is the ideal place to put long-form rants and opinion pieces. Presenting such thoughts in main discussion groups is the equivalent of smacking someone across the face with your gloves to challenge them.



CCGs have been around almost half your life, most of your adult life. It doesn't make you "old", it makes you disconnected from hobby gamer culture.



Please note your use of the phrase "sheer number". Why would such a thing be shocking? Oh right. Because it is likely that CCGs, being more accessible, attract a larger volume of people than RPGs? RPGs have always been a niche thing except for like 5 years from 1977 to 1982. CCGs have been staying quite strong for almost 14 years now.



WotC didn't save the hobby. White Wolf did. White Wolf is also the one who really killed TSR. Magic was a short-term addictive game that came out just as the AD&D 2e gamers started going to college, and destabilized the player network. Those that stayed with RPGs were likely to experiment with other RPGs and so we had a brief flourishing of actual choice in the hobby as D&D with it restrictive gameplay and absurd rules was a ridiculous thing to attempt. WotC managed to hoodwink everyone with the d20/OGL debacle, killing off dozens of game companies, only replace those willing to suckle on a d20 for sustenance.

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There is a non-4e RPG Book at this borders reserved for you. Your "no place sells anything but 4e in my state" business is false. I found a non-D&D rpg in your state in 30 seconds. No, I didn't check how close to New Haven this is. I also grabbed the first non-4e Rpg I could think of.

(This counter-rant is becoming fun now)



Gygax didn't create D&D. He created Chainmail, Arneson used Chainmail to create D&D, then Gygax and Arneson published D&D. Gary Gygax monetized and popularized D&D. Gygax = Jobs, Arneson = Wozniak. Pitchman, Genius, dig?





Bored now. Okay. Dude, you are clueless if you can't find non-4e RPG books in Connecticut.

Anyway, here's the thing. CCGs saved RPG's.

1) CCG moneys let Peter Adkison buy TSR. TSR was not dying because of CCGs it was dying because of bad management.

2) CCGs prevented many nerds from developing lives after RPGs became hard to schedule. Many came back into D&D later on.

Japanification was happening to youth culture when you were a kid. GODZILLA FOR YOU WAS LIKE NARUTO FOR TODAYS PUNK KIDS!!!!!!!!!
[/sblock]
Rambling rnat over.

and I'm not actually drunk although I feel like I am.

I am impressed my drunken rants make a lot less sense, or I spend my time saying 'I love you, now you don't understand, I really really love you...' to random people in the pub
And I, even though I am sober, agree with you. Pretty amazing considering that your 'x' many sheets to the wind

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Arneson = Wozniak (a la Charwoman Gene) seems to me a bit off.

I considered the Chainmail as tech comparison and discarded it because that evidence would ruin my beautiful theory.

And to Mr.Fast Pants. I am and was not drunk. [sblock=emo]I am insomniac and I think in the middle of either the worst or second worst depressive episode in my life. FUn happy times make me weird.[/sblock]

 

[mach1.9pants]

OK your post said "I'm Drunk" and I took you at your word, although that was a bit silly 'cos we all know that when one is drunk one refuses to admit it!

 

[Charwoman Gene]

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[/sblock]

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I narrate my actions when I'm drunk. Like... I'm standing up now. Now I'm in the living room. I am watching "The New Zoo Revue with Freddie the Frog". I really wish they had had twitter back when I used to drink more.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

The best thing about wearing nostalgia goggles is that you're never wrong!*

Also, Joe, maybe you can tell me as you seem to be amongst this crowd: What, exactly, is your problem with manga - and I damn well expect a problem I cannot find in fantasy books.

*So long as you never take them off