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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8497511" data-attributes="member: 82106">I have never told anyone to 'shut up', and furthermore I've often explicitly qualified my observations as being mine, and a product of my experience and the experiences of people whom I have interacted with. OTOH its a pretty decent number of people in several areas of the US over virtually the entire history of D&D, including going to cons and a wide variety of other game-related activities. Maybe Jon Peterson's research qualifies him to be a superior authority, I don't know. Heck, I don't even know what his opinion of my observations would be, so I really won't get into that. I'd be happy to talk to the guy, it would probably be a fun conversation. I stated my experiences, they don't jibe 100% with yours, and what is surprising about that? It would be a sad little world if everyone lived the same life!Well, I agree that history is complex. That is kind of where I'm coming from. I really have no idea what specific sources Jon used or how his research was done. I really strongly doubt anyone can authoritatively say what was the most common way that D&D was played. It will depend on who you talk to and when and where they were. I've talked to a lot of people, most seemed to have something similar to my experiences, but there is surely some selection there. Its not like I contend that all play was identical to what I experienced either. I knew of 'West Coast Play' as a trope way back when, though I'm not 100% sure when it became widely known about. It SEEMED TO ME at the time that it was fairly restricted to a certain circle and was not that common in the larger community. The other thing you have to take account of is that in the real world people's play isn't purist. Sometimes we just played characters that were 'pogs' and sometimes we got more into RP. It varied depending on mood and who exactly participated. So who can say how that sorts out on balance? IMHO most play of that period is best described as 'shallow characterization' where PCs would have a personality trait or two, but not really a developed CHARACTER (IE beliefs, goals, morals, etc.).Well, yes, we could spend lots of time researching the research. I don't find winning a dispute with you online to be all that compelling a use of my time to be perfectly honest.</blockquote>

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