Respect to Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson

[Stone Angel]

Another for respect!!

Planesdragon you will find yourself with much opposition with your comments. However you are entitled to your own opinion, and I will leave it as such. But this thread was created for one poster to say thank you to a man he admires and is grateful to. Nothing more nothing less, don't turn this into something ugly. Trust me nobody wants to get ugly.

The Seraph of Earth and Stone

 

[Snoweel]

You go girlfriend!

 

[BASHMAN]

"Zeb Cook, Monte Cook, John Tweet, Steve Weick, Skip Williams, and Ryan Dancy all deserve just as much reverance as Gary, if not more."

*Grasps holy symbol, steps boldly forward, and attempts to turn the fiend who said the perverters of D&D deserve more respect than Gary!

*Looks in horror as the turning attempt fails. Reaches for holy water, and throws it... the grenade-like missile strikes a direct hit, horribly burning the fiendish troll to cinders!

 

[JeffB]

"Zeb Cook, Monte Cook, John Tweet, Steve Weick, Skip Williams, and Ryan Dancy all deserve just as much reverance as Gary, if not more."

*Grasps holy symbol, steps boldly forward, and attempts to turn the fiend who said the perverters of D&D deserve more respect than Gary!

*Looks in horror as the turning attempt fails. Reaches for holy water, and throws it... the grenade-like missile strikes a direct hit, horribly burning the fiendish troll to cinders!

LMAO And I agree. While many ofthe people mentioned do deserve alot of respect for their contributions (especially Steve Weick for his "revolutionary" ST games that really put the hurt on TSR, and also Ryan for spearheading the OGL whether for good or for ill), I cannot see how anyone could put them to the same level as Gary & Dave (And Greg Stafford, Bob Bledsaw,Marc Miller, Sandy Peterson,Steve Perrin, etc) as the Creators / Pioneers of this hobby...whose concepts and creations still influence every game/supplement designed today.

 

[Virate]

Here is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

If Gygax had remained with TSR, DnD would be dead.

There would be no OGL.
There would be no 3.0 or 3.5 edition.
There would be no nice DnD games from Bioware, and Black Isle
There would be no TSR
There would be no WoTC buyout
There would be no Hasbro takeover
There would be no DnD books on the shelves.

Gygax is a dinosaur who nearly destroyed DnD.

 

[viscounteric]

I believe it was 1996 when Steve Jackson (the American one ) was a guest of honor at Dexcon in New Jersey. My friend and I were demonstrating a miniature game in the same room as the Star Wars and Ogre Macroture games.

Between sessions Saturday afternoon, Mr. Jackson was making small talk with everyone in room. He talked to the two of us for about 20 minutes while all of us were eating lunch. About halfway through the discussion my friend exclaimed:

Wooly: Wow, how'da thunk last month that I'd be standing around eating hot dogs with Steve Jackson.

Steve Jackson: You don't get out much, do you

From talking to various and sundry psuedo-gaming celebs at Origins, all game designers, etc. want from people is an honest opinion, solid questions (even if they get asked the same ones over and over again), and a thank you if you enjoyed the product.

...and $20 for the latest supplement they're hawking wouldn't hurt either.

As for the "troll list" Jonathan Tweet has cranked out awesome books for Atlas and pre-Magic WOTC for 15 years.

In the hierarchy of gaming legends: Gygax, Arneson, and Lou Zocchi sit atop the gamer gods by the grognards (google Zocchi - Gamescience little children and learn!).
For ba-jillions of little card gamers, Richard Garfield goes here.


Steve Jackson, Sandy Peterson, and *cough* Kevin Siembeda (sp?) are on the intermediate level. Peter Adkinson would fit here in an directly opposite spot that she-who-shall-not-be-named should be here (Not all gaming legends are good! )

Tweet and host of other talented writers (most of whom the average d20 player probably doesn't even know about) fill out the bottom ranks of respect.
Most of the German board game designers would go here, although some deserve to go higher.

The others on the list:
Zeb Cook: 2nd Edition, whether you liked it or not, puts in the bottom ranks. The fact that he wrote Isle of Dread and The Desert Nomad Series, allows him to be the guy who gets the pizza and beer at the intermediate levels parties.

Monte Cook: I'll nod to his editing/development with Rolemaster, but most of his impressive credits (save Labyrinth of Madness) are less than five years old. I won't even consider him in the above categories for another 5 years or so.

Steve Wieck: oooh...good one! Although most WoD will know Mark Rein*Hagen more. I know more about Steve's brother Stewart than Steve

Skip Williams: eh...

Dancy: The fella rubs me the wrong way, his impact on the hobby is only 4 years old, and his credits are thin, but if OGL is still prevlelant in 2010, I'll be happy to give him his due.


The again I understand some of the backlash. Same thing happens in other parts of life:

"Elvis/Reagan/Gygax was a hero to some, but he never meant Gratz' to me"

Chuck D20, The Quintessential Public Enemy

 

[Planesdragon]

What the heck are you talking about? What exactly has Gary done since being forced out of TSR that deserves condemnation, let alone disrespect?

Condemnation?

Go back and read my post. I said that Gary (1) had a lack of understanding and (2) was arrogant--as in, more confident and outspoken than his accomplishments give him a right to.

Being on par with the other movers and shakers in an industry in which he is no longer a significant active force is neither "condemnation" nor "disrespect." If I wanted to list things to condemn Mr. Gygax for, I would probably start with what he did while in charge of TSR, and continue with the overly geeky way he has portrayed our hobby since.

But I do not want Gary condemned. I want him shown the respect that is due him--which, IMO, is not the acclaim of every person who plays d20 or RPGs in general.

So, because you disagree with Gary's opinion, that proves he doesn't understand the hobby? Are you sure it's Gary who's arrogant?

1: I never claimed not to be arrogant. But you don't see anyone bowing to me, or holding me up as an example of the hobby, so my arrogance isn't that bad.

2: The man wrote a game system that had names changed for no real good reason, and not a few weeks ago advocated the sort of tight-control over RPG products that would have meant that everything d20 that SSS or Mongoose or Malhovic have ever done would have simply not been created.

Some people express a fondness for differenet "game systems", as if learning how to play a game was so much fun you'd rather learn a new game than play one you know. This is, in my opinion, simply wrong--not maliciously wrong, not foolishly wrong, but the sort of wrong that a good meaning intelligent person can mistankingly conclude.

Second, let's look at three of the people in list above - John Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams. Easily, their biggest accomplishment was the development of the 3rd edition core books. Now, review the 3rd edition core rule books versus the 1st edition AD&D core rule books. Just running to what comes to me right now, for the PHB the attribute development, most hit dice, base damage for weapons, base races, most classes (all except sorcerer), and spells are pretty much the same as 1st edition AD&D. For saving throws turning, and armor class, they're the same concept with a new set of rules. For monsters, they're pretty much the same monsters from the 1st edition AD&D Monster Manual with many of the special qualities being the same.

In so much that d20 resembles AD&D is purposeful choice, not lack of inspiration. It resembles OD&D and AD&D because it was meant to--but once you get past the shallow familiarity, you notice that everything simply works cleaner and better.

The people I listed (with the possible exception of Ryan) were just as able to create from whole cloth as Gary--the best example of this being Arcana Unearthed, which was intended to be a new set of archtypes for fantasy RPGs.

Now let's look at what Arneson and Gygax had to fall back on - basic mythology and fantasy literature.

Actually, Gary and Dave had the whole wargaming industry to fall back on. While their execution was very creative and undoubtedly influential, "one-person wargames" aren't exactly a genius-level leap as a conflux of wargames and fantasy literature.

 

[viscounteric]

Here is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

If Gygax had remained with TSR, DnD would be dead.

There would be no OGL.
There would be no 3.0 or 3.5 edition.
There would be no nice DnD games from Bioware, and Black Isle
There would be no TSR
There would be no WoTC buyout
There would be no Hasbro takeover
There would be no DnD books on the shelves.

Gygax is a dinosaur who nearly destroyed DnD.

Really Virate, please elaborate *grabs beer and gets comfy* educate the unwashed masses we are with the knowledge you possess.

Oh yeah, please cite your sources:

 

[Lurch]

Feh. :\

I'll give credit where credit is due for coming up with the groundbreaking concepts, but truth be told, the Old Man & I haven't seen eye to eye on many issues since. In fact, it seems lately every time ol' Gary opens his mouth, my respect for him dips a little lower. He's not a god, he's not a king, he's just a guy -- a guy who came up with a terrific idea for a game 30 years ago, but has apparently not evolved along with it. In fact, IIRC it was Gary himself who once upon a time applied the term "grognard" to the type of close-minded, fear-of-change outlook he's currently displaying (but then, he's always been something of a control freak IMO). Granted, he has some right to be embittered due to certain business dealings not going his way over the years, but honestly -- if he's THAT torqued off at d20, the OGL, and the current styles/preferences of gamers in general, why doesn't he just graciously step down/aside or whatever and let the rest of us continue on our merry way while he juggles THAC0's, cardboard dice-chits and other cumbersome relics of gaming's past?

Or, to quote a certain well-known musician:

"Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'."

 

[Power_Word_Wedgie]

Here is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

If Gygax had remained with TSR, DnD would be dead.

There would be no OGL.
There would be no 3.0 or 3.5 edition.
There would be no nice DnD games from Bioware, and Black Isle
There would be no TSR
There would be no WoTC buyout
There would be no Hasbro takeover
There would be no DnD books on the shelves.

Gygax is a dinosaur who nearly destroyed DnD.

All of the above is arguable.

However, you forgot one truth: without Gary and Dave, there would have never been DnD. If the games isn't invented, then the options for things that followed would have never materialized. Yeah, it's fun to sit back and say, "Well someone else would have developed an RPG game that would have taken off as much as DnD" but at the end of the day it still just speculation. Two men did it 30 years ago, and they were Arneson and Gygax.

It's like saying the Wright brothers contributions are irrevelant because Howard Hughes would have discovered flight. Well, Hughes might have discovered it and the Wright brothers might have ran the flight business into the ground if the were the only developers, but at the end of the day it was the Wright brothers that flew down on the sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.*

(* Yes I've heard that there are others that may have developed flight before the Wright brothers. Feel free to substitute the names of those people for the Wright brothers - the point of my post is not who developed flight but that the developers deserve the brunt of the credit because without their work the optimizers do not have a frame to base their work.)