D&D General The Human Side of D&D History - From Gary Gygax to Temple of Elemental Evil

[mamba]

No you did not, your entire focus has been on gygax as a person. The key part you are missing is how what you think you showed is relevant to early d&d & the history of d&d itself. Claiming you showed a thing you never attempted to show does not accomplish that

and denying that I did when I actually did will not help either

I do not need to write a dissertation on this to satisfy the sealions, for one that would not satisfy them either

I told you how it is relevant, Gary the person informed D&D the game, it reflects his perspective. There has been enough virtual ink shed on this that you can easily find things if you actually wanted to

 

[tetrasodium]

and denying that I did when I actually did will not help either

I do not need to write a dissertation on this to satisfy the sealions, for one that would not satisfy them either

No, I don't think you understand what is being asked, that or you very much do understand and know that you are uincapable of drawing a link so just declare it to be "sea lioning" "gaslighting" & similar.

If you didn't want a discussion perhaps the first step would have been to not make a claim like "gygax was sexist" in a thread about d&d history or start a thread separate from history like "list of sexists"

 

[Voadam]

No you did not, your entire focus has been on gygax as a person. The key part you are missing is how what you think you showed is relevant to early d&d & the history of d&d itself. Claiming you showed a thing you never attempted to show does not accomplish that

The relevance seemed stated up front in the big book preface, that there are elements in the OD&D books and the development material that shows sexism and casual slavery and such and that the reader is being forewarned.

I am not familiar enough with the totality of OD&D or any of the development draft material and correspondences in the book to say how that played out in the 500 pages of the book's OD&D material.

The do not talk about religion thing axed supplement IV entirely from the project though.

 

[Future_Monkey]

I embedded that tweet with "Gary's original letter" because she went beyond the sarcasm comment & explained how the calls for revision themselves were sexist in it.

Ahh yes, making things less sexist is the real sexism..

 

[Azzy]

But we're just trying to understand.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

As a fan of history, I like work that shows historical figures in all their complexity, good sides and bad sides. There's so many stories of well-known criminals also being very kind and generous in other contexts, or strong-willed politicians being absolute terrible husbands, etc.

I often feel that a first group tend to overly defend or deny the flaws and wrong-doings of important figures "He wasn't sexist! She didn't have a choice! It was only the culture at the time!". The second group tend, once these flaws and wrong-doings have come out, to erase these figures entirely.

I disagree with both approaches. My favorite author is Hemingway. Amazing writer, great journalist, captivating figure, not the best person. I think you can explore both of these sides, honor their work and study their shortcomings. It's just the richest path forward.

 

[Bedrockgames]

and some are downplaying, denying, or excusing them.

We disagree. And that is fine. But calling him a negligent father, that goes beyond differing interpretations of intentions behind his quotes related to sexism

 

[Bedrockgames]

View attachment 387841

But we're just trying to understand.

This is an unfair way to deal with people who disagree with you over this stuff. It is just a rhetorical trick to dismiss people’s arguments and perspectives

 

[Azzy]

This is an unfair way to deal with people who disagree with you over this stuff. It is just a rhetorical trick to dismiss people’s arguments and perspectives

There's a difference between disagreeing on something and when one party keeps asking for evidence when that evidence is presented again and again.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Which people? Feel free to quote/link. You've made such general statements before and then failed to support them when asked.

@mamba calling Gygax a negligent father because he war gamed a lot and was a cobbler for a while