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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 4400456" data-attributes="member: 2020">(very sad look)  At this point, the situation has deteriorated far beyond the situation that existed when the Flame Wars over Spell Penetration, whether it should be +2 or +1, occurred here and elsewhere.  Things were relatively healthy, as it were, back at that time, compared to now.  Now it isn't about +2s or +1s.  It is about ... well, it is so bad that what it is about, I cannot state on ENWorld - not even in the most gentle terminology I can think of - without breaking ENWorld Rules.  Let's just say that if I were a young person, considering joining our Hobby, joining in a D&D game, and I looked on *any* of the messageboards that relate to D&D, I would almost literally flee for my life from those sites.  Actually joining the Hobby would be absolutely out of the question.  It should not be that way, it should not be like this.  It once wasn't like this.  How do I know that?  Because I was around in 1975, 80, 85, 90, 95 ... I was around when the internet took off, around when ENWorld was founded, around to watch it all happen.  You are quite right, though:  it's no longer a lack of respect for the rules that is the problem.  That was the problem, a very long time ago.  That isn't the problem anymore.  If only that were merely the problem.  If only.    At that time, years ago, there was still ... there was still ... a dialouge concerning the rules.  It was vitrolic, violent, filled with anger and with hatred, filled with hurt feelings and a desire to hurt, but a dialouge of ... a dialouge of some crude sort.      Gary Gygax ... may his memory be cherished.  But Gary Gygax was only one man, and he was experimenting with something that had never been done before:  a roleplaying game.  Yes, games existed prior to Gary, have existed since the beginning, but D&D was something new and different, something experimental.  So yes, his core rules, the rules set forth by TSR, were an incomplete template.  I will go farther, and say that - in my opinion, and just my opinion - some of the template didn't work out very well.  So yes, we had to experiment further, we the Gamers.  We had to fill in for what was missing.  We had to make up a lot of stuff on our own.    Furthermore, a lot of roleplayers were inspired by D&D, but they wanted a different kind of D&D (thus, we saw the advent of Dragonlance, for example.)  And they wanted not only additions to the template, but whole new templates.      However, you know as well as I do, that there is no 'right' way to play D&D, and in this D&D is unlike Chess, and the analogy fails.    Everyone did come up with their own way.  And *extremely* unfortunately, a lot of Gamers *did* decide their way was the right way ... the only right way.  Patently absurd, but there it is;  that is what happened.  Once people started deciding their way was the 'right' way and it was ok to put down others for their 'wrong' way, the downward spiral began.  I, however, do not excuse them.  There is no excuse for such intolerance.  In games like Chess, such intolerance, is not tolerated within the Hobby.  It is not allowed or tolerated in many other Games.  The fact that it rapidly became ok to flame others for their style of D&D play came as a horrifying new reality and fact for me, and probably for many other people playing.  There it was, and we had to deal with it, and it was altogether counterproductive.  It is quite true that TSR did not establish the kind of fundamental etiquette and rules, such as Chess has, to protect those in the Hobby from such behavior.  I regret that there was a need for them to do so - there should not have *been* any such need, since we should have policed ourselves.  Nevertheless, no such template or etiquette was provided, TSR eventually collapsed, and long before that happened, the downward spiral was in full force.  If these words of mine are unpleasant to some of those who are viewing this post, note I am not criticizing anyone directly.  I am not inferring anyone here is guilty of causing the carnage that came about.  I am merely mourning that the carnage *did* come about.  (I do not wish to *add* to the carnage.  In what has become an Ocean of Blood, I would not slit my throat to add my share of gore to the red sea.)    I would simply say that I doubt most of those who played in the Hobby ever had a chance to meet each other.  Just my take.  The chaos and carnage I speak of, spread to the 'Big Boys' long before the fall of TSR.  It has, obviously, continued since.  I have witnessed terrifying examples of it, none of which I will repeat on this messageboard.  Needless to say, if no template for etiquette, no institution to keep Gamers at peace, existed at the beginning, certainly the carnage amongst the 'Big Boys' was not the prelude to a template actually being presented to the players.  I appreciate that an attempt was tried, with the launch of 3rd Edition;  it is obvious a template for a successful etiquette was attempted then.  It, as history has shown, did not succeed, but I would give all due credit to those who made the effort at that time to aid our Hobby in succeeding.  Now, you say, we are a tiny market (what some refer to as a Cottage Industry.)  But I still say, and will always say ... in sadness ... that it need not have been so, if what you say is true.    I do not blame Gary Gygax or White Wolf for what happened.  I blame those who insisted on denouncing others, insisted on attacking others, insisted in turning the Hobby into a bloodbath.  The fights are still ongoing?  LOL.  Yes indeed, they are.  Very much so.  Like never before, perhaps.  There are several crucial Banned Subjects on ENWorld, as Morrus is trying to protect this messageboard from the fighting and the consequences of that fighting.    At the rate things are going, I must wonder if there will be a 'we' to discuss anything.  And it seriously grieves and infuriates me, that I have to make that statement.  I cherish the game, and in my case it really HURTS, to have to watch, what I have watched happen.  (very unhappy, upset look)  Remember when Morrus pleaded for more money to support ENWorld?  He commented that advertisers had gone away, donations were down, money was tight ... I'll not quote more details, not wanting to misquote Morrus, but I know the situation was bad.  And that's ENWorld, which is considered THE premier messageboard for our Hobby.  If the main messageboard (at least, that's how *I* think of it - others are free to disagree) is in so much trouble, what does that say about things?  I was here shortly after ENWorld came into existence as Eric Noah's 3rd Edition Messageboard.  I ran the IRs here.  I watched ENWorld grow from a little messageboard into a mighty messageboard, into that premier messageboard.  That meant there was enormous support, and a lot of money (because bandwidth costs a lot of money) to support the board.  And now Morrus is reduced to begging?  Reduced to hoping for community donations because everything has dried up?  On the largest D&D gaming messageboard on the internet?  That's not a real good sign of the times, is it?  (Fortunately, there are a LOT OF GOOD PEOPLE on ENWorld, and Morrus received a deluge of support, from what I hear ... I wish to give my personal cheers and salutations to all those who helped Morrus out.  Cheers to all of you who are helping keep ENWorld alive and kicking!  : )  )  How about Dragon Magazine?  *The* Flagship Magazine of the Hobby.  There before D&D itself existed!  Heck, there as The Dragon, before D&D even existed, much less as it's early incarnation as The Strategic Review!  Gone.    Dungeon Magazine?  Gone.  Polyhedron Magazine?  I don't know.  I think the RPGA privately funds it, but I do not know.  White Dwarf?  Long gone, gone over to Warhammer around Issue #80.  -  What do you think, really put an end to these magazines?  What do you think *really* caused their demise?  Before you come up with the LONG LIST of ready answers - already discussed in tens or even hundreds of thousands of threads over countless messageboards - I can tell you in one simple sentence:  The lack of a Base Etiquette at the Start.  Clear and simple.  Without that Base Etiquette, it was ok to change the rules.    Once it was ok to change the rules, it became ok to dis other Gamer's house rules.  Once it was ok to dis other Gamer's house rules, it became ok to dis other Gamers.  Once it was ok to dis other Gamers, it was ok to attack them and denounce them.  And once that was ok, it became ok to denounce Gamers in very vitrolic terms, to call them sub-human, to use invective and terminology of unspeakable nature.  Once that happened, the young had no incentive to join the Hobby.  Why would they?  Who would want to join a Culture of Anger and Hatred?  Without the Young, there was only the shrinking Older-Hands market.  And we steadily shrank - how could we not, with the demands the adult world places upon us - and thus the incoming flow of money shrank as well.  Eventually the money dried up so badly that .... one day Dragon Magazine was gone.  You can, of course, conclude something different (fork to a different thread if you do, and wish to continue it there.)  I just happen to think that, those running the Hobby lost all hope in our Hobby, lost all hope of it remaining as a permanent affair, and this played a crucial role in the decisions they made as a business.  And if things don't change, if the Culture of Anger and Hatred continues, do you really think that Pathfinder and 4E will not walk down the same sad, dark road?  Because the young are *not* going to join an intolerant culture of anger and hatred, where dreams and imagination are crushed, where anyone who dares creativity is smashed into the ground, where the young are viewed with derision (and I've seen every one of these things, in inglorious detail, over and over and over and over again, in game after game, event after event, time after time.)  Without the young, there is no future for D&D.  That's a truism.  Someone mentioned truisms.  Well, that's a truism.  But what happened with Dragon and Dungeon is not complicated.  It is simple, clear and simple.  (Again, if you disagree, fork to a new thread for discussion.)  No young, no D&D.  No young, no Dragon or Dungeon.  No young, no nothing!  And it all began because - because he was just one man, and those who followed were just ordinary people, and it was all new and experimental - D&D never had the kind of solid Template for Behavior and Rules that one would find in, say, Chess.  Had such a Template existed, had it been observed and followed, I honestly believe Dragon and Dungeon would be around today (in huge circulation, in every bookstore and magazine shop around.)  Back in 1980, I was playing in a game with my father and my brothers.  My brother was DM, another brother and father and I were the players.  My father, an engineer, quickly gave up on D&D, stating that 'A game without rules, is no game at all.'  I scoffed at him at that time.  I thought our DM was perfectly in the right, changing the rules.  I'm not scoffing now.  I know better.  I know my father was right.  Soon, there may *be no* D&D game, in a literal sense.  I'll say it one more time:  A STRONG TEMPLATE OF ETIQUETTE, RULES, AND BASIS FOR RULES MODIFICATION is needed for Dungeons and Dragons (and for Pathfinder.)  And the Anger, the Hate, the Intolerance, has to go.  The Wonder, the World of Dreams, the World of Imagination, has to return.  If half of ENWorld is ready to let me have it, now, I will understand.  I will.  I do not expect many to agree with me on most of what I have said.  People will form their own opinions, are entitled to their own opinions.  I will just say that, I loved Dungeons and Dragons (in all it's editions), I put my money into that love, I admire and respect those who gave us the game, the magazines, the variants, the books, all of it.  I remember the conventions.  I remember the small conventions.  I remember the hobby stores dedicated to us.  I remember the Gamers at the tables.  I remember the wonder, the joy, the fun, the magic.  I am allowed to weep at what has happened.  Please trust me, I've done a lot of weeping.  But you cannot stop those who dream, and those who imagine.  They will find a way, even in the dark hour of deepest night.  We need to never stop dreaming.  As long as we dream, D&D will endure.  Edena_of_Neith</blockquote>

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