TSR3 missed deadlines, delays in Dungeon Crawl

Dannyalcatraz · Dec 30, 2021

jdrakeh said:
Take Tainted Lands, for example.

Oooof.

jdrakeh · Dec 30, 2021

Dannyalcatraz said:
Oooof.

It's pretty bad. Some more recent editions of MA were also not well received. I'd like to think that Giantlands is better, but between both of his business partners being apparent transphobes and one being creatively bankrupt, I don't have too much hope.

Tales and Chronicles · Dec 30, 2021

jdrakeh said:
It's pretty bad. Some more recent editions of MA were also not well received. I'd like to think that Giantlands is better, but between both of his business partners being apparent transphobes and one being creatively bankrupt, I don't have too much hope.

I you can find the tweet/video of Ward bragging about the ''innovations'' of Giantlands as a game, you'll see that he hasnt learnt much since he made Tainted Lands

LongTimeLurker · Dec 30, 2021

the Jester said:
Why so much antipathy to Ward? I seem to recall his fingers on a bunch of good material back in the early days.

He lost the plot when he published "Angry mothers from heck" in dragon magazine (#140 i think). Then there was his 3e company, Fast Forward Entertainment/Games. Every single word they produced for that edition is utterly unsalvagable dreck.

LongTimeLurker · Dec 30, 2021

Sacrosanct said:
I don't think that's a fair comment. Kinda rude, actually. While yes, lots of things are subjective, Jim did write a lot of things held fondly by gamers.

I'll point you towards the angry mothers from heck article in dragon plus his 3e company, Fast Forward Entertainment/Games. Everything he wrote for that edition of the game was trash.

and metamorphosis alpha and gamma world weren't that great.

Deset Gled · Dec 30, 2021

LongTimeLurker said:
He lost the plot when he published "Angry mothers from heck" in dragon magazine (#140 i think).

Having read that article, I don't really understand how he lost the plot in it. He talks about a number of changes that were made to make D&D less offensive, and even closes with "This company is interested in presenting material that promotes all of the qualities that parents want their children to have as those children grow up."

Dragon 154, for reference: https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg154.pdf

Sacrosanct · Dec 30, 2021

LongTimeLurker said:
I'll point you towards the angry mothers from heck article in dragon plus his 3e company, Fast Forward Entertainment/Games. Everything he wrote for that edition of the game was trash.

and metamorphosis alpha and gamma world weren't that great.

Ok. I fail to see what the problem is with that article. I mean, it was written in 1990, so there's some choices of words we might consider slightly misogynist by today's standards, but the overall point of the article is to make the game less offensive. How is that a bad thing? They are a business, after all. And what's wrong with being less offensive? I for one don't want D&D, the face of the hobby, to be all edglordy and gross.

Also, his work on Deities and Demigods, Gamma World, and Greyhawk all are viewed fondly by a whole lot of gamers.

I'm not saying all his stuff is good (hardly anyone can say everything they did was good), but I don't think it's fair to say anything he does is trash. You don't have the career he has had and the respect of other big names in the industry like he has if all you do is trash. I might not agree with his personal views on a lot of things, but let's keep it real.

Deset Gled · Dec 30, 2021

Sacrosanct said:
I mean, it was written in 1990, so there's some choices of words we might consider slightly misogynist by today's standards, but the overall point of the article is to make the game less offensive.

I read it as the 1990 version of "We're doing our best to be woke." If anything, it shows that the original TSR was (outwardly, officially) taking the opposite stance of nuTSR.