When did We Stop Trusting Game Designers?

[Wootz]

Gary writes in to say that the reasons firearms are not found in Official AD&D Worlds is because the physics of the universe do not allow for gunpowder and similar explosives. Burning stuff simply burns, it doesn't exert outward pressure. (so steam power won't work either) Experiments on those lines will simply do sod-all. If you want blasting effects, you'll have to use magic. And that's final.

So you could make magical handguns to the same effect then, right?

 

[Ourph]

...So, I put it to you, when did "game designer" become synonymous with "something icky I scraped off my shoe"?

When game designers started thinking of themselves as "professionals" rather than just your average gaming-schlub who got lucky enough to land a job designing games about elves and hobbits.

 

[smug]

Anyhow, you only had to look at, say, Runequest than back at AD&D to have concerns about Gygax's game design. Sure, you would appreciate that he and Arneson made the first one, but it was pretty clear to everyone by the early 1980s (Runequest came out in 1978, Rolemaster in early 80s, I think, for example) that Gygax didn't have the best design and also seemed weirdly resistant to fixing it (instead we got Unearthed Arcana...).

Also: alignment languages? I mean, really?

By the time TSR released the Greyhawk Adventures hardback (which I guess was after Gygax had left by some way, so he can't be blamed for that) and anyone had read the 0-level character rules I can't believe that faith in the designers of the material was present in more than a fraction of the people reading it.

 

[Pramas]

RPGs were created by hobbyists with a do it yourself ethic and you can see this from the beginning. Look at early RPG efforts like Tunnels & Trolls, Arduin, and Palladium. What do they have in common? They were all the products of guys who said, "There's something cool in D&D but it's not exactly what I want." There's never been a rule or play style so sacrosanct that gamers wouldn't ignore, modify, or reject it.

 

[TerraDave]

As for those quotes:

EGG: Hmm, from the author of “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks”, who put “Six-guns and Sorcery” in the DMG…what can you say. There was (is?) a long running trend of trying to reign in D&D from its early, wild, roots, which leads to…

D”Z”C: Here I part ways with Garnfellow…one of my big problems with 2E was that, mechanically, it was still ADD, and if anything was slightly more focused. But they would say “play it like that” or you can “play it like that”, but this or that wouldn’t actually fit with the game itself. The 2E DMG gave very little advice on how to value magic items, or how to reward them, or how important they were in the game (they were very important). Just some pabulum on not having magic shops. (Fan demand led to magic item prices being released later).

 

[Wayside]

I also am a strong believer in using your real name on the internet. I wouldn't obscure my identity if I got into a conversation with you at a cocktail party, and I don't do it here on the net.

"What, do you imagine that I would take so much trouble and so much pleasure in writing, do you think that I would keep so persistently to my task, if I were not preparing--with a rather shaky hand--a labyrinth into which I can venture, in which I can move my discourse, opening up underground passages, forcing it to go far from itself, finding overhangs that reduce and deform its itinerary, in which I can lose myself and appear at last to eyes that I will never have to meet again? I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write." -M.F.

 

[Plane Sailing]

It seems to me that nowadays is the only time I've ever actually seen any idea that you should "trust" game designers! From the very earliest days everything got modded, pronouncements were laughed at if we disagreed and embraced if we agreed purely on their merits, and regardless of who wrote them.

So if I could invert your question, I'd ask "when did (people) start trusting game designers" as against just looking at stuff and taking what works and not taking what doesn't work?

n.b. The closest thing to internet forums in the old days was probably the APAs such as "Alarums & Excusions" and "The Wild Hunt" in the US and "Trollcrusher" in the UK. Sorta like slow-motion forums, but not much different in terms of discussion topics and tone in some cases.

Cheers

 

[The Little Raven]

When game designers started thinking of themselves as "professionals" rather than just your average gaming-schlub who got lucky enough to land a job designing games about elves and hobbits.

I don't consider RPG designers or writers lucky, just devoted, since it's not like the industry turns them into millionaires or anything. In fact, many of them put their own money, as well as time and other resources, into the products they produce, so this disparagement by suggesting their icky or putting "professional" in quotes like they don't deserve it just strikes me as rude.

 

[Cadfan]

This question has a short, easy answer.

Gamers have always disagreed with designers.

But gamer hatred is on the rise due to the aging of the D&D playing population.

Older gamers tend to feel more like D&D is "theirs." That means that changes they don't like are somehow... theft? Vandalism? Some sort of attack on their property.

something positive: archive

 

[gizmo33]

At what point did game designers go from "Guys who want to make my game better" to "Those bastards who are trying to ruin MY game!"?

Not necessarily any point - your question is based on a premise that may not be valid. Gygax didn't say "you can't use guns in your game", though it depends on how you interpret the phrase "Official ADnD game worlds". The 1E DMG has rules for running DnD characters within a Boot Hill game world, AFAICT this was so you could transport DnD characters to Boot Hill or vice versa. Don't forget the Murlynd NPC, Barrier Peaks module, etc. IMO there's no logical reason to think that the context your giving the statement is accurate for what was intended.

Secondly, *had* Gygax meant what you're saying he meant, there was no internet to complain to. Maybe someone could have written something to the Letters forum in Dragon, but they were probably too busy arguing about evil PCs.

Thirdly, people yik-yak much more about "game design" like RPGs are some sort of science. I suppose this is to lend some credibility to what otherwise seems like a matter of opinion. In the old days IME someone like Gygax could say "don't use critical tables" and everyone would pretty much ignore it. I could write about using critical tables in my game on Usenet and not have to hear 1000 fan-boys rail at me about how I was ignoring - not just Gygax - but somehow violating natural law (or "good game design" or however they're framing their opinions these days). But now try doing the same thing with some sacred cow in 4E, like wealth-level values. "OMG - your PCs don't have the recommanded [sic] magic item wealth for their level!? Why that very well could knock Earth out of it's orbit!"

So as a consequence, when people don't think for themselves, and assume that individual DMs will apply appropriate judgement in their games, then it falls upon authority figures, like Mearles, to keep us all in line. With this increasing (and inappropriate IMO) reliance on authority figures, then what they say takes on inflated significance, and thus what could be construed as just some gamer's (however knowledgeable) opinion suddenly is now a point of potentially bitter contention.