You gotta give it to Uncle Playdoh, he's the man. Take a look at this quote, from a while back:
"There is a small but extremely vocal segment of the hardcore RPG audience, consisting of game designer-publishers and their dedicated fans, that views the game form as being something other than it is. This element believes that "story" and theatrical elements are the true substance of the game form. As the D&D game is action-adventure oriented, and the most popular RPG, it has become the target to attack by this group. It appears that the thinking in this regard is that if the 3E D&D game can be made less dominant in the marketplace, then the door will be opened for their own game products. So the debate continues.
Perhaps there is merit in the novel theory of what the role-playing game is all about, but current successes seem to point toward combat and the heroic as remaining the themes that attract players. The 3E D&D game, and its open-source approach, will stand or fall on its own merits. My bet is that the much-abused "hack and slash" RPG format will continue to dominate the marketplace regardless of what happens, for it doesn't preclude other aspects, merely centers on the heroic fight. Hoary as the underlying concept might be, the attraction of this sort of adventure has been popular since Homer's time."
"There is a small but extremely vocal segment of the hardcore RPG audience, consisting of game designer-publishers and their dedicated fans, that views the game form as being something other than it is. This element believes that "story" and theatrical elements are the true substance of the game form. As the D&D game is action-adventure oriented, and the most popular RPG, it has become the target to attack by this group. It appears that the thinking in this regard is that if the 3E D&D game can be made less dominant in the marketplace, then the door will be opened for their own game products. So the debate continues.
Perhaps there is merit in the novel theory of what the role-playing game is all about, but current successes seem to point toward combat and the heroic as remaining the themes that attract players. The 3E D&D game, and its open-source approach, will stand or fall on its own merits. My bet is that the much-abused "hack and slash" RPG format will continue to dominate the marketplace regardless of what happens, for it doesn't preclude other aspects, merely centers on the heroic fight. Hoary as the underlying concept might be, the attraction of this sort of adventure has been popular since Homer's time."
He's the man.
RPGPundit
(Originally posted march 24, 2006)
Of course he also wrote those two books about mastering roleplaying games...
ReplyDeleteHe was also a very poor rules writer and IMHO often very wrong about roleplaying. So, and i am being deliberately teasing, the first Pundit. But he was also a dude and one of our founding fathers.
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ReplyDeleteGiven that he set the standard for all rules that followed, and created the most popular RPG ever, it seems crazy to say he was a "poor rules writer". That's a bit like saying that Buddy Holly wasn't that great of a musician.
ReplyDeleteSo you're saying being 1st and being popular = being good?
DeleteNot at all. It's like saying the Sex Pistols were very bad musicians but they totally changed the music scene.
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ReplyDeleteExcept the Sex Pistols were quite competent on their instruments and wrote some catchy tunes so your response is nonsense. Sid wasn't a Pistol until afterwards.
ReplyDeleteThe Sex Pistols were brilliant musicians. Their success was proof of that.
ReplyDeleteOk since the analogy doesnt work let's drop it.
ReplyDeleteEGG wrote several rulebooks for RPGs at TSR and elsewhere. I have read the key ones. They are IMHO both poor rules and poorly explained compared to contemporary documents, where contemporay is a band of about five years. Compare AD&D and Basic D&D, essentially same game, one clear and systematic, early understood and we'll structured, the other not. Note the better ruleset congress later, but that diets not change the fact that it is a better written ruleset.
Note the better ruleset *came* later, but that *does* not change the fact that it is a better written ruleset.
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ReplyDeleteI think it can safely be said Gygax was a poor writer, prolix and ambiguous. Just plop a DMG in someone's hands and watch how (1) it takes dedication to read a section and determine what Gygax's point is, and how (2) different readers will come away with diametrically opposed understandings of what Gygax was trying to say.
ReplyDeleteI think the Sex Pistols comparison is incredibly apt. Because you have all these idiots in punk who go around saying "the sex pistols were shit (insert band here) are so much better", ignoring that the Sex Pistols accomplished what said band could never fucking hope to do. Their argument is not based on a holistic view of what it takes to be great musicians, because they think only (insert thing they care about here: guitar skills, lyrics, whatever) is what makes a 'good' musician. And they're wrong.
ReplyDeleteMentzer may have been better at taking Gygax's genius and reworking it into a more basically comprehensible set of rules, for example. But he was no Gary fucking Gygax.
You get this bullshit from certain Gygax-haters all the time who are always trying to claim that someone else should be praised as the great early-figure in RPGs (usually Arneson, but I've heard others). But that's bullshit. Gygax was the Whole Package, and thus the one who made it happen, and thus a great game designer. Designing a game is more than just designing clever little mechanics, which is why the assholes who make obsessive and intricate heartbreakers full of point-buy complexity are losers and not the kings of the genre. It's why the Forge never got anywhere (though even the Forge understood to some degree the value of other factors of design, often better than a lot of the fucking grognard-nerds who shit on Gygax). Conversely, it is why (although he's a lesser light than Gygax) Kevin Siembieda Won the Hobby: he became the Last Man Standing of the original industry because he's a brilliant game designer even though he's only at best a so-so mechanics-writer and a poor-to-terrible businessman.
An RPGer hating Gygax would be like an American hating Jefferson.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet both happen.
DeleteNo accounting for self-hatred.
DeleteI agree. EGG was the Johnny Rotten of roleplaying. Or the Bill Hailey of rock'n'roll. Any critique has to be constructive and build on that package.
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ReplyDeleteWhat the Hell are you doing to consistently post each comment thrice?!
DeleteHELL! I don't know. Ask Google.
DeleteMore like the Ike Turner of rock'n'roll--not the alleged wife beating part, the "Rocket 88" part.
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