tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post4874659552056761247..comments2024-03-28T13:22:07.685-04:00Comments on GROGNARDIA: Lost KnowledgeJames Maliszewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00341941102398271464noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-74665499006153614682010-03-09T02:21:33.819-05:002010-03-09T02:21:33.819-05:00Bliss:
I have to really agree with what you just ...Bliss:<br /><br />I have to really agree with what you just wrote. Yeah it does feel at times that designers give too much what they want. Case in point - I think it's safe to say at least one marker of 4e is into Celtic mythology. It now has a bigger influence on the D&D game. <br /><br />Producers of entertainment keep forgetting that the masses do have an imagination of their own. Take Star Wars; Boba Fett and Wedge are more of a creation of fans. They had minimal screen time, but fans like me still saw Fett as a top bad guy, and used our Luke X-wing action figure to be Wedge.<br /><br />Word verification: tythars (very D7D sounding)Veilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10629417071588107833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-14411389560707582122010-03-08T10:34:17.709-05:002010-03-08T10:34:17.709-05:00I think some of the responses here brought up some...I think some of the responses here brought up some good points. <br /><br />I thing there's a general cultural aspect here in modern times that things have to be obvious and spoon-fed to the general audience. The media makers, whether it's film, comics, games, etc. have to make things perfectly clear with characters, plots, origin stories, etc. They don't always give their audience credit and let them work things out for themselves.<br /><br />The things unsaid, unwritten, implied are what really stick with your throughout the years.<br /><br />Andy's quote, strikes me as a bit odd but a reflection of assumptions of modern times.bliss_infintehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12433733609487959653noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-81982287257301302842010-03-08T08:32:05.184-05:002010-03-08T08:32:05.184-05:00Nuts - sorry about that comment. Doin' a 36-ho...Nuts - sorry about that comment. Doin' a 36-hour day and I meant that for the OTHER thread.Cameronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01879633126839076800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-19527849549971732972010-03-08T08:18:41.884-05:002010-03-08T08:18:41.884-05:00I have to disagree with that last POV. And if that...I have to disagree with that last POV. And if that's what Andy meant, than I disagree with him too.<br /><br />I don't think fantasy needs to have current North American POV on culture and multiculturalism. I think it needs to be what it is: Euro-centric knights, wizards, and its folk lore. <br /><br />Nothing wrong with adding a bit of something from elsewhere, like a neat monster (Ogre Magi), or an idea for a class, like asassins (the Indian Thugee). But to blend it all to make the game more PC I doubt will broaden it in its marketing.<br /><br />Years ago a friend got me to watch a Japanese fantasy mini-series called Record of the Lodoss War. Pretty much it's a Japanese take on Euro-centric D&D. People around the world *do* like that stuff. Just like James mentioned how he's into Old Kingdom Egypt.<br /><br />I can understand people being interested in other cultures like that. Me, personally I'd rather see the use of later Egypt, when it got all feudal. That sounds much more interesting to me.<br /><br />Could the fantasy genre do better without such a Tolkien influence (or better yet, Peter Jackson influence)? Maybe yes. <br /><br />I watch the new BSG show Caprica. In it they've taken Sicilian mafia and turned it into a culture on a grander scale, and they seem to be using mostly non-white actors for it (the two main Tauron characters are Mexican and Israeli). That's neat. They don't talk like they're from Jersey, but they're mobsters with a strong family tie, with a tribal aspect (they tattoo themselves with events of their lives - like Pacific islander people do).<br /><br />Just because our real world developed the way it did, should fantasy worlds? We had Genghis Khan, but should the Forgotten Realms? Well it did! Did that improve the world setting, cause the feedback I've seen is that it didn't. No one was interested in playing in a Horde. 4e did away with its Aztec, Egypt, and Babylon settings for the Realms too.<br /><br />I think better D&D marketing would be WOTC asking the Cartoon Network if they might be interested in a 10 minute weekly cartoon. Just make it a group of typical D&D adventurers in a dungeon crawl. No background story on how they met, or who they are, or world building (save stuff like that for a season 2 and 3). Just a simple 10 minute advertising of D&D. Worked for Clone Wars (and it started off with 5 minute episodes, which were enough to tell its story). <br /><br />Introduce the game that way to a new generation. Maybe they'll go off and play WOW after, but maybe they'll play DDO instead. If they do, it's money in WOTC's pocket. The rpg production model could be to just break even, and develop story ideas. Who would of thought that Drow would become a standard race 20 years ago. Probably no one. But they did. And now most fantasy has a dark elf in it. D&D shouldn't be trying to reinvent itself, or use another competitor's idea of what fantasy is. It has its own. It's had it for decades now. And since too few even are aware of its fantasy (and sci-fi) origins, D&D can swipe that, and everyone will think how original they are.<br /><br />Worked for Star Wars (aka, Dune meets Flash Gordon meets Kurosawa).Veilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10629417071588107833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-4344762751089974082010-03-08T08:17:24.068-05:002010-03-08T08:17:24.068-05:00Whew! Lots of stuff to mull through, here. I'm...Whew! Lots of stuff to mull through, here. I'm still new enough to my return to this hobby to feel like an outsider, but here's my take anyway:<br /><br />[1] WotC wants go retro? Great! WotC isn't going to pull a "TSR" on the OSR. I'm fairly sure they understand that there's more money to be made by having friendlier policies than TSR had back when they were litigation-crazy whack jobs. <br /><br />[2] And I think it's because WotC understands the hobbyist mindset, which is that even if we won't use the product, we'll still pay money for it, especially if it helps us scratch whatever nostalgia- or collector's-itch we may have (mine is a nostalgia itch).<br /><br />[3] So if they went and republished the old Holmes set, or the Moldvay, or even the orginal 3-volume woodgrain box set, I'd buy them all (heck - even the old modules) because I hate getting them through eBay with someone else's house-rules already marked in and because electronic downloads lack a certain - oh, let's call it a sense of concreteness - that printing them out on copy paper can't fully achieve.<br /><br />[4] Regarding the "D&D Essentials" set itself; who cares what it is, really? If WotC wants to appeal visualy to the game's roots while trying to sell its new 4e product, I can't see how this is by definition a bad thing, especially if it points new players towards retro coolness. It's just business; it's not like we're all <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredo_Corleone" rel="nofollow">Fredo in the boat</a> or anything. <br /><br />Just some old guy's take. Happy Monday, everyone!Cameronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01879633126839076800noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-83966764358467534332010-03-08T07:00:33.125-05:002010-03-08T07:00:33.125-05:00I think we're going off topic a bit. Most gam...I think we're going off topic a bit. Most gaming books are poorly written. I love the 4E game, but it's poorly organized and pretty slapdash with some of it's sentences. <br /><br />One of the main points that Andy Collins was making was that it's important to evolve the game from a game design point of view so AD&D learns from 1E and 3E learns from AD&D and other roleplaying games developed over the years. 4E from 3E and Stars Wars Saga Edition. 5E will probably borrow from Fantasy Warhammer 3E in my humble opinion. <br /><br />Also, nowadays more so than in late 70's suburban America, it's important to create non-European characters in a non-Tolkien setting. World of Warcraft is an international game and it's played in cities as well as suburbs so there's a lot more people playing the game then next white Tolkien readers.<br /><br />So Andy referring to 'kids nowadays' I think is referring to a broaders, wiser consumer of gaming products than the old editions of D&D were.Whirlinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01827325081984275478noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-42570035313803371182010-03-08T05:00:42.264-05:002010-03-08T05:00:42.264-05:00I agree that everyone's attention spans have b...I agree that everyone's attention spans have been degraded by our cultural surroundings since the 70's, but I do find it hard to believe that even a typical modern 13-year-old would struggle with the Holmes Basic set (I've never seen the other Basic sets so I can't comment on them).<br /><br />1e AD&D had more problems than simply the language, which I don't actually think would be a major issue. The organisation and editing of the DMG in particular is a much bigger hurdle to picking the game up and playing.<br /><br />But the PHB does actually remain a good intro as to how the game was supposed to be played; the DMG lets the side down with its broken initiative and totally missing encumbrance rules. But any kid reading the back of the PHB should be pretty clear as to what's involved in the game.Nagorahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04934827653905274555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-24302030956355870442010-03-08T03:51:17.181-05:002010-03-08T03:51:17.181-05:00Since the discussion is "the old editions wer...Since the discussion is "the old editions were poorly written" -<br /><br />I suppose some were. 1e since it relied on knowing chainmail (from what I gathered reading this and other blogs), left some head scratching. Gygax freely admits psionics was a real head scratcher, so wanted to do away with it in his 2e (which he never got to do).<br /><br />I first played TSR games when I was 9 or 10. I didn't read any rules, I just did what my GM told me to do (he was 5 years older). We met up to a silver dragon, it attacked us, so I dropped me axe and begun to wrestle it (I didn't understand that weapons do damage. I only knew I was extremely strong since I rolled 18 9x for my strength and was continuously told by everyone that I was extremely strong).<br /><br />A year or two later when a friend got the BECMI books I got back into it. Couple years later I was GM'ing D&D, Marvel, and 1e (than 2e). <br /><br />I suppose I never thought about if a book was badly written. If I didn't understand something (like with 1e), I would just use rules I did understand in place of them (like BECMI rules - I used THAC0 in AD&D 1e). And nowadays I'm such a house ruler that I would just change any rule i thought was "too much" or "old" in its play anyways.<br /><br />I started with Basic D&D, so if 1e was poorly written, I would have just assumed back then that's what made it Advanced ;-)Veilhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10629417071588107833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-5252488560076903922010-03-08T02:15:23.343-05:002010-03-08T02:15:23.343-05:00Just to echo Delta, I was also a "Vector Zero...Just to echo Delta, I was also a "Vector Zero", learning Holmes D&D from the blue book with no prior exposure, no mentors, no nothing. When I bought it, I thought it was some sort of amp'd up choose your own adventure book. Well I was kinda right ;)<br /><br />The D&D that I learned from that book, and taught to my friends, was pretty straightforward & by the book. And age 11, for what that's worth.Rafialhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07077298546098373938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-56855686217945822722010-03-08T02:14:11.745-05:002010-03-08T02:14:11.745-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Rafialhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07077298546098373938noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-36687386604865573602010-03-08T01:42:11.216-05:002010-03-08T01:42:11.216-05:00Gygax's DMG may well have been poorly organize...Gygax's DMG may well have been poorly organized but to me it's one of the most useful and inspiring game books to have seen print. Even if I'm playing a different edition, if even I'm playing a completely game, I can whip out the 1st ed DMG open to practically any page and find things that set my mind fizzing with ideas for gaming.GrayPumpkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12776658442266878498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-12770821010621998252010-03-08T00:46:50.342-05:002010-03-08T00:46:50.342-05:00"And if you don't want to accept that, I&..."And if you don't want to accept that, I'll simply take a moment to listen to your explanation of how XP rewards are supposed to work in OD&D and then accept your apology."<br /><br />What are you talking about? You add gold and HD times 100 and split it among the players. What?<br /><br />Word verification: sundumbu. Uh, yeah.Deltahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00705402326320853684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-83636941891852896932010-03-08T00:43:42.952-05:002010-03-08T00:43:42.952-05:00"Come on, besides Andy, who really picks up a..."Come on, besides Andy, who really picks up a Player's Handbook and successfully learns the game from scratch, regardless of the edition being played?"<br /><br />I did! That is exactly and precisely how I learned the game. And introduced it to everyone else in my community.<br /><br />And I didn't even get dice with my blue book Holmes.<br /><br />I can't get over these discussions where everyone shakes their head and says my whole community's experience never happened. I just can't believe it.Deltahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00705402326320853684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-61856962822641724122010-03-08T00:37:10.243-05:002010-03-08T00:37:10.243-05:00This is poorly-constructed marketing BS. He's ...This is poorly-constructed marketing BS. He's trying to justify current WOTC offerings, and the justification just doesn't make sense. Put this in the same bin with Gygax's wacky comments on the premiere of AD&D and the introduction to Deities & Demigods.<br /><br />Couldn't read blue book Holmes? Good grief, what a joke. I want to emphasize again my experience prior to blue book Holmes: Nothing. No community, no older gamers, no wargaming, no Lord of the Rings, nothing. I got it totally cold after a review in Games magazine (crossword, logic puzzles). I was the one who read it at age 10, DM'd everything, introduced everyone in my school to it. Emminently doable. Collins' comments make me gag!Deltahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00705402326320853684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-2603002501854458992010-03-08T00:19:47.384-05:002010-03-08T00:19:47.384-05:00Andy Collins has been a disaster ever since he joi...Andy Collins has been a disaster ever since he joined WOTC. He revels in his mathematical illiteracy and his rule systems, from Sword and Fist to the Epic Level Handbook, are broken and unbalanced.<br /><br />Essentially he is all the ad-hoc, nonsensical rules of Gygax (blasphemy on this site, I know), without Gygax's creativity.Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14039652384328042542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-57288146586925380622010-03-08T00:15:42.096-05:002010-03-08T00:15:42.096-05:00> I can't imagine how the 10-year-old versi...> I can't imagine how the 10-year-old version of me learned basic Dungeons and Dragons from the old blue book games that I got back in 1981. If you handed me that game today, there is no way I would have the patience to learn it.<br /><br />Which is a moot point as the starter box (either version) has "Age 12+" on the cover.<br /><br />Rather too late to catch many potential RPGers, IMHO; doubly so given the obvious "competition".irbyzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10193584357850337816noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-67839577066549688992010-03-08T00:03:11.622-05:002010-03-08T00:03:11.622-05:00I play 4E (which I enjoy), OD&D, 2E and B/X (m...I play 4E (which I enjoy), OD&D, 2E and B/X (my personal favourite).<br /><br />I know it's apples to oranges but:<br />I figured out B/X as a 10 year old.<br />Last time I checked the errata for 4E was 88 pages.<br /><br />Which version is poorly written?<br /><br />In fact I feel a bit ripped off that I bought the first three 4E core books as sooooo much of it has been re-written.P_Armstronghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12374589162025099763noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-19388792096038239102010-03-07T23:57:55.913-05:002010-03-07T23:57:55.913-05:00I can't say, James, whether Andy wishes he'...I can't say, James, whether Andy wishes he'd never made those comments. I can agree OD&D was difficult to parse. But I have to disagree about Holmes and the basic sets that came after. I did and still do find them quite "user friendly" and we did in fact learn the game from them. For me it's D&D 3 and 4 that fit the comment: "<i>If you handed me that game today, there is no way I would have the patience to learn it.</i>"<br />There is a wide gulf between the OSR and current D&D4 design philosophy - hence the popularity of your blog and others.<br /><br />On a tangential topic, this attempt to market the new Essential D&D set as retro and "old school" is slightly disturbing. Are we seen as a threat to D&D's market share or are we new market they are attempting to grasp?Captain Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10682678777940123469noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-74994695312984795202010-03-07T23:52:51.855-05:002010-03-07T23:52:51.855-05:00Yeah what killed my recent attempts to play 4.0 wa...Yeah what killed my recent attempts to play 4.0 wasn't that they weren't interested.. it was the lulls in playing. our DM just couldn't spin the tale any faster and every time he'd have to look anything up.. the Cellphones and Ipods would come out. <br /><br />We eventually had to just give up half way through our first adventure.. shame cause me and the DM invested about 100$ each in buying all the new books, Dice, DM screen and other supplies.. <br /><br />I still want to play but everyone else just thinks its "boring" now.. oh well.Lagomorph Rexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06385231158384929598noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-90961136267124420352010-03-07T23:45:43.542-05:002010-03-07T23:45:43.542-05:00Does anyone really think that the 45-page Holmes B...Does anyone really think that the 45-page Holmes Basic D&D rulebook is harder to grasp than the 1,000-page 4th Edition D&D core rules?<br /><br />And with Moldvay's Basic it just got easier. And Mentzer's Basic was even easier.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-35298251470327487122010-03-07T22:33:13.677-05:002010-03-07T22:33:13.677-05:00FWIW, I started with Holmes, and I can say with ce...FWIW, I started with Holmes, and I can say with certainty that the book made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever at the time, and I was a pretty precocious kid. AD&D was even more opaque. As others said, I learned from other people, and then slowly puzzled out the rules over the years (but never completely).<br /><br />T&T, RQ, even Champions, I had no problem with. Early D&D is freaking opaque, full stop.buzzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06243298798049780695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-27745603938935612342010-03-07T21:53:09.998-05:002010-03-07T21:53:09.998-05:00Come on, besides Andy, who really picks up a Playe...Come on, besides Andy, who really picks up a Player's Handbook and successfully learns the game from scratch, regardless of the edition being played? <br /><br />I played my first game at a con in 1978. When I bought the blue boxed set the same day, I already knew the game without ever having cracked a book. The rule book wasn't the game -- my friends and I sitting around a table in my mom's basement was the game. We just used the book for gear, spells, monsters, to-hit numbers, and saves -- basically anything you could look up in a table or from an indexed list of items. I never read it cover to cover and still haven't to this day. Everyone I know learned at the table from friends.<br /><br />Then or now, very few 13-year-olds could be handed a D&D core book from any edition and pick up the game cold. If any of you did that, my hat's off to you. <br /><br />it's not that attention spans have changed. They were never all that long. It's that people have become justifiably impatient with clumsy means of disseminating information. The "cramped, unnecessarily complex" writing of contemporary RPGs, including 4e, doesn't help matters, but doesn't particularly hurt matters either, as long as most people learn the game at the table.Doughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04871235554044658552noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-10502306023347137252010-03-07T20:44:47.708-05:002010-03-07T20:44:47.708-05:00I agree with Justin Alexander. "Incomplete&q...I agree with Justin Alexander. "Incomplete" is an arguable one, because the older D&D rulesets are in some sense designed to be incomplete - i.e. no detailed rules for various skills, etc. "Poorly written" is a tough one, but I would phrase it differently - "poorly organized" is something that every old school rule set except the red/blue box D&D rules exemplifies. The DMG by Gygax is incredibly poorly organized in a way that seems to serve no useful purpose. 3e is much better organized than AD&D is, whatever you may think of the ruleset.<br /><br />"Unclear" is another one that has the old school rules dead to rights - there are still innumerable arguments about rules or interpretations after decades of use.<br /><br />This should be divorced from whether the games, despite these manifest faults, are still better games to play. Just because the rules are unclear or poorly organized doesn't mean the game isn't a good one to play.IBLhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01105341561948796501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-57009110360832333882010-03-07T20:27:21.304-05:002010-03-07T20:27:21.304-05:00A couple thoughts directed at the quote:
1) There...A couple thoughts directed at the quote:<br /><br />1) There is an immediate gratification impulse among youth, and a general lack of patience (I work primarily with the 17-22 age group). <br /><br />2) D&D has always been a process-based game. A game about the means, not the ends.<br /><br />How do you reconcile these?<br /><br />I don't think you can.<br /><br />As a game, D&D will always work contrary to his perspective. When set against other entertainment forms, particularly video games, D&D moves about as fast as a glacier.<br /><br />3) We need to balance all this out with a reminder not to sell young people short. I recently ran a thief-less, old school game for two of my undergraduates (4E players) and they ate it up. Give them a bit more credit.Kiltedyaksmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03462341093016199620noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-10292411821345292542010-03-07T20:03:58.889-05:002010-03-07T20:03:58.889-05:00"We looked at the pictures, read the cooler s..."We looked at the pictures, read the cooler sounding spells and monster descriptions, figured out how to roll up characters and started killing stuff and absconding with treasure."<br /><br />This was exactly my experience.nextautumnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05201978755112508204noreply@blogger.com