Slate can't let a man R.I.P.
Obviously they never heard of Paizo, or what can be done with the toolset that is DnD.
Warning: This may annoy you, and worse- it is Edition Neutral
Two paragraphs in and I'm done. This flame-worthy drivel isn't worth any real D&D player's time, regardless of what edtion you play. However, if you're looking to get a good mad-on go right ahead and read it.
"Dungeons and Dragons is for fat, virgin dorks and Gygax was a hack..."
NOT RECOMMENDED.
To be fair, Slate also ran a much more favorable article here.
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The man calls himself a geek?!?!?! I hope he contracts leprocy. Firstly, he doesn't have respect for the dead, which is the most basic concept in the world, and he insulted everyone that has ever played D&D and enjoyed it! I hope someone writes something like this about him after his long and torturous death.
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That's just sad. Has this guy any taste? The good man just passed on to his final reward, and here this guy is bashing him worse than the Adam's-Jackson debate.
Sure, maybe the experience system isn't the best in the world, but what good DnD'er doesn't love that feeling of the "DING" that goes off in their heads as they finally cross the bounds into a new spell level, a great new feat and a new level of power after finishing a great quest?
As for this guy's take on the storytelling section, I think that any good DM has the ability to take his game in any, and I mean any , scenario. Hangman's Noose is a great example of what a truly good roleplaying adventure can be. Are there any orc hordes whose throats need slitting? NO! It's honest to goodness storytelling.
There are so many people in this world who don't like DND. I get that, I understand and accept it. But that gives no one the right to tell off an entire community based on their own opinions.
I do not like this article, and, while I wish nothing bad upon the writer, I wish that he had never written it. He likes GURPS. O.K. Stick with liking GURPS. Don't go around slamming things you find distasteful in a publication.
My two cp.
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The man calls himself a geek?!?!?! I hope he contracts leprocy. Firstly, he doesn't have respect for the dead, which is the most basic concept in the world, and he insulted everyone that has ever played D&D and enjoyed it! I hope someone writes something like this about him after his long and torturous death.Did you read the article? Or did you read the first paragraph or two and then see red and didn't really digest the rest of it before you posted?
It's not disrespecting the dead, and it's not disrespecting geek culture. It's actually lamenting the loss of some cool RPG ideas that D&D doesn't really encourage.
I read the entire thing, and he insulted Gygax quite a few times in his "lamenting". He blamed gygax for the state of RPGs, basically saying that he ruined the genre. Speaking ill of someone after their death is disrespecting the dead, or do you have a different definition?
The guy has a point. To be honest, I have not awarded XPs according to the D&D formula since I was 18 years old and that was in the 80s... although if I were playing an evil campaign I just might.
Of course it's worth noting that ultimately most sites like this don't particularly care about the specifics of the content of their articles. At least the higher-ups don't. What they care about is page hits, which is something they can use to sell advertising.
So ultimately, if you want to show your disapproval of the article the best way to do so is to NOT click that link. :-)
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He could have worded it better in many ways, and if he meant it the way you say he did, he would have. His intent was to anger people while he expressed his opinion. There are flaws in D&D, but I haven't seen a game that doesn't have at least a few house rules and role playing xp.
He blatantly insulted Gygax and geeks, and you can't tell me he wasn't trying to piss people off.
EDIT: Now I'm leaving the thread before I post any more angry responses, for I am a very spirited person. But I have a paper to write, and I can't waste any more time
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Eh, I went and read it and just just see how mad and self-conscious the guy is who wrote it. The best part is his actually saying the game is bad and how others are so much better. Is nostalgia that strong? Because while my group started with D&D, we also tried WFRP, GURPS, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Alternity, Star Frontiers, Toon, and others. And we ALWAYS keep coming back to D&D, the others left on the shelf or sold off. And we're not alone, it seems.
-DM Jeff
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It's an amusing post -- punditry on RPG games! Huh. Obviously meant to generate some hits, which it is doing. Good job there anyway.
To me his points regarding violence are the sames ones I make when discussing what separate tabletop RPG's from Video/MMO's... in the tabletop you can make the bluff/diplomacy check and still get the xp.
-Pete
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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Wow, a bitter GURPS player using his podium to gripe about D&D and it's late creator.
What a waste of an article.
And I am forced to wonder where GURPS would be without D&D. Steve Jackson may still have gotten into game design but would it be the same as it is now? Somehow I doubt it.
Gygax may not have been the finest game designer ever but he inspired many of the industry's most brilliant designers.
I just roll my eyes. The guy who wrote this article isn't worth my wrath. . .
That idiot. I'm not even going to bother ranting about him.
It was obviously written to get a rise out of people. While Gary was an icon he was just a people. I love D&D and appreciate his gift to us, although I have never met the guy so I can't say any more about him than that. The author did say some thing that I thought were incorrect and so his points were lost on me since he started with a false statement. Eh, it didn't really work me up so I guess he failed with me.
So we all agreed it was in poor taste, so why did I post a link?
There was a method to my madness.
The author obviously only has had one particular type of experience with DnD. And, even if it is a hard truth, I've seen the sort of stuff that he's alluding to.. Immature players are often prone to it. (Young people note: I didn't generalize you by age! Watcher referred only to maturity. I've met some pretty childish adults and some mature teens.)
As I mentioned in the first post, DnD is a tool set. It's a utility. Any game with reasonable rules can be used to make a quality game. Just as GURPS can be used to make a crappy game.
One reason we flock to Paizo is that they create quality adventures that don't fit this author's unpleasant stereotyping.
Now you can take this train of thought to another level, but that journey you'll have to take on your own...
:D
That man boy don't know Gygax.
Oh yeah! Sometimes I need a reminder why I never bother reading Slate. I prefer to waste my time elsewhere. :)
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The guy has a point. To be honest, I have not awarded XPs according to the D&D formula since I was 18 years old and that was in the 80s... although if I were playing an evil campaign I just might.
They had rules for awarding XP based on other actions, such as fcr Clerics casting heal spells or whatever, way back then even.
The Slate dude clearly knows bupkiss of which he speaks.
It got forwarded around my office earlier, because we've got a lot of gamers (mostly online, but most of them have played D&D at least once). I didn't bother to click on the link because I was warned that it would make me angry, and I didn't feel like giving the dude another 'hit' for his site.
I agree with a lot of what the guy said but without Gygax we wouldn't have taken the game and made it work for each of us. No DM I know only gives XP for killing things. Hell I know DM's that give experience points to who ever brings the best quality narcotics to the game or who ever types up the online journal or whatever. I give fighters more xp for fighting, thieves more xp for thieving etc... I only usually have one battle per session if that. If I only gave xp for killing things my players would never go up a level.
I've never played gurps, I'm sure it's a fine game and I have a lot of respect for Steve Jackson. D&D is easier because "everyone" already knows how to play. (Note: For the last year and a half I've been using True 20). I roleplay the same way regardless of system.
Gygax seems to me to be the Freud of roleplaying. He is the titan that started it all and concieved the field entire. Few psychologists today hold themselves up as Adlerians, Freudians, Jungians or behaviourists. That does not belittle the contributions of Freud, Adler, Jung or Skinner.
The kitty hawk was dreadful. It was also miraculous.
About the post on Slate:
I read it, but it did not push my buttons. I may disagree with what he said, but I fully support his right to say it. America has contributed many things to the world, but free speech as an enshrined principle is possibly the greatest. Even if it is a French and German invention.
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And don't forget that free speech goes both ways. I have every right to claim that attempting to profit by making derogatory claims in response to an obituary is crude. One might even call such a writer a hack.ironic, isn't it (since he called Gygax a hack with much less justification)
This is a typical tool-boy blogger. Note I am not calling all bloggers tool-boys, I am referring to a specific subset of the blogosphere. They are filled with angst & rage, make exaggerated claims in the hopes of pulling enough hits to justify their employment or publishability.
Pathetic really. I'm disgusted.
Adze!
Sorry. Thought we were free associating. Carry on.
Well, I really hope that Washinton Post will lose a lot of money over that.
I thought it was accurate.
Let me ask you something: Did you sneak a peak at his manhood when you stood beside him pissing on Garry's grave?
Did you read the article? Or did you read the first paragraph or two and then see red and didn't really digest the rest of it before you posted?It's not disrespecting the dead, and it's not disrespecting geek culture. It's actually lamenting the loss of some cool RPG ideas that D&D doesn't really encourage.
Yes, I did. Let's quote some of it:
"The real geeks out there—my homies—know the awkward truth: When you cut through the nostalgia, Dungeons & Dragons isn't a good role-playing game; in fact, it's one of the worst on the market."
If you agree with him: Why are you still here?
"this might be the last chance to see Gygax for what he was—an unrepentant hack"
Yeah, I always say stuff like this when I really want to flatter someone. NOT.
That unrepentant hack is who enabled Steve Jackson and others to create their "better" RPGs and look down their noses at those who play the game that outsells their own by a wide margin.
"Here's the narrative arithmetic that Gygax came up with: You come across a family of sleeping orcs"
Yes, of course. What? Sleeping orcs? That's what Gary came up with?
"D&D. It promises something great—a lively (if dorky) bit of performance art—but delivers a small-minded and ignorant fantasy of rage, distilled to a bunch of arcane charts and die rolls"
Wrong.
It all reeks of disrespect. I guess he's only doing it now because Gary's dead, because he's afraid that he'd come over and beat him for this libel. Scared little prick.
Slate can't let a man R.I.P.
Obviously they never heard of Paizo, or what can be done with the toolset that is DnD.
Warning: This may annoy you, and worse- it is Edition Neutral
Erik Sofge did far worse than annoy me. Words cannot properly express my rage. This "thing" that wrote that article is no longer worthy to be called a human being. If I ever see him on the street...
Is nostalgia that strong? Because while my group started with D&D, we also tried WFRP, GURPS, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Alternity, Star Frontiers, Toon, and others. And we ALWAYS keep coming back to D&D, the others left on the shelf or sold off. And we're not alone, it seems.
No, you're not, but we came back to D&D just to give 3e a "trial run" when it came out, and we've stayed with it thus far for one reason alone: Dungeon magazine. Without Paizo, we'd have certainly gone back to other systems. Yes, Mrs. Gygax and Arneson started the ball rolling... and we should all give them total respects for that. But that doesn't mean that "the world's most popular role-playing game" is still the world's best -- it's just the world's best-supported. That had a lot to do with the OGL, and if that gets severely curtailed for 4e, I don't for a minute doubt that a lot of D&D players will once again look for better systems.
This "thing" that wrote that article is no longer worthy to be called a human being. If I ever see him on the street...
Chill off. The writer of the article may be a jerk, but I would like to hope that you wouldn't actually do anything to him in person.
Slate can't let a man R.I.P.
Obviously they never heard of Paizo, or what can be done with the toolset that is DnD.
Warning: This may annoy you, and worse- it is Edition Neutral
Erik Sofge did far worse than annoy me. Words cannot properly express my rage. This "thing" that wrote that article is no longer worthy to be called a human being. If I ever see him on the street...
If I ever see him on the street...I would tell him he was a piece of garbage.
"D&D. It promises something great—a lively (if dorky) bit of performance art—but delivers a small-minded and ignorant fantasy of rage, distilled to a bunch of arcane charts and die rolls"
Hmm - I skimmed the article twice and missed that line...
Remove "arcane charts" and I think you've described 75-90% of the Vampire: The Masquerade games I've either witnessed, played in, or heard stories about...
And about 20% of the D&D (and related) games I know...
I think you mean Werewolf. Vampire's all about ignorant fantasy of angst and mutual disdain ;-)
Eh, I went and read it and just just see how mad and self-conscious the guy is who wrote it. The best part is his actually saying the game is bad and how others are so much better. Is nostalgia that strong? Because while my group started with D&D, we also tried WFRP, GURPS, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, Alternity, Star Frontiers, Toon, and others. And we ALWAYS keep coming back to D&D, the others left on the shelf or sold off. And we're not alone, it seems.
-DM Jeff
I agree with you. Narrativist systems can be very powerful but when they really work their also very draining. Do you really want to end your Saturday game feeling emotionally spent? Many people do becuase the game is so powerful abut many more don't. Simulationist style gaming, as we tend to find in GURPS, tends to appeal to only a small sub set of gamers. Most people don't want to focus on the details in the name of 'realism'. To much work for too little pay off. Those that love authenticity and detail tend to gravitate toward systems like GURPS and I understand their appeal to this group but its not really mass market - most of us just want to have fun and get on with the story.
I think thats the secret to the success of D&D. Its basically Gamist and supports a Gamist style of play. People can and do take it and use it for more narrativist style games and very occasionally (with lots of house rules) for Simulationist style gaming but it best supports a Gamist style. Gamist styles are very popular becuase they don't really take the game too seriously, the game becomes a way to facilitate a gathering of friends who intersperse their gaming with wise cracks, jokes, horseplay and (when genders mix) an endless stream of sexual innuendo, laughing and engaging in sexual innuendo are a very popular way to spend ones Saturday afternoon. With a Simulationist and Narrativist style of gaming its usually important to maintain the atmosphere of the game which makes the game no laughing matter.
The guy's just a dumbass. I don't say that with any hostility, but simply matter-of-fact, as the best descriptor for the subject. Aside from the hateful prose, which accomplishes absolutely nothing in regards to enhancing the article (but it draws hits), the whole text is riddled with inaccuracies. Who has this guy been talking to? Since when has D&D been obsolete? Didn't that stuff about repressed rage and sociopathic urges got left back in the 80's? Who ever said Gygax was out to recreate Tolkien, or that Tolkien's work was allegory (a conception that Tolkien himself continuously rejected)? And, as others have already said, where does he think those other systems would be without D&D, which is ultimately the brainchild of the late E. Gary Gygax?
Not only that, but is he making fun of only D&D players when he speaks of "vows of celibacy," or is he including himself? If only D&D players... hunh? I'd ask everyone on the forums who this doesn't apply to to raise their hands, but it's the internet and no one could see. If the author is including himself, then I think he's the one suffering from repressed urges (something already blindingly obvious from the rest of the article, but proven further and even deepened with this consideration).
Ultimately, a waste of time, which I now have to say I'm sorry I read. Having expected nothing better, I feel compelled to ask 1) myself why I bothered and 2) the author, politely, to shut the f#!~ up.
The guy's a tool. One has to be a tool to show that sort of disrespect so soon after another person's death--particularly a person who brought so much happiness to so many.
I found it in very bad taste. I also disagree--if not in the particulars, then definitely in the spirit of what he said about D&D. Yeah, the game is set up to make hack & slash easy to do. So what? Does that mean you're prohibited from doing anything else with it? I think not. In fact, I happen to know better from personal experience. And if you're reading this, you probably know what I mean.
I guess we should all be a bunch of eyeliner-wearing emo's drinking white wine and getting all angsty about our psychologically *DEEP* Vampire characters? Give me a freakin' break.
If I weren't so disgusted, I'd be amused that he chooses GURPS to hold up as the paragon of RPGs. GURPS? I mean, GURPS??? Give me a break.
What an asshat.
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This is a friend of mine's response to the article in some e-mails going around. This is not my work, but I enjoyed it so much that I got his permission to post it here. I include it as is.
> Subject: Re: Interesting take on D&D
>
> I suppose. If by "interesting", you actually meant "stupid".
>
> No offense intended, but the guy who wrote that article doesn't
> sound like someone who's ever played an actual well-run D&D game.
> First of all, Gygax has had very little to do with the D&D rules since
> the first couple of editions. Wizards of the Coast are preparing to
> release their 4th Edition, and the v3.0 and v3.5 editions have been in
> play for over a decade. If he's a bad game designer, that has no
> implications for the D&D that is played today.
>
> "One of the worst on the market"? Right. That's why D&D sales
> exceed the market share of every other pen-and-paper RPG combined.
> He sounds like the idiots who go around saying that Windows is "the
> worst OS ever". You have to be pretty awful to be the "worse
> ever", and the "worst ever" _never_ achieves market dominance.
> It's arguable that you can be the best-seller without being the _best_
> ever, but you can't do it if you're the worst ever (or even "one of"
> the worst ever).
>
> And it's quite far from the truth that the tabletop gaming industry is
> collapsing in the face of online gaming. It's a healthy, vibrant
> industry, taking what's good about the computer industry and
> incorporating those things into a game that the online gaming industry
> has no real hope of replicating.
>
> I don't know anyone who considers D&D "pathetic". I suppose it's
> possible that’s because every person I know is themselves pathetic.
> But I think it's more likely that Erik Sofge is just a moron.
> Especially since he excoriates D&D for introducing the "experience
> point" system and then idolizes GURPS, a game system that uses that
> same experience point system. If that's not a moronic pair of
> opinions for one person to hold, I don't know what is.
>
> As far as his complaint that the XP system in D&D is like a video
> game, I guess he's never played a D&D game run by a decent GM. In the
> group I play with, we don't even keep track of our own XP. The DM
> tells us when to level, and we do. We are permitted, encouraged even,
> to do all sorts of things outside the pre-defined game rule system and
> are awarded XP according to the DM's own judgment. We don't go around
> chopping things up for the sake of killing them; there's a definite
> story, and characters are expected to act in a manner consistent with
> their role. Often this means killing something sets you back, rather
> than moves you forward.
>
> While I enjoy a good video game, one of the reasons I like D&D is that
> it's _not_ like a video game. You're only limited only by your own
> imagination, rather than the imagination of the person who wrote the
> game.
>
> There's nothing wrong with goal-free, purely imagination-based game
> playing. We call it "playing pretend", and it's great fun. But that
> doesn't mean that there's no room in the world of quality gaming for a
> different system where layered on that role-playing pretending is a
> rule-based system that involves advancement toward some goal, or at
> least some character development.
>
> Of course, one great way to drive traffic to your web site is to write
> the most inane, inflammatory article you can think of, in the shadow
> of the death of the founder of a widely enjoyed game, being obtusely
> critical of said founder. I suppose it's possible that's all Sofge is
> doing here. If so, it's too bad he has no self- respect or shame and
> is willing to prostitute himself in such a disgusting manner.
>
> If not, then he's just an idiot.
I was told, growing up, that one should not speak ill of the dead. I always assumed that it was something superstitious, that the slighted shade would return to haunt me.
Now, older and wiser, I realize that it's because if you do you'll piss off a lot of grieving people.
The article was in bad taste. The worse taste, however, is in the man's selection of RPGs. I'm not saying GURPS was a terrible game, but it sure didn't light a fire in my imagination like D&D did. As someone already said, I've played a LOT of games over the years, but I always come home to D&D.
Edit: What the hell? This was supposed to end up in the Kobold Word Game thread.
The boards are quite messed up, I tell you.