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Post by robertsconley on Oct 21, 2016 11:57:44 GMT -5
[quote source="/post/9705/thread" timestamp="1477065072" author=" robkuntz" the RPG concept starts in 1971 and moves through to play-test and publication by 1974. Arneson, Gygax, Kuntz, Mornard, and others were there. Kask was not.[/quote] And I agree. However to me it looks like the problem with Arneson's legacy occurred after the time period you are talking about. That it was lost in scramble to deal with D&D's meteoric rise in popularity. This issue didn't just impact Arneson but a lot of other people and things that were being done in the early days of the hobby and industry. What important that it is all been coming out now in the 2010s, thanks to you and others. We can use that to build and give Dave Arneson his due. Have his specific vision stand beside what emerged from the late 70s I am not trying to minimize what Kask did or didn't do, or make more or less important than he was. I am pointing out that there were external pressure that drove early days of D&D publishing that were driving events in a particular way. To attribute Arneson's legacy falling by the wayside solely to interpersonal issues would be inaccurate and incomplete in my opinion. The climate of early D&D publishing (from 1975 to 1979) was such that anything that didn't result in firm rules and explicit guidelines would have not been well received. Now did interpersonal issues have an impact? Yes I would agree 100% they were a major factor in how events played out in response to what was going. In my view any full account or observation of the time will need to include both in order to understand why thing happened the way they did.
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Post by Admin Pete on Oct 21, 2016 13:19:18 GMT -5
The climate of early D&D publishing (from 1975 to 1979) was such that anything that didn't result in firm rules and explicit guidelines would have not been well received. I do not agree that this is true. I and my friends were not wargamers at all when we started playing and we did not have any trouble picking up OD&D and running with it. Other than OD&D and the four Supplements and a few issues of The Dragon (I read the copies of The Strategic Review that my friend had) I did not buy anything else that TSR published back then because it did not meet any of my (our) needs. We did not want or need thicker books and more rules, what we already had was working just fine with our house rules. A little later I did get the Arduin Trilogy specifically because it was supposed to be a gonzo grab bag of things. TSR could have sold me stuff like that, a grab bag of optional things that you could pick and choose what you wanted to try or leave alone. If they had sold some great black and white maps with mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, etc shown but left it for me to add place names, cities, towns, ruins etc. I would have been interested in that.
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Post by robkuntz on Oct 21, 2016 13:42:53 GMT -5
The climate of early D&D publishing (from 1975 to 1979) was such that anything that didn't result in firm rules and explicit guidelines would have not been well received. I do not agree that this is true. I and my friends were not wargamers at all when we started playing and we did not have any trouble picking up OD&D and running with it. Other than OD&D and the four Supplements and a few issues of The Dragon (I read the copies of The Strategic Review that my friend had) I did not buy anything else that TSR published back then because it did not meet any of my (our) needs. We did not want or need thicker books and more rules, what we already had was working just fine with our house rules. A little later I did get the Arduin Trilogy specially because it was supposed to be a gonzo grab bag of things. TSR could have sold me stuff like that, a grab bag of optional things that you could pick and choose what you wanted to try or leave alone. If they had sold some great black and white maps with mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, etc shown but left it for me to add place names, cities, towns, ruins etc. I would have been interested in that. I have to agree with this. Robert C, you have conflated times, in fact, as early D&D is anything preceding the Basic and AD&D codifications where D&D shifted from its open nature to steadfast and hardline rules: EGG (through to 1975): “...My answer is, and has always been, if you don't like the way I do it, change the bloody rules to suit yourself and your players. DandD enthusiasts are far too individualistic and imaginative a bunch to be in agreement, and I certainly refuse to play god for them...” -- E. Gary Gygax, Alarums & Excursions #2, 1975. AND.. “I desire variance in interpretation and, as long as I am editor of the TSR line and its magazine, I will do my utmost to see that there is as little trend towards standardization as possible. Each campaign should be a "variant", and there is no "official interpretation" from me or anyone else.” -- E. Gary Gygax, Alarums & Excursions #2, 1975. EGG (by 1980): “And while there are no optionals for the major systems of ADVANCED D&D (for uniformity of rules and procedures from game to game, campaign to campaign, is stressed)...” -- E. Gary Gygax, Introduction to the Dungeon Master’s Guide, 1980. AND... “D&D encourages inventiveness and originality within the framework of its rules. Those who insist on altering the framework should design their own game.” -- E. Gary Gygax, Role-Playing: Realism vs. Game Logic; Spell Points, Vanity Press and Rip-offs, The Dragon Magazine #16, July 1978.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2016 14:12:37 GMT -5
I agree with Rob. It's very, very hard to convey to those who weren't there how radically the world of D&D changed from 1974 to 1977.
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Post by robkuntz on Oct 21, 2016 15:56:28 GMT -5
Going back to explore "What avenues were not explored because of the commercial and personal interests of the game designers of the time." ??
Somehow this makes no sense. Follow me here. So, if we go back and to find what was not explored for "commercial" and "personal" reasons and we then must do that by way of "commercial" and "personal" reasons, making this, then an exploration? It is the same conduit, the same path, in both cases no matter the time. Further, one cannot go back with myself, Michael Mornard, Ermie Gygax, Terry Kuntz and a host of others. We still exist. We have histories that are still going. We are still putting forth "personal" and "commercial" interests. There can be no avenues that were not explored as not myself nor Michael, nor the OSR is the sum of knowledge of that history, past, present or future. There is no way of tracking and codifying this. There is also no way of freeze framing something that still exists and has continual motion, i.e., *duration*. Thus "of the time" is non-sequitor in several cases as I note above. None of this makes sense as written; and I find it odd that an interpretation of history that cannot be codified in whole, and that people who made it and still live are reduced to the very symbols that are intended to replace them in the same modes that they continue in to this day. Bizarre, Mr. Conley.
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Post by robertsconley on Oct 22, 2016 23:08:34 GMT -5
Going back to explore "What avenues were not explored because of the commercial and personal interests of the game designers of the time." ?? Somehow this makes no sense. Follow me here. So, if we go back and to find what was not explored for "commercial" and "personal" reasons and we then must do that by way of "commercial" and "personal" reasons, making this, then an exploration? It is the same conduit, the same path, in both cases no matter the time. Further, one cannot go back with myself, Michael Mornard, Ermie Gygax, Terry Kuntz and a host of others. We still exist. We have histories that are still going. We are still putting forth "personal" and "commercial" interests. There can be no avenues that were not explored as not myself nor Michael, nor the OSR is the sum of knowledge of that history, past, present or future. There is no way of tracking and codifying this. There is also no way of freeze framing something that still exists and has continual motion, i.e., *duration*. Thus "of the time" is non-sequitor in several cases as I note above. None of this makes sense as written; and I find it odd that an interpretation of history that cannot be codified in whole, and that people who made it and still live are reduced to the very symbols that are intended to replace them in the same modes that they continue in to this day. Bizarre, Mr. Conley. The fundamental premise of the OSR is that older games are just as much fun to play today as they were back in the game. In that spirit I am encouraging people to take the same games and ingredients that were present in the early 1970s and develop their own take on it. D&D became what it was over time because of the decision of the people involved. I was stressing the fact you don't have to follow in their footsteps to develop your own vision.
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Post by robertsconley on Oct 22, 2016 23:18:29 GMT -5
Not sure how to multi-quote but in reply to Rob, Perilous Dreamer and Gronan, my comments have nothing to do with the development of D&D. I am giving my view on why Dave Arneson didn't have the impact he should have AFTER the introduction of OD&D.
Rob highlighted the very contradiction that lead me to my current train of thoughts. EGG said "if you don't like the way I do it, change the bloody rules to suit yourself and your players." in 1975, and then 1979 we get "And while there are no optionals for the major systems of ADVANCED D&D (for uniformity of rules and procedures from game to game, campaign to campaign, is stressed)" in 1979.
Why did that happen, why did Gary Gygax shift from the one attitude to the other. To me after reading the available first person accounts, and seeing the shift in tone through the OD&D supplements, Strategic Review, and The Dragon. My opinion it shifted largely because TSR was being bombarded with questions, and calls by hundreds if not thousands. To get them to literally shut up, the shift was to a firm "This is how you play D&D period."
And if that the attitude you adopt as a designer and a company, then a guy like Dave Arneson who is a genius at ad-hoc rulings and creating things on the fly is not going to be well-received.
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Post by robkuntz on Oct 23, 2016 2:55:37 GMT -5
Going back to explore "What avenues were not explored because of the commercial and personal interests of the game designers of the time." ?? Somehow this makes no sense. Follow me here. So, if we go back and to find what was not explored for "commercial" and "personal" reasons and we then must do that by way of "commercial" and "personal" reasons, making this, then an exploration? It is the same conduit, the same path, in both cases no matter the time. Further, one cannot go back with myself, Michael Mornard, Ermie Gygax, Terry Kuntz and a host of others. We still exist. We have histories that are still going. We are still putting forth "personal" and "commercial" interests. There can be no avenues that were not explored as not myself nor Michael, nor the OSR is the sum of knowledge of that history, past, present or future. There is no way of tracking and codifying this. There is also no way of freeze framing something that still exists and has continual motion, i.e., *duration*. Thus "of the time" is non-sequitor in several cases as I note above. None of this makes sense as written; and I find it odd that an interpretation of history that cannot be codified in whole, and that people who made it and still live are reduced to the very symbols that are intended to replace them in the same modes that they continue in to this day. Bizarre, Mr. Conley. The fundamental premise of the OSR is that older games are just as much fun to play today as they were back in the game. In that spirit I am encouraging people to take the same games and ingredients that were present in the early 1970s and develop their own take on it. D&D became what it was over time because of the decision of the people involved. I was stressing the fact you don't have to follow in their footsteps to develop your own vision. What you say here and what you wrote that I responded to are two different things. What are my "footsteps," Mr, Conley? I do hope that things become what they are because those who originate them make them what they are, but we had already covered the philosophy you extoll: Make it your own. The quotes are legion from the start of D&D.
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Post by robkuntz on Oct 23, 2016 3:01:46 GMT -5
Not sure how to multi-quote but in reply to Rob, Perilous Dreamer and Gronan, my comments have nothing to do with the development of D&D. I am giving my view on why Dave Arneson didn't have the impact he should have AFTER the introduction of OD&D. Rob highlighted the very contradiction that lead me to my current train of thoughts. EGG said "if you don't like the way I do it, change the bloody rules to suit yourself and your players." in 1975, and then 1979 we get "And while there are no optionals for the major systems of ADVANCED D&D (for uniformity of rules and procedures from game to game, campaign to campaign, is stressed)" in 1979. Why did that happen, why did Gary Gygax shift from the one attitude to the other. To me after reading the available first person accounts, and seeing the shift in tone through the OD&D supplements, Strategic Review, and The Dragon. My opinion it shifted largely because TSR was being bombarded with questions, and calls by hundreds if not thousands. To get them to literally shut up, the shift was to a firm "This is how you play D&D period." And if that the attitude you adopt as a designer and a company, then a guy like Dave Arneson who is a genius at ad-hoc rulings and creating things on the fly is not going to be well-received. Your opinion in this case is wrong. It was about position, wealth and power. Arneson OUT. Rules Changed. Lawsuits lost. If you are spreading the above as fact I congratulate you on being part of the revisionist history of D&D that you are so suspect of.
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Post by Stormcrow on Oct 23, 2016 9:33:38 GMT -5
You guys knew Gary personally and I didn't know him beyond trading a few puns on the Internet, but I'm willing to bet that his switch from free-and-open to follow-the-rules was only his corporate stance. If someone were chatting privately with Gary at any time during TSR's our-way-or-the-highway phase and asked him, "Am I allowed to do such-and-such in my game?" I believe Gary would have given the free-and-open answer: "Do whatever you want in your game."
Gary's official stance existed to sell product and protect properties. I don't think he ever personally abandoned the idea that Dungeons and Dragons is more of a concept to be built on than a specific set of rules to be followed.
By the time he was publishing Lejendary Adventures, he was back to publicly espousing the free-and-open game.
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Post by robkuntz on Oct 23, 2016 9:47:14 GMT -5
It's called do as I say not as I do.
From the 120 finished and combined commentaries contained in my A New Ethos in Game Design (now at roughly 170,000 words written):
C3: If Gary Gygax’ relevant quotes are examined during the time streams in which they occur we should have three distinct versions of him. One: The hobbyist and fan of the original RPG open concept; Two: The businessman who redacted the concept for commercial reasons but who never played the way he indicated that others should play; and Three: The man who, when no longer with TSR and guiding its affairs, claimed that DMs didn’t need the rules and thus an absolutely structured game.
Copyright 2014-2016. Robert J. Kuntz. All Rights Reserved.
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Post by ripx187 on Nov 2, 2016 19:04:20 GMT -5
It is my belief that I, along with everybody else has been given the right to stream totally untrue garbage onto the internet, and it is our right, nay, our duty to see that this gets done. That said, while I am utterly incapable of presenting anything even remotely similar to historical accuracy, as I wasn't there, Mr. Kask is not. Trying to paste together, on our own, what had happened before is akin to a Detective working a cold case, but we can't tell when a suspect is lying.
Tim Kask has put himself out there, and I took everything at face value. There are facts, and their are opinions, then there are opinions disguised as facts, which are far too common and always have been, but there is a line that was crossed here. I find this thread to be very eye opening, as well as disturbing.
I have always enjoyed AD&D, way before I ever knew what a Gygax was (apparently this is trademarked, which I don't understand how that works), I enjoyed AD&D. It provided a medium for a group of friends to sit around and entertain each other. I still prefer it because I can lean on it, and allow it to function so that everybody is on the same page. I don't sense any limitations at all, just options. I wasn't even aware that this was meant to chain users, nor to get out of paying somebody their fair share. Politics sucks, but is AD&D a cop? I don't think so. I never understood those people who sent questions into Dragon Magazine over silly rules that don't matter. What did they do? Sit around for 3-4 months hoping that somebody would tell them if they can improve their AC against bows with a portable hole or not? Just make it up!
Personally, I always suspected that those columns were fake. The beauty of D&D is that you can play it however you want to play it. I still find it odd how people can get so hung up on the rules that it interferes with playing the game. As far as Gygax goes, I suppose that one can always see what they want to see in his text, you always could. His writing style was incredibly fun to read, but it wasn't uncommon to find two sentences in the same paragraph that contradicted each other. I think that that was kind of his signature.
The problem with books, or any record of events really, is that the author of the record is telling you how he feels or what he is thinking, and while this changes over time, the reader has no choice but to get hung up on it, and have some belief that this stuff is written in stone someplace. With Gary Gygax, this was impossible. He could love something in the beginning of a paragraph and hate it by the end. D&D and ambiguity really do go hand in hand, but man does it make doing personal research hard!
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Post by Mighty Darci on Nov 3, 2016 8:21:20 GMT -5
It is my belief that I, along with everybody else has been given the right to stream totally untrue garbage onto the internet, and it is our right, nay, our duty to see that this gets done. I cannot agree that anyone has a right to deliberately post lies on the internet. Deliberately lying may be protected by the right of free speech (in the US), but it deserves no respect from me.
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Post by robkuntz on Nov 3, 2016 9:06:29 GMT -5
It is my belief that I, along with everybody else has been given the right to stream totally untrue garbage onto the internet, and it is our right, nay, our duty to see that this gets done. That said, while I am utterly incapable of presenting anything even remotely similar to historical accuracy, as I wasn't there, Mr. Kask is not. Trying to paste together, on our own, what had happened before is akin to a Detective working a cold case, but we can't tell when a suspect is lying. Sure you can tell when someone is lying, by tracking what they say versus what is truth if the truth is known. Perhaps the majority of people cannot do that in this case, but I do not represent the majority. I know scads of lies circulating about the internet regarding D&D and my own involvement and Arneson's as well. D&D, especially the earlier history, has become mythified for the most part, and there are reasons for that, as well. But I summarized a lot of them above as falling under the money, power and position category. Of course that speaks to a very broad category and to go into depth, which I have done on occasion when revisionists raise their heads with the next round of "myth" or contrivance, would require doing an ongoing historical recounting. Gronan has done this as well as I am aware. But do we need National Enquirer level stuff, a spitting contest of truth and lies? If so my truth will wait mostly for the publication of my memoirs, but I will now state that for many years and now into the present that there have been many stories and bald-faced lies circulating in many different corners and I can point directly to a list of them and explain them as they stand. Is it worth my time to do so? Maybe with the memoirs but only here or there in between. This topic became one of those "here or theres."
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Post by Admin Pete on Nov 3, 2016 11:45:10 GMT -5
Sometimes you know someone is lying because what they say comes through, even the internet, as biased and self-serving, full of jealousy, envy and blind hatred for another person. When you see someone express so much venom with no real evidence that the person that the venom is directed at ever did anything to the spewer of the venom, there is IMO ample reason to distrust what is said.
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Post by ripx187 on Nov 3, 2016 15:34:06 GMT -5
Truth always becomes subjective. At work I am an observer, and I have to write things down very quickly. Our minds, by their very nature try to make sense of things and put them into some kind of order. Our brains play tricks on us, a particularly vivid dream can become truth 25 years later, we can be convinced that we took party to events that we never did. When asked about specific facts, we tend to get confused. We don't pay as much attention to our surroundings as we'd like to believe, so it is human nature to add some details to make everything that we think that we saw make sense. I have memories in my head that I know are not true. I remember them, but some of the details are impossible. Most of these memories are silly, or based off of emotions that we experienced at the time, our minds remembered that and told a story to accompany it.
Memory is a very interesting thing, but in this case, you have memory mixed with ego. Is Tim Kask lying? Well, that is a strong word. Considering the level of hatred that you have here, I would say that he is crazy. His brain strengthened the insane emotions towards another person and I believe that what we are seeing is not an attempt to deceive others, but guilt in action. One can either come clean, or they can continue to do what they are doing. His ego dictates that he makes excuses, to twist the emotional facts into reality and force them to fit into place. This is how we make the unreasonable reasonable. I should had seen that but I too suffer the same human condition.
The disturbing thing is the level of venom that Tim Kask possesses for another person that seemingly did no real harm to him. I've known people who can't let go, people that hold grudges. They all make themselves needlessly miserable.
BTW, I am definitely interested in The Book. Yes, That one!
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Post by Admin Pete on Nov 3, 2016 15:47:23 GMT -5
I believe that TRUTH is an objective absolute. I believe that our perception of that TRUTH is subjective. Therefore, regardless of what you or I believe about something that we remember, there is in a very real sense the facts that our memories either agree with or not, but our lack of agreements with the facts does not change the facts or what is TRUTH/TRUE.
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