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Post by Kainguru on Apr 4, 2016 1:29:07 GMT -8
Kainguru why assume that because there is a bigger audience for the beginner boxes that they failed to get newbies into the hobby? In addition, if money was made, then who cares? Because the business model is to get new people in to buy the product . . . not just people already committed to buy more. The later was the model that TSR followed in it's final years, get the established gamer's to simply buy more. The colossus that was TSR folded as result, very quickly and very dramatically. Yet 5 years before it started to fold it was, a company, huge . . . several companies repeatedly tried to buy out TSR but they couldn't because it was so big and so successful in its own right. But fold TSR did . . . just making more money, without considering the complexities of a niche market, isn't enough. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 4, 2016 1:04:00 GMT -8
Producing two books for the same game, one for beginners and one for established players, is at least doubling (if not more) the amount of work needed to produce that game. As mentioned in another thread, except in a few rare cases no one is creating games as a full time job; they need another job to make a living and create games on the side as a hobby. Doubling the cost and time to produce a game by creating two versions doesn't seem like an attractive option. You need to be a company the size of the defunct TSR to be able to afford to do that . . . Star Frontiers was boxed with basic and advanced rules. The now defunct GDW had basic and advanced Dangerous Journeys, which were designed by the author to be released as separate books (the company didn't though). Chaosium has BRP and then all it's RPG's expanded from it. FFG have beginners boxes as does WoTC/Hasbro. So, not only do you have to have the ability to afford it, it has to work - and by work I mean be cost effective with a return justifying the outlay. By that you have consider if these starter sets significantly grow the hobby. Given a lot of people who are already into RPG's and who have decided to play FFG's Star Wars have bought the starter sets for those pretty pretty maps then the intent of the boxed sets has failed - no new players just players willing to buy more stuff. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 3, 2016 13:13:20 GMT -8
I still have... hundreds of Dragon Dice. So did TSR Aaron PS: *sigh* sometimes I miss the old TSR brand . . . it may have been shitty towards the end but at least it was what it was, a game company.
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 3, 2016 10:57:18 GMT -8
I'll point out that it was basically pursuit of that Wal-Mart style market model that killed TSR. When taken over by the, then still independent, WoTC they inherited whole warehouses of unsold, undistributed, stock - lots of Dragon Dice especially. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 22:44:29 GMT -8
Am I the only one who is pretty sure Ilina is a 300lb neckbeard? You are not. I'll politely decline to comment Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 22:43:20 GMT -8
It's not putting Gygax on a golden alter, because he's dead, it's about not throwing mud at him that he doesn't deserve. Yes, he was human with human failings . . . but if you look at the tone of several posts recently (not just the OP in this thread) when the name Gygax has cropped up it's been nasty. I'm not big convention but I do get uncomfortable when I see people constantly attacking, mostly unintentionally, a person who is unable to account on their own behalf: by virtue of being dead. Strikes me he gets used all too often as a soft target for scapegoating - a bit like how 'Snowball' ends up being regarded in Orwell's 'Animal Farm' (the book, not the movie) Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 16:06:10 GMT -8
Kainguru Asking me to read and possibly obtain the materials to read? Impossibru! On a more serious note, I really don't care enough to look into it. Fair enough, all I've asked is tiny token of respect for a guy that's dead . . . I would imagine that would go so far as asking people to check some facts a little more rigorously before painting him as some sort of socially dysfunctional arsehole. He may very well have been a socially dysfunctional areshole in life, I'll never know, but at least limit those accounts to actual verifiable accounts of arseholery rather than speculative conjecture Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 15:50:28 GMT -8
Except it had nothing to do with Gygax being "Salty" about anything because Gygax didn't create the class . . . the theme of recent posts about Gygax on this forum (across several threads) seem more intent of casting aspersions on his character, as a person, and laying at his doorstep the entirety of blame for the real or imagined ill's of RPG's at their beginning than addressing the facts at hand. If you didn't like the guy, fine . . . but being snide about him, as a person, when he's fucking dead and unable to defend himself is just plain mean spirited. FFS on Rememberance Day and ANZAC Day we now honor the Dead from both sides of the various conflicts . . . yet in a niche hobby like ours we seem to prefer picking over the corpses of it's founders and discrediting them for being normally flawed human-beings. Aaron I have no idea who is correct. What I will point out is that someone being pissy could cause someone else to make a solution. I wasn't there, nor do I really care. You do seem to though. So maybe when refuting claims it would be worthwhile to find one that actually supports your argument? I imagine that there is no such definitive source. Even if Gary was alive and we could ask him, his version might be distorted. At any rate, it might be more fruitful to ask for some kind of source that supports her version rather than seeking counter evidence which might not exist. Note: Nowhere did she claim Gygax created the cleric. Read 'Of Dice and Men', therein is a well researched account of the Cleric's origins that correlates well with the account given in the link above. I'd cut and paste the chapter but the glue tends to fuck up the keyboard and I can't be trusted with sharp objects, plus I don't think I can post an entire chapter of a book, wholesale, without violating some form of copyright. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 15:43:29 GMT -8
You're wrong though. ToH isn't controversial. A small subset of people insist on judging it on criteria that really doesn't apply. You don't judge a video game based on it's ultra-difficult mode. And you don't compare the ultra-difficult mode of a video game to rape porn. And just to pile on, because this comparison is just so ridiculous.... FATAL tries to present itself as legitimate. Tomb of Horrors touts itself as the hardest meat-grinder ever. As for WHY? The same reason some people play Dark Souls, two sequels later, or climb Mt. Everest, or do the running of the bulls.... To be able to say I TRIED THAT, or I BEAT THAT. I would if that was the only mode of play. ToH doesn't have difficulty levels. I'd also bear in mind the intention of the game. When you die in a game of super hexagon (so hard...) you haven't lost months worth of work. Some games are built with the intention that you will die a lot. Kobolds ate my baby has you roll up several at once because they are going to die. Paranoia has its clones for the players. No where on the cover of ToH does it tell you not to insert this in a campaign. No where does it say to make 5 characters because they are going to die in rapid succession. There is no context, and that is the problem. All these other games cue you into how things are going to go. ToH interrupts a normal D&D game with, "OMG WHY!?". If I stuck my arm into a statue and it disintegrated as per a sphere of annihilation I'd consider smacking my GM up the backside of his head. Its one of those giggling gm moments where he gets to go. "I gotcha, yeah! In your face!" And that just isn't cool. The key to Dark Souls is that people buy it knowing what it is. They come back for the sequel because they like it. The people who play in the rpg's aren't the ones who buy the modules. The GM is the one that buys them. Unless there is a reputation of the module involved, most players don't know anything about it. Tomb of Horrors sounds like a reasonable module name, and unless I had heard of it before I wouldn't know to object until something batshit crazy happened. That's because I didn't pick the game. Someone else did. If that someone else doesn't know better than things get out of hand. "But see, it says so in the module!" Except the very discussion that ToH has generated across the internet, including this forum, invalidates the whole 'only the GM who buys the module knows what it is'. If the GM buying it and running it is a knob jockey about it then that's because the GM is a knob jockey not because the module made him/her 'do it' or the systems prevalent in the day turned him/her into an arsewipe by magic . . . if RPG's really had that sort of power over how people behaved back then then maybe the Jack Chick paranoia was justified. Aaron 'The Devil made me do fuck all, I don't need his help to be a bastard - I own that shit'
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 15:22:49 GMT -8
That's NOT how it happened: Bishop Carr - First D&D ClericMisquote history, fine; misquote history to have a random (and wholly unnecessary) dig at the personal character of a dead man you never met is basically pretty shitty. Aaron Umm.. the link you posted doesn't disagree with her? It says it was introduced as a balance for the vampire player. Doesn't really mention if Gary's character was affected at all. Except it had nothing to do with Gygax being "Salty" about anything because Gygax didn't create the class . . . the theme of recent posts about Gygax on this forum (across several threads) seem more intent of casting aspersions on his character, as a person, and laying at his doorstep the entirety of blame for the real or imagined ill's of RPG's at their beginning than addressing the facts at hand. If you didn't like the guy, fine . . . but being snide about him, as a person, when he's fucking dead and unable to defend himself is just plain mean spirited. FFS on Rememberance Day and ANZAC Day we now honor the Dead from both sides of the various conflicts . . . yet in a niche hobby like ours we seem to prefer picking over the corpses of it's founders and discrediting them for being normally flawed human-beings. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 12:00:23 GMT -8
the Entire Cleric Class in D&D Started as a Reactionary Class because Gary Gygax was Salty about losing his character to a vampire. That's NOT how it happened: Bishop Carr - First D&D ClericMisquote history, fine; misquote history to have a random (and wholly unnecessary) dig at the personal character of a dead man you never met is basically pretty shitty. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 10:50:22 GMT -8
Of the top of my head…. An enemy that is intangible, thus the ogre is unable to strike A magic user levitates the ogre… can’t hit anything if you can’t move. Sleep spell Drugged weapons The list goes on…. One of my old favourites: Question: "Why is that Half Elf mercenary clad in bronze armour with bronze swords approaching us while holding a bag low in her hand?" Answer: "it's a bag holding with her pet (read: trained to approach the enemy not her) rust monster, 'Rusty', inside . . . " (or any variation on the theme appropriate to the OP PC threat: in the case above a heavily armoured and armed melee monster - and yes he did run away screaming like a hobbit with his balls in a vice while the other PC's, less vulnerable to the rust monster threat, achieved victory thru the combat dominance normally attributed to him) Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 8:55:28 GMT -8
Old School Adversarial GM's - should be read as teenage GM's new to the hobby with the usual angsty issues of growing up and with a good dash of 'still learning appropriate interpersonal skills'. This statement can be translated 'I sick of hearing this bullshit about Old School Adversarial GM's: yes there were adversarial GM's, when I was a teenager!!!, and there are just as many teenage adversarial GM's out and about now; don't confuse growing up with 'that's what everyone was like back then''. FTR by the time 2e was out and story had taken center place no GM's. in my experience. were adversarial: because we had all grown up considerably. However, given my venerable years, that was before many of the commentators about 'this is how they played back then' weren't even born - funny how the 'adversarial years' of the hobby tends to correlate better with the observers age than reportable events. If you've encountered an adversarial GM it isn't because they are Old School - it's because they're immature individuals who have yet to resolve certain issues in their development as persons. If you listen to PodCast you'll see that the Host's adversarial years occur during their teens, and they later come to grow into the RPG understanding they profess as they mature as people. How many adversarial Pathfinder Society GM's have we heard about, GM's who weren't even a sperm in their Dad's vas deferens during the so called Old School Era . . . I think a lot of the negative comments in this thread are more to do with a desire to kick Gygax than any real or valid criticisms - cause it's not the guy can defend himself or anything, being dead. I love the way ALL the ill's of RPG's appear to be able to be laid at the foot of Gary Gygax. It's not like we could say a polite thanks or anything for his bringing this hobby into the world when he did - maybe show a bit of fucking respect for the deceased, for no other reason than that's what we (as a society) tend to agree to do . . . respect the dead. Walt Disney was a Nazi sympathizing racist anti-Semite but kudos to Disney Film's for Star Wars Ep7 and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Henry Ford, by all accounts, was a bit of prick but kudos to him for bringing the principles of the mass production assembly line to the manufacture of automobiles so that they were made available to all classes of people (It's not his fault that he didn't know his product would be implicated in contributing to Climate Change a Century later) Honestly, the way some people react to the name Gygax just reminds me of the character 'Spoilt Bastard' from Viz. Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 31, 2016 8:24:18 GMT -8
You're wrong though. ToH isn't controversial. A small subset of people insist on judging it on criteria that really doesn't apply. You don't judge a video game based on it's ultra-difficult mode. And you don't compare the ultra-difficult mode of a video game to rape porn. And just to pile on, because this comparison is just so ridiculous.... FATAL tries to present itself as legitimate. Tomb of Horrors touts itself as the hardest meat-grinder ever. As for WHY? The same reason some people play Dark Souls, two sequels later, or climb Mt. Everest, or do the running of the bulls.... To be able to say I TRIED THAT, or I BEAT THAT. THIS Aaron
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Post by Kainguru on Mar 28, 2016 5:26:02 GMT -8
The thing that everyone misses about ToH, and it's already been said in this thread: It was never meant to be a campaign module It was specifically a convention tournament module It was specifically a tournament module for COMPETITIVE MULTI-TABLE play Multi-Table play was GROUP (Players) vs GROUP (the other players 'sat at that table over there') The DM's were impartial arbiters, basically umpires, who then had to then grade the 'success' of each group against an independent set of measures. The DM's would get together after the round and submit the scores to the final judges There could only be one winning group at any given tournament and, yeah, it mattered because the prize was often cold hard cash (a precursor to the computer gaming tournaments we see today and 'played' just as seriously) To get an idea of how they worked look at original printings of The Slaver's and Ghost Tower of Inverness. They reprint the DM's score sheet etc and explain how to rank a group in a Multi-Table TOURNAMENT (I believe the intention was for local groups to come together and thus create local Conventions, which would in turn promote the hobby: again look at competitive computer game play,the industry successfully used exactly this model: first there were Lan Parties and over time they grew to become multi-millon dollar Events) The 'too easy' criticism relates specifically to EEG's own group . . . he knew his players and they knew him and all too often his 'challenges' went south because of it. The people who said his 'modules' were 'too easy' were his own players, but in the context of 'come on Gary, we've been playing this game since before it was a thing, take the kid gloves of and show us what you can do - be a bastard for once because a change of pace is good sometimes'. That's no different than any other hobby when you decide to 'up the ante' and test your limits just for the hell of it . . . TSR printed this because they needed to generate capital and EEG had already formatted it for distribution at Convention play. It was formatted for Convention Play because TSR needed to run something at Gen Con for their Tournament and it was what it was: 'a killer one-shot' (sourced from EGG's personal campaign and originally designed BY REQUEST OF HIS PLAYERS) Given that that is what ToH's was/is I think I can understand why EGG was so touchy on the subject. A module plucked, by necessity, from his personal game to fill a void while (a still developing) TSR struggled to adapt to it's own unprecedented success and demand for product Aaron
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