E. Gary Gygax (1938 - 2008)
James Nicoll
significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
and sorcery novels, has died.
1: I invoke the "wait until he cools" rule.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
Default User
> Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
> significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
> and sorcery novels, has died.
Who will take his place in the Vice-Presidential Action Rangers?
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
James Nicoll
Default User <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>James Nicoll wrote:
>
>> Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
>> significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
>> and sorcery novels, has died.
>
>Who will take his place in the Vice-Presidential Action Rangers?
>
what, a 5th level cleric spell?
johan.g...@gmail.com
> Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
> significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
> and sorcery novels, has died.
>
> 1: I invoke the "wait until he cools" rule.
> defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
IMHO, D&D was one of those neat optional side-roads history took.
Table-top wargames were going to happen, storytelling in general was
going to happen, and I think the same holds for computer games. But
tabletop role-playing might not have, except for the efforts of a
fellow who liked to tell stories _and_ fight miniature battles.
I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't created
D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller niche, but would
there be any larger effects?
Johan Larson
James Nicoll
<johan.g...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't created
>D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller niche, but would
>there be any larger effects?
What Conanesque fantasies are there? I thought that aside from
a surge of craptastic material from TSR during the Lorraine Regime,
sword and sorcery had a bit of a time out once the fake Tolkien stuff
took off.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
David DeLaney
> Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
>significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
>and sorcery novels, has died.
>
>1: I invoke the "wait until he cools" rule.
This will probably not surprise too many people, but I liked at least some
of those novels.
Dave "especially the last one, with interuniversal alarums and excursions, and
the final 'they got better' ending..." DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
James Nicoll
>Table-top wargames were going to happen, storytelling in general was
>going to happen, and I think the same holds for computer games. But
>tabletop role-playing might not have, except for the efforts of a
>fellow who liked to tell stories _and_ fight miniature battles.
>
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
Richard R. Hershberger
> In article <5711a626-97bc-4171-843e-a87ae0b01...@u10g2000prn.googlegroups.com>, <johan.g.lar...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >IMHO, D&D was one of those neat optional side-roads history took.
> >Table-top wargames were going to happen, storytelling in general was
> >going to happen, and I think the same holds for computer games. But
> >tabletop role-playing might not have, except for the efforts of a
> >fellow who liked to tell stories _and_ fight miniature battles.
>
> Who, Dave Arneson :)?
This may break the "wait until he cools" rule, but this is part of
what I wrote in another group:
As for Gary Gygax, he was sort of the Bill Gates of role playing
games. He took an idea not entirely his own and marketed it well,
while working furiously to suppress other, often better, entries into
the market. He probably deserves credit for creating the market, but
by the early 1980s he was on the wrong side.
Charlton Wilbur
JL> I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't
JL> created D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller
JL> niche, but would there be any larger effects?
Er, Conanesque fantasy can't really be a much smaller niche. There's
Conan, and there's Elric the anti-Conan, and there's.... not much
else. You could probably read some Wolfe as commentary on Conan too,
but that's about it.
Extruded pseudo-Tolkien and RPG fiction - without D&D, we'd probably
see a lot less of that. No Shannara, no Dragonlance, no Drizz't
Do'Urden. This doesn't strike me as all that bad.
Charlton
--
Charlton Wilbur
cwi...@chromatico.net
johan.g...@gmail.com
> In article <5711a626-97bc-4171-843e-a87ae0b01...@u10g2000prn.googlegroups.com>,
>
>
> >I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't created
> >D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller niche, but would
> >there be any larger effects?
>
> What Conanesque fantasies are there? I thought that aside from
> a surge of craptastic material from TSR during the Lorraine Regime,
> sword and sorcery had a bit of a time out once the fake Tolkien stuff
> took off.
I meant in CRPGs, where growing mighty by killing monsters and taking
their stuff is the standard thing.
Johan Larson
Charlton Wilbur
>>>>> "JL" == johan g larson <johan.g...@gmail.com> writes:
JL> I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't
JL> created D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller
JL> niche, but would there be any larger effects?
CW> Er, Conanesque fantasy can't really be a much smaller niche.
CW> There's Conan, and there's Elric the anti-Conan, and
CW> there's.... not much else. You could probably read some Wolfe
CW> as commentary on Conan too, but that's about it.
And of course, once I hit Send, the Little Voice said, "wait, what
about Fafhrd?" Okay, so there's a little more, but still not much.
Remus Shepherd
> On Mar 4, 3:02 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> > Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
> > significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
> > and sorcery novels, has died.
> IMHO, D&D was one of those neat optional side-roads history took.
> Table-top wargames were going to happen, storytelling in general was
> going to happen, and I think the same holds for computer games. But
> tabletop role-playing might not have, except for the efforts of a
> fellow who liked to tell stories _and_ fight miniature battles.
> I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't created
> D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller niche, but would
> there be any larger effects?
Go read Slashdot.org and their announcement of this news. A lot of
computer programmers are giving D&D credit for their ability to understand
rulesets, alter environments, and think creatively.
D&D had enormous impact on our world, and I don't know what popular
culture, including movies, games and literature, would look without it.
How much of D&D's influence was due to Gygax is arguable, but he's
definitely an icon for an entire generation of gamers and dreamers.
Godspeed, dungeonmaster.
... ...
Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com>
Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/remus_shepherd/
Comic: http://indepos.comicgenesis.com/
Andrew Plotkin
I think that computer gaming would have been *wildly* different if D&D
had never existed. As you imply, the earliest CRPGs (Ultima, Wizardry,
Hack/Rogue) were explicitly inspired by the idea of getting D&D onto a
computer. The same is true of the earliest adventures (Colossal Cave).
It's not a matter of a smaller niche; there would have been no such
niche, at the outset.
So what other influences were there? The arcade shooters (etc) were
all there, independet of D&D. Maybe sim-type games would have taken
off earlier, led by Hammurabi and Oregon Trail. There were
Star-Trek-themed space-exploration games... I can imagine years going
by in which computer games did not have the notion of *you* on the
screen acting. The player would control a starship, or an empire, or a
yellow chompy dot, but not an avatar of *himself*.
It would have come along eventually, I suppose. But... I'd bet quite a
lot that the computer game industry as we know it would have launched
later and slower. Up until the mid-90s, it was adventures and RPGs
that were *big* games; they drove the game industry in the direction
of big budgets and big development groups. The arcade games weren't
doing that. So, if RPGs had been delayed, the whole industry would
have been delayed.
That's my no-doubt-poorly-informed theory.
(Once Doom hit, it became the game-industry driver -- in the US,
anyway. I suppose Japan remained firmly entrenched with CRPGs, the
Final Fantasy crowd.)
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't subjected you to searches without a
warrant, it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because of
the Fourth Amendment.
Mike Schilling
"Remus Shepherd" <re...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:fqkfv0$6dn$1...@reader2.panix.com...
> johan.g...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Mar 4, 3:02 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>> > Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
>> > significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
>> > and sorcery novels, has died.
>
>> IMHO, D&D was one of those neat optional side-roads history took.
>> Table-top wargames were going to happen, storytelling in general was
>> going to happen, and I think the same holds for computer games. But
>> tabletop role-playing might not have, except for the efforts of a
>> fellow who liked to tell stories _and_ fight miniature battles.
>
>> I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't created
>> D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller niche, but would
>> there be any larger effects?
>
> Go read Slashdot.org and their announcement of this news. A lot of
> computer programmers are giving D&D credit for their ability to understand
> rulesets, alter environments, and think creatively.
And learning to drink ten beers without vomiting, even with no girls around
to impress.
Kurt Busiek
And the work of David Gemmell, which is far more Howardesque than Tolkeinesque.
And, I would assume, Brak the Barbarian, though I haven't read it.
I haven't read Sara Douglass, either, but she was recommended to me as
swordansorcery rather than high fantasy.
And others -- Elak of Atlantis pops to mind -- there seems to be less
S&S than Tolkeinesque high fantasy, but it's not as small a niche as
you suggest.
kdb
Elf M. Sternberg
> Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
> significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
> and sorcery novels, has died.
Damn. Failed his saving throwing. I think I first played
with the little boxed set sometime around 1978. Valhalla welcomes
Gary with open arms; let the drinking begin!
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg, Immanentizing the Eschaton since 1988
http://www.pendorwright.com/
Elf's latest stories are available in paperback! Buy
the genderbending novel _Sterlings_, available
now from http://stores.lulu.com/elfsternberg
Gene Ward Smith
kurt@busiekcomics:
>> And of course, once I hit Send, the Little Voice said, "wait, what
>> about Fafhrd?" Okay, so there's a little more, but still not much.
>
> And the work of David Gemmell, which is far more Howardesque than
Tolkeinesque.
>
> And, I would assume, Brak the Barbarian, though I haven't read it.
And, obviously, Kane. Not to mention Bravd and Cohen.
Sea Wasp
> Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
> significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
> and sorcery novels, has died.
>
>
> 1: I invoke the "wait until he cools" rule.
What? Doesn't anyone have a Resurrection handy?
Damn. One of the three most influential people in my life outside of
my family. I will salute him in tonight's game.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Lee Ratner
> On Mar 4, 3:02 pm, jdnic...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>
> > Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
> > significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
> > and sorcery novels, has died.
>
> > 1: I invoke the "wait until he cools" rule.
> > defending the English language [...]" T-shirt, cup and tote-bag needs)
>
> IMHO, D&D was one of those neat optional side-roads history took.
> Table-top wargames were going to happen, storytelling in general was
> going to happen, and I think the same holds for computer games. But
> tabletop role-playing might not have, except for the efforts of a
> fellow who liked to tell stories _and_ fight miniature battles.
>
> I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't created
> D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller niche, but would
> there be any larger effects?
>
RPGs,
even RPGs made by Japanese video game companies might not exist.
Rather,
we would have mainly action and sports games. The closest to RPGs
might be
simulators and adventure games like King's Quest.
johan.g...@gmail.com
> James Nicoll wrote:
> > Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
> > significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
> > and sorcery novels, has died.
>
> > 1: I invoke the "wait until he cools" rule.
>
> What? Doesn't anyone have a Resurrection handy?
Animate Dead would be easier; it's only third level...
Johan Larson
Howard Brazee
> I think without D&D there would not be computer or console based
> RPGs,
> even RPGs made by Japanese video game companies might not exist.
> Rather,
> we would have mainly action and sports games. The closest to RPGs
> might be
> simulators and adventure games like King's Quest.
Funny thing, I did role playing before Chain Mail came out. You don't
think anybody would have invented computer or console based RPGs
independently?
Lee Ratner
Well, yes and no. RPGs would develop independently but I think
they
would be kind of unrecognizable. I doubt the RPG based on choosing
options from
a menu would exist without D&D. I think most RPGs would be more like
Sierra's Quest
for Glory or King's Quest than Neverwinter Nights or Final Fantasy,
which show a distinct
D&D influence. The concepts of character class or at least characters
skilled in one area
over others, hit points, magic points, experience points and others
derive from D&D.
Sean O'Hara
declared:
>
> So what other influences were there? The arcade shooters (etc) were
> all there, independet of D&D. Maybe sim-type games would have taken
> off earlier, led by Hammurabi and Oregon Trail. There were
> Star-Trek-themed space-exploration games... I can imagine years going
> by in which computer games did not have the notion of *you* on the
> screen acting. The player would control a starship, or an empire, or a
> yellow chompy dot, but not an avatar of *himself*.
>
I don't know about that. The same drive the led people to create
Star Trek games would've led to Tolkien-inspired ones whether D&D
was there to provide the framework.
And I don't see any reason why you wouldn't get things like Pitfall
and Impossible Mission by the early/mid-'80s.
--
Sean O'Hara <http://diogenes-sinope.blogspot.com>
Joker: How can you shoot women, children?
Gunner: Easy -- you don't lead 'em so much.
-Full Metal Jacket
Andrew Wheeler
But Sword & Sorcery was big *before* D&D -- look up the _Flashing
Swords!_ anthologies of the '70s sometimes. Even as late as the
_Thieves' World_ books, S&S was a major part of the fantasy marketplace.
My personal theory is that D&D siphoned off that kind of story -- and
then the sharecropped novels poisoned the well for original S&S stories.
And Shannara is pre-AD&D and very much in the Tolkien vein; you can't
blame Gygax for any of that.
--
Andrew Wheeler
Jason Maxwell
what and did Gygax really put forth the best option etc. etc. etc. What
can't be understated though is the amount of influence that Gygax's choices
had on kids of the 70's and 80's. By getting D&D out there and into
something close to the "mainstream" it influences a whole generation of kids
(and adults I'm sure) and turned them into SF/F fans, led them to computers
to play RPGs, increased their vocabulary, exercised their imaginations, etc.
He's up there with Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas in the people who
created and/or influenced the mass media that affected me the most as a kid.
It wasn't until high school that I could really see the affects of SF
authors like Heinlein, Asimov, etc.
Jason
Andrew Plotkin
> In the Year of the Earth Rat, the Great and Powerful Andrew Plotkin
> declared:
> >
> > So what other influences were there? The arcade shooters (etc) were
> > all there, independet of D&D. Maybe sim-type games would have taken
> > off earlier, led by Hammurabi and Oregon Trail. There were
> > Star-Trek-themed space-exploration games... I can imagine years going
> > by in which computer games did not have the notion of *you* on the
> > screen acting. The player would control a starship, or an empire, or a
> > yellow chompy dot, but not an avatar of *himself*.
> >
>
> I don't know about that. The same drive the led people to create
> Star Trek games would've led to Tolkien-inspired ones whether D&D
> was there to provide the framework.
I admit that part's a stretch. But it's hard to decide what's obvious
in retrospect.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
When Bush says "Stay the course," what he means is "I don't know what to
do next." He's been saying this for years now.
Andrew Plotkin
I suspect that _Sword of Shannara_ influenced AD&D, actually -- wasn't
that when gnomes were added to the game as a player race?
But and however, I think there was synergy between 1970s post-Tolkien
fantasy and role-playing gaming. Certainly I collided with both at the
same time. The fantasy genre would have existed (arguments about
Elizabeth Moon aside), but I don't think it would have been as big or
sold as well.
David DeLaney
>Default User <defaul...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>James Nicoll wrote:
>>
>>> Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
>>> significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
>>> and sorcery novels, has died.
>>
>>Who will take his place in the Vice-Presidential Action Rangers?
>>
> Would any of the other members get "raise dead"? That's
>what, a 5th level cleric spell?
Order of the Stick and Full Frontal Nerdity have tribute strips up already.
Dave
David DeLaney
>IMHO, D&D was one of those neat optional side-roads history took.
>Table-top wargames were going to happen, storytelling in general was
>going to happen, and I think the same holds for computer games. But
>tabletop role-playing might not have, except for the efforts of a
>fellow who liked to tell stories _and_ fight miniature battles.
>
>I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't created
>D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller niche, but would
>there be any larger effects?
Well, we wouldn't have Everquest, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, or
Neverwinter Nights, for one category. Or, quite probably, Wizardry 1-N,
Might and Magic 1-N, or The Bard's Tale 1-N...
David DeLaney
> Go read Slashdot.org and their announcement of this news. A lot of
>computer programmers are giving D&D credit for their ability to understand
>rulesets, alter environments, and think creatively.
I give it credit for Magic the Gathering, and give that credit for my
current job.
> D&D had enormous impact on our world, and I don't know what popular
>culture, including movies, games and literature, would look without it.
Collectible card games would probably be about baseball players, if anything
at all. So there goes Magic, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Versus and WoW, Legend of the
Five Rings, XXXenoPhilE, etc etc etc.
> Godspeed, dungeonmaster.
Andrew Plotkin
> johan.g...@gmail.com <johan.g...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't created
> >D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller niche, but would
> >there be any larger effects?
>
> Well, we wouldn't have Everquest, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, or
> Neverwinter Nights, for one category. Or, quite probably, Wizardry 1-N,
> Might and Magic 1-N, or The Bard's Tale 1-N...
No "probably" about it. Every one of the games you just named started
off with your character statistics -- strength, dexterity,
constitution... hewing very closely to the D&D six stats. Followed by
hit points and armor class.
(I was just thinking a few days ago about the wonderful bug in
Might&Magic 1 that had to do with your constitution score.)
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
Bush's biggest lie is his claim that it's okay to disagree with him. As soon as
you *actually* disagree with him, he sadly explains that you're undermining
America, that you're giving comfort to the enemy. That you need to be silent.
Andrew Plotkin
>
> (I was just thinking a few days ago about the wonderful bug in
> Might&Magic 1 that had to do with your constitution score.)
Which, now that I look at screen shots, might have been from a
different dungeon-crawl of that era. Sorry. Been a while. Maybe I'm
thinking of Questron?
Doesn't impact my point about stats. M&M1 had Intellect, Might,
Personality, Endurance, Speed, Accuracy, and Luck.
Charlton Wilbur
AW> And Shannara is pre-AD&D and very much in the Tolkien vein;
AW> you can't blame Gygax for any of that.
The Sword of Shannara was published in 1977, three years after the
original D&D box set was published. The Elfstones of Shannara was
published in 1982, after AD&D had hit it big enough to appear in the
movie E. T. without commentary about what the kids were doing, on the
assumption that the audience would recognize it.
AD&D might be able to escape the blame for the first Shannara book;
the endless stream of sequels, on the other hand, is squarely in the
extruded quasi-Tolkien fantasy genre that AD&D spawned.
Lee Ratner
> johan.g.lar...@gmail.com <johan.g.lar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >IMHO, D&D was one of those neat optional side-roads history took.
> >Table-top wargames were going to happen, storytelling in general was
> >going to happen, and I think the same holds for computer games. But
> >tabletop role-playing might not have, except for the efforts of a
> >fellow who liked to tell stories _and_ fight miniature battles.
>
> >I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't created
> >D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller niche, but would
> >there be any larger effects?
>
> Well, we wouldn't have Everquest, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, or
> Neverwinter Nights, for one category. Or, quite probably, Wizardry 1-N,
> Might and Magic 1-N, or The Bard's Tale 1-N...
>
Phantasy Star,
Dragon Quest, or Breath of Fire.
William December Starr
"Jason Maxwell" <jaso...@cox.net> said:
> By getting D&D out there and into something close to the
> "mainstream" it influences a whole generation of kids (and adults
> I'm sure) and turned them into SF/F fans, led them to computers to
> play RPGs, increased their vocabulary, exercised their imaginations,
...helped them flunk out of college. :-)
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
Charles...@gmail.com
Do zombies suffer from age class penalties?
On a more serious note, I'm a pretty hardened person. Generally I'm
not affected by the death of people outside my close family, but the
passing of Gary Gygax did move me. In a real way I credit Gygax for
changing the course of my life, for the better. If only for his
marketing efforts. The moments I remember from my youth are all of my
friends and I sitting at my best friend's kitchen table rolling small
pieces of formed plastic across the table cloth. When I call my
friends on the phone to talk, we always have a good laugh at some
shared event at that kitchen table or one of the many others we shared
with friends and friends of friends.
Say what you will about the relative merits of D&D versus the other
offerings of the time, without having those books in our hands; I
would have been a much different person than I am today. D&D isn't
really about the rules or setting, it's about the shared social event
of sitting down with friends and strangers to play.
The Prime Material Plane is poorer for your exit Dungeon Master.
BP
Wheeler) wrote:
>But Sword & Sorcery was big *before* D&D -- look up the _Flashing
>Swords!_ anthologies of the '70s sometimes. Even as late as the
>_Thieves' World_ books, S&S was a major part of the fantasy marketplace.
Original D&D came out in 1974.
Sword of Shannara came out in 1977.
AD&D came out in 1978.
The first Thieves World book came out in 1978.
>And Shannara is pre-AD&D and very much in the Tolkien vein; you can't
>blame Gygax for any of that.
I see what you did there - pre-AD&D, not pre-D&D.
BP
Richard R. Hershberger
> On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 21:15:16 -0500, acwhe...@optonline.net (Andrew
Perhaps more to the point, when did D&D become big? I started in
1976, but I distinctly remember being in a very small minority, having
to explain the concept to a skeptical audience. My recollection is
that D&D occupied a corner of the game store, this being the heyday of
Avalon Hill and SPI and the like. I remember having to work to find
the dice for D&D. This undoubtedly varied from place to place, but my
sense is that the idea of RPGs took off with AD&D after the D&D
incubation period.
I am skeptical about any D&D influence on Sword of Shanarra. My
distant recollection is that SoS was a pretty direct Lord of the Rings
rip-off.
Richard R. Hershberger
Chuk Goodin
<erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>Here, David DeLaney <d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote:
>> johan.g...@gmail.com <johan.g...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't created
>> >D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller niche, but would
>> >there be any larger effects?
>>
>> Well, we wouldn't have Everquest, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, or
>> Neverwinter Nights, for one category. Or, quite probably, Wizardry 1-N,
>> Might and Magic 1-N, or The Bard's Tale 1-N...
>
>No "probably" about it. Every one of the games you just named started
>off with your character statistics -- strength, dexterity,
>constitution... hewing very closely to the D&D six stats. Followed by
>hit points and armor class.
Neverwinter Nights was directly and explicitly based on D&D 3.0 and even
licensed the name etc.
--
chuk
johan.g...@gmail.com
> On Mar 5, 12:27 pm, BP <re...@newsgroup.please> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Tue, 4 Mar 2008 21:15:16 -0500, acwhe...@optonline.net (Andrew
>
> > Wheeler) wrote:
> > >But Sword & Sorcery was big *before* D&D -- look up the _Flashing
> > >Swords!_ anthologies of the '70s sometimes. Even as late as the
> > >_Thieves' World_ books, S&S was a major part of the fantasy marketplace.
>
> > Original D&D came out in 1974.
>
> > Sword of Shannara came out in 1977.
>
> > AD&D came out in 1978.
>
> > The first Thieves World book came out in 1978.
>
> > >And Shannara is pre-AD&D and very much in the Tolkien vein; you can't
> > >blame Gygax for any of that.
>
> > I see what you did there - pre-AD&D, not pre-D&D.
>
> > BP
>
> Perhaps more to the point, when did D&D become big? I started in
> 1976, but I distinctly remember being in a very small minority, having
> to explain the concept to a skeptical audience. My recollection is
> that D&D occupied a corner of the game store, this being the heyday of
> Avalon Hill and SPI and the like. I remember having to work to find
> the dice for D&D. This undoubtedly varied from place to place, but my
> sense is that the idea of RPGs took off with AD&D after the D&D
> incubation period.
I learned about D&D in 1981 or so from my friends at school -- I was
11 at the time. We played AD&D exclusively, using the hardbound PHB,
MM, and DMG. I didn't learn there had been an earlier version (white
box?) until literally decades later. I suspect D&D was a very obscure
thing until the hardbacks came along.
Johan Larson
Richard R. Hershberger
Well, yes and no. Inasmuch as RPGs attempt to recreate written
fantasy, you are going to end up with specialization. After all,
Gandalf rarely gets into brawls, and Boromir is even less likely to
start casting spells. This wouldn't necessarily take the form of D&D-
style character class, of course. Probably not, since D&D-style
character class is a pretty poor match for the literary exemplars,
much less anything like realism.
Similarly with hit points. It's no great leap from having step
reductions to your panzer corps to have points for characters. Again,
I suspect that without the D&D influence things would have gone
differently. The phenomenon of a character operating at full
effectiveness until his last hit point gave out, when he dropped
dead? That was a peculiar tic of D&D.
There are other tics that wouldn't have developed. Alignment, for
example. It seems to have been intended to fill the role of hat color
in a classic western movie, but always was a poor fit for player
characters.
So I don't doubt that RPGs would have been different without D&D, but
form follows function. The big differences would have been the areas
where D&D's form was idiosyncratic.
Full disclosure: back when I was playing RPGs, my preferred rule set
was Runequest 2nd edition.
Richard R. Hershberger
James Nicoll
standard bookstore shelves. I remember seeing copies of the PH, DMG,
MM and FF in the University of Waterloo's bookstore in 1980 while
inconveniently sized RPG products like GDW's little black TRAVELLER
books were things that you really had to go to Toronto (To the
Battered Dwarf or Gameways Ark) to find.
Sometime between 1980 and 1984, Toys R Us began to stock
D&D but by the mid-1980s they decided to dump their stocks and get
out of the RPG trade. I don't know if that was because RPGs stopped
selling or because of the whole "D&D Made My Chronically Depressed
Son Who I Was Pressuring to Excel Academically Kill Himself" noise.
--
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
http://www.cafepress.com/jdnicoll (For all your "The problem with
Richard R. Hershberger
> In article <22b9d7b3-aaec-4e2a-a7cb-6340458bf...@y77g2000hsy.googlegroups.com>,
I remember when you could find Avalon Hill wargames in toy stores. I
fondly recall the long explanation on the box of why $6 was really a
very reasonable price, and not outrageous at all. (This also ties in
with a pet theory of mine, that the price of wargames correlated with
the price of first class postage: simply multiply the price of
postage by one hundred.) It's rather sad how the gaming business has
declined, though this undoubtedly correlates inversely with the rise
of personal computers.
Richard R. Hershberger
Kurt Busiek
I started playing D&D in 1975, and have no sense of how obscure it was
-- hte crowd I hung out with in G-unit cafeteria at high school all
knew about it, and buying dice and stuff at a hobby shop was no problem.
On the other hand, but the time AD&D came out, I'd moved on to other
kinds of RPGs, and I think it was AD&D that hit really big.
kdb
Kurt Busiek
> I am skeptical about any D&D influence on Sword of Shanarra. My
> distant recollection is that SoS was a pretty direct Lord of the Rings
> rip-off.
I remember picking up SWORD OF SHANNARA for two reasons:
1. It looked like a Tolkeinesque fantasy, and those were thin on the
ground at the time, and
2. It had a Hildebrandt cover.
I only got about ten or twenty pages in before cursing at it and
cursing the Hildebrandts for gulling me like that.
Years later, I remember being interested in FANG THE GNOME, but a voice
in my head kept whispering "It's just the cover...you're interested
because of the cover...remember Shannara..."
So to this day I have no idea whether FANG would have been worth
reading or not, just that I had bounced off SHANNARA so hard I was
suspicious of Hildebrandt covers thereafter.
kdb
Richard R. Hershberger
I blamed Brooks, rather than the Hildebrandts. I swore to never in
any way, however indirectly, contribute to Brooks's income: not even
checking out a library book, since it might encourage the library to
buy more books by him. I have had people tell me that he has
improved, but I have never seen fit to recant.
Richard R. Hershberger
Kurt Busiek
> On Mar 5, 2:28 pm, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.comics> wrote:
>> On 2008-03-05 10:56:57 -0800, "Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhe...@acme.com>
> said:
>>
>>> I am skeptical about any D&D influence on Sword of Shanarra. My
>>> distant recollection is that SoS was a pretty direct Lord of the Rings
>>> rip-off.
>>
>> I remember picking up SWORD OF SHANNARA for two reasons:
>>
>> 1. It looked like a Tolkeinesque fantasy, and those were thin on the
>> ground at the time, and
>>
>> 2. It had a Hildebrandt cover.
>>
>> I only got about ten or twenty pages in before cursing at it and
>> cursing the Hildebrandts for gulling me like that.
>>
>> Years later, I remember being interested in FANG THE GNOME, but a voice
>> in my head kept whispering "It's just the cover...you're interested
>> because of the cover...remember Shannara..."
>>
>> So to this day I have no idea whether FANG would have been worth
>> reading or not, just that I had bounced off SHANNARA so hard I was
>> suspicious of Hildebrandt covers thereafter.
>
> I blamed Brooks, rather than the Hildebrandts. I swore to never in
> any way, however indirectly, contribute to Brooks's income: not even
> checking out a library book, since it might encourage the library to
> buy more books by him. I have had people tell me that he has
> improved, but I have never seen fit to recant.
I blamed Brooks for the text, and the Hildebrants for getting me to buy
it, in hardcover no less.
Before that, to my tiny teenage mind, they belonged to Tolkein and
quality and rich worldbuilding, and after that they were revealed as
filthy, filthy commercial whores. How dare they grace something
unworthy with their art?
I've since gotten over my naive view of the world, but I've also gotten
over that fresh-scrubbed, Ivory-soap ad/Iowa farmgirl look for fantasy,
so I suppose it's a wash.
kdb
Andrew Plotkin
> On 2008-03-05 10:56:57 -0800, "Richard R. Hershberger" <rrh...@acme.com> said:
>
> > I am skeptical about any D&D influence on Sword of Shanarra. My
> > distant recollection is that SoS was a pretty direct Lord of the Rings
> > rip-off.
>
> I remember picking up SWORD OF SHANNARA for two reasons:
>
> 1. It looked like a Tolkeinesque fantasy, and those were thin on the
> ground at the time, and
>
> 2. It had a Hildebrandt cover.
>
> I only got about ten or twenty pages in before cursing at it and
> cursing the Hildebrandts for gulling me like that.
I doubt I'll ever re-read SoS, but I enjoyed it when I read it. I got
together with my buddies and skewered the hell out of it as a Tolkien
ripoff; but it was still a book that I enjoyed.
I also note that Brooks went on to write plenty of Shanarra books
whose plots were *not* Tolkien ripoffs. Setting, style, sure; but it
was only that first volume which was done on tracing paper.
And the gimmick of the Sword remains a good plot idea. A thoughtful
reaction to Tolkien's "well, all these swords kick ass because they
were made by Elves, who kick ass. The power of ass-kicking is in them.
Yeah."
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't thrown you in military prison without trial,
it's for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because you're patriotic.
James Nicoll
Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
>
>I also note that Brooks went on to write plenty of Shanarra books
>whose plots were *not* Tolkien ripoffs. Setting, style, sure; but it
Style? What style do Brooks and JRRT have in common?
Richard R. Hershberger
I already blamed the Hildebrandts for their depictions of hobbits, so
I was immune to this particular disappointment.
Andrew Plotkin
> In article <fqmtau$66o$2...@reader2.panix.com>,
> Andrew Plotkin <erky...@eblong.com> wrote:
> >
> >I also note that Brooks went on to write plenty of Shanarra books
> >whose plots were *not* Tolkien ripoffs. Setting, style, sure; but it
>
> Style? What style do Brooks and JRRT have in common?
None at all on the prose level, to be sure.
I was thinking of... the style of plot, as contrasted with particular
plots. Villagers on quests, armies of evil CR1 monsters assaulting the
fortress-city, dark shadows from the depths of history. Odd helpers of
magical puissance found in odd corners of the forest.
"Tropes" would have been the right term, not "style".
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
If the Bush administration hasn't shipped you to Syria for interrogation, it's
for one reason: they don't feel like it. Not because you're innocent.
Richard R. Hershberger
> Here, James Nicoll <jdnic...@panix.com> wrote:
>
> > In article <fqmtau$66...@reader2.panix.com>,
> > Andrew Plotkin <erkyr...@eblong.com> wrote:
>
> > >I also note that Brooks went on to write plenty of Shanarra books
> > >whose plots were *not* Tolkien ripoffs. Setting, style, sure; but it
>
> > Style? What style do Brooks and JRRT have in common?
>
> None at all on the prose level, to be sure.
>
> I was thinking of... the style of plot, as contrasted with particular
> plots. Villagers on quests, armies of evil CR1 monsters assaulting the
> fortress-city, dark shadows from the depths of history. Odd helpers of
> magical puissance found in odd corners of the forest.
>
> "Tropes" would have been the right term, not "style".
I was going to let the "style" bit pass, but now you seem to be back
to plots. I don't doubt that later books weren't nearly so one-to-one
in correspondences with Tolkien, but we seem to be falling back on
shuffling plot points around a bit.
Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. Tolkien wasn't going for
originality in plotting. He was writing long before Joseph Campbell
came along, but he and Campbell were working from similar source
material. The difference between Tolkien and his myriad imitators is
that Tolkien was working directly from this source material. The
imitators were woking from Middle Earth, and perhaps Joseph Campbell
as well.
Richard R. Hershberger
Lee Ratner
>
> Well, yes and no. Inasmuch as RPGs attempt to recreate written
> fantasy, you are going to end up with specialization. After all,
> Gandalf rarely gets into brawls, and Boromir is even less likely to
> start casting spells.
If I remember correctly, Gandalf does carry and knows how to
use a sword. Without D&D, would we have the troupe of wizards only
being able to use staves and daggers? Yes, there would be
specialization but it would not be as concrete. In most console RPGs,
magic users may not use most weapons and armor. Magic users that are
vaguely clerical often get a better deal just like clerics did in
D&D.
This wouldn't necessarily take the form of D&D-
> style character class, of course. Probably not, since D&D-style
> character class is a pretty poor match for the literary exemplars,
> much less anything like realism.
D&D took specilization to ridiculous levels and imposed
arbitrary limitations to make the classes relatively equal. Without
D&D the level of specilization would be much less.
>
> So I don't doubt that RPGs would have been different without D&D, but
> form follows function. The big differences would have been the areas
> where D&D's form was idiosyncratic.
I am not writing about RPGs without D&D but RPGs played on
computer and video game systems without D&D. Most video game RPGs are
very heavily influenced by D&D, in regards to class, magic, and combat
structure. The dungeon crawl of many Japanese console RPGs probably
derives from D&D to.
> Full disclosure: back when I was playing RPGs, my preferred rule set
> was Runequest 2nd edition.
>
> Richard R. Hershberger- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Joseph T Major
news:5711a626-97bc-4171...@u10g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
>
> IMHO, D&D was one of those neat optional side-roads history took.
> Table-top wargames were going to happen, storytelling in general was
> going to happen, and I think the same holds for computer games. But
> tabletop role-playing might not have, except for the efforts of a
> fellow who liked to tell stories _and_ fight miniature battles.
Donald F. Featherstone, one of the Big Gurus of miniature wargaming, had
in one of his books (_Advanced Wargaming_ (1969)) a set of rules for
fighting with an infantry platoon at one-to-one relationship; i.e. every
figure represents one person. He described following the biographies,
awards, funerals (a big thing in the WWII/modern era gaming he was writing
about!).
I vaguely recall another book from that period that put forward rules
for "gladiatorial gaming", with single combats, but I don't recall the date
and it may have been influenced by rumors coming across the Big Pond.
On another note, I wrote to Gygax back in '72 because I had heard of his
fantasy and wargaming connections, discussing a proposal I had had for an
alternate history world. That was about the time he quit to begin game
development (his last letter had a comment about being too busy fixing
shoes) and it never got anywhere.
Joseph T Major
BP
>I am skeptical about any D&D influence on Sword of Shanarra. My
>distant recollection is that SoS was a pretty direct Lord of the Rings
>rip-off.
Oh, sure, no argument there. I was just picking nits about the
inaccuracy of the timeline.
BP
Jason Maxwell
news:55162165-2033-4cd7...@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
I remember when you could find Avalon Hill wargames in toy stores. I
fondly recall the long explanation on the box of why $6 was really a
very reasonable price, and not outrageous at all. (This also ties in
with a pet theory of mine, that the price of wargames correlated with
the price of first class postage: simply multiply the price of
postage by one hundred.) It's rather sad how the gaming business has
declined, though this undoubtedly correlates inversely with the rise
of personal computers.
Actually the gaming business is in a new Golden Age. Check out
http://www.boardgamegeek.com to get an idea of what's available now. The
difference between now and the 70's and 80's is that you can't find most of
the games at Toys 'R Us or Wal-Mart anymore. You have to find your local
game store or go on-line. But there are more games and a greater variety of
games than ever before.
Jason
Jason Maxwell
news:fqlu6f$8r$1...@panix1.panix.com...
> In article <Cwnzj.60166$497....@newsfe14.phx>,
> "Jason Maxwell" <jaso...@cox.net> said:
>
> > By getting D&D out there and into something close to the
> > "mainstream" it influences a whole generation of kids (and adults
> > I'm sure) and turned them into SF/F fans, led them to computers to
> > play RPGs, increased their vocabulary, exercised their imaginations,
>
> ...helped them flunk out of college. :-)
>
college...
Jason
Robert Tichacek
<jtm...@iglou.com> wrote:
[...]
> Donald F. Featherstone, one of the Big Gurus of miniature wargaming, had
> in one of his books (_Advanced Wargaming_ (1969)) a set of rules for
> fighting with an infantry platoon at one-to-one relationship; i.e. every
> figure represents one person. He described following the biographies,
> awards, funerals (a big thing in the WWII/modern era gaming he was writing
> about!).
>
> I vaguely recall another book from that period that put forward rules
> for "gladiatorial gaming", with single combats, but I don't recall the date
> and it may have been influenced by rumors coming across the Big Pond.
Charles Grant, another of said Big Gurus, showed in 1971's _The War
Game_ that miniature gamers were already personalizing their
commanders and playing them in character; that book also has rules for
1:1 scale actions, individual wounding and recovery, etc. He mentions
1:1 gladiatorial gaming in _The Ancient War Game_ (1974).
I *think* that some of M.A.R. Barker's Tekumel game sessions predate
D&D, though no rules were published until after D&D came out, and those
were based on D&D - quite unlike what he used at home, which would now
be considered part of the rules-light/interactive storytelling end of
things.
rlt
--
Remove "chop" from email to, well, email me
Steven L.
> Here, David DeLaney <d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote:
>> johan.g...@gmail.com <johan.g...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I wonder how computer games would be different if GG hadn't created
>>> D&D. Conanesque fantasy would surely be a smaller niche, but would
>>> there be any larger effects?
>> Well, we wouldn't have Everquest, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft, or
>> Neverwinter Nights, for one category. Or, quite probably, Wizardry 1-N,
>> Might and Magic 1-N, or The Bard's Tale 1-N...
>
> No "probably" about it. Every one of the games you just named started
> off with your character statistics -- strength, dexterity,
> constitution... hewing very closely to the D&D six stats. Followed by
> hit points and armor class.
Ironically, Gary Gygax was never happy about the computerization of
fantasy RPGs. He felt that you lost the intimacy of getting together
with real people in a real room to share the experience, which you do
get with a board game.
--
Steven L.
Email: sdli...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net
Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
John
"Kurt Busiek" <ku...@busiek.comics> wrote in message
news:2008030511453377923-kurt@busiekcomics...
Did the Hildebrants do the cover with an (elf?) in green tights with
flickback Skywalkeresque hair?
That cover stopped me considering the book on the grounds that I don't
particularly want to keep picturing the protagonist as though he should
really be wearing stone-washed jeans and high tops and possibly riding a
skateboard.
John
"David DeLaney" <d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote in message
news:slrnfss9c...@gatekeeper.vic.com...
> Remus Shepherd <re...@panix.com> wrote:
>> Go read Slashdot.org and their announcement of this news. A lot of
>>computer programmers are giving D&D credit for their ability to understand
>>rulesets, alter environments, and think creatively.
>
> I give it credit for Magic the Gathering, and give that credit for my
> current job.
>
>> D&D had enormous impact on our world, and I don't know what popular
>>culture, including movies, games and literature, would look without it.
>
> Collectible card games would probably be about baseball players, if
> anything
> at all. So there goes Magic, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Versus and WoW, Legend of
> the
> Five Rings, XXXenoPhilE, etc etc etc.
How do you figure? When I was a kid we had trading cards with various codes
of football, as well as planes, tanks, cars, motorcycles...
Kurt Busiek
http://hometown.aol.com/DesLily/shanarra1.jpg
I haven't seen this cover for over thirty years.
I look at it now and think, "Oh, my God, that's one of the Bee Gees!"
kdb
David DeLaney
>>>culture, including movies, games and literature, would look without it.
>>
>> Collectible card games would probably be about baseball players, if anything
>> at all. So there goes Magic, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Versus and WoW, Legend of the
>> Five Rings, XXXenoPhilE, etc etc etc.
>
>How do you figure? When I was a kid we had trading cards with various codes
>of football, as well as planes, tanks, cars, motorcycles...
Yep - but a) the most common collectible cards were not football, vehicles,
famous rock stars, etc. They were baseball cards. They were the canonical
thing that kids collected and traded. And put into the spokes of their bike
wheels. And b) even the ones you're mentioning weren't _fantasy_ planes,
anime tanks, flying cars, superpowered motorcycles, Japanese samurai football
players, and so on - they were illustrated reproductions of real stuff.
The jump into "let's make this into stuff from fantasy books" needs a real
large kickstart without D&D and its descendants and spinoffs acting as a
mediator. You might get into 'fantasy baseball league' cards fairly easily -
but that's a different usage of the word 'fantasy'...
Dave
--
\/David DeLaney posting from d...@vic.com "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeable<BLINK>
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.
il...@rcn.com
> fantasy RPGs. He felt that you lost the intimacy of getting together
> with real people in a real room to share the experience, which you do
> get with a board game.
Why is it ironic? I feel exactly same way. Also, live people at a
table tend to come up with creative and/or hilarious solutions to
problems, which DM -- or programmer, -- would never anticipate. It
makes for much more interesting game.
David Cowie
> Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
> significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
> and sorcery novels, has died.
>
He received a polite obituary in the London _Daily Telegraph_, which is a
fairly square paper.
According to Wikipedia, the Telegraph's editor was born in 1969. What are
the chances that he played a bit of D&D when he was younger?
--
David Cowie
Containment Failure + 37774:35
Andrew Plotkin
> > Ironically, Gary Gygax was never happy about the computerization of
> > fantasy RPGs. He felt that you lost the intimacy of getting together
> > with real people in a real room to share the experience, which you do
> > get with a board game.
>
> Why is it ironic?
Because orders of magnitude more people are playing computerized RPGs
today, and spending orders of magnitude more money on them?
But, from what I've read, Gygax was unhappy about a lot of things in
the later (paper-and-pencil) RPG world, too. It doesn't change the
fact that the causality line runs back to him.
--Z
--
"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the borogoves..."
*
It used to be that "conservatives" were in favor of smaller government,
fiscal responsibility, and tighter constraints on the Man's ability to
monitor you, arrest you, and control your life.
Joseph T Major
"Robert Tichacek" <rchopt...@fastmail.fm.invalid> wrote in message
news:050320082013248616%rchopt...@fastmail.fm.invalid...<snip>
>> I vaguely recall another book from that period that put forward rules
>> for "gladiatorial gaming", with single combats, but I don't recall the
>> date
>> and it may have been influenced by rumors coming across the Big Pond.
>
> Charles Grant, another of said Big Gurus, showed in 1971's _The War
> Game_ that miniature gamers were already personalizing their
> commanders and playing them in character; that book also has rules for
> 1:1 scale actions, individual wounding and recovery, etc. He mentions
> 1:1 gladiatorial gaming in _The Ancient War Game_ (1974).
That's the one. I've got _The Ancient War Game_ (which mostly discusses
WRG ancient miniature gaming), but it's buried somewhere in the house.
>
> I *think* that some of M.A.R. Barker's Tekumel game sessions predate
> D&D, though no rules were published until after D&D came out, and those
> were based on D&D - quite unlike what he used at home, which would now
> be considered part of the rules-light/interactive storytelling end of
> things.
Tekumel gaming and fandom is still active, and I believe Phil Barker,
though in less than perfect health, still runs his own campaign, And, as
you say, in his own fashion. So that predates D&D --- but it's so intensely
personal and bound-up in the world that it would be hard for it to become so
popular so quickly.
Joseph T Major
Chuk Goodin
>>> Collectible card games would probably be about baseball players, if anything
>>> at all. So there goes Magic, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Versus and WoW, Legend of the
>>> Five Rings, XXXenoPhilE, etc etc etc.
>>
>>How do you figure? When I was a kid we had trading cards with various codes
>>of football, as well as planes, tanks, cars, motorcycles...
>
>Yep - but a) the most common collectible cards were not football, vehicles,
>famous rock stars, etc. They were baseball cards. They were the canonical
>thing that kids collected and traded.
Don't you mean hockey cards?
--
chuk
David DeLaney
>d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
>>Yep - but a) the most common collectible cards were not football, vehicles,
>>famous rock stars, etc. They were baseball cards. They were the canonical
>>thing that kids collected and traded.
>
>Don't you mean hockey cards?
Okay, so Canada's different. And I expect that European / Oriental readers
of the appropriate age are all like 'wot's he goin' on about?' too...
Dave "what would be the analogue for Mexico/Central America, I wonder?" DeLaney
Gutless Umbrella Carrying Sissy
news:slrnft0s...@gatekeeper.vic.com:
> Chuk Goodin <cgo...@sfu.ca> wrote:
>>d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
>>>Yep - but a) the most common collectible cards were not
>>>football, vehicles, famous rock stars, etc. They were baseball
>>>cards. They were the canonical thing that kids collected and
>>>traded.
>>
>>Don't you mean hockey cards?
>
> Okay, so Canada's different. And I expect that European /
> Oriental readers of the appropriate age are all like 'wot's he
> goin' on about?' too...
>
> Dave "what would be the analogue for Mexico/Central America, I
> wonder?" DeLaney
Drug runners?
--
Terry Austin
"There's no law west of the internet."
- Nick Stump
Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.
William December Starr
about both D&D and Gygax personally here:
<http://www.believermag.com/issues/200609/?read=article_lafarge>
I particularly liked the footnote about the game-related speciality
dishes that some restaurants near a Gen-Con were serving:
29. Among these dishes was the Cthulhu Calamari, which I have
to confess I ordered. It turned out to be a half-sized
portion of rubbery deep-fried squid in an oversweet sauce:
one of the worst foods I've ever eaten, which, I guess,
serves me right.
And which is also appropriate: who would expect Cthulhu to taste
*good*?
And then the next footnote was:
30. Also, I got sucked into a game of Call of Cthulhu, a
role-playing game set in the universe of horror writer
H. P. Lovecraft. This is basically another story, but as I
may not have the chance to tell it in print elsewhere, I will
note that in one round of the game, we role-played the
highest echelon of the current administration: Bush, Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Rice, Porter Goss and Michael Chertoff. The really
eerie thing about this round was how plausible it all seemed,
even when we were herded into a bunker where Cheney shot Bush
and Rice and Rumsfeld, and I shot Cheney, and Cheney shot me.
(Goss had already committed suicide under mysterious
circumstances.) It could happen, I tell you.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
mimus
> There's a very good and interesting article from September 2006
> about both D&D and Gygax personally here:
>
> <http://www.believermag.com/issues/200609/?read=article_lafarge>
>
> I particularly liked the footnote about the game-related speciality
> dishes that some restaurants near a Gen-Con were serving:
>
> 29. Among these dishes was the Cthulhu Calamari, which I have
> to confess I ordered. It turned out to be a half-sized
> portion of rubbery deep-fried squid in an oversweet sauce:
> one of the worst foods I've ever eaten, which, I guess,
> serves me right.
>
> And which is also appropriate: who would expect Cthulhu to taste
> *good*?
That is not gone which was deep-fried
And with strange aches may re-arise.
> And then the next footnote was:
>
> 30. Also, I got sucked into a game of Call of Cthulhu, a
> role-playing game set in the universe of horror writer
> H. P. Lovecraft. This is basically another story, but as I
> may not have the chance to tell it in print elsewhere, I will
> note that in one round of the game, we role-played the
> highest echelon of the current administration: Bush, Cheney,
> Rumsfeld, Rice, Porter Goss and Michael Chertoff. The really
> eerie thing about this round was how plausible it all seemed,
> even when we were herded into a bunker where Cheney shot Bush
> and Rice and Rumsfeld, and I shot Cheney, and Cheney shot me.
> (Goss had already committed suicide under mysterious
> circumstances.) It could happen, I tell you.
I bet the game was fixed, like ordinary military table-top exercises.
--
In their brief time together Slothrop forms
the impression that this octopus is not in
good mental health, though where's his basis
for comparing?
< _Gravity's Rainbow_
Richard R. Hershberger
> Here, il...@rcn.com wrote:
> > > Ironically, Gary Gygax was never happy about the computerization of
> > > fantasy RPGs. He felt that you lost the intimacy of getting together
> > > with real people in a real room to share the experience, which you do
> > > get with a board game.
>
> > Why is it ironic?
>
> Because orders of magnitude more people are playing computerized RPGs
> today, and spending orders of magnitude more money on them?
>
> But, from what I've read, Gygax was unhappy about a lot of things in
> the later (paper-and-pencil) RPG world, too. It doesn't change the
> fact that the causality line runs back to him.
Not necessarily all that much later. I recall from c. 1980 a running
debates between Gygax/TSR and everyone else in the business. The gist
of it was that (A)D&D was the One True Way. Anyone playing any other
system was wrongety-wrong-wrong, and should stop. It was abundantly
clear to me even in high school that the competition was producing
good ideas, often substantially better than TSR's product. I assume
that the Gygax position was some combination of ego and financial self-
interest. I never cared much about the ratio of the two. In any
case, this is the source of much of my distaste of Gygax.
Richard R. Hershberger
James Nicoll
Richard R. Hershberger <rrh...@acme.com> wrote:
>On Mar 6, 10:17 am, Andrew Plotkin <erkyr...@eblong.com> wrote:
>> Here, il...@rcn.com wrote:
>> > > Ironically, Gary Gygax was never happy about the computerization of
>> > > fantasy RPGs. He felt that you lost the intimacy of getting together
>> > > with real people in a real room to share the experience, which you do
>> > > get with a board game.
>>
>> > Why is it ironic?
>>
>> Because orders of magnitude more people are playing computerized RPGs
>> today, and spending orders of magnitude more money on them?
>>
>> But, from what I've read, Gygax was unhappy about a lot of things in
>> the later (paper-and-pencil) RPG world, too. It doesn't change the
>> fact that the causality line runs back to him.
>
>Not necessarily all that much later. I recall from c. 1980 a running
>debates between Gygax/TSR and everyone else in the business. The gist
>of it was that (A)D&D was the One True Way. Anyone playing any other
>system was wrongety-wrong-wrong, and should stop.
Remember when Gygax claimed that Origins was an anti-TSR/GenCon
plot by the nefarious villains of the Avalon Hill/SPI Axis?
Howard Brazee
to make a high level character survive an attack that would kill a low
level character.
But we certainly would have had high and low level characters.
James Nicoll
Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>Without D&D, we might have had a more rational system of determining how
>to make a high level character survive an attack that would kill a low
>level character.
>
of points, the character can simply ignore attacks that are smaller than
a certain threshhold. No golden bb for them...
Richard R. Hershberger
The problem is conflicting models. Is the system intended to relate
to the real world, or to fantasy fiction? If the latter, which?
In the real world, an arrow (for example) to some inconveniently
critical spot is going to take anyone down. Any system that treats
arrows like nicks from a razor is unrealistic. On the other hand, the
cumulative nicks is a reasonable interpretation of how the orcs killed
Boromir, so it is defensible from fantasy literature. On the gripping
hand, there is no reason to believe that Boromir couldn't have been
killed outright by a critical hit, if we assume that the orcs simply
didn't have hot dice that day (thereby allowing Boromir to survive
long enough to provide plot exposition). I like the Xena solution to
the problem: an arrow in an awkward spot will take her down, but
because Xena is totally bitchin', she can almost always catch the
arrow in flight.
The problem with the D&D solution was that it didn't reproduce
anything, even removing realism from the discussion. After all, both
Boromir and Xena can be taken down by low-level stooges, if you had
enough of them. And they have to break a sweat. A high-level D&D
character can sit in an easy chair sipping a cup of tea while being
attacked by those stooges.
Regardless of the gaming solution, there clearly is not One True Way.
A campaign that wants to mimic Conan is going to be different from one
which follows LotR. This is what ticked me off about Gygax's self-
serving. It was an argument for a boring generic system, even apart
from that system's failings.
Richard R. Hershberger
Mark_R...@hotmail.com
> Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
> significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
> and sorcery novels, has died.
>
At the end of the March 5th Colbert Report, he had this to say:
Before we go, Nation, I have some sad news. Yesterday, Gary Gygax,
creator of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away at age 69. Gary, you'll be
missed. How much will you be missed? [Rolls D&D die] 20. May your
prismatic spray always bypass your target's reflex saving throw.
Beowulf Bolt
>
> And then the next footnote was:
>
> 30. Also, I got sucked into a game of Call of Cthulhu, a
> role-playing game set in the universe of horror writer
> H. P. Lovecraft. This is basically another story, but as I
> may not have the chance to tell it in print elsewhere, I will
> note that in one round of the game, we role-played the
> highest echelon of the current administration: Bush, Cheney,
> Rumsfeld, Rice, Porter Goss and Michael Chertoff. The really
> eerie thing about this round was how plausible it all seemed,
> even when we were herded into a bunker where Cheney shot Bush
> and Rice and Rumsfeld, and I shot Cheney, and Cheney shot me.
> (Goss had already committed suicide under mysterious
> circumstances.) It could happen, I tell you.
Damn, that sounds like it has the potential to be a very memorable
game. Wish the scenario was available online.
/loves the Call of Cthulhu RPG
Biff
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"All around me darkness gathers, fading is the sun that shone,
we must speak of other matters, you can be me when I'm gone..."
- SANDMAN #67, Neil Gaiman
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Konrad Gaertner
>
> Order of the Stick and Full Frontal Nerdity have tribute strips up already.
Here's the URL for the OotS:
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0536.html
And now there's one from xkcd:
http://xkcd.com/393/
--
Konrad Gaertner - - - - - - - - - - - - - email: kgae...@tx.rr.com
http://kgbooklog.livejournal.com/
"If I let myself get hung up on only doing things that had any actual
chance of success, I'd never do *anything*!" Elan, Order of the Stick
Derek Lyons
>David DeLaney wrote:
>>
>> Order of the Stick and Full Frontal Nerdity have tribute strips up already.
>
>Here's the URL for the OotS:
>http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0536.html
>
>And now there's one from xkcd:
>http://xkcd.com/393/
I loved the punchline from xkcd...
D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.
http://derekl1963.livejournal.com/
-Resolved: To be more temperate in my postings.
Oct 5th, 2004 JDL
Derek Lyons
> Sometime between 1980 and 1984, Toys R Us began to stock
>D&D but by the mid-1980s they decided to dump their stocks and get
>out of the RPG trade. I don't know if that was because RPGs stopped
>selling or because of the whole "D&D Made My Chronically Depressed
>Son Who I Was Pressuring to Excel Academically Kill Himself" noise.
Probably the former - like CCGs, the market was swamped in fairly
short order and mass popularity died.
Derek Lyons
>John <jo...@junk.com> wrote:
>>"David DeLaney" <d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote in message
>>>> D&D had enormous impact on our world, and I don't know what popular
>>>>culture, including movies, games and literature, would look without it.
>>>
>>> Collectible card games would probably be about baseball players, if anything
>>> at all. So there goes Magic, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Versus and WoW, Legend of the
>>> Five Rings, XXXenoPhilE, etc etc etc.
>>
>>How do you figure? When I was a kid we had trading cards with various codes
>>of football, as well as planes, tanks, cars, motorcycles...
>
>Yep - but a) the most common collectible cards were not football, vehicles,
>famous rock stars, etc. They were baseball cards. They were the canonical
>thing that kids collected and traded. And put into the spokes of their bike
>wheels.
Baseball cards are iconic, sure - but like much of the rest of the
world of Ozzie and Harriet they were a minority by the 1970's.
Andrew Wheeler
> d...@gatekeeper.vic.com (David DeLaney) wrote:
>
> >John <jo...@junk.com> wrote:
> >>"David DeLaney" <d...@gatekeeper.vic.com> wrote in message
> >>>> D&D had enormous impact on our world, and I don't know what popular
> >>>>culture, including movies, games and literature, would look without it.
> >>>
> >>> Collectible card games would probably be about baseball players, if
> >>> anything at all. So there goes Magic, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Versus
> >>> and WoW, Legend of the Five Rings, XXXenoPhilE, etc etc etc.
> >>
> >>How do you figure? When I was a kid we had trading cards with various codes
> >>of football, as well as planes, tanks, cars, motorcycles...
> >
> >Yep - but a) the most common collectible cards were not football, vehicles,
> >famous rock stars, etc. They were baseball cards. They were the canonical
> >thing that kids collected and traded. And put into the spokes of their bike
> >wheels.
>
> Baseball cards are iconic, sure - but like much of the rest of the
> world of Ozzie and Harriet they were a minority by the 1970's.
A minority of what?
If you mean the trading-card market, my impression is that baseball
cards were still the biggest piece of that market, and obviously
dominant, until the early '90s and the rise of CCGs. (Which was also
right after a speculator-driven crash in the sport-card market, so it's
not a single cause.)
There were other sports cards (hockey, football), and the occasional
non-sports series (Wacky Packages, Dinosaurs Attack), but it always
looked like baseball cards were where the real money was.
--
Andrew Wheeler
Anarien
<rrh...@acme.com> wrote:
>Perhaps more to the point, when did D&D become big? I started in
>1976, but I distinctly remember being in a very small minority, having
>to explain the concept to a skeptical audience.
I *still* have to explain the concept of pen and paper role-playing
games to skeptical audiences.
> My recollection is that D&D occupied a corner of the game store
At my local store, RPGs are over in one little corner. The rest of
the store is comics and MtG.
- A
Harry Erwin
> On Mar 7, 12:03 pm, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
> > Without D&D, we might have had a more rational system of determining how
> > to make a high level character survive an attack that would kill a low
> > level character.
> >
> > But we certainly would have had high and low level characters.
>
> The problem is conflicting models. Is the system intended to relate
> to the real world, or to fantasy fiction? If the latter, which?
>
Remember the ICE solution? It was based on experience doing live action
role play.
--
Harry Erwin <http://www.theworld.com/~herwin>
My neuroscience wikiwiki is at
<http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/phpwiki/index.php>
Richard R. Hershberger
> On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 10:56:57 -0800 (PST), "Richard R. Hershberger"
>
> >Perhaps more to the point, when did D&D become big? I started in
> >1976, but I distinctly remember being in a very small minority, having
> >to explain the concept to a skeptical audience.
>
> I *still* have to explain the concept of pen and paper role-playing
> games to skeptical audiences.
>
> > My recollection is that D&D occupied a corner of the game store
>
> At my local store, RPGs are over in one little corner. The rest of
> the store is comics and MtG.
The combintation comics/game store is a comparatively recent
development. Back in the '70s, you saw "hobby" stores which included
stuff like toy trains, model airplanes, and the like. Games fell
under the "hobby" rubric once you got past the Monopoly level. At
that time the games you would find were wargames (think Avalon Hill
and SPI) and miniatures, and sometimes stuff life fancy chess sets.
When RPGs first appeared in the mid-70s they clearly fell into this
category, along with supplies such as the dice, but it took a while
for RPGs to become big. By the time I was in college in the early
'80s it was easier to find a D&D game than one of, say, Squad Leader.
The first comics shop I was aware of was also in the early '80s, but I
wasn't a comics reader before then so I may not have noticed. The
shop I have in mind was a combination, along with a rather good
selection of SF books. I would be astonished if more than a handful
of such stores still exist. Nowadays the comics/gaming store
combination seems pretty standard.
Richard R. Hershberger
Richard R. Hershberger
> Richard R. Hershberger <rrhe...@acme.com> wrote:
>
> > On Mar 7, 12:03 pm, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
> > > Without D&D, we might have had a more rational system of determining how
> > > to make a high level character survive an attack that would kill a low
> > > level character.
>
> > > But we certainly would have had high and low level characters.
>
> > The problem is conflicting models. Is the system intended to relate
> > to the real world, or to fantasy fiction? If the latter, which?
>
> Remember the ICE solution? It was based on experience doing live action
> role play.
I never used it much, but many of AD&D's competitors incorporated some
sort of real-world experience. I did SCA fighting in college.
Without making any srong claims for its realism, it made some of the
failings of Gygax's arguments immediately apparent. I recall a long
running debate on the topic of "aimed blows". The Gygax position was
that in the heat of combat there was no opportunity to attempt aimed
blows, and indeed the idea of trying is ridiculous. Apparently the
idea was that in real combat, you close your eyes and start gyrating
wildly. SCA combat, in the meantime, is all about aimed blows. I
also fenced foil in college, which is not merely about aimed blows but
about aiming one inch either way.
Richard R. Hershberger
Dave Hansen
[...]
> The combintation comics/game store is a comparatively recent
> development. Back in the '70s, you saw "hobby" stores which included
> stuff like toy trains, model airplanes, and the like. Games fell
> under the "hobby" rubric once you got past the Monopoly level. At
Hobby stores were where I bought balsa wood, tissue paper (or
MonoKote), and (aircraft) dope for my model airplanes in the early-
middle 1970's. I never saw games at hobby stores.
I bought my games through the mail or at the local college bookstore
in the mid-1970's, mostly from Avalon Hill, TSR, and SSI. They also
had the (expensive!) metal miniatures for D&D and other wargames, but
my friends and I never bought those (too much money, and too little
utility -- paper and pencil were fine for us...).
In college in the late 1970's, I stopped buying games, but they were
available at the local comic/game/book store (and, um, headshop).
Apparently other people stopped buying games as well, as their
dwindling collection was gathering dust in a neglected back corner of
the store. Around 1980, they went out of business, and I bought a
boxed set of the original 3 D&D books along with a copy of Greyhawk
for something like $5. But that was for nostalgia's sake, I never
really played again.
The next time I saw an Avalon Hill game was at a Games by James in a
upscale mall in the Minneapolis area.
Regards,
-=Dave
James Nicoll
>wasn't a comics reader before then so I may not have noticed.
Now and Then Books, which I think was the second direct sales
comic book store, opened in 1971 but it started off as a combination
used book, record and comic store (using Harry's collection as a seed,
I think). I don't know what year it was that he started the direct sales
side of things.
> The
>shop I have in mind was a combination, along with a rather good
>selection of SF books. I would be astonished if more than a handful
>of such stores still exist.
Now and Then closed last September. Mind you, and this isn't
a slur that the guy who ran it then, I think Harry would have found some
way to avoid going under.
Derek Lyons
>The combintation comics/game store is a comparatively recent
>development. Back in the '70s, you saw "hobby" stores which included
>stuff like toy trains, model airplanes, and the like. Games fell
>under the "hobby" rubric once you got past the Monopoly level. At
>that time the games you would find were wargames (think Avalon Hill
>and SPI) and miniatures, and sometimes stuff life fancy chess sets.
>When RPGs first appeared in the mid-70s they clearly fell into this
>category, along with supplies such as the dice, but it took a while
>for RPGs to become big.
Depending on where you live of course, YMMV. By the early 80's the
gaming/____ combo store was fairly common in the Carolinas. (The most
unusual combo I saw as gaming/radio control slot cars.) Charleston SC
had a pretty good gaming (mostly RPG)/comics/SF store by 1984.
Pure gaming stores, of any stripe, were pretty much non existent and
hobby stores that carried gaming material were the exception rather
than the rule.
>By the time I was in college in the early '80s it was easier to find
>a D&D game than one of, say, Squad Leader.
I suspect that's because wargames, from early on, tended to be mail
order and appealed to a much smaller demographic. RPG's appealed to a
wider demographic.
Ericth...@gmail.com
> On 2008-03-05 20:36:39 -0800, "John" <j...@junk.com> said:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > "Kurt Busiek" <k...@busiek.comics> wrote in message
> >news:2008030511453377923-kurt@busiekcomics...
> >> On 2008-03-05 11:38:54 -0800, "Richard R. Hershberger" <rrhe...@acme.com>
> >> said:
>
> >>> On Mar 5, 2:28 pm, Kurt Busiek <k...@busiek.comics> wrote:
> >>>> On 2008-03-05 10:56:57 -0800, "Richard R. Hershberger"
> >>>> <rrhe...@acme.com>
> >>> said:
>
> >>>>> I am skeptical about any D&D influence on Sword of Shanarra. My
> >>>>> distant recollection is that SoS was a pretty direct Lord of the Rings
> >>>>> rip-off.
>
> >>>> I remember picking up SWORD OF SHANNARA for two reasons:
>
> >>>> 1. It looked like a Tolkeinesque fantasy, and those were thin on the
> >>>> ground at the time, and
>
> >>>> 2. It had a Hildebrandt cover.
>
> >>>> I only got about ten or twenty pages in before cursing at it and
> >>>> cursing the Hildebrandts for gulling me like that.
>
> >>>> Years later, I remember being interested in FANG THE GNOME, but a voice
> >>>> in my head kept whispering "It's just the cover...you're interested
> >>>> because of the cover...remember Shannara..."
>
> >>>> So to this day I have no idea whether FANG would have been worth
> >>>> reading or not, just that I had bounced off SHANNARA so hard I was
> >>>> suspicious of Hildebrandt covers thereafter.
>
> >>> I blamed Brooks, rather than the Hildebrandts. I swore to never in
> >>> any way, however indirectly, contribute to Brooks's income: not even
> >>> checking out a library book, since it might encourage the library to
> >>> buy more books by him. I have had people tell me that he has
> >>> improved, but I have never seen fit to recant.
>
> >> I blamed Brooks for the text, and the Hildebrants for getting me to buy
> >> it, in hardcover no less.
>
> >> Before that, to my tiny teenage mind, they belonged to Tolkein and quality
> >> and rich worldbuilding, and after that they were revealed as filthy,
> >> filthy commercial whores. How dare they grace something unworthy with
> >> their art?
>
> >> I've since gotten over my naive view of the world, but I've also gotten
> >> over that fresh-scrubbed, Ivory-soap ad/Iowa farmgirl look for fantasy, so
> >> I suppose it's a wash.
>
> >> kdb
>
> > Did the Hildebrants do the cover with an (elf?) in green tights with
> > flickback Skywalkeresque hair?
> > That cover stopped me considering the book on the grounds that I don't
> > particularly want to keep picturing the protagonist as though he should
> > really be wearing stone-washed jeans and high tops and possibly riding a
> > skateboard.
>
> http://hometown.aol.com/DesLily/shanarra1.jpg
>
> I haven't seen this cover for over thirty years.
>
> I look at it now and think, "Oh, my God, that's one of the Bee Gees!"
I look at it and think: "My God, somebody is going to poke that
dwarve's nose with a pin, and it's going to pop!"
Even as a kid I disliked that cover, but then again, I hated the
Hidebrant LoTR covers as well. I like the abstract 1960s paperback
covers, and the hardback set which only had the One Ring surrounding
the flaming eye embossed on the black cover. That gave a much better
feeling of dramatus then some poncy guy wearing a winged crown.
Eric Tolle
Ericth...@gmail.com
> In article <howard-3DBC37.10033807032...@newsgroups.comcast.net>,
> Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:>Without D&D, we might have had a more rational system of determining how
> >to make a high level character survive an attack that would kill a low
> >level character.
>
> I like Mutants and Masterminds' solution: for a certain number
> of points, the character can simply ignore attacks that are smaller than
> a certain threshhold. No golden bb for them...
I like the damage save mechanic itself, as it is a particularily
elegent way to deal with damage, in a setting where one doesn't want
escalating hit points. It makes it much easier to make a very
competent, experienced fighter who still has to worry about getting
hit.
That's why for my more Sword and Sorcery based game I'm running soon,
I'll be using the True20 rules instead of D&D. True20 seems like a
nice little compromise between D&D and M&M.
Eric Tolle
John
"Kurt Busiek" <ku...@busiek.comics> wrote in message
news:200803052047188930-kurt@busiekcomics...
> On 2008-03-05 20:36:39 -0800, "John" <jo...@junk.com> said:
>
snip
>>>
>>
>> Did the Hildebrants do the cover with an (elf?) in green tights with
>> flickback Skywalkeresque hair?
>> That cover stopped me considering the book on the grounds that I don't
>> particularly want to keep picturing the protagonist as though he should
>> really be wearing stone-washed jeans and high tops and possibly riding a
>> skateboard.
>
> http://hometown.aol.com/DesLily/shanarra1.jpg
>
> I haven't seen this cover for over thirty years.
>
> I look at it now and think, "Oh, my God, that's one of the Bee Gees!"
>
>
Thank god they didn't get the money together to do a version of LotR in the
70s. All the elves would have looked like that.
Patrick Baldwin
> Gygax, co-creator of D&Dm, co-founder of TSR (once a
>significant publisher) and author of the Gord the Rogue [1] sword
>and sorcery novels, has died.
>1: I invoke the "wait until he cools" rule.
Hey, I liked the Gord the Rogue novels. I particularly
like the appendixes where the game stats of some of
the chracters and items were discussed; it seemed
very appropriate for gaming fiction.
~P.
John Schilling
<rrh...@acme.com> wrote:
>On Mar 10, 2:05 pm, her...@theworld.com (Harry Erwin) wrote:
>> Richard R. Hershberger <rrhe...@acme.com> wrote:
>> > On Mar 7, 12:03 pm, Howard Brazee <how...@brazee.net> wrote:
>> > > Without D&D, we might have had a more rational system of determining how
>> > > to make a high level character survive an attack that would kill a low
>> > > level character.
>> > > But we certainly would have had high and low level characters.
>> > The problem is conflicting models. Is the system intended to relate
>> > to the real world, or to fantasy fiction? If the latter, which?
>> Remember the ICE solution? It was based on experience doing live action
>> role play.
>I never used it much, but many of AD&D's competitors incorporated some
>sort of real-world experience. I did SCA fighting in college.
>Without making any srong claims for its realism, it made some of the
>failings of Gygax's arguments immediately apparent. I recall a long
>running debate on the topic of "aimed blows". The Gygax position was
>that in the heat of combat there was no opportunity to attempt aimed
>blows, and indeed the idea of trying is ridiculous. Apparently the
>idea was that in real combat, you close your eyes and start gyrating
>wildly.
Appearances can be deceiving. There's more than one reason, and not all
stupid reasons, for either disallowing or penalizing "aimed blows" in a
gaming reasons.
>SCA combat, in the meantime, is all about aimed blows.
But aiming where, and why? In particular, does the answer ever change
in mid-fight?
If the answer is simply, "a blow to the head is 30% less likely to hit
on account of the head being a small and well-guarded target, and will
on average do 20% less damage due to the heavier armor and thicker padding
of helms vs. cuirasses, but damage to the head is twice as effective at
causing death or incapacitation", then everyone who can do the math
(0.7 * 0.8 * 2.0 > 1.0) and is wielding a weapon that won't reliably
cause instant death or incapacitation with one torso hit, will aim for
the head every single time.
So the game system might just as well not mention that fact - just up
the damage done by that class of weapon by 60%, reduce the hit chance
by 30%, and don't bother to tell the player that this is because he is
aiming for the head every single time unless he's a dumbass.
If the answer is more realistically, "I'm aming for the left shin because
he's got that foot well forward with too much weight on it to move out
of the way, and his shield is way too high on account of the head strike
I tried and he blocked a second ago. A second from now I'll be aiming
somewhere different because the circumstances have changed", then on the
one hand, you aren't "closing your eyes and swinging wildly", but on the
other hand, the game system might as well assume you are.
Oh, I suppose you could have a system where you roll on the Target Stance
table, using modifiers based on everything the target did last turn, and
again on the Target Shieldwork table, ditto modifiers, cross-reference the
results on the Target Vulnerability table to determine the modifier that
would apply to your attack roll, this turn only, for each possible aim
point, whereupon you see that the left shin has by far the most favorable
modifiers and say, "I'm aiming for the left shin, at +5 to hit..."
I'm thinking not many people are going to want to play that game. The
game where each hit goes to a purely random hit location table where a
d100 roll of 7-13 means "left shin", on account of an average of 5% of
blows in an average fight are deliberately and effectively aimed at the
left shin by fighters who have accounted for the present circumstances,
1% are aimed elsehwere but flubbed and hit the shin instead, and 1% are
from "close your eyes and swing wildly" fighters who hit the shin by
dumb luck, will have almost exactly the same result and be much more
playable.
And really, you don't even lose that much if you dispense with the hit
location table and just do "damage points". Nor do you gain all that
much by allowing the attacker to call his blow at a modest penalty,
but at least that's an option that shouldn't cost playability.
--
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Richard R. Hershberger
I don't disagree with your premise. I disagree with the argument that
aimed blows are unrealistic. How we simulate this is another question
entirely. Go into too much detail and you are rolling dice constantly
to determine minutiae. Go into too little detail and might as well
have an algorithm determining the probability of who will win. Roll
the percentile dice, and you are done with it.
A discussion of where between these extremes we want the system to
fall is perfectly reasonable. And clearly the answer will be some
degree a matter of taste.
To my taste, a combat system should have decision points, where the
player can make a rational decision to do one thing or another, and
this decision will affect the course of the game. What happens
between these decision points should be as invisible as possible.
Again, to my taste, the AD&D combat system did a fairly poor job of
this. Once the decision to fight was made you pretty much rolled the
dice for a while until the fight was over, and that was that. It
either had too few decision points or too many dice rolls.
Richard R. Hershberger
johan.g...@gmail.com
> To my taste, a combat system should have decision points, where the
> player can make a rational decision to do one thing or another, and
> this decision will affect the course of the game. What happens
> between these decision points should be as invisible as possible.
>
> Again, to my taste, the AD&D combat system did a fairly poor job of
> this. Once the decision to fight was made you pretty much rolled the
> dice for a while until the fight was over, and that was that. It
> either had too few decision points or too many dice rolls.
I think the D&D system's big problem was using hit points to model
training and experience. It led to weird results like characters who
could not be killed with a sword blow, even when vulnerable. And
fights between high-level characters consisted of wittling down the
opponent.
I think it would have been better to have combat consisting of matched
attack and defence rolls, with higher-level characters having higher
defence rolls, since they know what to expect, see things coming, and
can parry or dodge more effectively. This lets hit points represent
physique and maybe a certain grit (some fighters can take a punch,
others can't), but hit points probably wouldn't change much with
experience.
As for decisions, being able to trade attack bonuses for defence
penalties and vice versa would be quite enough for me.
Johan Larson
Charles...@gmail.com
> On Mar 10, 8:34 am, Anarien <AnarienNOS...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 10:56:57 -0800 (PST), "Richard R. Hershberger"
> > <rrhe...@acme.com> wrote:
> for RPGs to become big. By the time I was in college in the early
> '80s it was easier to find a D&D game than one of, say, Squad Leader.
Squad Leader. Wow, there's a blast from the past. Utterly terrible
game though. Don't ask me why, I've forgotten after all these years.
Jason Maxwell
news:4053ca5d-4d14-40cb...@v3g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...
****************
However it spawned Advanced Squad Leader, considered by many to be one of
the best wargames of all time.
Jason