R.I.P Gary Gygax

Zip, I wasn't aware you had a podcast.

I'd like to subscirbe. What's it called?

Dude, Hebrew! How many languages do you know, zip?

That's really cool. So, are you from Israel or living there now (I think that's the right place...you'll have to excuse us ignant americans)? I only now English (my native) and I've taken classes in Latin, but I could never speak it. I can read quite a bit though.

That's lame. Haha. Best of luck with that, though.

"So, back to this whole 'evolution of role-playing games'. See, role-playing games used to be a fish. A stinky fish. And then it crawled out of the primordial ooze that was Gary Gygax's beard. And then it became modern gaming."
-Chad, from the Fear The Boot

I won't deny he's got a point. However, in this author, I sense the mad lonely rant of some poor player who got stuck with a bad DM - and who's pride wouldn't ever let him live it down. The first thing I have to say is a bit nit-picky, but his comments on LOTR would have Tolkein screaming for revenge. As he said over and over and over, LOTR is not political. Heck, it's not even about the oft-cited desire to give Britian a mythology, though that played a part in his initial storytelling. LOTR is about telling a story, and a darn good one at that. There's nothing anti-fascist about it. Tolkein hated it when people tried to say there was.

Sorry, had to get that out of my system. What this author ignores is just how much good dnd has done for the rp universe. Don't get me wrong - there are better systems, much better, much deeper, even more fun. But there's something cathartic, something old time about dnd. And I'm not talking about monster bashing. Combat is definitely a seminal part of dnd, but it's not the only part. A lot of it is up to individual dms, just as it is in other rping games. If I wanna be a hard-a and say my players weren't rping well enough for exp in WoD, I can do it in dnd just as well.

However, there's no doubt that dnd can tend to promote senseless violence and that there's no tangible, in book reward for good roleplaying. I wouldn't blame this on the game, however. I'd blame it more on the culture the game is a part of - the high fantasy culture. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this is the root of the problem. It creates an environment of PC=god and can therefore do whatever they want. It gets ridiculous. We all know fantasy has potential for some of the best storytelling around, but high fantasy has none. To tell a good story, it really needs to be pulled down a few notches. D&D doesn't suffer by virtue of it's system, it suffers by virtue of it's emulation. And that, my friends, is only going to get worse.

However, despite my many complaints of dnd, there's no doubt what it has done for us. Yes, it's old school and prolly out-dated. But it was the first. None of the authors beloved Steve Jackson games, none of my beloved WoD games, none of my good friends beloved indie games would've ever been feasible if it wasn't for dnd. This game made all this possible. I don't honor him because I think dnd is the new religion and that through it I'll find salvation. I honor him in his death because he made possible all these things that I love. All the good roleplaying games we have now we can owe to him. He didn't personally create them, but he started the avalanche. So, thank you, Mr. Gygax.

That's really interesting, though I'm gonna have to disagree with both you and Gygax on one thing - LOTR is not high fantasy. If it were, Aragorn would possess a flaming sword, Gandalf would be lauching meteor storms and flying everywhere, and Frodo's gift from Galadriel would produce lightning bolts instead of bright light. Other than that, I can totally see what you're saying. But LOTR is definitely not high fantasy.

In that since, then Tolkein is def high fantasy. But by high fantasy I don't mean "high-level." I'm talking about stuff like every other farmer owning a magic sword (D&D and Forgotten Realms). In that since, Tolkein is very low fantasy because it gets dirty, the best sword could only be said to have the ghost touch ability (super nerd) and Gandalf's best spell is a heightened 0 level spell (light). But it's still the best fantasy story out there, imho. Shows why low is better than high.

I know! Maybe Gandalf is loaded with primarily support spells. So he's got around 80 bull's strength (some of them no doubt metamagiced) and maybe glamdring's a +1, so he might be doing a ton of damage with each hit (and he is a druid, we all know, so maybe he wildshaped offscreen?), and he hit at least 4 or 5 times in the movie. Who knows? But then again, you gotta figure in DR and hp and if Glamdring is cold steel or whatever...whew. This is why I don't like d20. Too much work.

Anyway, I agree that as far as magic goes, FR is totally broken and Greyhawk is breaking. I can't stand FR - just too much high fantasy. It makes me sick. My big problem with Greyhawk is the names. They're sooo bad. Furyondy? Oh. my. gosh. I've been running Return to the Temple. Made a huge mistake. I didn't change the name of a character in it. A character named Elmo. Now he's the brunt of every joke by my group. And he was cool, too! Oh, well.

Elves suck. They're pansies. Everybody who has a soul knows dwarves are better. I just wish wizards or somebody would come out with a magic lite setting. I'd be all over that. But that's not gonna happen.

My response to this is fairly predictible. DnD may not be one of the greatest games, or even a great game, but you have to concede that it was the first well-known roleplaying game. Without DnD, our little niche hobby may have never emerged at all, not to mention the entire broad genre of video games that it has inspired.

Even if you can't stand DnD, you have to give Gygax at least THAT much.

"So, back to this whole 'evolution of role-playing games'. See, role-playing games used to be a fish. A stinky fish. And then it crawled out of the primordial ooze that was Gary Gygax's beard. And then it became modern gaming."
-Chad, from the Fear The Boot