Quote from: The Butcher;611966Absolutely.

On the same note, so does Palladium Fantasy RPG 1e.

What about Arduin?

Arduin was more of a supplement to than it's own game.  But, saying it's a "Supplement" to OD&D is a misnomer; Hargrave's out-there stuff is no more a "Supplement" to D&D than the awful "carcosa" "supplement".

Quote from: thedungeondelver;611982Arduin was more of a supplement to than it's own game.

But there is an Arduin RPG as well.



I don't know how much that one builds on the original supplemental material that was the Grimoires.

I wouldn't include T&T, or Arduin, any more than I would The Fantasy Trip, or Palladium, or Runequest, or Chivalry & Sorcery. I don't think it's relevant how closely any of these older games took mechanical inspiration from D&D, or whether any of them are still being published, or if they disappeared and came back as "clones" of themselves (arguably the case for RQ, or at least Chaosium BRP). Not even if they embody a notional "old school ethos". They're not "retro" and they're not "clones" of D&D.

This could be seen as pedantic nitpicking, but again, think about the function of the list. There are already lists of "all rpgs" (rpggeek, leGrog, John Kim's encyclopedia). What makes this list useful is that it's a one-stop shop for games that often aren't well-known because their titles don't have a long history, and a tool for disambiguating the variety of shades and colors.

Okay, arguably you put these titles into "old school but not retro clones [of D&D]", but so far that category is (again, usefully) limited to games which are at least consciously "retro", not games which are merely "old".

Quote from: purpleplatypus;611926Well, it does seem like an iffy, if not downright bad, PR move, not only for the obvious reasons, but also in contrast to the much more obvious names (Frank Mentzer jumps immediately to mind) who have said they're *not* involved.

Of course, shooting themselves in the ass PR-wise is entirely in character for WotC these days, so maybe I overrated those as reasons to be sceptical of your claim.

Except they didn't.  Most people who have even heard of me and dislike me are not D&D-fans anyways, and most people who have even heard of me and do agree with me (or dare I say, like me) are precisely the people who WoTC is trying to win back.

I know you want to live in a little fantasy world where everyone hates the Pundit as much as you do, but in fact, you don't get to have a highly successful blog, a vastly successful forum, and several successful RPGs... or for that matter, get hired by WoTC, if its not that you have a lot of people who appreciate your opinion.

RPGPundit

Quote from: The Butcher;611931...is this your idea of "aggressive"? Really?

Yes. Passive aggressive, if you want. But yes. No matter how politely or pretend-reasonable he sounds, what he did was issue a call to arms for people to mobilize to try to threaten WoTC into firing me. You might think that's odd of me, but I certainly consider that aggressive.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;612043I know you want to live in a little fantasy world where everyone hates the Pundit as much as you do

See, this is exactly the kind of egocentric, conspiracy-theory nonsense that people react so badly to. I don't like you, particularly, not that I expect you to care much, but you don't even come close to rating "hate". Anyone who would hate someone over something as petty as a dispute over RPGs suffers from a serious lack of perspective.

I'd argue that The Arduin Adventure, The Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game first edition, and Game Lords Theives Guild are all clearly D&D clones of the second variety.  True they dispense with Hit Dice and Vancian magic which are certainly part of what I see as the core game but so did fourth edition D&D...  And Skills and Powers did a broader attribute set and Unearthed Arcanna added Comliness as well, so I think there's room for them in the definition.

Yes they juggle the stat bonuses and damage ratings a bit but it's still d20 to hit with armor making you harder to hit, there's still saving throws and in Palladium1d6 damage per level fire balls.

The Arduin Adventure has fixed damage for weapons but that's just because it's a platform to add the Arduin Supplements on to.  Theives Guild is probably the closest to D&D but still lacks the Hit Dice mechanic at its heart.

I tend to fixate on the Hit Dice mechanic because it's the key wargame legacy trait that maps back to five man and ten man heroes and sets the one hit dice monster as equivalent to a regular infantry man.

Quote from: David Johansen;612240I'd argue that The Arduin Adventure, The Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game first edition, and Game Lords Theives Guild are all clearly D&D clones of the second variety.  True they dispense with Hit Dice and Vancian magic which are certainly part of what I see as the core game but so did fourth edition D&D...  And Skills and Powers did a broader attribute set and Unearthed Arcanna added Comliness as well, so I think there's room for them in the definition.

Clones maybe but how are they retro? The games you describe are all contemporaries of early edition D&D.

It's like saying Duran Duran are a retro 80s band...

Quote from: RPGPundit;611846Way back in April, when it became public I'd been hired as a consultant, he posted on his blog a call to boycott WoTC until they fired me, which was subsequently apparently picked up on RPGnet and Google+; like our friend platypus, he pretended that he totally had no stake in this issue and it had nothing to do with the fact that he's a storygamer with an agenda that he knows I oppose, and fears my potential influence might actually make D&D a palatable game again, and therefore make it harder for him to subvert it with utter shit like Dungeon World.

So yeah, the bitch literally tried to take food off my table with an attempt to get me fired.

Fortunately, it became obvious pretty quick that the people behind this business were the "will never play any edition of D&D anyways" crowd, to their threats not to buy WoTC product were fairly idle, and Latorra was seen for what he was: an envious loser with an ideological agenda.

RPGPundit

Quote from: thedungeondelver;611858Thanks for the info.  Yeah, that sound about par for the course for them.

A quick googling for those who are interested:

http://www.latorra.org/2012/04/05/swine-flew/

Google+ :

https://plus.google.com/101741476056657498230/posts/XFZZ2wdue4Y

Couldn't find an entry via google of anything at RPG.net.

Well. That's rich!

Quote from: RPGPundit;612044Yes. Passive aggressive, if you want. But yes. No matter how politely or pretend-reasonable he sounds, what he did was issue a call to arms for people to mobilize to try to threaten WoTC into firing me. You might think that's odd of me, but I certainly consider that aggressive.

RPGPundit

I don't dispute your right to hate each others' guts, but if you dislike Latorra's attitude, you might consider that the virulence of the Pundit persona (which I feel is typically a tad more "aggressive" than Latorra's wording of the boycott) isn't always conductive to rational debate, or inspiring respect in your philosophical opposition. Reap what you sow, and all that.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;611921well maybe we could cull off the posts that derailed and move them to the pundit's forum.

At this point it would probably be easier to start a new thread and leave this one to it. There are more off-topic posts now than on.

Quote from: The Butcher;612300the Pundit persona... isn't always conductive to rational debate, or inspiring respect in your philosophical opposition.

I don't know that it's very conducive to inspiring respect even in people who agree with him on most things.

Quote from: Fiasco;612251Clones maybe but how are they retro? The games you describe are all contemporaries of early edition D&D.

It's like saying Duran Duran are a retro 80s band...

Fair point, though, there's a secondary list that is for clones that are not specifically retro-clones.

Besides which, I don't think there's a single 'retro-clone' that didn't modify the version of D&D being cloned in some respect.

Quote from: purpleplatypus;612472I don't know that it's very conducive to inspiring respect even in people who agree with him on most things.

And yet, here I am, in spite of all the efforts of people like you.

RPGPundit

in case you haven't seen it yet, a flowchart of all editions and clones

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wilj4o0osxt53hw/D&D%20Family%20Tree.pdf