Quote from: Larsdangly;789417I feel like a really proper old goat who ran shit like this in the 70's wouldn't throw a small telephone book of exposition at you as introduction to his megadungeon. Though perhaps that is unfair.

It's a bit unfair.

I knew lots of proper old goats. I joined the hobby as a kid in the late 70s, but gamed heavily with adults thru the early 80s as a teen. Some of them had binders full of info about their campaigns and megadungeons. There was one dude who had over 1000 index cards of NPCs and interacting with one would result in notes on others because that tavern owner talks to the barmaid, she talks to her thief boyfriend who talks to his guild master. That dude had hours of homework after every game to update his setting.

But the concept in publishing games was pamphlets. Today's boardgames or card games normally have several pages of rules. Back then? The rules were written on the inside of the box cover or were on one sheet of paper.

Even most "hardcore" wargames were a dozen pages, not dozens or hundreds.

It's hard for us today to recognize how shocking it was to see people playing a game with several thick books on the table. Forget the weird dice, D&D was THAT game where you needed to read thick books to play (even though you really didn't, just the DM).

But you say, hey, the AD&D PHB isn't thick! Look back at the fantasy and sci-fi novels of the 60s/70s and you will find what today would be called novellas. The publishing norm wasn't 600 page novels in trilogies read by 12 year olds.

Quote from: Larsdangly;789433I don't own that many of these new megadungeons, but the one I really really love is Stonehell.

Please start a thread about Stonehell!!!

Quote from: estar;789556This time you need to quit acting like the RPG Pundit and start acting like the RPG Historian.

And while I am critical and harsh of what you been saying lately. Like Arrows of Indra, I strongly encourage you to do this. I think what you would come with, if you put the work into it, would be informative and interesting.

I disagree. I'd rather see RPGPundit develop Arrows of Indra and Forward to Adventure! and produce new stuff for fans of his work than waste more of his time on petty online forum bullshit chasing the "truth" about whatever "swine" has gotten him rabid like a mad dog after imaginary squirrels.

Anybody notice Consultantgate never exploded with the offline community once the 5e PHB hit the stores?

There has been total lack of stories, even anecdotes, about irate people rage returning their PHBs to game stores across the country. I haven't seen a single news report about parent's panicking about their teens demanding sex changes after they read the PHB in a wave of national transgender madness.

Spinachcat is wise.

Quote from: yabaziou;789571Estar, may I ask what draw you to the OSR initially ?

The short version? Open gaming, circumstances, a large audience, and rules that I am happy and comfortable to use to run games with.

The long version.

Open Gaming
I am a programmer by trade and supported open source software since I learned about it in the 90s.

Circumstance
I was that sandbox guy who helped with Judges Guild and was part of the Wilderlands Boxed Set then came out with the two Points of Light book.

a large audience
I was on the net early one through BBSs, Compuserve, Genie, Illuminati Online, and the Usenet. I experienced a lot of niche communities. I also was very involved in boffer LARPS, NERO, running events and later a entire chapter. Despite the headache of dealing with with the national office, I like the increased diversity that came with being part of a larger group. Purely personal preference.

happy and comfortable

I never disliked classic D&D liked other games better particularly GURPS. However after reading Matt Finch's Old School Primer I had a "Road to Damascus" moment. Finally after 30 years I "got" how to referee AD&D.

I want to stress that the Road to Damascus moment was purely on how to pick up the rulebook and referee a campaign. Classic D&D is just a game, a good game but just a game. A person should use the rules that resonates with them the best.

Having this revelation would have NOT changed my first go around with AD&D. Because between me standing in 2008 versus me standing in 1978 is nearly 30 years of life expeerience including a lot of medieval reenactment (SCA) and LARPing (NERO).

What it did do is made me completely comfortable with any classic edition of D&D. To allow me to make combat and characters as interesting and detailed as they were in my GURPS campaigns.

Quote from: Spinachcat;789590I disagree. I'd rather see RPGPundit develop Arrows of Indra and Forward to Adventure! and produce new stuff for fans of his work than waste more of his time on petty online forum bullshit chasing the "truth" about whatever "swine" has gotten him rabid like a mad dog after imaginary squirrels.

That would my ideal, but he the one writing about leading the charge against the clonemanics and fundamentalists. The one that continually ignores counter examples.

The last time this went around I took the same stance and challenged him to come up with an OSR to show how the rest of us how it done. I figure the experience would demonstrate the lack of gatekeepers.

But nope. He back again with the same shit he wrote in 2009, and 2011.

So the challenge is different. Tell the story the way he see it and back it up. Or shut and finish Dark Albion. All and all I rather have the second than the first.

Thank for your answer, Estar ! It was nice to read you about that !

Quote from: Old Geezer;789546Have pity, he can't help it his wiener is little.

Quote from: RPGPundit;789603

Surely you can name one single instance of that happening in Tékumel? A made-up word replacing an English noun?

In every book I've read (EPT, S&G, GoO Tékumel) swords are swords, clans are clans, legions are legions, the Emperor is the Emperor. Hell, even the nobility titles employ Western equivalents, e.g. Baron Áld.

Between the desperate attempts to frame JMal as an insincere convert and the Tékumel-bashing, I wonder how you keep track of all the strawmen you're putting up.

Quote from: estar;789598Or shut and finish Dark Albion. All and all I rather have the second than the first.

I forgot about Dark Albion.

I'm utterly unimpressed with 5e, but Dark Albion has interested me since it was first discussed years ago. If RPGPundit published a 5e Dark Albion, I would seriously consider running it.

I would never run 5e Warhammer as IMO, Warhammer has specific feel that could not be duplicated in 5e (or any other D&D, or many other systems, even my other favs), BUT the concept of faux-historical fantasy might work in 5e.

Of course, that's dependent if Zweihander leaps to the occasion and delivers a better experience. We will see.

But yeah, I totally understand your frustration with RPGPundit's obstinate stance on this issue...but don't forget that it's mostly drama for the lulz!

Quote from: RPGPundit;789603

Interesting, you had a different opinion a while ago about Tolkien. Did you have your road to Damascus moment about him?

Quote from: Rincewind1;789612Interesting, you had a different opinion a while ago about Tolkien. Did you have your road to Damascus moment about him?

Tolkien handled it better.  In fact, while LotR had and has its snobs, LotR has become more and more accessible to regular people as time goes by, while EPT has become less and less so (by becoming more byzantine and requiring more buy-in in terms of time and study).

And to clarify The Butcher's point: Barker himself was not terrible about this, but the problem is that every successive edition of EPT/Tekumel, the tekumel-fanboys became less and less about adventuring in gonzo style with an exotic flair, and more and more about walls and walls of pseudo-linguistic and pseudo-anthropological text. I mean, it beats even Harn for utterly-non-gaming-related useless flavor material obsession.  It stopped being about adventuring in a cool place and it became about how much "lore" you can know about weird cultural details.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;789613And to clarify The Butcher's point: Barker himself was not terrible about this, but the problem is that every successive edition of EPT/Tekumel, the tekumel-fanboys became less and less about adventuring in gonzo style with an exotic flair, and more and more about walls and walls of pseudo-linguistic and pseudo-anthropological text. I mean, it beats even Harn for utterly-non-gaming-related useless flavor material obsession.  It stopped being about adventuring in a cool place and it became about how much "lore" you can know about weird cultural details.

As I suspected: no objective examples, and a quick rearrangement of the goalposts to boot.

I wonder at which moment the "Flaming Keystrokes of Truth" became the Flaming Keystrokes of Because I Said So, Nuh Uh.

Quote from: The Butcher;789616As I suspected: no objective examples, and a quick rearrangement of the goalposts to boot.

I wonder at which moment the "Flaming Keystrokes of Truth" became the Flaming Keystrokes of Because I Said So, Nuh Uh.

Dude, just compare the original EPT book (which certainly had some anthropological stuff going on but was squarely focused on adventuring/dungeoneering) with the edition that came next after it (Swords & glory?) which was just a fucking Anthro/linguistics textbook masquerading as an RPG.

I read both of them. That's all the proof I need. Go fucking read them and tell me that there wasn't a shift away from gonzo gaming and toward anthropological wankery.


RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;789619Dude, just compare the original EPT book (which certainly had some anthropological stuff going on but was squarely focused on adventuring/dungeoneering) with the edition that came next after it (Swords & glory?) which was just a fucking Anthro/linguistics textbook masquerading as an RPG.

I read both of them. That's all the proof I need. Go fucking read them and tell me that there wasn't a shift away from gonzo gaming and toward anthropological wankery.

If you'd please be so kind as to bring those goalposts back to the charge of "making up words unnecessarily" that you implied by linking the xkcd comic, then we can argue where exactly we shall draw the line between "very detailed and decidedly non-traditional setting fluff" and "anthropological wankery".

Also the number of games that end up on the shitlist is getting bigger and bigger. Dude, even if you are 3000% right, you are stuck in the same gear.

Some games try to give more depth to their setting material and some games even overdo it. There is nothing pseudo-something about it. It's just overdone non-functional setting material.

Quote from: RPGPundit;789619I read both of them. That's all the proof I need. Go fucking read them and tell me that there wasn't a shift away from gonzo gaming and toward anthropological wankery.


RPGPundit

If you had said THAT, I would have agreed with you.

Yes, Phil fell into bad company of "RPGs are ART" swine decades before it became fashionable.  It's one of the reasons he wound up with multiple gaming groups.  Some of us just wanted to play a damn game.