Help me win an Argument About What a Piece of Shit James Maliszewski Is

Critias · October 02, 2014, 02:40:22 AM

I guess this technically falls under the umbrella of "industry events and gossip" (emphasis on "gossip"), but Jesus, this is an ugly, stupid, fucking thread. What a bizarre way to denounce and create distance from the drama and witch hunts we all hate on other forums.

"Hounds, find me things someone wrote 20 years ago, to show that he maybe felt a little differently about the hobby roughly a generation ago! I WILL CRUSH HIM FOR THIS!"

Gronan of Simmerya · October 02, 2014, 02:53:36 AM

Quote from: Critias;789674I guess this technically falls under the umbrella of "industry events and gossip" (emphasis on "gossip"), but Jesus, this is an ugly, stupid, fucking thread. What a bizarre way to denounce and create distance from the drama and witch hunts we all hate on other forums.

"Hounds, find me things someone wrote 20 years ago, to show that he maybe felt a little differently about the hobby roughly a generation ago! I WILL CRUSH HIM FOR THIS!"

Well, for a while we were talking about me, which is always good.

Ladybird · October 02, 2014, 02:58:28 AM

Quote from: Critias;789674I guess this technically falls under the umbrella of "industry events and gossip" (emphasis on "gossip"), but Jesus, this is an ugly, stupid, fucking thread. What a bizarre way to denounce and create distance from the drama and witch hunts we all hate on other forums.

"Hounds, find me things someone wrote 20 years ago, to show that he maybe felt a little differently about the hobby roughly a generation ago! I WILL CRUSH HIM FOR THIS!"

Welcome to TheRPGSite!

jcfiala · October 02, 2014, 09:56:09 AM

Quote from: Old Geezer;789676Well, for a while we were talking about me, which is always good.

And how are you, OG? Life going well?

Gronan of Simmerya · October 02, 2014, 02:07:20 PM

Quote from: jcfiala;789698And how are you, OG? Life going well?

Heh.

Actually, I'm in a bit of existential crisis, since my wife was called as an Episcopal priest to a small rural town with a very limited number of jobs that aren't minimum wage part time in either the food service or housekeeping industry.

A commerical truck driver's license or a welder's certificate would serve me better than two masters' degrees here.

Also, a crisis is causing severe harm at my alma mater.

Phillip · October 02, 2014, 02:58:22 PM

The one pernicous "orthodoxy" I see in the Grognardia blog and elsewhere is the pretentious business of classifying non-D&D games as "old school or not."

There WAS no school of rpg design back in the day, and the current "old school" is a specifically D&D-culture thing that is newer than the trends in contrast with which it defines itself.

It's irritating when JM, or someone else who never liked T&T or C&S or RQ or whatever, who does not play it and knows squat about the issues actually relevant to its fandom, goes off pontificating as if the latest arguments among D&Ders on the internet define the whole universe of role-play gaming.

Omega · October 02, 2014, 03:11:23 PM

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.

That is on the fans and not on Tekumel then. Its like the Alien franchise and the fanboy fixation on calling the creatures "Xenomorps" ad nausium. Only ramped up to Star Trek Klingon levels.

Phillip · October 02, 2014, 03:31:21 PM

Quote from: Omega;789751That is on the fans and not on Tekumel then. Its like the Alien franchise and the fanboy fixation on calling the creatures "Xenomorps" ad nausium. Only ramped up to Star Trek Klingon levels.

I also think it's ass-backward when you compare the latest (from Guardians of Order) with the previous Gardasiyal, or even Gardasiyal with Swords & Glory (of which the Sourcebook remains the real encyclopedic compendium of Tekumelania, the Players Handbook being more an example of elaborate game systems).

Gronan of Simmerya · October 02, 2014, 05:37:25 PM

Well, 'Sore and Gory' (which is what we called "Swords & Glory") non only was influenced by early RPG as Art swine, but it ALSO was begun pretty much at the height of the "MOAR RUULS IZ BEDDER RUULS" craze of the early 80s.

RPGPundit · October 02, 2014, 07:36:02 PM

Quote from: Omega;789751That is on the fans and not on Tekumel then. Its like the Alien franchise and the fanboy fixation on calling the creatures "Xenomorps" ad nausium. Only ramped up to Star Trek Klingon levels.

Yes, except that pretty well after the first EPT rules, everything else was fan-driven. So it's like if the Klingon-fanboys had taken over Star Trek by its second year and made it all about Klingon Grammar and Rituals.

crkrueger · October 02, 2014, 08:27:00 PM

Quote from: Omega;789751That is on the fans and not on Tekumel then. Its like the Alien franchise and the fanboy fixation on calling the creatures "Xenomorps" ad nausium. Only ramped up to Star Trek Klingon levels.

That's just 'cause most of them are too stupid to realize xenomorph is just a generic descriptor, like reptile, annelid or whatever.

Gronan of Simmerya · October 02, 2014, 10:31:38 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;789796Yes, except that pretty well after the first EPT rules, everything else was fan-driven. So it's like if the Klingon-fanboys had taken over Star Trek by its second year and made it all about Klingon Grammar and Rituals.

Pretty close, especially for somebody who wasn't involved.

It was a little more elaborate: Back in the early 80s we were still in the "D&D is making fuckloads of money. MY game should make fuckloads of money" era.

"So, what makes YOUR GAME different from D&D?" is the question a LOT of people asked about games.

Phil was convinced by his fans that it was the anthropological and linguistic stuff.

And it was... for the 300 or 400 people who bought that stuff. I never DID get a copy of the "Tsolyani Language" tapes, because I really didn't give a shit about learning to speak Tsolyani.

Ephemerer · October 04, 2014, 06:53:29 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit;789613Tolkien 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

Yes. The History of Middle Earth Vol. 12: Peoples of Middle Earth is a far better gateway than The Hobbit.

ConradBumpus · October 04, 2014, 05:43:51 PM

Quote from: Old Geezer;789828Pretty close, especially for somebody who wasn't involved.

It was a little more elaborate: Back in the early 80s we were still in the "D&D is making fuckloads of money. MY game should make fuckloads of money" era.

"So, what makes YOUR GAME different from D&D?" is the question a LOT of people asked about games.

Phil was convinced by his fans that it was the anthropological and linguistic stuff.

And it was... for the 300 or 400 people who bought that stuff. I never DID get a copy of the "Tsolyani Language" tapes, because I really didn't give a shit about learning to speak Tsolyani.

Not just the language. Cartoon from long forgotten source.... Entitled " epitaph of the petal throne":

A tombstone in a lonely graveyard inscribed " I thought it was it's dick until it shot me with it"

Dan Vince · October 04, 2014, 08:28:49 PM

Quote from: ConradBumpus;790216Not just the language. Cartoon from long forgotten source.... Entitled " epitaph of the petal throne":

A tombstone in a lonely graveyard inscribed " I thought it was it's dick until it shot me with it"

You know one doesn't necessarily exclude the other. See traumatic insemination.