My old school is older than your old school.

Just the act of starting a blog is pompous on some degree... like running for political office it suggests you think you have something valuable to offer, things worth saying. That you're a little bit better than the other guy.
A successful blog doesn't run on self-doubt.

Meanwhile there are always sheep out there looking for a shepherd.

QuoteEspecially some fucker who never actually played that way.

From what I'd read I had the impression that he HAD played D&D/Gamma World/Traveller in the old days and then moved on (similar to myself and plenty of others). Not that I think someone espousing the treasures of OSR games needs street-cred to have good ideas.

Quote from: Daztur;789173I don't think I've ever seen that except in unmoderated spam pits.

Yes, truly free speech is tragically rare, both online and in the real world. Freaks people out. Makes me feel all Easy Rider:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc11mJGre10

Quote from: estar;789167Nobody I know saw a decrease in sales or viewers when James Mal flamed out spectacularly.

Well, Autarch.

Quote from: Simlasa;789192From what I'd read I had the impression that he HAD played D&D/Gamma World/Traveller in the old days and then moved on.

IIRC, he played, but confessed that after parsing the scrolls of Gygax, he felt he had played wrong. Which is the whole problem. Did you have fun? If yes, then you didn't play wrong.

Quote from: Simlasa;789192Not that I think someone espousing the treasures of OSR games needs street-cred to have good ideas.

Sure, anyone can learn and enjoy any given playstyle, old or new. But it takes a particular kind of douchebaggery to pontificate about the righteousness of a particular orthodoxy when you're a recent convert yourself. It would be like me (a 40-something Canadian) preaching to a 70-something guy who grew up in Liverpool about Merseybeat and the dancehall scene in the early 60s just because I read a couple biographies about the Beatles.

Quote from: RPGPundit;789194Well, Autarch.

Of course there would be an impact on Autarch. I was talking about the OSR as a whole. I realize it is a guess  I don't know anybody whose sales was effected adversely by the crash of Dwimmermount and the Grognardia ceasing to be an active blog. I feel know enough people feel that was true of the rest of the OSR.

I don't thing Autarch sales was affected due to the way they handled the situation. Certainly their development schedule was thrown seriously out of whack.

When screw ups happen in the OSR the fallout is limited to the principles. The closest the OSR ever came to any type of movement wide shit storm was the TARGA mess several years back. Even that was mostly an issue among bloggers. OSR Publisher were busy with their own projects.

As long as the internet remains what it is, PoD remains accessible and affordable, combined with the Open Game License means as long there interest in classic D&D there will always be an OSR.  And because of trends in the larger hobby, old school style minimalist games will continue to be developed and find an audience.

Everybody win from where I stand. There just no downside other than the fact to make something good you have to put some work into it. That part of the equation hasn't changed.

Quote from: Haffrung;789188This is what pissed me off. Grognardia marked the shift of OSR from people talking on places like Dragonsfoot about how they played TSR D&D, to pious doctrine about how people should have played D&D. And a bunch of grognards ate it up because they had become fanatical edition-warriors against WotC D&D players, and wanted a strict shared orthodoxy that the troops could rally under.

I started with Holmes Basic in 1979 and I sure as fuck didn't need some pompous blogger to tell me how real old-school D&D was supposed to work. Especially some fucker who never actually played that way.

Yes but how did it effect your ability to publish, promote, or play classic D&D or another old school game?

People whoes opinion I don't agree with are a dime a dozen. The ones that matter are those who power is a such they can impact what you can or want to do.

This is where Pundit oratory fails the test. He spending a lot of verbal energy against the gatekeepers of the OSR when in fact the people he target have no ability to effect what being published, played, or promoted. The only thing that the anybody can do is add their own voice to the mix.

Quote from: jcfiala;789182Well, it's right there on the kickstarter, in update #48:

That means I was wrong about Mal keeping all the money; I apologize.

I really had the opposite impression; at this remove, my guess is I formed that during the lag time where he hadn't yet returned any money, and had it reinforced when I heard Dwimmermount was a money loser for Autarch.

Quote from: fuseboy;789017Too funny. This reminds me of a bit out of Vi Hart's Guide to Comments:

Vi Hart is awesome.

Quote from: Haffrung;789188This is what pissed me off. Grognardia marked the shift of OSR from people talking on places like Dragonsfoot about how they played TSR D&D, to pious doctrine about how people should have played D&D. And a bunch of grognards ate it up because they had become fanatical edition-warriors against WotC D&D players, and wanted a strict shared orthodoxy that the troops could rally under.

I started with Holmes Basic in 1979 and I sure as fuck didn't need some pompous blogger to tell me how real old-school D&D was supposed to work. Especially some fucker who never actually played that way.

Seconded, Haffrung. I am from the same era. I read some of JM's blogs and I took rather strong exception to what he was writing. After a few weeks of writing posts refuting what he was saying, I regained my sanity and ignored him.

Quote from: RPGPundit;788999So being a guy who remembers stuff but doesn't keep records, I could use some help in this: point me to evidence in links to articles, forum posts, references to publications, etc./whatever that show James Maliszewski being a complete Swine about D&D before he had clued into how potentially profitable it would be to pretend to just lovey love love old-school in order to become a blogging celebrity to a group of people he considered retarded (so as to eventually embezzle them).

Quote from: RPGPundit;789142That's what we're establishing here: was JMal an anti-D&D "unwashed masses", "role playing not role-playing" WW-style 90s-swine or not. Had he, back in the 90s and early 2000s been a huge fan of old-school gaming, or was he in fact someone who spent the better part of his gaming life opposed to old-school gaming?

If nothing else, this thread is basically providing a master class in Pundit's broken rhetoric and hypocrisy: Post absurd, libelous bullshit. Get called on bullshit. Attempt to rewrite history to claim that you never said the absurd, libelous bullshit.

Quote from: RPGPundit;789149But that still leaves two very significant points:

1) Why are people who CLEARLY KNOW about this conversion trying to pretend he wasn't Saul of Tarsus before the conversion?

Jesus Christ. You literally just smeared mud all over your face by asserting that someone had a secret, hidden agenda and were forced to pretend that you never said it. And you respond by immediately turning around and claiming that somebody else has a secret, hidden agenda?

Bonus hypocrisy points for claiming that they must be following a hidden agenda because they failed to do the most basic research... ya know, the same basic research you failed to do before starting this thread.

Hopefully your tinfoil-hat paranoia is just a badly broken rhetorical crutch of rampant hyperbole and hypocrisy that you are unable to resist. If it's actually how you view the world around you, then you have my pity.

"The pizza delivery boy was 5 minutes late... The only possible explanation is that he's laced my pizza with psychotropic drugs!"

Quote from: Saladman;789204That means I was wrong about Mal keeping all the money; I apologize.

I really had the opposite impression; at this remove, my guess is I formed that during the lag time where he hadn't yet returned any money, and had it reinforced when I heard Dwimmermount was a money loser for Autarch.

Mistakes happen. And when they do, this is the best way to handle them. Thanks for that.

Pundit: Take notes.

Quote from: Haffrung;789196IIRC, he played, but confessed that after parsing the scrolls of Gygax, he felt he had played wrong. Which is the whole problem. Did you have fun? If yes, then you didn't play wrong.

OK, but I don't get why it bugs you so.

QuoteSure, anyone can learn and enjoy any given playstyle, old or new. But it takes a particular kind of douchebaggery to pontificate about the righteousness of a particular orthodoxy when you're a recent convert yourself. It would be like me (a 40-something Canadian) preaching to a 70-something guy who grew up in Liverpool about Merseybeat and the dancehall scene in the early 60s just because I read a couple biographies about the Beatles.

Maybe, but on the other hand... the douchebag MIGHT have some interesting observations, things to say... and the 70-something MIGHT have spent the whole time drunk on his ass and not really thought too deeply about what was going on.
Being a blowhard doesn't negate the possibility of good ideas.
It's similar to how Pundit is often up some bizarre tree with his rants... but I can read through them and still find golden bits to steal away. Not EVERYTHING he says is crazy conspiracy rants... not EVERYTHING James M. wrote was egomaniacal pontification.

Quote from: CRKrueger;789123After reading Alexander's links Pundit, you're screwed on this one.  Even if you did find a mountain of evidence to show that JMal was once a card-carrying member of the Swine, his Old School Epiphany seems real and is historically supported over time.

Could he have slowly and carefully constructed this new Pro-Old School identity merely to boost sales of Thousand Suns and institute himself as the main historian for an D&D Revival?  I suppose, yeah, he could have, but that theoretical mastermind would have been capable of delivering on Dwimmermount.

More than likely, like a whole lot of people, the internet culture arising from 3e and the advent of MMOs left him looking at this new gaming paradigm and wondering what the hell happened, and going back to find out.

Yeah, I agree with CRKrueger and Alexander on this one (and thanks Alexander for looking that stuff up).

JMal just changed his mind.  That's the point of what you're doing Pundit, right, trying to change minds? Don't get all pissy when it happens to work.

Quote from: Saladman;789204That means I was wrong about Mal keeping all the money; I apologize.

I really had the opposite impression; at this remove, my guess is I formed that during the lag time where he hadn't yet returned any money, and had it reinforced when I heard Dwimmermount was a money loser for Autarch.

We received a portion of the money back (about 60%). The other 40% was either retained by James as a license fee to give us the rights or had already been spent by him.  

Had we simply laid out and delivered his manuscript as-is, we probably would have turned a profit, even so; but because of the re-write Tavis and I did, the cost of layout, printing, and shipping ended up notably higher. Some of the special components also cost more than we projected. So we lost money, and if you add the opportunity cost of the delays it posed on our other projects, we lost a lot of money.

But I'm hopeful that our decision to deliver the best product we could will prove the right decision in the long term, in terms of Autarch as a brand and company.

Quote from: Daztur;789173Well whatever else you can say about Pundy it's immensely admirable that when he's being a dumbass people feel free to call him on it without even the slightest hint of fear of being banned. I don't think I've ever seen that except in unmoderated spam pits.

This is unabashedly true.  There are people here that might fairly be described as Pundit's enemies.  He welcomes it all, responds to most of it, and I've never seen him take any moderator/administrator action in retaliation for a persons opinion.