Quote from: Black Vulmea;569362Tabletop roleplaying's Godwin.

Hm. Wouldn't that be Racial Holy War?

Quote from: Benoist;569363Hm. Wouldn't that be Racial Holy War?

A fair point.

Quote from: Benoist;569363Hm. Wouldn't that be Racial Holy War?

That was my first thought too; though really that one is so much further of an outlier, and FATAL, based on the reviews I read, is equally anti-semitic and racist.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Black Vulmea;569362Tabletop roleplaying's Godwin.

Fair enough, but there are plenty of just really crap systems out there, FATAL just serves as a good shorthand for "crappy unplayable system".

Quote from: TristramEvans;569533Fair enough, but there are plenty of just really crap systems out there, FATAL just serves as a good shorthand for "crappy unplayable system".

Yes, there are some totally shite roleplaying games.

But what we're literally talking about here is one of the biggest names in the hobby and the conviction that, when a gamer had a bad experience, it was the game that was at fault and not the human being running it.

Again, no one says movies suck because the first film they saw was Garfield, yet gamers dismiss games routinely because the referee was a bag of piss.

Quote from: RPGPundit;569482That was my first thought too; though really that one is so much further of an outlier, and FATAL, based on the reviews I read, is equally anti-semitic and racist.

RPGPundit

Well it lacks the "focus" of RaHoWa, of course, but it is pretty fucked up about race and well, pretty much anything anyone could care to talk about, really. Point's well taken.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;569538Again, no one says movies suck because the first film they saw was Garfield, yet gamers dismiss games routinely because the referee was a bag of piss.

That's a spectacular point. Its part of why I decry that whole notion of "actual play" being somehow important to reviewing a game, for example. "Actual Play" immediately takes things out of the realm of the game as written and into something very specific to the group working: I'm pretty sure I could run a game that was ostensibly Vampire: The Masquerade and make it fucking awesome, or ostensibly My Life With Master and make it an actual RPG (though in the latter case I'd have to houserule to the point that it'd probably be unrecognizeable in all but name).  While any number of dipshits have proven that they can take Rules Cyclopedia D&D and run a piece of shit game with it.

RPGPundit

Isn't one part of being a GM/DM to sell the game to the players through play? That's how I see it in any case. Now I don't advocate letting the players stroll through the park and always win or any of that crap, but the DM should bring the game to life, navigate the rules and make the game an inclusive event. It should not be a you vs the players situation where you knowing the rules better than them make their experience a living hell. That was what happened in my case.

The impressions you do get from a game will depend on the GM/DM the first couple of times you play it.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;569538Yes, there are some totally shite roleplaying games.

But what we're literally talking about here is one of the biggest names in the hobby and the conviction that, when a gamer had a bad experience, it was the game that was at fault and not the human being running it.

Again, no one says movies suck because the first film they saw was Garfield, yet gamers dismiss games routinely because the referee was a bag of piss.

On the one hand, there are enough people who like D&D that I consider it a reasonable matter of taste.

However, as a matter of taste, some people genuinely don't like D&D.  So even when they play with a decent DM, they will have a bad time, and will have criticisms to level against it. Just because it's a big name in our little niche hobby doesn't mean that everyone is going to like it.  To use your movie analogy, sometimes people see the most popular movies (i.e. Avatar, Titanic, etc.) and still don't have a good time.  

TL;DR - it's not just bad DMs that make people dislike D&D.  Some people genuinely don't like the game.

Quote from: TristramEvans;569533Fair enough, but there are plenty of just really crap systems out there, FATAL just serves as a good shorthand for "crappy unplayable system".

But you've never actually played FATAL using the vaginal, anal and penile circumference and tearing rules, so how do you know if they are playable or not?  

There are some games though, that do play differently then they read, something that seems cool actually turns out to be a slog, and something that seems complicated is a breeze.  Most of them though, you can get a good idea of whether or not that game will work for you and yours.

Most of the time you get someone who talks about hating an early game, it's due to a suckass GM and a bad first experience.

Quote from: jhkim;569843TL;DR - it's not just bad DMs that make people dislike D&D.  Some people genuinely don't like the game.

That's not in question at all.

Re-read the initial post. That's exactly what I'm talking about: 'Wow, the referee made our characters lie in their own shit for hours before an unhittable kobold cut off their balls and choked them with them. That game sucks!'

Quote from: jibbajibba;569082Yeah what is it with Vampire LARPers. I have LARPed in my time and it was a giggle, mix a bit of monty python with some balackadder add rubber swords and chainmail and it was fantastic fun.
Checked out a Vampire LARP at a con and it was wall to wall assholes.... and chubby goth chicks playing vamps (if you pardon the pun) we considered hiring some escourts and making some real costumes and just turnign up to see how they took it (been running a Murder Mystery company for real paying customers for a while so we knew we could boss it) but it was too sad to even consider.

So my friend tells this story about a Vampire LARP ran next to an SCA convention in Portland. I hope I've gotten all of the details right.

Both groups had been wandering around the same couple of city blocks "in garb", including some of the SCA heavy fighters in armor and rattan-swords. The crowds mixed slightly in "off-site" (for each group) locations, and many of the girls were dressed similarly in both groups. Then, a group of Vampire LARPers saw a couple of SCA girls in fine dresses hanging out on a corner near the transit station. They went over and started "roleplaying". The SCA girls thought they were from a household they hadn't been introduced to yet. The Vampire players assumed the girls were "in character" childer to one of the LARP players, and so the Vampire players invited them back to "their lair" (thinking that they would have leverage against the other Vampire player).

Playing along (and not totally aware they had just stepped into an RPG), the girls went off with the group of strangely dressed people. Into a warehouse that wasn't an "SCA location".

A couple of the light rapier fighters saw the girls "get kidnapped" (hey, a large group of people NOT from their household just herded them into an "off-limits" building) and ran to get the heavy fighters. There was a lot of yelling back and forth through the warehouse doors. The LARPers were having great fun, thinking their rival had set some NPCs or other henchmen on them. The SCAers were PISSED that these people weren't letting the girls go of their own free will. Hot words were exchanged, and an agreement of "combat" was reached. The door was flug open.

The SCAers readied their shields and raised their rattan swords. The LARPers emerged from the darkness throwing rock-paper-scissors signs.

A couple of them almost their heads knocked off before the confusion was straightened out.

Then, they all went off to drink and laugh about it.

Quote from: CRKrueger;569845But you've never actually played FATAL using the vaginal, anal and penile circumference and tearing rules, so how do you know if they are playable or not?  

They could totally be playable.  In fact I'd be fine with someone playing the game as-written and using all those rules.

So long as the GM ends the session by saying, "The Aristocrats!"

Quote from: Peregrin;569913They could totally be playable.  In fact I'd be fine with someone playing the game as-written and using all those rules.

So long as the GM ends the session by saying, "The Aristocrats!"

ROFL, I loved that movie.  You expected most of the stuff coming from the comedians there but Bob Saget and Betty White?  Pure gold.

I just bought reprints of the three 1979 AD&D core books that WOTC shipped out to stores last month.  I too was exposed to horrible DMs in the early '80s and eventually stuck with Traveller.  It's been 30 years since I played any D&D.  I thought I'd buy these books because of the Gary Gygax memorial fund, and so came home with them, started reading through them, and found a freshness with this RPG that I can't explain.  An innocence maybe?

It's interesting reading about how to be a DM that's written by the guy that invented DMimg practically.  So many house rules are thrown into these books to inspire the reader to create house rules.  A page devoted to linear and bell curve die-roll results, and why/when they are used and not used, etc.

I'm currently playing Oblivion on the PC, and I see a lot of Oblivion in these three AD&D books, and vice versa.  The store I bought them from was selling the books for $21-30 each.  A good price for new books compared to the $150+ price for old used copies.  If I had the time, I'd seriously create a campaign to run for this game.

ADDED:
DM/GMs that do game reviews after playing a few sessions might give a different review than a player character in the game would.  Can a complete game review be given by a player that does not GM games?