Quote from: yosemitemike on December 03, 2023, 01:13:25 AM
Grifter has joined the long and ever-growing list of terms that have lost all meaning from misuse and overuse.  It just means person I don't like.  That's why they can never explain exactly what the grift is.

The grift is promising REAL MAGIC and hooking up with Ms. Frost, but instead we get fat dudes stealing our Cheetos and big ass text books full of words no one can pronounce. Total scam.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2023, 07:32:44 PM
For a while there, Jeffro's cult used to worship Gygax, until some people pointed out that Jeffro's own ideas were contradicted by Gygax. From that moment on, his place in the cult pantheon started to plummet, to the point that now they think he was just a greedy guy who wanted to make money and thus encouraged people to disagree with Jeffro 40+ years before anyone knew who Jeffro was.

Man I don't really follow twitter much, and what little I do is not reading up on these dudes.

All this being said, I'm gonna say that there's one thing I am curious about.


Initiative

Famously, AD&D 1e initiative is generally not played by-the-book.  It's certainly possible to do so (ADDICT.pdf has the way), but somehow I suspect that is not what they are doing.

In practice, AD&D 1e initiative was always rule 0- it was always a houserule at best.  Years later, when Gygax answered questions, he was pretty consistent about describing an initiative system he used- and it had relatively little in common with the mish-mash in the PHB and DMG.  My normal sense has been, there are several "real" ways to play, all of them in conflict with the actual written rules.

But maybe- just maybe- whatever initiative system the BrOSR has come up with should be considered the real one.  It has several claims going for it- their group only plays their custom version of AD&D 1e (a matter of religious imperative, apparently).  It has like a, kind of a, a pope right?  So within their own context whatever he says is divinely inspired.  It has to be playtested, and it's probably kinda fair (almost everyone's initiative systems are at least kinda fair).  Since the "real" initiative system (as in, by the book) exists and is awful and is ADDICT.pdf, this one will have the advantage of "most people using it" (democracy, baby!), and is likely not absolutely terrible.

So I need to see that at some point.  Assuredly, it should go down in the list of AD&D 1e lists of "how people actually run initiative".

Quote from: Brad on December 04, 2023, 07:04:37 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 03, 2023, 01:13:25 AM
Grifter has joined the long and ever-growing list of terms that have lost all meaning from misuse and overuse.  It just means person I don't like.  That's why they can never explain exactly what the grift is.

The grift is promising REAL MAGIC and hooking up with Ms. Frost, but instead we get fat dudes stealing our Cheetos and big ass text books full of words no one can pronounce. Total scam.

Jack Chick was the one who promised real magic though.

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 04, 2023, 09:40:47 PM

Quote from: Brad on December 04, 2023, 07:04:37 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 03, 2023, 01:13:25 AM
Grifter has joined the long and ever-growing list of terms that have lost all meaning from misuse and overuse.  It just means person I don't like.  That's why they can never explain exactly what the grift is.

The grift is promising REAL MAGIC and hooking up with Ms. Frost, but instead we get fat dudes stealing our Cheetos and big ass text books full of words no one can pronounce. Total scam.

Jack Chick was the one who promised real magic though.

Are you ready to learn the REAL magic Debbie? 

Quote from: Venka on December 04, 2023, 08:45:27 PMSince the "real" initiative system (as in, by the book) exists and is awful and is ADDICT.pdf, this one will have the advantage of "most people using it" (democracy, baby!), and is likely not absolutely terrible.

ADDICT is NOT the real initiative system by the book. It asserts some rules without citation, and there's at least one citation I know of off the top of my head that if you actually follow it, you see the book very clearly says something different than what ADDICT says.

The real initiative system is a lot easier than ADDICT. The issue is that 1E is a game was actually meant to be played. Not discussed. Not analyzed. Not theorized about. You do any of those three latter things, it muddies the waters. Not because 1E's initiative is confusing. The confusion is an artifact of the approach you use to understand it. If you take the correct approach, actually playing, it's super easy.

The basic system is just each side rolls d6, highest goes first. Everybody who's even pretended to read the books knows that much. And if that's all you ever do, it works just fine. At least until some chucklehead at the table complains after losing initiative, "But I have this big long spear, and he's got a puny dagger. I should be able to at least try to jab him before he's even close enough to attack." And that's something the nitty gritty rules address.

It addresses these sorts of objections through exceptions. Which is something that is seemingly anathema to modern RPG theory wankers. But the benefit is, you can start with just the basic rule which everyone knows and add the exceptions later, one at a time, as needed. So you learn the system in smaller, bite-size pieces and avoid bloat by only adding what you need. You don't have to figure it out in advance or discuss it at session zero. It emerges from actual play.

Is what's in the book what Gary used? No. Because what emerges as important in play is going to vary. That's the whole point, which is very easy to understand when you just play the game. It's only confusing when gamers have this weird need to understand the game a priori.

There is a note in the book about how weapon speed and Dexterity (for melee) might figure more prominently if you're doing a duel or some other type of situation that would call for this sort of thing. It's just a seed of an idea included, and it was never developed in the rules as written. But from what I've heard about how Gary does things, it may very well have developed out of that seed.

There are a few seeds like that in the game. Just to throw out another example, there's a note in the PHB under encumbrance that hints at there having been an idea on the table where base weight allowance would be somehow correlated to the character's body weight rather than fixed. I've seen some jerk offs point to that as an example of a contradiction in the rules when it's clearly just the seed of an idea begging for a house rule.

Quote from: Lunamancer on December 05, 2023, 12:42:22 AM
ADDICT is NOT the real initiative system by the book.

Sure it is.

QuoteIt asserts some rules without citation, and there's at least one citation I know of off the top of my head that if you actually follow it, you see the book very clearly says something different than what ADDICT says.

I doubt it.  This may be about the casting starting at 0 or whatever, but there's examples that ADDICT based this off of.  You can still find the old dragonsfoot threads where ADDICT evolved.

QuoteNot because 1E's initiative is confusing. The confusion is an artifact of the approach you use to understand it. If you take the correct approach, actually playing, it's super easy.

Wait, are you ONE of them?  This is an argument from received knowledge basically.  "You ignore the parts that aren't REAL, see, just ignore the parts about weapon length and speed factor...."

I know if I was gonna run AD&D 1e for friends, I'd write down exactly how I planned to run initiative, and if someone didn't like it before the game started I'd ask what they thought it needed and make changes, and if someone didn't like after the game started I'd tell them tough titties.  But at no point would I be busy pretending that I had the one true initiative.

QuoteIt addresses these sorts of objections through exceptions. Which is something that is seemingly anathema to modern RPG theory wankers. But the benefit is, you can start with just the basic rule which everyone knows and add the exceptions later, one at a time, as needed. So you learn the system in smaller, bite-size pieces and avoid bloat by only adding what you need. You don't have to figure it out in advance or discuss it at session zero. It emerges from actual play.

On the one hand, I actually don't agree and I don't run games that way.  On the other hand, I don't feel your method is incorrect or anything.  I just know if I pulled out a dagger against The Accursed Blacksmith who has some incredibly slow weapon, hoping we'd tie on initiative so I could get like triple attack combo on him, I'd be pretty mad if that didn't work (the multiattack is in the book)- given that I'd be finding that out at that very second and not before.  If my DM thought that whole section was munchkin bullshit I wouldn't be mad until I had fully committed to the actual action, got the 1/6 chance of the flurry of stabs, and found out I got robbed.  That's why I'd want to know it ahead of time.

Anyway, since you are all about this topic (I think I've seen you make some wild AD&D 1e claims), it's possible that you might have read what the BrOSR guys have written on initiative.  Unless they sound like you with the emerges-from-play response, which would also answer my question (though not as satisfactorily to me personally, obviously, but the world does not exist primarily to satisfy me).

So do you know?  Do these guys, when they aren't getting Pundit's twitter shut down for hammer memes, have an official initiative system, a One True Interpretation?

QuoteThere is a note in the book about how weapon speed and Dexterity (for melee) might figure more prominently if you're doing a duel or some other type of situation that would call for this sort of thing. It's just a seed of an idea included, and it was never developed in the rules as written. But from what I've heard about how Gary does things, it may very well have developed out of that seed.

Gary kept evolving the initiative system. If someone has put together how he played it in, say, 2005 or something (and given his posts on the topic on dragonsfoot, such a document may exist), I'd definitely love to save that next to ADDICT.pdf in my AD&D 1e folder.  I'd probably tend towards that if hypothetically my own players wanted to play AD&D 1e (two mentioned the idea and the rest of the table laughed instead, but opinions can change), because it would be, if not by-the-book, at least informed by the top expert whose goal was to run good games, not write rules documents in a legally clear way.

It's just the age old iconoclasts hating on the past as a means to power to feel alive and relevant.  They weren't cool the last 10 thousand years they've been doing this, they still aren't cool now. For all the current and future purgers of the impure and vanities, "You're still a disappointment to your parents and should get over your witchhunter punk selves." 

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 04, 2023, 09:40:47 PM

Quote from: Brad on December 04, 2023, 07:04:37 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on December 03, 2023, 01:13:25 AM
Grifter has joined the long and ever-growing list of terms that have lost all meaning from misuse and overuse.  It just means person I don't like.  That's why they can never explain exactly what the grift is.

The grift is promising REAL MAGIC and hooking up with Ms. Frost, but instead we get fat dudes stealing our Cheetos and big ass text books full of words no one can pronounce. Total scam.

(Images snipped)

That's hilarious.

On a side note, can confirm playing RPGs will help with basic math skills as well as a decent grounding in statistics and probability (I actually used some of the concepts in a safety meeting to explain why people should follow processes and wear protective gear).

Quote from: JeremyR on December 03, 2023, 07:48:05 PM
I actually thought most of the OSR hated Gygax, which is why they don't like 1e in favor of the purer Arnesonian 0e or the non-Gygax B/X or Holmes.

I think it's more likely the case that Gygax simply wasn't a good game designer, so the games someone else had a direct hand in designing were simply a better starting point.

Quote from: migo on December 05, 2023, 08:50:39 AM
I think it's more likely the case that Gygax simply wasn't a good game designer, so the games someone else had a direct hand in designing were simply a better starting point.

I always push back against these ideas when I see them:

1) Gygax made D&D.  (He assembled it.)

2) Gygax made D&D alone.  (Many people deserve credit.)

3) Gygax was a diety/saint/monster.  (He was a man.)

Uh oh, several posts about AD&D initiative already...how much longer until gun control and/or Hitler are brought up?

RE: Gygax not being a good game designer...AD&D is like five billion times better than any of the bullshit being published today because it was and is an actual game that was played by real people over many years. D&D before 2nd edition AD&D, as a whole, has more playtesting than probably all other RPGs in existence combined, and I doubt most of the games being published now have ever been playtested beyond a couple dudes in a white room wearing gloves and lab coats. It's pure theory vs. pragmatic reality. Sure AD&D doesn't SEEM well designed, but that's because anyone making that statement is just "reading rules" and not actually playing anything. If I were to plop down the complete rules of baseball and asked you to read it, you would come away with all sorts of conclusions that have nothing to do with how baseball is played in reality, and you might even assume it's a terribly designed game that makes no sense, completely ignoring literally 150 years of rules refinements and millions of real games. So, whatever?

Quote from: Brad on December 05, 2023, 09:16:39 AM
Uh oh, several posts about AD&D initiative already...how much longer until gun control and/or Hitler are brought up?

RE: Gygax not being a good game designer...AD&D is like five billion times better than any of the bullshit being published today because it was and is an actual game that was played by real people over many years. D&D before 2nd edition AD&D, as a whole, has more playtesting than probably all other RPGs in existence combined, and I doubt most of the games being published now have ever been playtested beyond a couple dudes in a white room wearing gloves and lab coats. It's pure theory vs. pragmatic reality. Sure AD&D doesn't SEEM well designed, but that's because anyone making that statement is just "reading rules" and not actually playing anything. If I were to plop down the complete rules of baseball and asked you to read it, you would come away with all sorts of conclusions that have nothing to do with how baseball is played in reality, and you might even assume it's a terribly designed game that makes no sense, completely ignoring literally 150 years of rules refinements and millions of real games. So, whatever?

As far as core mechanics go, B/X is simply better than AD&D. There's a lot of stuff in AD&D that is a mess, and requires work-arounds. B/X you can do 3d6 in order and have it work more or less. 3d6 in order for AD&D is only for masochists. If you're going to do a fork of D&D, B/X is the best place to start. Not AD&D.

Now AD&D has some stuff that makes it a preferable choice to B/X, but that isn't due to the fundamental mechanics, it's due to options. Put similar options onto B/X, and B/X will be a better system.

At its core level, something like Spears of the Dawn is far better than AD&D.

Quote from: mcbobbo on December 04, 2023, 04:54:32 PM
Gygax was a money-driven man, and we're all better off for it.  He took other people's ideas and made them marketable.  That, and that above all else, is what he contributed to the hobby.  Did he "invent" D&D?  Almost certainly not.  There are a lot of prior art examples.  But, he did invent making money off of D&D, and that's necessary for a thing to survive in the marketplace.

As mentioned on the YouTube discussion, Dave felt Gary wrote that book to screw him out of royalties and sued Gary in 79.  They settled out of court, so Gary was never vindicated of this charge.  Make of that what you will.

He's no god.  He was greedy.  He took and used other people's ideas without much modification.  He did design work to make these weird things fit together.  We benefited from what he did and can be grateful.  All these can be true at the same time.

You can make those arguments, sure, but that wasn't the argument the BroSR was making; they're claiming that he supported Rule 0 as a "cash grab". Which is just moronic.

Quote from: Brad on December 05, 2023, 09:16:39 AM
Uh oh, several posts about AD&D initiative already...how much longer until gun control and/or Hitler are brought up?

I haven't seen the old Godwin forfiet in a while.  Neat to see it still lives.

Quote from: Brad on December 05, 2023, 09:16:39 AM
AD&D is like five billion times better than any of the bullshit being published today because it was and is an actual game that was played by real people over many years.

Is your standard for excellence ten-plus years old, non-imaginary, and played by 10 or more people, then?  Seems like a low bar, but okay.

Quote from: Brad on December 05, 2023, 09:16:39 AM
D&D before 2nd edition AD&D, as a whole, has more playtesting than probably all other RPGs in existence combined, and I doubt most of the games being published now have ever been playtested beyond a couple dudes in a white room wearing gloves and lab coats.

A quick Google will show you 'thank you for testing' credits on scores of games, so your doubt isn't completely sane.

Quote from: Brad on December 05, 2023, 09:16:39 AM
It's pure theory vs. pragmatic reality. Sure AD&D doesn't SEEM well designed, but that's because anyone making that statement is just "reading rules" and not actually playing anything.

Wow a Godwin AND a True Scotsman in the same post?  Do you genuinely believe nobody is playing games other than AD&D?  You're trolling, right?  Right?

Quote from: Brad on December 05, 2023, 09:16:39 AM
If I were to plop down the complete rules of baseball and asked you to read it, you would come away with all sorts of conclusions that have nothing to do with how baseball is played in reality, and you might even assume it's a terribly designed game that makes no sense, completely ignoring literally 150 years of rules refinements and millions of real games. So, whatever?

In point of fact, baseball is definitely a poorly designed roleplaying game.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 05, 2023, 09:39:03 AM
You can make those arguments, sure, but that wasn't the argument the BroSR was making; they're claiming that he supported Rule 0 as a "cash grab". Which is just moronic.

Your video was well made and your point came across clearly.

It's just that the premise you are refuting is too dumb to engage with, and if anything you give it MORE credence by not simply laughing at it.  It's just not a thing a serious person can believe, IMO.

Taking Dave's name off the books, THAT was a cash grab.

WotC changing Rule 0 in their newest newbie materials, THAT is a topic for discussion.

But whatever this Bro-SR person has to say isn't worth much time.