Quote from: Fiasco;746794Anecdotes of your experiences playing at the dawn of D&D absolutely. That is why we are buying the book. Anecdotes about a character you played back in the dawn of the hobby not so much.

Unless that character went on to be a famous Iconic PC from Greyhawk or something, yes.

Quote from: Fiasco;746794Anecdotes of your experiences playing at the dawn of D&D absolutely. That is why we are buying the book. Anecdotes about a character you played back in the dawn of the hobby not so much.

I dunno.  It gives insight into how the game was played "back then", which I find pretty damn interesting.

Quote from: Old Geezer;746778I'm sure there are people who don't find the idea of a young Balrog getting so frustrated he uses a torch and oil to immolate funny.

That's their character defect, not mine.

Are you sure about that? Because...

Digging this old thread up because I had to post the below link somewhere.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;691990If I were interested in a masturbatory quest for self aggrandizement I'd write a book about model railroading.

A guy kept a massive collection in a two-floor house with full-time staff to look after it, sworn to secrecy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-28/rare-model-train-collection-donated-ipswich-museum/8100116

I wonder if we'll ever see the gamer equivalent of this? One of those freaky cunts from the acaeum.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;937417Digging this old thread up because I had to post the below link somewhere.



A guy kept a massive collection in a two-floor house with full-time staff to look after it, sworn to secrecy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-28/rare-model-train-collection-donated-ipswich-museum/8100116

I wonder if we'll ever see the gamer equivalent of this? One of those freaky cunts from the acaeum.

I know somebody who has an entire warehouse full of model engines, all the expensive brass ones that range from about $500 to $2000 US.  He buys them, opens the box to look at them once, and puts them in his warehouse.

Different strokes and all, I guess.

Are you still writing your book? For the record, the parts that interested me most out of the table of contents were all the "unstated assumption" chapters.

And I echo sentiments to find out more details, since it's like when you tell your friends a story about something that happened to you. You generally set the stage for what's going on, spelling out all the details, getting them into the same mood you were, making it as if they were there. Since the culture of D&D is so different today, it's like taking a trip back through time to a different place, rather than just hearing about a character's adventure. Though that's good too. But the parts that stand out are the parts associated with the time period.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;937465Are you still writing your book? For the record, the parts that interested me most out of the table of contents were all the "unstated assumption" chapters.

I wouldn't say the most, but those sure rank highly in my estimate, too:).

I've temporarily lost enthusiasm for the project.  I hope to regain it some time.  A lot of it is due to being in a sucky situation in the rest of my life, part of it is that writing is easy but editing is hard... I've got something like 33 only loosely related chunks of text and now comes the hard part of making them a coherent whole.

But Chirine's thread has shook loose a whole bunch more memories so that's nice.

I'm glad I took Tavis' advice not to start the Kickstarter till it's done, though.  At least nobody has any claim on me.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;937532I've temporarily lost enthusiasm for the project.  I hope to regain it some time.  A lot of it is due to being in a sucky situation in the rest of my life, part of it is that writing is easy but editing is hard... I've got something like 33 only loosely related chunks of text and now comes the hard part of making them a coherent whole.

....

OK, I will bite, what would be wrong about editing 33 vaguely related chunks of text into some essays and publishing it as a book of autobiographical essays on the subject.  I think that could be very interesting.

Reaching back to this:  

QuoteThis particular segment is an anecdote about troubles one of my characters had. I personally find the idea of a low level Balrog failing to immolate and getting so frustrated he pours oil on himself and bops himself with a torch to be freakin' hilarious. Yes, the other players thought it was funny too,

I read this as the thread reactivated, and found it sufficiently funny that I plan to borrow it when I referee one of my games some time to provide some comic relief.  I already have an entreprenurial orc who has conned the player characters out of a magical bear that, ahem, 'generates' silver coins; this would be a perfect addition.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;937532I've temporarily lost enthusiasm for the project.  I hope to regain it some time.  A lot of it is due to being in a sucky situation in the rest of my life, part of it is that writing is easy but editing is hard... I've got something like 33 only loosely related chunks of text and now comes the hard part of making them a coherent whole.

But Chirine's thread has shook loose a whole bunch more memories so that's nice.

I'm glad I took Tavis' advice not to start the Kickstarter till it's done, though.  At least nobody has any claim on me.

Ah, my General; I didn't know that this thread even existed until I came home from work today and saw it.

Read through the whole thing, and laughed until the tears poured off my face and onto the keyboard. You're getting almost the exact same reactions I've gotten with my own little effort ("To Serve The Petal Throne", 127,000 words at the moment) with almost the dead same quotes from people. I've also had the same issues with my writing rubbed in my face, what with being told that an account of yours and my adventures with some of our friends in a cramped little basement room is BADWRONGFUN and I need to provide information on the smelly little cheroots Phil used to set himself on fire with, or the colors of Dave Arneson's plaid shirt.

I've said the same thing you have; neither of us is writing our versions of Jon's book. You're telling about your time Back In The Beginning with Gary, Dave, and Phil - and a few others of us as well. (I can grill Wollan for information, by the way, when I see him Saturday; I usually give him a ride home.) I'm telling stories about some dickweed in a funny hat who gets into all sorts of nasty scrapes, along with some soldier guy he knows and their friend the Killer Princess. (And some others, too.) Nothing more serious, and nothing less.

Write your book the way you want to write it. Like Somebody said, "no gaming is better then bad gaming". People will like it and/or hate it no matter what you write.

And, having expressed my encouragement: I showed you mine; wanna show me yours?

And I understand the pause in the work, too; I'm in the same boat, with the Missus having just had a new biopsy. Take your time; write when you can, as you can, and we'll be here when you're ready.

Courage, my General. We've both had worse happen and still survived.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;937417Digging this old thread up because I had to post the below link somewhere.



A guy kept a massive collection in a two-floor house with full-time staff to look after it, sworn to secrecy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-28/rare-model-train-collection-donated-ipswich-museum/8100116

I wonder if we'll ever see the gamer equivalent of this? One of those freaky cunts from the acaeum.

Try my Photobucket page, and look at the photos of my game room.

God willing, I'll be here when your book is ready for prime time OG. In the meantime, I placed an order for Playing at the World and that should keep me busy until then.

Quote from: TristramEvans;698673Yes, hence the "On the nose" part. Though I think I prefer Bowie as the leader of a secret organization of retired rockstars that use thier vast fortunes and flair for the dramatic to stage an elaborate game of super villains vs duper scientists in conjunction with an elite-but-outdated wing of the US Military.

As for Halflings, I nominate Cyndi Lauper and Elvis Costello as patron dirties. MEWa

No, that spot belongs to Prince.  Maybe Axl Rose.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;937532I've temporarily lost enthusiasm for the project.  I hope to regain it some time.  A lot of it is due to being in a sucky situation in the rest of my life, part of it is that writing is easy but editing is hard... I've got something like 33 only loosely related chunks of text and now comes the hard part of making them a coherent whole.

But Chirine's thread has shook loose a whole bunch more memories so that's nice.

I'm glad I took Tavis' advice not to start the Kickstarter till it's done, though.  At least nobody has any claim on me.

I'm sorry to hear about the problems, Glorious General!
(And, I'm not going to lie, I'm also sorry to hear about them leading to the book being late. But at least I can say it's not only that!)

I'd also ask the same question as wombat1. What's the issue with publishing 33 essays on your time back in Lake Geneva? People are doing that:).

And a story is what you get after the session is over, may I remind you;). You don't need to massage your story to make it fit someone's preconceived notions.

Here's another chapter you might find amusing, Chirine.

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UNSTATED ASSUMPTIONS – D&D AND TRACTICS

Another one of the games we played a lot was TRACICS, a WW2 miniatures wargame. Wargamers being wargamers, WW2 wargames means tanks. And much like CHAINMAIL influenced D&D and how we played it, TRACTICS also influenced how we played D&D.

If you do any research at all on armored combat, one thing you find out very quickly is how limited visibility is inside a tank. From the first World War One experiments right up until today, observation has been extremely important to tanks. It’s not surprising that wargames based on tanks would have rules about observation. Virtually every WW2 game I’ve ever played uses some sort of observation rule, whether it’s dummy markers, or dice rolls to spot, or a variety of other methods. What TRACTICS uses is an “observation path.”

In TRACTICS, a single vehicle can observe a path 4” wide, from the center of the vehicle to the edge of the board. Anything in that path is seen, unless it is behind trees, behind a hill, or similarly concealed. This may sound like a lot. We played TRACTICS on a 5 by 8 foot table, though. Go measure out a 5 by 8 foot area, pick a random spot, and measure a 4” path. You’ll see that a LOT of area is NOT being observed.

You can only shoot at what you see, and the other side can only shoot at you if they see you. It doesn’t take much to figure out how vital observation is in this sort of game, and that is exactly the case; learning where to look to anticipate enemy units, how to look with various units to maximize coverage, and how to take advantage of concealment, were major portions of the play of the game.

This carried over into D&D in a couple of ways. First, we were used to being very careful about where we were looking, and specifying it exactly. Even though we weren’t limited to a 4” wide path, we assumed that observation was important. Possibly the most famous instance of this is Terry Kuntz, who, every time he stepped through an opening, would announce “I look up and down and all around.” Opening a door and then saying “We look around before we enter” was second nature. If you just went blundering in, you deserved whatever happened to you. (Note that this is not the same as the referee saying “You didn’t say that you were looking specifically for a black dragon on top of a pile of gold, so you didn’t see it and it kills you.” The technical term for that is “the referee is an asshole.”)

The other major effect that TRACTICS had on us was that “you can’t anticipate everything.” When you only have a 4” wide path to observe on a 40 square foot board, there WILL be areas that are not under observation. Sometimes, the first clue you would have that there were enemy forces around is when your lead tank blew up. Not only that, but unless one of the surviving units was observing the right place, you had no guarantee of seeing the enemy even after they opened fire. Nothing like spending two or three turns of frantic scrambling as your tanks are getting picked off, trying to figure out where the HELL the enemy is!

Also, one thing you learn about tank combat is that armor does not make you invulnerable. It increases the difficulty of the enemy destroying a unit, but no matter what vehicle you have – yes, even a Tiger II or Jagdtiger – if the enemy wants it destroyed badly enough, they will destroy it. So when we were down in the dungeon, the notion that, for instance, poison could kill you no matter what didn’t seem out of line to us. Nothing was certain; everything carried some modicum of risk.

This meant that in D&D we had a certain bit of fatalism in our attitude. There were precautions you could take, and nobody wanted to die by being a dolt – like Goose says in “Top Gun,” “The Department of Defense regrets to inform you that your sons have been killed because they were stupid.” But ultimately we knew that, no matter how careful we were, no matter what precautions we took, there was always a chance that the first clue we would have that there was something dangerous would be the referee’s words of “Roll a saving throw.”

Sometimes, you don’t know the enemy is there until the lead unit dies.