Quote from: thedungeondelver;458166You mean the one I pioneered back in 2002?  That one? [\quote]
I call shenanigans.  

I read over my previous post, and it wasn't very clear, but I was referring to my own sites in regards to the situation you mentioned.  All the work I could have been doing over the last couple of years instead of posting everywhere else.

QuoteWhat I'm probably going to do (no, what I am going to do) is shitcan about 90% of the front page content, keeping the modules and the interview I did with Gary back then, then start building up new content.  Likely the monsters will be tucked into a .PDF and offered like the modules.

I am using Drupal for Chaos Ex, but I have been meaning to play around with Joomla one of these days.  The sheer number of mods for Drupal make me reluctant to switch.

QuoteBut stuff like me bitching about the BoEF, WotC's D&D business practices?  Yeah, that's at best irrelevant and at worst shining examples of what a bad writer I used to be.  

We all have to get started somewhere.  

QuoteThe new 'site will be Joomla-based so me putting up content won't entail using FrontPage

Ick.  FrontPage?  Did you thoroughly wash the area where you touched it?  

Quote from: StormBringer;458172

Quote from: thedungeondelver;458166You mean the one I pioneered back in 2002?  That one? [\quote]
I call shenanigans.  

I read over my previous post, and it wasn't very clear, but I was referring to my own sites in regards to the situation you mentioned.  All the work I could have been doing over the last couple of years instead of posting everywhere else.

I guess I'm still unclear on "jumping on the vintage bandwagon" context

QuoteI am using Drupal for Chaos Ex, but I have been meaning to play around with Joomla one of these days.  The sheer number of mods for Drupal make me reluctant to switch.

I just picked up Joomla as it seemed to be the easiest CMS out there.  Has to be easier than dicking around with page design EVERY TIME I WANT TO UPDATE.  Honestly that's what's kept my site down - not wanting to spend the time hacking apart an ancient already badly abused template to try and fit my content in to.

QuoteIck.  FrontPage?  Did you thoroughly wash the area where you touched it?  

In 2002, CMS's weren't exactly dirt common.  As you said, "we all had to start somewhere".

Quote from: thedungeondelver;458173I guess I'm still unclear on "jumping on the vintage bandwagon" context

Just goofing around.  I think a Vintage Games movement would have more legs than the OSR has.  

Quote from: StormBringer;458225Just goofing around.  I think a Vintage Games movement would have more legs than the OSR has.  

I think it'd be silly to see them as competing things instead of different aspects of the same thing.

Quote from: Benoist;458232I think it'd be silly to see them as competing things instead of different aspects of the same thing.

A little friendly competition never hurt anyone.  

Well, since there is no content I shall not continue. Got to get back to that glue-huffing...

I like watching people scream at each other. I have no dog in the fight, skin in the game, trash in the bin (?) because I like all the editions of D&D that I have easy access to, for what they are.  (I like earlier editions too, but don't have easy access to them so don't have a lot of expertise on them.)  So please keep fighting edition wars forever, thanks.

It's all storytelling bullshit to you so no wonder you don't give a crap.

What makes you say that? I don't story game every time I play a RPG!  That's the whole reason I've thought about it so much, because I often change up my goals when I get out a new game to play.

:cool:

LOL

Just to add without leaving you high and dry....

Like I said the "war" never was for me but for some people they get me confused with others for convenience sake. "LOOK WHAT HE MADE FUN OF HERE... HE WAS AN EDITION WAR PROPONENT"

If the shoe fits I did not fit it. It just fits.

I may not seem like I'm a designer of fantasy but thats all I am. A not very successful one, for sure. If I'm a chess piece in some war of games then I am the entire color of king, minister, infantry, cavalry, elephantry, and chariotry for my own weird game.

Sure I was all for the "get the old look back" movement of the 90's and look what that became (Necromancer games). I was also for the "make an alternative system to D&D" movement of the early 2000's but look what that became (C&C, OSR). I have nothing to do with those things except perhaps inciting the wrong bunch of people that it would have been a good idea. Many never saw what happened on the inside of these dev forums. I had nothing to do with any of them on the grounds that no one was cooperating or contributing with interaction. I would have been happy working with creative people to make "better fantasy" but it just never worked.

If I'm responsible for some crime of making Elfdart's celebration of all things called rpg go down the toilet then its surprisingly in his own mind. I have nothing to do with any past publications for rpgs (except for a never published GORD THE ROGUE comic book and a recycled item that made it into a DRAGONSFOOT PDF magazine) and nothing that I've said (or will say) can make 37 years of that change in the slightest. I have had my membership to the forums that Elfdart frequents like DRAGONSFOOT and KNIGHTS AND KNAVES ALEHOUSE removed (in that order) so no need to bring my name up anymore unless its involving creative involvement.

Quote from: Gene Weigel;458628Sure I was all for the "get the old look back" movement of the 90's and look what that became (Necromancer games). I was also for the "make an alternative system to D&D" movement of the early 2000's but look what that became (C&C, OSR). I have nothing to do with those things except perhaps inciting the wrong bunch of people that it would have been a good idea. Many never saw what happened on the inside of these dev forums. I had nothing to do with any of them on the grounds that no one was cooperating or contributing with interaction. I would have been happy working with creative people to make "better fantasy" but it just never worked.

Very interesting! I'd be keenly interested to hear more about 1., what you think the (major) failings are in these two movements (Necromancer games, C&C/OSR), and 2., what your impression is why you weren't given more spot light to be part of these.

To clarify, I'm genuinely interested, and have absolutely no knowledge about (much less, a stake in) these two movements. I only got into D&D/d20 again long after 2006, having skipped it from 1998 to the mid 2000s. Which means, I had never participated in these things on online fora to have better insight. The only thing I associate with your name is what, some time in 2007 (I think), whenever your name showed up on Enworld people showed highly allergic reactions ('Oh geez, look, it's Gene Weigel of all people'), which I couldn't fathom then, nor can fathom now. I'm sure there's plenty of history behind it, and if it's not too tedious or personally painful for you to go into that, I'd gladly hear more about it.

EDIT. Oh, I just found this discussion by google, which relates your non-involvement on something else:

QuoteWhen 3e came around and I asked eagerly to see some original Greyhawk ideas come back (By Gary Gygax or Rob Kuntz), I was treated like a leper.

A shocking reminder that the 2e years still perpetuate even without "TSR's Boss of Terror".

You know, you might find this entry by Erik Mona enlightening, as it illustrates the attitude (surrounding Tweet) towards Greyhawk when D&D 3.0 was made. As it's a fairly long, I quote the salient bit.

QuoteI can’t quite explain how thrilling it was to join the Wizards staff in the summer of 1999. D&D was clearly in safe hands, and the editorial staff at the time read like a who’s who of game design. Very shortly, I came to meet many of the authors whose work I had admired for years. There was Jeff Grubb, author of the Manual of the Planes, creator of Spelljammer and co-muse of the Forgotten Realms. Over there was Planescape’s Monte Cook, hard at work on the Dungeon Master’s Guide in a cubicle covered with comic book action figures and other interesting ephemera. Not too far away sat the legendary Skip Williams, The Sage himself, tinkering with the manuscript that would become the Monster Manual. And there, directly on the other side of the cube wall from my chair in RPGA land, was none other than Jonathan Tweet himself, lead designer of Dungeons & Dragons.

In his mid-30s at the time, Tweet was already a legend in the RPG world. He was the major creative force behind the hugely admired and influential Over the Edge RPG from Atlas Games, from my old home state. He’d moved over to head Wizards of the Coast’s RPG division, where he designed the innovative Everway RPG, which incorporated cards and new free-form elements into a well-regarded design. But most important to me, he was the guy rewriting the Player’s Handbook. While Jonathan, Monte, and Skip were a triumvirate and just about everyone in the department was making important additions to the game, Jonathan was clearly the “lead” designer, at least from where I sat. You could tell by the way the whole department seemed sort of in awe of him, the way they deferred to his wishes, and the way that he always seemed to get what he wanted.

You could see it in his eyes. Genius mixed with a giant helping of disdain mixed with perhaps a touch of well-deserved arrogance that immediately commanded respect from just about everyone. Jonathan Tweet wanted to make D&D the best game that it possibly could be on his own terms, or at least as much as was possible for a boat with so many captains in so many different divisions of the company. Deep in the zone of design on one of the company’s most popular and valuable brands, Jonathan clearly didn’t suffer fools, and was doing his best to keep his focus on making the game better and not getting too distracted. Given our proximity, I’d often hear him state a design philosophy or defend some design decision in such a way that left no doubt he was a genius and his rhetorical opponent was an imbecile. There was something to the cold logic of his arguments that suggested a robot. With death-ray eyes. Because his tenure predated WotC’s purchase of TSR and because he was thought to have the ear of management, it was easy to see Jonathan as the “company guy,” or at the very least as a guy who you definitely didn’t want to upset.

Which was cool, because, so far as I know, absolutely everyone there admired the hell out of what Jonathan was doing with the game. Though I later came to realize that many, many hands were responsible for the changes in the game to the point at which singling out any one person as responsible for a specific change was far, far too simplistic for such a holistic process, in my own way I sort of saw Monte and Skip as the guys defending the gaming traditions I held dear, whereas Jonathan was the guy who questioned a lot of those assumptions and who propelled the game into the future. And as much as I loved where D&D had been, after 10 years of Second Edition it was obvious that the future was where the game really needed to be. Sitting so close to Jonathan and overhearing so many fascinating design discussions was one of the absolute joys of my first few weeks at Wizards of the Coast.

I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I couldn’t wait to get involved myself.

Back then, Wizards had an internal message board system that allowed its hundreds of employees to discuss matters of company policy, upcoming special events, who was out sick for the day, and other administrivia. One of these folders was for discussing the drafts of the Third Edition rules currently floating around for office playtests. I had just acquired such a draft copy, and I was certain I had a suggestion that would save everyone some grief. I sat down to compose a message with my suggestion, knowing that it would be my first real introduction to the D&D design staff and indeed many of the employees of Wizards of the Coast.

The message went something like this:

"Hi! My name is Erik Mona. I’ve just been hired by the RPGA to edit Polyhedron and develop a new Living campaign for the World of Greyhawk. I was looking over the draft of the Player’s Handbook, and I noticed that in the cleric section St. Cuthbert is listed as the God of Retribution. In fact, Trithereon is Greyhawk’s god of retribution. St. Cuthbert is more known for honesty, wisdom, and zeal. Also, the chart lists Heironeous’s favored weapon as a longsword, but in fact it should be a battleaxe. I have an extensive collection of Greyhawk materials here at my desk and I’m more than happy to help out if anyone has any questions about this material as it applies to the core game."

That was it, in a nutshell. Simple. Helpful. Informative. My first formal contribution to the design of Third Edition Dungeons & Dragons. It didn’t take long for the message to make its way through the design department. Within minutes I heard Jonathan Tweet’s strained, angry voice roll over the cubicle wall:

“WHO THE HELL IS ERIK MONA?” he said, his tone dripping with disdain.

It turns out that the whole “use the Greyhawk pantheon” thing had been a huge internal fight tangentially related to the cancellation of Second Edition settings and somewhat forced on the game by management. The design team wanted to be able to change Greyhawk elements to better fit the concept of the game they were creating. You expect a paladin to use a longsword, so it doesn’t make sense to make his main weapon a non-intuitive choice like a battle axe. They only wanted so many gods. They needed a god of retribution and Trithereon was not invited to the party. The wounds about these decisions, apparently, had only just healed over about a week before I arrived, and more than one person in the department felt that my innocent suggestion risked shoving everything back into turmoil.

After I sheepishly walked around the cube wall to (re)introduce myself to Jonathan, he explained all of this to me in a way that somehow didn’t cause me to melt into the carpet, and the rest of the day (and indeed week) was spent with well meaning TSR employees, shellshocked from the last couple of years of madness, quietly coming to my cube to offer polite suggestions about how to not rock the boat and basically keep my mouth shut. Not quite the introduction to my dream-of-a-lifetime job I had been hoping for. Even today, Jonathan’s “WHO THE HELL IS ERIK MONA” question still colors my memories of my first year at WotC.

Wow.  So Johnathan Tweet was an asshole, who didn't understand the Greyhawk material - and apparently so were the majority of the 2e TSR staff.

That explains some things.

Quote from: Windjammer;458758Very interesting! I'd be keenly interested to hear more about 1., what you think the (major) failings are in these two movements (Necromancer games,

Too much space dedicated to stats and not enough "book-to-table" content.

Quote from: Windjammer;458758C&C/

Heavily stylized to not fit what it was designed for (CASTLE GREYHAWK) so what was the point?

Quote from: Windjammer;458758OSR),

Theres so many but they all are alterations and the "alterers" act like its theirs exclusively.

[

Quote from: Windjammer;458758] and 2., what your impression is why you weren't given more spot light to be part of these.

Lets just say it had nothing to do with spotlight.

First one, bad proxy.
Second one, I was sent in there by the prodding of Gary Gygax, signed some legal thing and when I was in received no feedback .
Third one, that was a case of "start the renaissance without me" because they didn't want to develop anything they just wanted to cut and paste. Thats all it is and none them emulates how I play AD&D, go figure.

Quote from: Windjammer;458758To clarify, I'm genuinely interested, and have absolutely no knowledge about (much less, a stake in) these two movements. I only got into D&D/d20 again long after 2006, having skipped it from 1998 to the mid 2000s. Which means, I had never participated in these things on online fora to have better insight. The only thing I associate with your name is what, some time in 2007 (I think), whenever your name showed up on Enworld people showed highly allergic reactions ('Oh geez, look, it's Gene Weigel of all people'), which I couldn't fathom then, nor can fathom now. I'm sure there's plenty of history behind it, and if it's not too tedious or personally painful for you to go into that, I'd gladly hear more about it.

I couldn't stand the shift in tone of the whole thing by the late 90's and mostly focused on Greyhawk's non-interest in ever getting Gygax back to do anything. When Gygax returned with "third edition" but really didn't I was very disheartened to have invested so much to find out this was cyclopean in gaming style (big, awkward, flavored rules) and he really wasn't going to be involved then to find out that it wasn't going to happen even in Greyhawk really made my head spin. So I was pretty grumpy about the style of the game going back to the 80's Oriental Adventures up to the then 3.5 D&D game. At that time I brought a lot of attention to Dragonsfoot at Gygax's request probably because I made sport out of all the "new D&D" stuff that I bought at the time.

Quote from: Windjammer;458758EDIT. Oh, I just found this discussion by google, which relates your non-involvement on something else:

Heh, thats exactly around that time I believe I was still trying out 3e.

Quote from: Windjammer;458758You know, you might find this entry by Erik Mona enlightening, as it illustrates the attitude (surrounding Tweet) towards Greyhawk when D&D 3.0 was made. As it's a fairly long, I quote the salient bit.

Heh, thats where I have to stop. I'm no fan of Erik Mona for sure. He tried to compromise all that Ward, Cook, Sargent, and E. Moore stuff into the original version and ended up with a dimmer world. Anything he touched in Greyhawk made it lesser than it was. He would take a concept and rely on it too much without thinking where it came from, etc. and end up with a lesser version. Even that Maure Castle thing was so demoralizing to the original adventure that I can't even look at anything by Rob Kuntz anymore.

Quote from: Gene Weigel;458780Theres so many but they all are alterations and the "alterers" act like its theirs exclusively.

Are you referring to the retro-clones here?