Are people still mad about . . .

[Mark]

Coming back to this, albeit without the actual quote in hand, I am guessing that what is happening here is that the above Gygax quote was meant to stave off brand dilution and trademark confusion given that by the early Eighties there were half a dozen fantasy roelplaying games as well as many non-fantasy rulesets on the market, and people were already beginning to generically call any RPGing "D&D" rather than refer to them individually. His statement is unlikely to have been meant as a cudgel against innovation in the game or house ruling or adjudication on the fly with the rules being meant as guidelines. Given other things he wrote regarding rules as guidelines, such characterization of that statement rings false.

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

I think that quote is pretty much accurate

I remember reading it too. Guys, Gary wasn't perfect... he was like that cranky wierd uncle that you loved anyway. And he mellowed out A LOT as he got older. The thing to remember about Gary, is he (with Dave Arneson) pretty much invented the whole idea of a roleplaying game . He earned the right to be cut a lot of slack.

The thing that annoyed me about the pronouncements from the 4E dev team is that they hadn't earned the right to make pronouncements like they were making and have them accepted without challenge. I still think the core books were the best part of 3E, and when I look at the authors of those books, well, Hasbro let them go.

The people they kept were mostly people who came in later, after the brilliance of 3E had been accomplished, and wrote splatbooks, some of which were good, and some of which were terrible.

And when you're Van Gogh's understudy, and you announce that the Master's paintings are ok and kindof fun to look at, but have many flaws that you can fix, and that people would be better served by trading in his paintings for one of yours... well, you'd better be able to pull it off.

Ken

 

[Umbran]

We said this thread wasn't useful for rehashing the same old arguments.

But you're doing it anyway.

You want to know why we have edition wars? Well, the evidence of the moment seems to be that listening and comprehension are not high on your lists of priorities. No wonder you argue.

THUNK.