I motion Pundit lock the thread immediately so we can go out on a high note of awesome.

I totally agree with everything Calilthena said; but we don't lock threads around here, as a rule.

Besides, it'll be more fun to watch Lev and his ilk make stumbling nonsensical half-assed efforts at rebuttals to this, the basic argument that they cannot possibly counter. Not that they won't desperately, incompetently try; knowing them...

RPGPundit

One of the things I love about this site is that incredibly intelligent people like Calithena (and many others!) say things with which I totally agree.

It makes me feel super smart.

I've got a question, Cal.

QuoteGames designed for roleplayers who got disaffected with old D&D

Does this include 3.x?

Apples and oranges.

Quote from: CalithenaNot one of the considerations Lev brings up is of more than mild importance. Some are pure matters of preference, while others are glitches that might be replaced with modest improvement, but anyone who thinks that these are the things that make or break a role-playing game is still living in the eighties. They're really quite peripheral concerns from a play point of view.

That's because roleplaying and the group is of primary importance and the system of secondary importance. However I am not reviewing roleplaying in general, or particular gaming groups. I am reviewing a game system, and as the game system is writ and most of the criticisms are "core features" of the game. Whether or not these can be changed is not the issue. The purpose of the substance review is, imo, to review the rules as they are given.

QuoteSince the old Chaosium, Alarums and Excursions, and White Wolf crowds have taken over the game design conventional wisdom, someone could be forgiven for aping their aging platitudes, as Lev does; especially as the new design strains represented by Champions and Ars Magica were all effectively absorbed into this overall 'main line' of RPG design, by way of GURPS and Vampire respectively.

Which simply adds further credence to what I am suggesting.

QuoteI think anyone who believes the foundational platitudes of this design school in 2007, with the state of role-playing today, is about as credible as a flat earther. Games designed for roleplayers who got disaffected with old D&D are not appealing to anyone except roleplayers who are disaffected with old D&D, plus noise around the edges (the pop culture vectors that brought people into vampire and continue to bring people into D&D 3 here and there, learning to roleplay from friends).

As above; at best you're saying that one shouldn't review older games because, well, they're out-of-date - which certainly isn't the case. Some of those old games have aged quite nicely and are still workable systems today. Some have not. In both cases this is a good thing.

QuoteIt doesn't work: it's a proven failure to the degree that anything of this sort is, based on the failure of our hobby and industry to follow up D&D with one single game capable of capturing the public imagination more broadly.

This in part suggests that RC D&D, AD&D2e and D&D3.x and d20 are not relevant and in part attempts to argue that Hagar The Horrible is better than the Poetic and Prose Edda because more people know about it.

Commercial success is not what is being reviewed. There are very good reasons for (A)D&D/d20s commercial success, but that is not the purpose of the review.

I like Lev.  Lev wants to talk about RPGs AND contribute to the online RPG community by writing reviews.  I think that rocks, and am glad to have him around creating those discussions.

Also, when he hasn't posted for a month and has forgotten the place, I can mention it and laugh, and then someone will email him and tell him to come back, and he will! Cool, that!

droog -

3.x is an interesting case. It certainly did learn extensively from the design school I'm talking about, but it's also designed to attract people who still were playing or used to play old D&D and basically enjoyed it. So I think it's a little of both. The thread I started up in theory about d20 is in a way an attempt to explore which it's more of.

Tweet has other games that are 'mixed' in this way. I think Everyway for instance was an honest attempt to go back to 'the place before D&D' that I mentioned upthread that got partway there - there are these brilliant bits where something very cool shines through - but ultimately winds up being a kind of rules-lite, heavily GM-fiat driven descendant of Champions. 3e is so brilliant because it really learns from the D&D-knockoffs of the past, especially Runequest but also Palladium Fantasy/Rifts and The Fantasy Trip, Arduin and Tweet's own Ars Magica - it brings together a lot of what's best in those systems and combines them into an interesting whole. I find it too cumbersome for my purposes, so I don't play it any more, but I think it does manage to synthesize a lot of what's best about D&D with the 'improvements' Lev makes central to his review.

--------------

I want to make it clear that even though designers like Greg Stafford and Jonathan Tweet (among many others) are central creators of the conventional wisdom I'm here attacking, I respect them and their work tremendously. I also note that they're able to push up against and break this conventional wisdom when it suits them; they're working on another level from their acolytes.

---------------

Lev -

I've been riding you kind of hard and I want to apologize for that. That said, when I read your letter, I don't find any cogent replies to anything I wrote.  However, one reason I've sort of been nibbling around the edges instead of jumping in is that I've got other work to do, so I'll withdraw from the field.

------------

Oh, and to the original topic: I guess I don't see any reason Lev should be banned based on the fact that he has absurd positions about game design or whatever - what CWR says above seems right to me. I haven't been here long enough to know any history behind this, but I haven't seen anything odd or out of line in my brief time browsing.

I'm against banning Lev. Why should we be stuck with Dominus and not him?

Indeed.

Quote from: JimBobOzWell, my game has more cheetos, motherfuckers!

Beat THAT.

Er, well, I make pizza for mine. You're still invited over, or whatever, but I'll bet excellent money you'd be able to make it better. ^_^;

I don't imagine that banning Lev is still an issue, and I think it was handled correctly. However, I'll say this; perhaps I don't agree with everyone on everything (or anything?), but I'm glad they're here. I don't understand the Swine Wars or braindamage, because both seem unbelieveably retarded on every level, but I like reading Levs posts.

Like, I dunno, I enjoy reading lots of peoples posts, I guess.