Quote from: ggroy;450686The same thing can be said about guys (now in their late-30's or 40's) who latch on to everything Gary Gygax ever said, as if Gygax was an "Oracle of Delphi".  :rolleyes:

This is awesome reading, particularly when that Semaj character gets his dander up.

Quote from: KenHR;450691This is awesome reading, particularly when that Semaj character gets his dander up.

Hehe.  I remember that thread.

Kinda funny.

Quote from: KenHR;450691This is awesome reading, particularly when that Semaj character gets his dander up.

It gives a lot of insight into the world of the TSR wage-slaves too.

Quote from: J Arcane;450687This too.

I actually strongly believe they are related impulses.

I wouldn't be surprised at all, if they are the same underlying (obsessive) compulsions.

Other areas where I've come across similar compulsive behavior, are amongst fanatics of numerous stripes (ie. religious, political, other fandoms, certain music genres, etc ...).

The big problem from my perspective was (and is) not the people who, in the Talmudic discussions that are entertaining in forums, will consider everything Gygax ever wrote.

The big problem was (and is) the turkeys who try actually to rules-lawyer on the basis of misreading an unrepresentative portion of what Gygax wrote.

The turkeys who insist on cluttering the thoughtful Talmud discussions with their ignorant rules-lawyering are a particularly annoying variety, especially when they become agents-provocateurs devoted to attacking the game on the basis of "straw man" ideology.

Even more hilarious are the guys who (selectively) take Gary Gygax's words and the 1E AD&D core books as "holy writ".

"Unarmed combat system?  No way, that was the BLUMES, man.  Gary would never write something so overly complicated and clunky....wait, what?  Why yes, that is a complete set of Mythus books behind me..."

Quote from: KenHR;450719"Unarmed combat system?  No way, that was the BLUMES, man.  Gary would never write something so overly complicated and clunky....wait, what?  Why yes, that is a complete set of Mythus books behind me..."

LOL Indeed.


I got through half an episode of Land of the Lost, a show I loved as a kid, before realizing that my tastes in entertainment had in fact changed.... A LOT.

Quote from: David Johansen;450637My own feeling is that while those eighties cartoons are dumb, badly written, and goofy they were head and shoulders above what came before.  Scooby Doo and the Archies anyone?

And where and when they could, the writers did the best they could with what they were given.  Taken as a whole, and forgetting the crappy 90% leads to the 10% pure distilled awesome that the fanboys are sure they remember.

And there is good stuff in there if you squint and hold your nose long enough.  It's really not much different than the comics of the sixties in that regard.  The art was poor, the storytelling was chopping but some great and enduring legends like Spiderman's failure to save Gwen Stacy arose from it.

There was a lot of crap (and remains a lot of crap) in the annals of Scooby-Do but He-Man, GI Joe and their ilk at their best are nauseatingly worse the Scooby at its best.

Quote from: Professort Zoot;450906There was a lot of crap (and remains a lot of crap) in the annals of Scooby-Do but He-Man, GI Joe and their ilk at their best are nauseatingly worse the Scooby at its best.

Scooby-Do at least had a nugget of an interesting idea to start with (dumbed-down Johnny Quest)... and as a kid I found the stories fairly involving (I eventually lost interest because there were no 'real' spooks to be had).
He-man, GI Joe, Thundercats were just toy marketing schemes from the get go. One farther step down into the cesspool of advertainment.

Quote from: Simlasa;450910He-man, GI Joe, Thundercats were just toy marketing schemes from the get go. One farther step down into the cesspool of advertainment.

Not to mention Thundercats sowed the seed for an entire generation of furries.

Frankly I think all children's cartoons in the 80's were crap until Disney hit the scene with things like Duck Tales, which I can still watch and be entertained. And the fact that the Transformers movies can pull in millions without much of a change from their cartoon relatives makes me sad and hungry.

And I have to defend Land of the Lost. Most of Sid & Marty Kroft's stuff was too insipid for me, but Land of the Lost can still manage to hold my attention, at least until the third season. Very few shows can boast having Ben Bova, Larry Niven, Walter Koenig, and Theodore Sturgeon in their writing credits. In fact, it was probably the most intelligent and mature show I can remember watching as a kid.

Anyway, the kind of naked I think we've lost at this point is the raw, intimate, honesty that use to exist. Sure it wasn't always pretty... actually, it was rarely pretty, but the rawness had value in itself. These days I think a lot of entertainment in inherently dishonest and avoidant. In fact, I even think some people use transgressive displays to avoid the truth rather than pursue it.

But man, at least the cartoons are SO much better now. Batman, JLU, X-Men Evolution, Dilbert, Clerks, South Park, Cowboy Bebop, Gurren Laggan, even Bleach and Naruto. Yu Gi Oh was surprisingly good for a show based on nothing more than a card game. Regardless, whatever crimes it committed can be forgiven because it led to the Abridged Series.

Quote from: The Butcher;450230It's not that transgression is a bad thing, but the necessity to acknowledge the value of transgressive artists and artwork, has given rise to a subculture of transgression for the sake of transgression, and cheapened its use as an artistic element, as if it were no longer a means to an end, but an end and a value in itself.

Well said. There are times where simply being transgressive to see what's beyond works, but most of the time you end up with meaningless crap devoid of any satire, irony, or implication.

It's easy to be transgressive. Just look at what's culturally acceptable and do the opposite. What's difficult is giving the act some sort of merit.

Quote from: CRKrueger;450916Not to mention Thundercats sowed the seed for an entire generation of furries.

I've always thought Chetara was hot. Her and Felicia from Dark Stalkers (:

Quote from: CRKrueger;450916Not to mention Thundercats sowed the seed for an entire generation of furries.

What's so weird about that image is she's wearing a belt, and there' the outline of what appears to be a high cut leotard seam on both hips... but unless she's wearing a sheer outfit that covers 100% of her body, including her face, then she's not wearing any clothes at all.

Or just a belt and panties. In which case, however, she doesn't have any nipples. Stay classy, 80s!