Does anyone here own the newer 4 book set of Designers & Dragons? And if so is it chock full of Social Justice, PC nonsense or is it a fair look at the history of role playing?
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/141206/Designers--Dragons-The-Complete-Hardcover-Set-BUNDLE

I own the original release, the one that is 400+ pages and has the silver embossed text on a black leather cover. It's well done and not much if any SoJus BS in it.

The new 4 book set, 1 for each decade are 400 pages each, so that's ALLOT more history covered, but I don't want to buy them or support Evil Hat (Who is a SoJus publisher) if it's full if PC bullshit. And I know the author "Shannon Applecline" is associated with rpg.net, a den of scum and villainy if there ever was one.

From what I've heard this: https://www.amazon.com/Playing-at-World-Jon-Peterson/dp/0615642047 is better. Some excerpts I read were insanely well-researched.

On the other hand, if you're interested in games other than D&D, isn't it practically the only in-print source?

I grabbed them from the Bundle of Holding, and speaking as the site's resident theocon, I didn't stumble across anything that stood out as obnoxiously left-wing.

Get Playing At the World instead.

Quote from: Daztur;922879From what I've heard this: https://www.amazon.com/Playing-at-World-Jon-Peterson/dp/0615642047 is better. Some excerpts I read were insanely well-researched.

That's true. And yet, it's a bit like comparing apples and oranges.

Playing at the World is an academic look at the "big bang" of the hobby - or rather the events that lead to the big bang, plus the earliest years of TSR.
Designers & Dragons is an account of the histories of all important publishers and game lines after the big bang. Only the first book overlaps the described events.

Buy Playing at the World, read it, compare to the freely available first chapter (TSR) of Designers & Dragons, and decide if you are comfortable with the "simplification" (or rather, summary) of the events. And when reading the rest keep in mind that the histories of FASA, Chaosium, White Wolf, GDW, Dream Pod 9, ... are equally shortened.

Designers & Dragons is quite thorough (I liked it) but not without flaws. The OSR phenomenon was mostly ignored, and the work as a whole is awfully anglo-centric, completely ignoring the happenings around the globe (that started as early as book 2 of the series). Foreign publishers are only included if they had influence on US game lines, like FanPro's Shadowrun stint.
Yes, the hobby was an American invention but it spread everywhere. To really portray the history of the hobby it's important to also look at foreign interpretations of the method of role-playing, and the local "industries" that sprang from them.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;922932The OSR phenomenon was mostly ignored

A while ago the author came by this forum looking to do research on the OSR and was promptly and viciously run out of town...

Quote from: Daztur;922879From what I've heard this: https://www.amazon.com/Playing-at-World-Jon-Peterson/dp/0615642047 is better. Some excerpts I read were insanely well-researched.

He doesn't rely on antedotes and 40 year old memories, he worked hand in hand with the collector community (like at Acaeum) to exactly read and research original newsletters. It may not be perfect but it set the standards by which other works will be judged.

Quote from: TristramEvans;922986A while ago the author came by this forum looking to do research on the OSR and was promptly and viciously run out of town...

People can judge the exchange for themselves
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?32779-Extract-from-my-sentbox

The heart of the debate is over the moderation at rpg.net and spills out from there. The thread started when P&P, one of the authors of Knight and Knave, posted a email he got from Shannon A, which went basically Shannon: I would like some information on OSRIC, P&P: fuck off.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;922932That's true. And yet, it's a bit like comparing apples and oranges.

Playing at the World is an academic look at the "big bang" of the hobby - or rather the events that lead to the big bang, plus the earliest years of TSR.
Designers & Dragons is an account of the histories of all important publishers and game lines after the big bang. Only the first book overlaps the described events.

I have and have read both Playing at the World and all four volumes of Designers & Dragons, and this is a very good summary of the differences between them.

Playing at the World is a study about how the hobby formed. It asks why role-playing games became a thing at all, why were they so heavily slanted towards the fantasy genre, why did they form when and where they did, and why the earliest one(s) developed the specific tropes that it did. To that end, it examines the history of fantasy literature, of board-based war games and role-playing as an activity, of game fandom within the U.S. (and some of Europe), and how these all mixed together. It's an intensive study on the pre-history - rather than the history - of the hobby.

Designers & Dragons, by contrast, studies the history of the hobby. Each book looks at the companies that were formed during that decade, and follows their developments and products released, noting and discussing why they did what they did and made what they made. The books also go for a much more relaxed tone than Playing at the World, having more illustrations, various sidebars, a larger font, etc.

As others have noted, the OSR community doesn't get much love in Designers & Dragons, whereas later decades do give a fair amount of coverage to various indie games. While it's easy to attribute this to personal preference on the author's part, I'm inclined to believe Shannon Appelcline's explanation that - given that he couldn't cover everything - he wanted to focus on companies and games that innovated with regards to what RPGs could do, rather than tried to refine and recreate what had already been done.

Likewise, some people have noted that Shannon showed up here once or twice to ask for information, and was largely rebuffed. I think that's a shame, since I do believe that he's trying to be objective and accurate with what he's encompassing - emphasis on "trying" - and his work is likely to end up being the last word among those who aren't highly active participants in the OSR community. Given that he's the only one likely to write the history book, you'd think people would want to make sure that he got his facts straight.

Having said all of that...I didn't notice any real SocJus issues with Designers & Dragons. Across hundreds and hundreds of pages, there were only one or two times when I thought that he wasn't framing an issue correctly due to personal bias. I can't even remember what those points were now, either.

That said, there's a separate volume to Designers & Dragons called the "Platinum Appendix" that collects a few disparate topics, one of which covers women in games. This - and his overview of the last few years - is where his political biases come much more heavily into play. There he talks about how the hobby is rife with misogyny (I think his overview of 2013 was the one he called "The Year of Misogyny") and is struggling to get better. It's quite groan-inducing, mostly because he holds up a few isolated incidents as being somehow emblematic of the hobby entire, or indicts things like sexy artwork and other non-issues as being woman-hating.

Notwithstanding that appendix, however, I do think that Designers & Dragons is worth your money. I think that Playing at the World deserves it even more, but the two really are targeted at different areas.

For Playing at the World the excerpt I read was about the contributions of women in the early days of the hobby. It was very very thorough.

Quote from: Daztur;923000For Playing at the World the excerpt I read was about the contributions of women in the early days of the hobby. It was very very thorough.

Seems odd that the contribution of women required a dedicated section rather than coming in organically during the telling of the tale...rather patronizing. If I write the history of 1980s Britain, Maggie will be all over it, I don't need a "women were there too!" section...

Thanks for all the feedback and info everyone, I appreciate it.

The four book collection is written very similarly to the single volume.   If you like the single book you'll like the four volume set.

Quote from: estar;922995People can judge the exchange for themselves
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?32779-Extract-from-my-sentbox

The heart of the debate is over the moderation at rpg.net and spills out from there. The thread started when P&P, one of the authors of Knight and Knave, posted a email he got from Shannon A, which went basically Shannon: I would like some information on OSRIC, P&P: fuck off.

On topic: Summary: The owner of TBP asked people TBP mods treated like garbage and banned to help him make money. People treated like garbage told him "no" publicly.

Off topic:
Interesting thread. I registered here 2 months after that thread. I never got red texted at TBP, but I could see the writing on the wall when I saw people getting banned or warned for no reason I could understand. I asked a couple people what was going on and got the explanation "certain topics you aren't allowed to not agree on". (Wording intentional and accurate.) It was a shame because some of the non-mods there were friendly and helpful.

When I read that thread, and Aos mentioned breaking "all the rules" here, I had to think... I'm not aware of any rules here at therpgsite. I'm sure there are some and I read them at some point. But, they don't seem to impact anybody. That's why I like here. At TBP, I had to think about the rules all the time. Here, I can disagree with RPGPundit when I disagree with him, agree with him when I do agree with him, and not have to worry either way.

Quote from: estar;922995People can judge the exchange for themselves
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?32779-Extract-from-my-sentbox

The heart of the debate is over the moderation at rpg.net and spills out from there. The thread started when P&P, one of the authors of Knight and Knave, posted a email he got from Shannon A, which went basically Shannon: I would like some information on OSRIC, P&P: fuck off.

Ah, memories...