Quote from: Omega;11167081: Only until they decide on the NEW TRUTH!

2: Your keys are behind the couch with your left sock playing FATAL. :eek:

1. So long as we're making stuff up, I have it on good authority that Gygax was a wizard while Arneson was a wild magic sorcerer. D&D wasn't actually created by either of them, it was just a monstrosity that leaked through from another reality when they fucked up their Everlasting Beer Cornucopia ritual. :cool:

2. Well, that certainly explains all these oddly-shaped protein stains! :eek:

Quote from: Antiquation!;1116710D&D wasn't actually created by either of them, it was just a monstrosity that leaked through from another reality

Most convincing argument on this subject to date.

Quote from: Brendan;1116712Most convincing argument on this subject to date.

Buahaha! The power of the narrative is mine now, all mine! Now I get why this gives the danger hairs such a kick...

One of the things that I find amazing is the reaction of people, especially younger people, to the original D&D players and the very early groups. Earlier in this thread I stated my objections to the actions and conduct of the moderators and admins of other old school D&D forums and message boards including Murkill, the 0D&D 74' Proboards, and Dragonsfoot. To be sure, these administrators and mods may have been around since the early days of gaming just like many of us early RPG players, but now, in time, they are actively and arbitrarily deleted the content and memories of the people who have participated with them for many years. Such conduct is a great loss to our hobby, both in the lore of the early days, and in maintaining accurate records of what actually happened.

My newest case in point, a thread started over on the 0D&D Proboards just two days ago. Probably around January 6th, or maybe sometime sooner, they are going to delete or remove public access to Mike Mornard's subforum over there. They say he wants to close his account and delete all of his posts, mostly over a disagreement with uh, another member of the board. I'll quote Rafael here...

"We assume that he was displeased with having recently received a temp-ban for an "ad hominem"-attack against another fellow user, an offense that, by itself, usually wouldn't have been worth more than a light tap on the nose. However, in our internal, ongoing conversation with Gronan, it marked the last in a long series of incidents where we had had to admonish him because of his continued - and increasing - hostile, condescending and even outright hysteric behavior towards other members of this community."

You can read this thread for yourself over here;
http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/13846/subforum-closing-save-content

It is time to set the record straight on this. Us folks from the original days of RPG gaming are not inherently hostile, we are not condescending. If I truly were condescending, I wouldn't even bother posting about this on this forum, however I believe there are older gamers, as well as younger gamers who really do want to know more about what gaming was actually like in the early days of D&D, and so will continue to post here so long as the admins and mods welcome our contributions. We are certainly not hysteric in either our behavior, ...or our conduct. ...In fact, quite the contrary, the vast majority of us are good-hearted, and kind, and really just want everyone to enjoy the games that we play, and run. It has been that way since the first days of D&D.

We respond appropriately, ...and with the correct attitude I would add, ...towards people that for no good reason, are hostile, or otherwise disrespectful to us. Most of us original D&D players and Game Masters reside in the United States, where despite the efforts of our corrupt and rotting media, the average American still supports Liberty and Justice, ...for all. For everyone. We work hard to ensure all people are welcome to play our games, and we do our best, to run our games, as neutral arbiters, making the best possible call on unclear rules with an eye towards ensuring a just and fair result for all of the players at our table. We haven't stopped doing that since the first days of RPG gaming. There are times we may make an incorrect, bad, or unbalanced ruling, If you can show us clearly why such a ruling is unfair, It is virtually a certainty that we will proceed in the future by modifying our judgement to accommodate your request, or even reversing our rulings at the gaming table if it is warranted. Same deal with a discussion forum. We actually do want everyone to enjoy playing our games.

What is actually happening though, on the other message forums and boards, is that the original gamers and game masters are in fact being censored, and the admins and mods on the other boards are working to minimize the influence and reach of the original players and gamemasters, just because they don't like what they are hearing. I take issue with that. At least Finarvyn has posted there in the most recent thread objecting to that, so kudos to him for properly supporting old school gaming. Their history of censorship over on the 0D&D 74' ProBoards continues though, and they maintain entire sections of their boards privately, so that any visitors can't even see whether they are properly maintaining the history the history of RPGs, and they are concealing evidence of their actual conduct on the forums. I take issue with all of that, and call them out here to be accountable. If they truly respected the original gamers, gamemasters, and their contributions to role-playing, they would not only restore the concealed content so that everyone could share and comment, but would endeavor to preserve that content so that future generations could also see, share, and comment. That is democracy. That is freedom. and that is Justice for all. Also it is very good for gamers to know the complete history of gaming, not just what a few gatekeepers decide what is important.

Once again, the role of admins and moderators on original RPG message boards should be to prevent crime and fraud, to maintain a neutral stance as an information provider, and to ensure that everyone has the freedom to speak about the games they want, in the manner that they want, without any unwarranted interference. Let the readers and participants decide for themselves what the truth is, anything else is just politics, or providing an inaccurate history of gaming and gamers with a skewed perspective offering a false narrative in place of the entire and true real one.

Just in case they try to conceal their latest good behavior, misbehavior, and misdeeds over on the ProBoards, I have thoughtfully screen-shotted proof of my allegations, which I will provide here as evidence for our dear readers to decide, and will also maintain in a private archive, that I will make available to anyone upon request.

In the next year, I'll be increasing my postings on my own gaming website as well, and hereby offer an open invitation to original gamers and gamemasters to contribute articles, and narratives, about the early history of RPG's and D&D, and will work towards accurately maintaining that history over on my website.

Original Post on the 0D&D Proboard's outlining their incorrect logic and reasoning supporting their "excommunication and censure" of Michael Mornard, one of the original D&D Players in Gary Gygax's D&D campaign.
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Finarvyn's correct, and just, objection to this decision.
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Anonymous attempt to access some of the early history of D&D that is maintained over on the 0D&D 74' Proboards. Blocked due to censorship. i.e. "only the clean and properly annointed followers of the 0D&D 74' Proboard are allowed to see the 'true' (...and altered) history of OD&D".
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Quote from: GameDaddy;1116603It's either that, or dealing with these mmm... rather dense folks here.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1117236It is time to set the record straight on this. Us folks from the original days of RPG gaming are not inherently hostile, we are not condescending.

Uh huh.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1117236One of the things that I find amazing is the reaction of people, especially younger people, to the original D&D players and the very early groups. Earlier in this thread I stated my objections to the actions and conduct of the moderators and admins of other old school D&D forums and message boards including Murkill, the 0D&D 74' Proboards, and Dragonsfoot. To be sure, these administrators and mods may have been around since the early days of gaming just like many of us early RPG players, but now, in time, they are actively and arbitrarily deleted the content and memories of the people who have participated with them for many years. Such conduct is a great loss to our hobby, both in the lore of the early days, and in maintaining accurate records of what actually happened.

It's bad enough that you have to lie about The Ruins of Murkhill with your unfounded censorship claims, but you add insult to injury by grouping us with Dragonsfoot and ODD74 who block us because we defend the early RPG players and defend original school gaming. Michael Mornard got his panties in a bunch and rage quit for unknown reasons, but we have not deleted any of his stuff.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1117236My newest case in point, a thread started over on the 0D&D Proboards just two days ago. Probably around January 6th, or maybe sometime sooner, they are going to delete or remove public access to Mike Mornard's subforum over there. They say he wants to close his account and delete all of his posts, mostly over a disagreement with uh, another member of the board. I'll quote Rafael here...

"We assume that he was displeased with having recently received a temp-ban for an "ad hominem"-attack against another fellow user, an offense that, by itself, usually wouldn't have been worth more than a light tap on the nose. However, in our internal, ongoing conversation with Gronan, it marked the last in a long series of incidents where we had had to admonish him because of his continued - and increasing - hostile, condescending and even outright hysteric behavior towards other members of this community."

We (speaking as the Admin) at The Ruins think deleting Michael sub-forum is asinine, but the same ass posting that proposal is the same ass that deleted a whole subforum at ODD74 called "Ye Olde" and several hundred posts by The Perilous Dreamer. Yep, we have many  reasons to detest censorship. For about two years TPD's signature at ODD74 had the links altered from .com to .cm so they would not work, until they finally deleted the signature altogether. There are many things like this that people come and tell us about.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1117236What is actually happening though, on the other message forums and boards, is that the original gamers and game masters are in fact being censored, and the admins and mods on the other boards are working to minimize the influence and reach of the original players and gamemasters, just because they don't like what they are hearing.

Except none of that is happening at The Ruins. We are ostracized by the Dragonsfoots and the ODD74s because we are working to maximize the influence and reach of original players and referees and they definitely don't like it when they hear us do that. Those sites are all about taking playstyles that came along at the end of the 70s and early 80s and pretending that those are the way things were in the 1970-1975 era.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1117236In the next year, I'll be increasing my postings on my own gaming website as well, and hereby offer an open invitation to original gamers and gamemasters to contribute articles, and narratives, about the early history of RPG's and D&D, and will work towards accurately maintaining that history over on my website.

We (speaking as the Admin) at The Ruins, hope that you follow through on this, because we (again speaking as the Admin) look forward to reading everything posted.

QuoteFinarvyn's correct, and just, objection to this decision.

Yep, Finarvyn is just as much a victim in all of this as the rest of us. His good name has been dragged through the mud by the actions of the paranoid Dummkopf he is saddled with.

Oh and the whole thing about a huge portion of their forum not being available to read unless you are a member and having privacy invading requirements for joining (send us proof of you IRL identity) is for the sole purpose of keeping TPD from being able to read any of it. The whole hidden information thing was imported from The Comeback Inn where a huge portion of their site is hidden from non-member and unapproved members. Yep, the paranoid Dummkopf requires members to request permission to be approved to read huge portions of The Comeback Inn. Also people can't just join ODD74 to read stuff either. A few years back ODD74 deleted over 1200 accounts IIRC that had 0-10 posts.  In a thread titled "Why join but not post" Finarvyn grumps about people who don't post, http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/2420/why-join-post back in 2009. At that time he figured if you don't post why join, just lurk as a non-member. So a few years later he escalated to just deleting a ton of accounts, again instigated and encouraged by the paranoid Dummkopf. Of course now you can't just lurk and read, you have to be a member to read what they now call premium content.

Oh and one other thing. One of the guys who helped build The Ruins and was a global mod there, he left and became a mod at ODD74. You know why he left, he left because he thought Michael Mornard and Rob Kuntz were too rude and he wanted them slapped down and put in their place and told to play nice and TPD would not do that. When I became the Admin and took over the Admin account, I gained access to all the PMs that TPD had to deal with. Let me give you one example, TPD received dozens of pms complaining about Michael Mornard, TPD spent pages and pages of typing explaining to people that they should ignore a lot of what Micheal says that "hurts their feelings" because Michael, like TPD, is in considerable pain and discomfort everyday of his life and that accounts for a lot of his grumpiness and knowing that you should be able to just ignore the snark. I am not nearly as long suffering as TPD.

*We (speaking as the Admin) means speaking for the whole 5 member mod team. That applies to every "we" I have used above.

Im starting to wonder if those other boards, Dragonsfoot and ODD74, have been, or are in the process of, being infiltrated by that storygamer/Forge/GNS/Swine cult that has been trying to edit the history of RPGs to suit their warped agenda. The hydra has many heads indeed.

As for Mike getting a ban for repeated infractions. How is that in any way surprising? He DOES come across as condescending and hostile at times. Sometimes deservedly so. But he also has a very bad tendency to push his version of "one true way"ism which is demonstrably off kilter - and he knows it! He knows it because he has bitched incessantly about the very fact that right out the gate people started playing D&D in every imaginable way once it hit the shelves! In this case apparently magnified by him posting over on a fora that is getting gradually hostile to the idea of their fantasy bubble of how D&D was being broke.

BGG would have banned him in record time.

Quote from: Omega;1117254Im starting to wonder if those other boards, Dragonsfoot and ODD74, have been, or are in the process of, being infiltrated by that storygamer/Forge/GNS/Swine cult that has been trying to edit the history of RPGs to suit their warped agenda. The hydra has many heads indeed.

Um, no.  

I'm surprised you don't recognize the royal we being used in this very thread.  Unless you think its normal that some boards have a limitless stream of water-carrying posters willing to write walls of text to plead the case of their founders.

As for the People Who Played With Gary and Dave - some of them expect some sort of apostolic succession.  And for the very narrow purpose of "what was playing with those guys like/history you saw", that's probably appropriate.  But not so much for "my opinion on any gaming subject in general should be received with reverence regardless of delivery".  Tens or hundreds of thousands of gamers now have the proverbial 10,000 hours of practice creating and running games.  The handful of years headstart these guys received is no longer a gulf that makes their observations about gaming "in general" more useful than anyone else's.  Some really have a hard time with people treating them like anyone else who's insulting.

Quote from: Omega;1117254I'm starting to wonder if those other boards, Dragonsfoot and ODD74, have been, or are in the process of, being infiltrated by that storygamer/Forge/GNS/Swine/SJW cult that has been trying to edit the history of RPGs to suit their warped agenda. The hydra has many heads indeed..

I fixed it for you and the answer is yes.

Quote from: Omega;1117254As for Mike getting a ban for repeated infractions. How is that in any way surprising? He DOES come across as condescending and hostile at times. Sometimes deservedly so. But he also has a very bad tendency to push his version of "one true way"ism which is demonstrably off kilter - and he knows it! He knows it because he has bitched incessantly about the very fact that right out the gate people started playing D&D in every imaginable way once it hit the shelves! In this case apparently magnified by him posting over on a fora that is getting gradually hostile to the idea of their fantasy bubble of how D&D was being broke.

Two things, one, Mike is in constant pain, many of us are of the opinion that he would be less difficult if that were not the case and two, Arnesonian School Gaming was its own style, Arneson did not believe that D&D could be broke and he (and initially Gygax) were thrilled that D&D was played every imaginable way once it hit the shelves, that was what was supposed to happen and that is what Mike (and some others) forgets. But that does not change the fact that some of us want to talk about Arnesonian School Gaming and not the 1000 other ways to play D&D. Some of us are using Arnesonian School Gaming now to replace old school gaming since that term is so diluted it has lost all useful meaning. I was introduced to the change a few hours ago, but it makes imminent sense to me. The discussion of Arnesonian School Gaming is not welcome at Dragonsfoot or ODD74.

Quote from: EOTB;1117263As for the People Who Played With Gary and Dave - some of them expect some sort of apostolic succession.  And for the very narrow purpose of "what was playing with those guys like/history you saw", that's probably appropriate.  But not so much for "my opinion on any gaming subject in general should be received with reverence regardless of delivery".  Tens or hundreds of thousands of gamers now have the proverbial 10,000 hours of practice creating and running games.  The handful of years headstart these guys received is no longer a gulf that makes their observations about gaming "in general" more useful than anyone else's.  Some really have a hard time with people treating them like anyone else who's insulting.

Strip out the module users and you are left with the tens or hundreds (not thousands) of gamers who have the proverbial 10,000 hours of practice creating (unique home brew game worlds) and running games in those worlds. So yes, those like Jim Ward, Rob Kuntz, Jeff Berry, Michael Mornard and others who played with Gary, Dave, Wesely and Barker do deserve special treatment and consideration where others do not. There is a big gulf between those from the early days and those from after AD&D came on the scene. Between those two groups are the small group of those who picked D&D up in those early years and learned it on their own without any connection to Gary or Dave or their circles. They do not deserve special treatment, but neither do they deserve hostility from the later group.

Quote from: ElBorak;1117264I fixed it for you and the answer is yes.

and that is what Mike (and some others) forgets. But that does not change the fact that some of us want to talk about Arnesonian School Gaming and not the 1000 other ways to play D&D. Some of us are using Arnesonian School Gaming now to replace old school gaming since that term is so diluted it has lost all useful meaning. I was introduced to the change a few hours ago, but it makes imminent sense to me. The discussion of Arnesonian School Gaming is not welcome at Dragonsfoot or ODD74.

1: There is that. But wasnt sure if the SJW crowd were actually digging into OD&D or just focused on AD&D and their fake list of Gary's "sins".

2: "old school" is a term I despise along with "murderhobo" as examples of the derogatory labels storygamers and their ilk love to apply to anything they dissapprove of. It never had any meaning to begin with as there never was a "new school" as everything was being tried right out the gate.

I think more apt is to want to talk about the playstyles that developed from the early groups. The differences in DMing styles between Arneson, Gygax, etc. Mike himself has noted on multiple occasions how even Gary and Dave alone had differing styles. The players too. All accounts show that they were often approaching things in different ways even then.

Quote from: ElBorak;1117251It's bad enough that you have to lie about The Ruins of Murkhill with your unfounded censorship claims, but you add insult to injury by grouping us with Dragonsfoot and ODD74 who block us because we defend the early RPG players and defend original school gaming. Michael Mornard got his panties in a bunch and rage quit for unknown reasons, but we have not deleted any of his stuff.

Ehh? My claim to censorship from Murkhill is valid, You claimed not to delete the posts but rather "moved" them instead. If they are moved to a place that may be logically consistent for you all, however is a place that is not easily located on the subforums, how is that, in any way, ...not censoring original posts? I still believe there are missing posts as well that were once on Murkhill forums from both Rob Kuntz's forum, as well as the Wilderlands forums there, because I remember posting more, and this includes discussions that both me and Rob participated in, and in the wilderlands discussions. He noticed this as well with his posts.  I believe that is one of the reasons he stopped posting there, because he rightfully felt there were mods there that were modifying the placement of forums, and moving posts, in a quite unethical manner. Also some of the posts that are gone, ...may have been from before you were a mod there, so you wouldn't have seen the originals.  

What I do know for sure is that I was permabanned from the 0D&D 74' Proboards, and my posts were moved and/or deleted over on Murkhill. Tell me how I should feel when all of this happens on forums that are supposed to specifically support original Dungeons and Dragons and claims to maintain the original history of RPG's? If those were your posts, you'd be a bit miffed, perhaps even hostile as well, ehh?

As to Michael Mornard, everyone claims he is hostile or condescending, yet my personal experience in this regards differs remarkably from what is claimed online, My experience differs in my online correspondence with him, here, over on the 0D&D boards, over on Dragonsfoot, over on Murkhill, in private emails, and directly when I meet him during gaming at GaryCon every year. I find he has character, his posts are colorful, and may from time-to-time contain unorthodox language, however have never felt that he was deliberately trying to damage, distort, or conceal the knowledge and early lore of Dungeons and Dragons and roleplaying in general. Can you explain why our views diverge so much regarding this, because I can't? I can only go by what I know from talking in person with him, and in corresponding with him.

As to the original D&D playstyle as it evolved from 1970-1975, before the 0D&D rules were published, each group had its' own playstyle that evolved directly as a result of genesis within the groups where they made their own decisions within the group how to best intrepret and play the game. Even after the publication of the little brown books (...and the whitebooks, which we first saw in 1977 by the way. My first D&D boxed set was 3rd printing of the little brown books, which I traded for a 4th edition whitebookset, a copy of the JG Ready Ref Sheets, a Bluebox Holmes D&D basic set, and a handful of polyhedral dice, even back in 1977 the first edition of D&D was considered a collectors item. The very first D&D games I played were exclusively using wooden 3d6 that were included in the lbb), even after the publication of D&D and the lbb, different playstyles evolved based on rules that were adopted by local gaming clubs. I have the Caltech Warlock rules, as well as first edition copies of the Princeton University D&D Club rules. I wanted to get a copy of the Notre Dame D&D rules (and yes they had a D&D Variant too!), but found that the Alumni who had played original D&D were no longer sponsoring the RPG club up there. That I learned when I traveled up to Notre Dame  in 2011 to run original D&D games for the University RPG Club there. PM me if you want a link to where you might be able to find a copy of Warlock, The Caltech D&D rules, or the Princeton D&D Club original D&D rules.

Our Colorado Group evolved our own play style from 1977 to 1979, and pretty much adopted rules from both the White 74' Bookset as well as Judges Guild to run D&D games in our homes and at Ghengis Con and Tacticon in the winter. We had a few home rules, but never published our own D&D houserules.

To say there was One True Way(tm) of playing D&D, even in 1974, would be a fallacy, considering all the evidence that is easily available, that contradicts that statement. For any message board or forum to claim otherwise, even privately, is a false narrative, and a false history, of how Dungeons and Dragons specifically, and Roleplaying Games in general, evolved.

Also, in terms of schools of D&D, My original GM taught me to play using the Arnesonian School as that is being referred in this discussion, and it remains my favorite style of play, both as a player and a GM.

Quote from: ElBorak;1117270So yes, those like Jim Ward, Rob Kuntz, Jeff Berry, Michael Mornard and others who played with Gary, Dave, Wesely and Barker do deserve special treatment and consideration where others do not.

:rolleyes:

Could we knock it off with the fellation?

From an academic and historical standpoint, I'm sure that what these people wrote, did, and thought, is interesting. Some of it may even be informative. We should try to preserve that information, because history is important.

But they don't get "special treatment." They're not saints. They were just the first neckbeards playing elf-games in their basements.

Quote from: Omega;11172721: There is that. But wasnt sure if the SJW crowd were actually digging into OD&D or just focused on AD&D and their fake list of Gary's "sins".

2: "old school" is a term I despise along with "murderhobo" as examples of the derogatory labels storygamers and their ilk love to apply to anything they dissapprove of. It never has any meaning to gebin with as there never was a "new school" as everything was being tried right out the gate.

I think more apt is to want to talk about the playstyles that developed from the early groups. The differences in DMing styles between Arneson, Gygax, etc. Mike himself has noted on multiple occasions how even Gary and Dave alone had differing styles. The players too. All accounts show that they were often approaching things in different ways even then.

The SJWs are mainly focused on AD&D and their fake list of Gary's "sins". Their involvement in OD&D is more tangential and focused on who is allowed to be part of the in crowd and who are the unwashed.

The fiction out there right now (popular and mainstream) is that both pre- and early D&D were all about the "murderhobo" style and they preach that as THE ONE TRUE WAY. Where the truth is that the "murderhobo" style is very popular with teenage boys and immature adults, that is not a criticism just the facts. Some people enjoy that style of gaming and nothing wrong with that.

Gary himself noted that he and Dave did things completely differently and that is why he enjoyed playing in Dave's game.

Yes, you are correct that right out of the gate everything was being tried, with one exception. You see right out of the gate it was all DIY and MIY, then came modules and a lot of the DIY and MIY was lost in the gaming community at large. That is in my opinion the difference between old school and new school. Old School, everything is tried. New School, let's just play this module. That is not a value judgement, just an observation.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;1117275:rolleyes:

Could we knock it off with the fellation?

From an academic and historical standpoint, I'm sure that what these people wrote, did, and thought, is interesting. Some of it may even be informative. We should try to preserve that information, because history is important.

But they don't get "special treatment." They're not saints. They were just the first neckbeards playing elf-games in their basements.

You may be gay, but I am not, so that is not what I am doing, I was stating the facts. And neckbeards is an insult that the ignorant use to devalue anything we older folks say.