Quote from: Melan;637423ostap bender: Welcome! Now there is a username for this discussion!

thank you and yes, i have a soft spot in my heart for scoundrels and rogues. that said i really think that james is not either

he simply had very high profile nervous breakdown. no one invests so much energy into building this kind of public persona and then just does the vanishing act. also, i think symptoms were on his blog for some time. maybe even from the beginning.

btw, his blog was mostly well written and gateway drug for people getting involved into OSR community.

The most annoying thing about James to me was his opportunistic wishing (begging) for games, modules, etc. that he didn't own. He'd post something like "I saw X in a store 30 years ago and wish I had it". Then a couple days later, he would say. "Thanks to John Doe, I now have that copy of X".

Quote from: Endless Flight;637443The most annoying thing about James to me was his opportunistic wishing (begging) for games, modules, etc. that he didn't own. He'd post something like "I saw X in a store 30 years ago and wish I had it". Then a couple days later, he would say. "Thanks to John Doe, I now have that copy of X".

I don't know the bloke from Adam, but that is annoying. Someone i worked with was like that.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;637434He was a convert, and like many converts, he became a zealot and then a demagogue. I don't doubt for a moment that he really learned to enjoy playing pre-3e D&D but when he talks about 'what it was like in the old days,' it's mostly second-hand experience passed through the lens of his convert's zeal. He lacked original experience, and it showed to some of those of who were, in fact, in the Blue Bottle Saloon in Wichita the night English Bob killed ol' Corky Corcoran. It's half-assed pop history passed off as wisdom.

While I agree with some of his articles being "inane", he did learn D&D from the 1st Basic Set (from 1977), and there's enough written there to show that he was an adolescent and played D&D in the old days.  He probably was just like many of the people who became fond of the older versions of the game in the past decade.

The difference is--either by skill, luck, or a combination of both, he became one of the most popular bloggers on the subject.  This lead him to freelance assignments for Escapist and WoTC, so I certainly can't think he's has no talent for this.

--Double Post--

Why can't you guys look on the bright side?

Quote from: ostap bender;637435btw, his blog was mostly well written and gateway drug for people getting involved into OSR community.

Yeah this ftmp.  Grognardia was the first OSR blog I became aware of and while I found other blogs later that were "better" in some sense, I never found JMal particularly offensive.  The venomous anger he seems to arouse in some of the OD&D guys who "really were there" has always puzzled me.  I mean its not really his fault his blog became as popular as it did nor is it his fault he wasn't already a greying grognard in 1979.  His experience with D&D pretty much echoed my own in that I played the game in the early 80's and then left it behind for a time and got rid of a bunch of stuff I wish I'd kept.  

This whole Dwimmermount thing is a mess obviously and there's little chance JM is ever going to undo the damage done, but theres a fair bit of revisionist history of the "A HA! I told you so! Knew it all along!" sort going on that isn't particularly relevant...

Quote from: JRT;637447He did learn D&D from the 1st Basic Set (from 1977), and there's enough written there to show that he was an adolescent and played D&D in the old days.

From what he wrote on his blog, he started playing D&D in 1979 and then moved on within a few years to other games because he didn't like D&D.

His interest in and passion for early D&D was something acquired much later.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;637453His experience with D&D pretty much echoed my own in that I played the game in the early 80's and then left it behind for a time and got rid of a bunch of stuff I wish I'd kept.

Yep, you were the core audience that made him the 'icon' that he became.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;637456Yep, you were the core audience that made him the 'icon' that he became.

Gee, sorry....I guess.

I always thought of him more as a "guy blogging about his hobby" rather than an icon though...

Quote from: trechriron;637300Don't care. I was not suggesting a "universal experience" only my experience.

The entire thesis of your post was that your experience was universal, that everyone was always back in a couple weeks, and based on that experience you were calling bullshit on someone else who claimed to have a different experience.  You even put it in all caps, and then repeated it in all caps with periods between the words to re-emphasize it.  And now you're pretending all you were saying is it was just your experience?

Somehow you've managed to sound like a douchebag, while calling someone else a douchebag.  Congratulations, that was a difficult feat to accomplish.

Quote from: laurel&hardy;637452Why can't you guys look on the bright side?

Too much D&D has turned us all into Satanists.
There is no bright side for a roleplayer, only the eternal torment of Hades to look forward to.

\

Quote from: laurel&hardy;637452Why can't you guys look on the bright side?

What is the bright side, to you?

Quote from: Benoist;637475What is the bright side, to you?

http://youtu.be/WoaktW-Lu38

Quote from: Mistwell;637465Somehow you've managed to sound like a douchebag, while calling someone else a douchebag.  Congratulations, that was a difficult feat to accomplish.

And yet you manage it on a regular basis....

Kudos?

I knew JMal wasn't particularly popular, but I am kind of surprised at the vociferous hate he's earned from several posters on this and the other thread. I mean, he could be insufferable at times, but I considered him fairly harmless. Now it's like he's giving Ron Edwards a run for his money as our little forum's Emanuel Goldstein du jour.

And now with the Dwimmermount debacle. I wouldn't say he's earned it, but he's catastrophically mismanaged the project. I don't know of a job that allows you to go incommunicado for three months for whatever reason. Even a dying father, which sucks big time. I don't want to downplay how devastating it is to lose a loved one, just pointing out that this shit will get you fired from a "real" job.

I kind of hope that James had a massive nervous breeakdown and is heavily medicated in a mental hospital somewhere because that's the sort of thing I figure would adequately explain his disappearing from the face of the Earth. It's kind of sick but explains things without recurring to "James is a scam" or "James is grossly incompetent".

And those of you who think Autarch is being "shifty" or "sneaky" or whatever... well, fuck you. Tavis could've rang up his lawyer and sue the shit out of James (who probably wouldn't even show up in court) and deprive a man whose (likely uninsured) father is dying of money he likely desperately needs. He's bending over backwards not only to support the funders, but also to protect someone who, for all his failings, is probably on some pretty dire straits right now. It could run Autarch to the ground but he's holding back and being the better man. A class act to the end.