The people who hate the OSR are claiming Gygax was a money-grubbing grifter because of something he wrote into the rules of the game.
#dnd #ttrpg #osr

Rule 0 is foundational within most ttrpgs, and for good reason. Homebrew, adjudication of edge cases, creating differentiated new monsters, adapting the rules to fit a different setting or premise, making consistent rulings as needed to flesh out unforeseen scenarios, and pretty much any degree of rules flexibility or customization at all relies on it being in play to some extent. It's sad but not surprising that they'd go after Gygax on this, though, given the cultish devotion to RAW as interpreted by their leader and not a table's GM/group.

I don't think many people will be stupid enough to listen to their take, however, and those within that community who do will effectively self-sabotage their games, which is perhaps the silver lining.

As a separate thing, everybody with a hatred for the OSR seems to love to hate on Gygax. The left especially, calling him all sorts of things despite a lack of any tangible evidence that I have seen posted about him as a person, as opposed to their interpretation of his products. Now the alt-right(?) seems like it's planning on joining in on that.

I think this does connect to the whole identitarian mindset, in the sense of ethnic clientelism and identity politics/pandering being something those core demographics seem to like seeing. I don't think Gygax was the racist/misogynist/whatever-the-fuck that either group now wants him to be. So they try to either nitpick his work for evidence of wrongdoing (left), personality flaws (alt-right), or nitpick it for evidence that confirms the view of him they want desperately to be true, but which in all likelihood isn't.

For a while there, Jeffro's cult used to worship Gygax, until some people pointed out that Jeffro's own ideas were contradicted by Gygax. From that moment on, his place in the cult pantheon started to plummet, to the point that now they think he was just a greedy guy who wanted to make money and thus encouraged people to disagree with Jeffro 40+ years before anyone knew who Jeffro was.

I'm very curious about his "cult of RAW" thing.

The DMG 1e, RAW, supports:
- Ignoring random encounters if PCs do not "deserve".
- Ignoring dice rolls altogether, with parsimony.
- Saving PCs from death (unconsciousness or maiming instead) if they had bad luck.

Also encourages/suggests/implies:

- A big, epic metaplot for all campaigns.
- First few levels being for newbies only.
- Dealing with NPCs should be irritating.

Is that what they are preaching? Or should we rule 0 the parts of AD&D we don't like?

And Gygax didn't play RAW AFAICT, kept creating new games and rules to the end...

The PREFACE says:

PREFACE

What follows herein is strictly for the eyes of you, the campaign referee. As the creator and ultimate authority in your respective game, this work is written as one Dungeon Master equal to another. Pronouncements there may be, but they are not from "on high" as respects your game. Dictums are given for the sake of the game only, for if ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is to survive and grow, it must have some degree of uniformity, a familiarity of method and procedure from campaign to campaign within the whole.

Then he mentions some boundaries (nearly "non-existing" in some cases), so is hard to interpret this is any extreme way - it doesn't preach RW at all costs nor does it say you can do whatever you want.

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 01, 2023, 05:17:08 PM
I don't think many people will be stupid enough to listen to their take, however, and those within that community who do will effectively self-sabotage their games, which is perhaps the silver lining.

You sorely underestimate just how virulent this mental disease is.

50 years from now we will still be hearing some moron quoting how "Gygax was a Gwifter!" same as there are a decade plus later idiots quoting Gygax was a racist and misogynist and all that. Moreso because the hatemongers at 4chan and Something Awful and other hate sites keep spreading the lies and egging people on.

Quote from: Omega on December 02, 2023, 10:33:10 AM

Quote from: KindaMeh on December 01, 2023, 05:17:08 PM
I don't think many people will be stupid enough to listen to their take, however, and those within that community who do will effectively self-sabotage their games, which is perhaps the silver lining.

You sorely underestimate just how virulent this mental disease is.

50 years from now we will still be hearing some moron quoting how "Gygax was a Gwifter!" same as there are a decade plus later idiots quoting Gygax was a racist and misogynist and all that. Moreso because the hatemongers at 4chan and Something Awful and other hate sites keep spreading the lies and egging people on.

Hey, we aren't hate mongers.  We just help people learn new features of their iPhones.

Now if the black guys on 4chan want to LARP and give each other a hard time, who are we to say what's acceptable in their culture.

I have never heard of this Jeffro idiot and am thankful for that. I sometimes wonder if I have missed anything important over the years never having had any social media accounts, and then I hear about this and realize the answer is no.

Sounds like a classic case of projection.

Grifter has joined the long and ever-growing list of terms that have lost all meaning from misuse and overuse.  It just means person I don't like.  That's why they can never explain exactly what the grift is. 

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2023, 07:32:44 PM40+ years before anyone knew who Jeffro was.

I still don't know who Jeffro is. If watching your video is going to inform me, then I'm afraid I'll have to pass.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron on December 03, 2023, 02:47:09 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2023, 07:32:44 PM40+ years before anyone knew who Jeffro was.

I still don't know who Jeffro is. If watching your video is going to inform me, then I'm afraid I'll have to pass.

Well, I can't quite blame you.

I actually thought most of the OSR hated Gygax, which is why they don't like 1e in favor of the purer Arnesonian 0e or the non-Gygax B/X or Holmes.

Quote from: JeremyR on December 03, 2023, 07:48:05 PM
I actually thought most of the OSR hated Gygax, which is why they don't like 1e in favor of the purer Arnesonian 0e or the non-Gygax B/X or Holmes.

Huh? Just because something wasn't written in pure Gygaxian prose doesn't mean he had no influence. Gygax approved both Holmes and B/X. It isn't like they were produced behind his back or anything. The first edition published without his hand in it was 2nd edition. I wouldn't say the OSR population as a whole hate Gygax at all. The reason many in the OSR gravitate to games based more on B/X or OD&D is that they realize that AD&D, while being a tremendous reference work (especially at the time), was not written for sustained campaign play. It was created for tournament play as a D&D standard to use for those tournaments, and as a reference work for DMs to use parts of as they pleased. Some people do actually use AD&D to run campaigns and it is certainly possible. Gary's own table was a lot more loosey goosey than AD&D. A lot of DMs simply cobble together bits of whatever work best for their campaign and that is how it should be.

Gygax was a money-driven man, and we're all better off for it.  He took other people's ideas and made them marketable.  That, and that above all else, is what he contributed to the hobby.  Did he "invent" D&D?  Almost certainly not.  There are a lot of prior art examples.  But, he did invent making money off of D&D, and that's necessary for a thing to survive in the marketplace.

As mentioned on the YouTube discussion, Dave felt Gary wrote that book to screw him out of royalties and sued Gary in 79.  They settled out of court, so Gary was never vindicated of this charge.  Make of that what you will.

He's no god.  He was greedy.  He took and used other people's ideas without much modification.  He did design work to make these weird things fit together.  We benefited from what he did and can be grateful.  All these can be true at the same time.