More on WFRP/Dancey and a letter to Jack Spencer

[RPGPundit]

Let me add a few comments about the whole Ryan Dancey review thing.

First, his commentary on the setting was absolutely spot on. One of the most remarkable things about the WFRP game is the setting, which manages to capture the feel of a fantasy-version of Europe better than any other game I've seen.  And not even a medieval Europe!  Rather, the Europe it chooses to focus on is the 16th-17th century Europe which I have always found the most fascinating of periods.
 
The key to capturing the mood of this era is what Ryan describes as the "trust no one" brand proposition.  The century of Europe's religious wars was an era that could not be accurately captured without that kind of paranoia and bitter hatred. WFRP manages to create the stark dualism of the era, the us-vs-them mentality, through its use of Chaos as an all pervading enemy.  So, its very much the era of the devastating religious wars and persecutions, only its Chaos you fight instead of witches, jews or heretics.
 
I will also mention that people have been attacking Ryan, implying that his praise of WFRP was somehow backhanded. I don't think it was. If you recognize that Ryan Dancey is the "D20 man", then you understand the perspective that he was writing from.
 
My buddy Alejo picked it up at once. He commented to me that he'd read my blog, then read the review, then read about two pages of the RPG.net rants before deciding (correctly) that it was going to get pointlessly and endlessly repetitive, consisting of one of the Swine after another screaming about the evils of D20.
 
He told me that his conclusion was that even without really knowing much of the specifics of who Ryan Dancey is, Ryan's intended message was very clear. He was writing to other D20 fans, saying "hey guys, the new edition of WFRP is really excellent, and has a lot of cool stuff that is immediately applicable and easy to convert to the D20 system. Its worth your time to check it out, on the basis of its value for idea-mining alone!".
 
Ryan wasn't telling people it wasn't worth buying, he wasn't telling them to switch to D&D, he was telling people in fact that by having adopted many of the conventions of D20, WFRP was a gaming product that would be of interest and value to D20 fans. Alejo's assesment is right, and so is Ryan's review.
 
And now, without further ado, my special love letter to Jack.
 
Dear Jack Spencer:
 
Thank you for playing. Please be sure to check back with us when your head is no longer lodged firmly between your buttocks.
 
I mean really, I piss my pants with joy every time you non-kosher types freak out about Ryan Dancey, the way they've been calling him "the great satan" over at RPG.net being the latest and one of the best examples of that.  You are all becoming far more shrill even as you become less and less relevant and more and more powerless in the gaming hobby.
 
Your impotent rantings reaffirm my sense of belief in the Magic Deer, the Great Sky Pixie, and all the rest of the celestial muppets, because you serve to remind me of just how pathetically low you gang of humanoids have sunk, to be reduced to whimpering cries on meaningless internet fora, when only six short years ago you stood on the verge of destroying the entire hobby.
 
D20 saved roleplaying, by stopping the likes of you from turning it into an elitist non-entity played by pretentious gits and mismanaged to the point of unmarketability.
 
Finally, while I can't hold a candle to the old Doc, I would like to think that he's out there somewhere chuckling every time one of you pseudo-intellectuals who think he was writing to you (when in fact he despised your sort with every fibre of his being) gets pissed off at the fact that guys like me are here humbly writing on, inspired but without toadying mimicry, and fighting the good fight to stop gonzo journalism from being wholly perverted into a tool of the literary prostitutes and pseudoacademic whores.
 
with all my heart,
and joyously pissing on your spilt bowels,
RPGPundit August 16 2005

[Imperator]

I fully agree with your points about the setting, regarding the emulation that WFRP makes of old Europe. But this...

I don't think it was. If you recognize that Ryan Dancey is the "D20 man", then you understand the perspective that he was writing from.

A deranged perspective? A biased perspective? Both? :rolleyes:

Of course that Dancey is telling D20 fans, 'hey, it's a cool game, check it out.' That's fine and dandy. But he also is making the same lunatic assumptions that you make about D20 influencing games that were designed well before D20 existed.

Your fight with Jack Spencer is only business of yours, of course.