Halloween Jack posted:

I know pointing out hypocrisy is meaningless, but it's wild when OSR types go on about "realism" with regard to women with STR 18 or fighters getting to do anything, while they keep making GBS threads out retroclones with ringmail in the equipment list.

Joe Slowboat posted:

So, what is the deal with ringmail?

Lemniscate Blue posted:

"Studded leather" is a similarly ahistorical idea.

HopperUK posted:

I totally understand that everyone has their own version of 'oh no, that broke my immersion' and sometimes it can happen over trivial things, but if dragons and healing potions and magical weapons don't break a person's sense of reality, but powerful women do, then I think those people should examine why that is, and also shut up.

Lemniscate Blue posted:

Some old art depicts mail ("chainmail" although that was never what it was called either) as a field of rings touching each other rather than interlocking, because it's easier to draw and everyone at the time would have known what it meant. This got misinterpreted in the 18th/19th century as a distinct form of armor, but it never really existed as portrayed.

"Studded leather" is a similarly ahistorical idea. It's probably a misinterpretation of brigandine, or jack-of-plates.

EDIT: similarly, "banded mail" is more accurately called "laminar armor". I don't think anyone knows where the hell calling it "banded mail" came from.

Saxophone posted:

I was trying to think of what the TSR nonsense reminded me of and I finally figured it out.

Remember the MMO Wildstar?

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

Wildstar consisted of a shitload of good developers from Blizzard's heyday and also were absolutely not having meltdowns on twitter about how they're not woke.

Kurieg posted:

Right, but the game was built on a foundation of "Things were better back in my day" and had a grognardy developer who made a mathematically impossible fight and mocked the community for not being able to beat it.

Kurieg posted:

Right, but the game was built on a foundation of "Things were better back in my day" and had a grognardy developer who made a mathematically impossible fight and mocked the community for not being able to beat it.

w00tmonger posted:

Sorry what? He just push a boss to hard or something?

wildstar dev posted:

Huge congrats! =)

Redditor posted:

Someone just cleared your 40 man content! How does it feel for it to have finally happened?

wildstar dev posted:

another redditor posted:

I don't get it. A group finally scrapes up enough people across the entire, precipitously-shrinking playerbase to limp across the finish line of your deliberately inaccessible, punitive content nearly a year after it's introduced, and your response is a languid jerk-off motion?

wildstar dev posted:

Thanks for the feedback.

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

I'm not even annoyed by this considering how this is literally how the overwhelming majority of western developers talk to their playerbase.

Corporations are greedy as gently caress and they have absolute disdain for their players. This must be personal to you, because you cannot be paying attention to the wider industry at large, which has, and always will, hate the majority of its customers and sees them as nothing but paypiggies. They hired psychologists to make more exploitative skinnerboxes for gently caress's sake.

Roadie posted:

If you really want to go down the rabbit hole, look at D&D-and-adjacent-fantasy weapons and how even the plausible-seeming ones usually have blatantly wrong names or other things wildly wrong about them.

Liquid Communism posted:

Just... longswords.

Falstaff posted:

If "you can't get your ideas implemented, so you shouldn't talk about them" is the standard, then nobody but corporate lobbyists and the pols they bribe should be talking about copyright law at all.

quote:

You are not going to convince me that copyright law should be rewritten to be more fair or whatever because the people who would write the new law would not be looking to benefit the small creator that you're worried about. It would benefit Disney. Any improvement for the Ettins and Eastmabls and Frozen Peaches of the world would be accidental.

Zereth posted:

Yes, but insulting players to their faces is considered bad marketing, and your'e talking about the corporate overlords, not the people actually down in the trenches making the game. This is in fact very unusual.

Comrade Koba posted:

Was it Luke or Ernie who made that blog post(?) about how Gary was a lovely and abusive father? Can’t seem to find it anymore and Google isn’t being helpful.

Maxwell Lord posted:

Also it just doesn't seem like this is well organized at all. They don't seem to have announced any products yet, or the designers they've got on board, or made any kind of concerted hype, they've mostly just tweeted about Not Being Woke. Which does appeal to one very specific segment of the customer base but is not quite the same as actually having a business plan.

Some of Ernie Gygax's comments sounded especially incoherent. Like maybe he's just mimicking Trumpian style in hopes of the same success but "does not actually know how to PR" seems just as likely.

Comrade Koba posted:

Was it Luke or Ernie who made that blog post(?) about how Gary was a lovely and abusive father? Can’t seem to find it anymore and Google isn’t being helpful.

Kai Tave posted:

Since Ernie is the one trying to cash in on his dad's legacy as a patron saint of pretend-elf and has also apparently been poo poo-talking Luke (referring to him as aloof etc) while Luke seems to be taking every step he can to distance himself from the Gygax clan, I'm gonna throw out a guess that it's probably Luke with some unflattering things to say about his dad.

e; I mean hell it could be either or both, the whole family situation seems pretty hosed up.

FMguru posted:

The only copy I was able to turn up was a copypaste on the dreadful Your Dungeon Is Suck site

quote:

Ernest G. Gygax, Jr. on Facebook permalink
April 26, 2019 5:23 pm

APRIL 26, 2019 THREE YEARS OF ABSOLUTE SOBRIETY!

Moderation in all things – sound advice but for those with addictive personalities – a very hard road to follow.

I am the firstborn son of a creative genius and as much as learned at his side, I was a shy mother’s boy. When she took me to kindergarten she pushed me into the door with all these strange children and told me to stay inside. I tried to push my way out as mother held the door shut and cried…

Later as time went on they thought that perhaps I had a mental condition or that our religion – Jehovah’s Witnesses – were the reason that I refused to learn or even try and be friends with the other students. I could have been held back in 1st Grade. In 2nd Grade the Principle took me aside to play a game just he and I and then I worked hard to surpass him, as he would compare items of the tests back and forth. Woe is me for it was an IQ test and I scored in the upper 4%. My days of avoidance and being in my World were compromised. My mother used a lilac switch and I went from the lowest reading group to the highest in 2 weeks. In 5th grade I was still faking Book Reports and bored with everything in School but I had to perform or face corporal punishment. Then Dad started reading Robert E. Howard’s Conan novels (Ace). So I picked up book 1 while he was in book 3. Before he had finished book 3 I had read all 12 and suddenly I was turning in extra credit book reports.

By 10 years of age to hang out with my Dad I would get a glass of beer as we watched a Bear football game (real grounding as the team was subpar, if I could stay still long enough more glasses of beer would be the reward but when I would see the neighbor kids out playing, well I had to head out. Also we went for a long bicycle ride with another of his friends and as a reward we went to Jane’s Bar. He sat me next to him and ordered 3 Beers and handed me on himself. Finally I was a Bigger Guy!

By 16 I was skipping out of at least half a day of school most every day. My reward system was to get together with Ken Reek and he would provide the weak Beer and perhaps even some Lime Vodka and or Southern Comfort – I would generally provide the White Hen Pantry sandwiches. At 17 I had a fake ID (18 was the legal age at the time) from Tim Jone’s brother and I had to fake a Georgia accent. Since I went out drinking with Tom Wham, Rob Kuntz and other far older gentlemen I was casually waved in. Pitchers of Beer, Pinball and some Pool games became favorite activities.

At 19 and early 20 I found that alcohol gave me the ability to open conversations with the fair gender, but my lack of knowledge and sheer fear of refusal kept me unwillingly celibate until Zelda informed me she was leaving Rob’s “rear end” and would I like to go out and play some pool with her… I said you still live with Rob. She replied not much longer and then I said sure only after you have really left him!

Well that on the second date turned into a whole new focus of energy for one Ernie – WOW this was fantastic and I had to do this at least three times a day. Well I could as long as I kept her in drink, tobacco and most importantly “Reef.” So now I had combined the concept of sex as part of addictive behavior. I went swimming in her so called affection for about 2 years, with not too shocking a few transgressions on her part, such as sneaking Coke and Pills whenever she could as well as while high from “Ludes” since Rob had gotten his Greyhawk Royalty quarterly check, well she talked me into letting her drive my car (after a night a drinking and Disco, while she was popping Ludes) and she crashed the Monza into a telephone pole sideways and then with her foot still on the gas and absolutely out of her mind, we were riding over a No Parking sign until I put the car in Park while the gas was still fully engaged. She got out of the car lost a high heeled shoe and stumbled across the snowy school field to go to Rob’s and join the huge regular event that occurred with every new Royalty check. Well I took the blame for the accident which was waved off, although I now had no car and she came stumbling back some 5 hours later to go to sleep. Man I was PW. Later when I was playing with her sister’s latest child, my God Child, Gladice told me that I was too good for her sister and that right now when I was supposed to at work she was with a local vagrant, drinking my booze supply and smoking our stash (as well as some things that are supposed to be between two people). I let her stay one more month in the rental as I gave gave my 30 day notice and found a friend to crash with. Oh I had one fixed Siamese cat when I went into this relationship, in 2 years she had increased that to a total of 22 felines! When she moved out the cats were still waiting for me as well as a messy house.

Things got far better as my skills with the Dungeon Hobby Shop and then the Mail Order, the new RPGA and the Gen Con convention group all came under my care with 20 full and 2 part time employees. I now had lost weight and was playing Raquet Ball and working out a bit and then taking “Executive Lunches” with plenty of drinks and following that with chasing the ladies at work and elsewhere with lots of drink, some smoke and even a bit of Colombian Marching Powder. Boy did I swim in the waters full speed ahead ramming speed and would often be up until 4 AM and then be back in Americana Resort and Spa at 7 AM before heading back to work. Repeat as often as possible…

Then my father and mother were becoming Divorced and they tried often to make things work but Dad had watched his own mother die in front of him and mother would fall back on a 6 pack hidden at night as she cried. Dad started to rock n roll and mother started to drink heavily and I was following in the family DNA myself. Dad opened up Dungeons & Dragons Entertainment and he invited me to join him as Kevin Blume was discussing shutting down the Hobby Shop and closing the Mail Order so that some of our customers would stop complaining that we were stealing the business ( I did just shy of a Million with the 4 departments of the Consumer Services Division of TSR back in late 82 – early 83. Well living on a 10 acre estate in Beverly Hills and driving a Red Trans Am Firebird as well as an ability to bounce from Irish and English Pubs and even a few Dance clubs well I reveled in the sport. I also had a connection of the celebs for my cocaine occasional parties and he was also a pornographer! We worked intelligently when we worked and partied hard when we could, swimming everyday and having lady friends over for the evening hot tub parties. Luke joined the scene and things had to go a bit underground but fun was still had and drink was a major part of all the fun. TSR really started to sink under the rule of Kevin Blume and my father had to shut down DDEC, hurriedly write Unearthered Arcana and take over the reins. Part of that was bringing in Lorraine Williams the sister of our west coast pal Flint Dille.

Back home to a new job working with Jon Pickens with S&T magazine which was 4 issues behind (they had a game in the center of each issue) in six months I assisted Jon in bringing it up to but 2 issues behind. Dad was fighting for TSR in court and after he lost the preliminary battle (he still had a right to appeal), well he started New Infinities and hired Kim Mohan away from TSR Periodicals. Lorraine told my friend and boss Mike Cook you fire Ernie and Heidi today or you are out of a job as well!
Well I had a check for over 5 grand in front of me, a paper to sign waving all issues with TSR firing me without just cause and so I took my weeping sister on a tavern crawl over two counties. At night we had had other TSR employees set us up with a party at Club 21. One friend gave me my first hit of “Acid” (even though this would have guaranteed him a good lay…), my own poppa got me a package from a local dealer and the bar was covered with drinks and shots as many as we wished. While tripping I noticed that Coke was pure bunk and that it was over priced and so I perceived a way to spend my parting capital and start a business.

As the new venture grew up used my Management Schooling and people skills as well as getting the best product closer to the source and became quite a celebrity with bar maids, school teachers, bartenders, ex-policeman, a Martial Arts Instructor and bands as they played at Alpine Valley as well as lots of my drinking pals. Woman sought me out and for a few months I had 3 regular ladies a day (one married), and sought out more adventure at night at the taverns and after bar parties. Then one of my co-dealers showed me how to freebase and for 7 months that was grand fun and business still went on. Then dependance and addiction began to show it’s ugly head but my steady and I could afford it. Finally a member of the law warned me of a Grand Jury and it was pack up my bags and drive around the country, this was a 18 months away from Lake Geneva with really no income, a bad habit and an expensive girlfriend. We settled in Tampa Bay for a year to finish off that adventure. I finally saw that smoking an once a week and living expenses without an income were a dead end and I had overdosed on 3 occasions and been hospitalized twice in that year. Dad listened to me and took a flight to Tampa to aid me in taking this Monkey off the back. Well part of his answer was for us to go out and get drunk on legal margaritas and then somehow he took sides with Kelly against me somehow… From inside the van I spidered all 9 windows and when he further said now that is an intelligent way to handle this I fought him to the ground until he stopped fighting back (our father had used physical force to dominate us and sometimes his wife so I was following right in his stupid footsteps – just as I had in so many good ones with gaming). I went inside and slammed down perhaps half a bottle of Everclear grain alcohol. I woke up in a pool of bloody vomit, with a note informing me that Dad in a wheelchair, had paid for two plane tickets home and one of those was for my coke addict blond. I sold the Trans Am for next to nothing (it had problems and the purchaser gipped me on half the money – as well as if her sister could be believed he was a lover on the side…). I got the windfows repaired, packed it up to the gills and drove back to Lake Geneva.

Well she got back together for a short while as we shared a room in her parents trailer. Then one day she found a younger man who had more resources to share and I had to move in with my soon to be ex-employee in the powder business. It took another year to really slow down on the stupid addiction but I finally quit cocaine – I thought for good. I still had alcohol to fall back on and an occasional two ships passing in the night. I had spent most all my resources, I was dependent on living with friends, soon Tom Wham and Rose Estes and low and behold I started to crave booze as my best friend.

Drunken stupidity got me to accept money from a lady I would never have talked to let alone touch for almost a year. Then I found a girl whom I mistook for an old flame until I saw that she had two kids in a picture and below that wholesome scene was a ¾ full bottle of Vodka in her underwear drawer. Mind you I hadn’t figured out whom she really was although she had professed her name was Ann not Cathy…. Well that became an off and on relationship for almost 10 years with her taking rides to various treatment facilities followed by new drinking bouts, lots of other men mostly ex prison fellows showing up at bad times professing love for her. Once when I went to bed on the 3rd day of a drinking binge, well she set my cloths on fire and I woke up to flames and ultimately when I told the Police I was going to sleep in my own smoke filled house, a scuffle and I got my own Ambulance ride behind hers to the dry out tank/nut house in the next county. I was releasable in 24 hours (rare) but she need the full 72 and so I stayed to be near her. I think a pattern is coming into existence substances equal wild ladies of passion who crash and burn often leading me to stupid excesses and a Wisdom score of perhaps 6.

Well then I found a bartender/waitress and we had several fun years. She and I would take turns becoming total fools but the other would help support the other most of the time. Then her teeth were all rotting out from speed addiction in her youth and I had a job with Abbott Labs and wonderful insurance. So we were fun and watched three grandsons come into the World together and I asked her to Marry me and then I could provide her medical needs. We also had a plan were we would get a house together purchase one that is and I would pay 2/3rds as I had a far better income. Well once she was my wife, she decided to go off with one of her co-workers to South Beloit and try a Crack house that she recommended. That meant absolutely no income from Deb as well as $50 dollars a day being taken as a cash check every day at the local Sentry Food store. Well after 36 days I say my shrinking bank account, I had removed the locks from the bathroom and bedroom doors so that she couldn’t just have personal time from me, while telling me that I was nuts and wasn’t smelling an old acquaintance burning cocaine although the quality sure wasn’t the same as my memory. Well that meant trying to get both marriage counseling and perhaps even addiction services for BOTH of us. She told the Doctor that I as a husband owed her whatever addictions she choose to do until she was ready to quit, the councilor told me to go ahead and get a Divorce!

She moved into a week to week boarding house and of course fell behind on her payments and so I would purchase for fair money items from her past that were in my apartment, but I would not give her cash. Instead I paid her landlord not only the back but future rent into the future. Finally she quit that foolishness but still smoked cigs and drank. Then her liver began to fail. As she started to hallucinate and get stints in the Hospital she finally began to lose the bad habits – far too late. We had a friendly relationship with little long term trust but as she began to have major health issues I ended up on two occasions getting her Emergency service and then I went with her to various Hospitals and even getting on the Liver Transplant List. Well even as I acted as the cheerleader in this with her sons and grandsons – well she passed heavy and out of her mind in May of 2011. I don’t want to die, please save me… still makes me cry as I was powerless to undo all the harm she had done to herself over 51 years of life.

With her death I swore off fruit from lower on the tree of life (John Popson quote) and became celibate for 6 years after her death (add to that the last year of her life in which we could not do anything due to her failing health. I finally had tired of sharing lives with other troubled addicts. Now I would just drink all by myself and now that my knees were effectively gone, I could just vegetate and drink myself into oblivion!

2016 my 2nd major stay in the Hospital for the foolishness of my chosen course in life, this time my Kidneys, before a Heart Attack. Then my incredible Service Hound KC began to look me in the eyes (as she is doing now for the hours I am spending writing this). She refused to go out and play without me – I could not start the day without having dry heaves and other DT’s which would stop as soon as I had my first real drink of 100 proof Bourbon. So I made a vow to not find a new owner for KC but to change my life and give up the bottle. That of course didn’t happen until I finished the last bottle the night of April 25th 2016.

Twenty eight days of physical, mental and emotional pain and duress were ahead of me with each day the thought that I could just have one drink and then start again. I knew better than that for once while working at the Game Guild I had accepted an offer to party with a couple and show them how to free base and anything goes. Well that led to me wasting time and money as well as feeling like a slug and hypocrite to the young gamers as I hid in a lie and preached to them caution. I made it and by day 29 I just had a minor craving without the physical desire and the though that death would be preferable to a life with booze.

My health, my weight and my demeanor all began to improve and then one day while walking in the lovely grounds of the closed Golf Course Hillmoor I met an Angel with her lovely dog Bella. KC was actually friendly to her and pulled me to her! We had talked before but no matter how hormonal our response was she had lived with a complete and dysfunctional alcoholic in her youth and had a far better opinion of her worth and abilities that to go back into that bullshit. Well I stayed the course and now had a new respect for woman and myself and what a true relationship means.

Later at a meeting to protect Hillmoor from the Developer after my speech I took a deep breath and went out on a limb. “In closing I wish to say that if it wasn’t for Hillmoor I never would have met the woman of my dreams!” Truer words were never spoken and I have found a complete partner for the rest of my life and with Love and Responsibility will set and achieve higher goals and a life based on shared joy and family and a life without addiction. Donna Jovani is my strength and the one my heart beats for and a reward from a higher power for finally making the right decisions and increasing my Wisdom to perhaps even 17. Life without such Love would be hollow and insignificant. Now if my current health issues allow I will make her a 50/50 partner for the rest of our shared existence and even should things go South and my life take a turn for the worst I will have finally found complete and total heartfelt love and devotion.

Ernest G Gygax Jr – One of many people with addictive personalities.

Kai Tave posted:

Since Ernie is the one trying to cash in on his dad's legacy as a patron saint of pretend-elf and has also apparently been poo poo-talking Luke (referring to him as aloof etc) while Luke seems to be taking every step he can to distance himself from the Gygax clan, I'm gonna throw out a guess that it's probably Luke with some unflattering things to say about his dad.

e; I mean hell it could be either or both, the whole family situation seems pretty hosed up.

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

it seems less like luke is distancing himself from the entire family rather than he doesnt want to be a part of a joke nu-tsr that has to make "old school" modules while competing with people who have been making this kind of content nonstop since 2009 (and earlier, in some ways they never stopped).

What's the niche he's looking to capture?

Yond Cassius posted:

I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were both, but weird icing on this poo poo cake, Koba is probably thinking of Ernie.

Original Facebook link here (demands login, not sure if it's up any longer)

FMGuru was able to find a copypaste back in 2019:

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

it seems less like luke is distancing himself from the entire family rather than he doesnt want to be a part of a joke nu-tsr that has to make "old school" modules while competing with people who have been making this kind of content nonstop since 2009 (and earlier, in some ways they never stopped).

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

What's the niche he's looking to capture?
Is it "hardcore and brutal"? Hi LotFP
Is it "old school megadungeon"? Hi Gillespie.
I just don't see what he's bringing to bear. The talk of offering the LOTFP deal of "royalties" without the "I'll pay you first", literally just "work for free you might be paid later" poo poo...

Yond Cassius posted:

I wouldn't be surprised at all if it were both, but weird icing on this poo poo cake, Koba is probably thinking of Ernie.

Original Facebook link here (demands login, not sure if it's up any longer)

FMGuru was able to find a copypaste back in 2019:

TheDiceMustRoll posted:

What's the niche he's looking to capture?
Is it "hardcore and brutal"? Hi LotFP
Is it "old school megadungeon"? Hi Gillespie.
I just don't see what he's bringing to bear. The talk of offering the LOTFP deal of "royalties" without the "I'll pay you first", literally just "work for free you might be paid later" poo poo...