Thread 96163155

BECMI elves or AD&D elves? How important is that +1 with swords and bows (and improved surprise chance)?

>>96163155 (OP)
WTF is Becmi? Is this just a shill thread?

>>96163355
The 1983 version of D&D, which was divided into Basic, Expert, Companion, Master and Immortal books.

>>96163355
Oof

D&D never knew how to do fantasy races right, with their stupid and nonsensical restrictions.

>>96163155 (OP)
>BECMI elves or AD&D elves?
Depends whether you're playing BECMI or AD&D.

>>96163155 (OP)
Both are shit.
People shit on fantasy races in WotC DnD, but they were ten times worse and more useless under TSR

Elves should be exclusively NPCs, preferably monsters.

>>96163553
There was a time when WotC actually had talented and passionate people working there. The same can't really be said for TSR, which was a greasy gang that only survived thanks to the raw power of the D&D brand name.

We're talking about a brand that dominated the RPG scene, and they still somehow succeeded in going bankrupt.

AD&D Elves. I'd rather play 3LBBs for a simpler game than any of the basic sets.
People who don't actually play also underestimate the restrictions on elves. (and half-orcs)
They're restricted from all magical resurrection short of reincarnation (6th level magic-user/7th level druid spell with a decent chance of becoming another race or a monster), wish or some very rare magic items is a pretty hefty negative for all the positives they get.
Assuming you don't use some of the dumber stuff from UE that is.

AD&D Elves. I'd rather play 3LBBs for a simpler game than any of the basic sets.
People who don't actually play also underestimate the restrictions on elves. (and half-orcs)
They're restricted from all magical resurrection short of reincarnation (6th level magic-user/7th level druid spell with a decent chance of becoming another race or a monster), wish or some very rare magic items is a pretty hefty negative for all the positives they get.
Assuming you don't use some of the dumber munchkin stuff from UA that is.

>>96163824
What about Judges Guild?

>>96163824
>There was a time when WotC actually had talented and passionate people working there. The same can't really be said for TSR
lmao the guys who started out as a bunch of corporate vultures cargo culting the game TSR made and made all the relevant content for are the "talented and passionate people" while the people who actually made the actual thing and came up with everything were just a "greasy gang".
>We're talking about a brand that dominated the RPG scene, and they still somehow succeeded in going bankrupt.
Because it was taken over by people who didn't get it and were only out to make a buck off the brand name after Gygax was ousted much like WotC didn't get it.
They were ran by a woman who siphoned off money into her family-owned IP paying herself with company money, pumped out settings with little to no support, hired wannabe novelists for modules and wannabe game designers instead of gamers for rules and had rules against everything from playtesting to not upsetting soccer moms.
The only thing post-Gygax TSR and WotC were ever good for was licensing out the brand to videogame companies.

>>96163155 (OP)
Basic D&D was derived from the fantasy wargame Chainmail (which gave elves a magical +1 to hit). So it depends on how true to the roots of D&D you want to be. As in all imaginary games though, it's up to the DM and players to decide what rules they want to include in THEIR games.

>>96163355
Must be 28 to browse /tg/.

>>96163422
>>96163553
No games.

>>96163980
Gygax and his friends were a bunch of talentless retards who had just managed to be lucky enough to be presented with an idea by a naive Arneson that was worth millions of dollars. Everything they tried outside of just clinging to D&D, a brand that was largely carried by its First-mover status, ended up being a total failure.

WotC in the late 90s and early 2000s were building up to have a group of impressive design teams, and with the acquisition of the D&D brand name it became the major nexus for RPG designers to gravitate towards, and without the retards of Gygax, the Blumes, or Williams the game was able to finally shed much of its worst sacred cows.

>Because it was taken over by people who didn't get it and were only out to make a buck off the brand name
You mean like Gygax? Who ran off to Hollywood for several years because he thought he could become a screenwriter just by owning the D&D brand? He let TSR go bankrupt because he was always a mediocre game designer and a failed wannabe novelist AND a terrible business man. He has no one to blame but himself, because he decided he just wanted to focus only on how to "make a buck off the brand name".

>The only thing post-Gygax TSR and WotC were ever good for
Funny, because the only thing that Gygax was ever good for after losing TSR was producing some of the absolute worst RPGs ever printed. He had all the opportunities he wanted to prove he actually had talent, alongside his buddies that left TSR with him, and they only proved that the game suffered beneath their control and was good despite them, not because of them. They had been fortunate enough to hold the reigns of the most powerful RPG IP, the "first RPG", and squandered it.

WotC is doing the same exact thing, largely because the new leadership doesn't appreciate that D&D isn't just a brand, it's a force well beyond corporate control, which was proven back when they tried a radical new direction with 4e and lost ground to PF.

>>96163355
Fpbp.
Best because it made me laugh.

>>96165673
Different anon here, I've had plenty of games, and these two anons you're replying to are absolutely right.

>>96166048
>t. moron who played zero games.

>>96166066
dude, it's trivial to get games, screaming "no games" at others as if it were a believable thing says more about you than about them

>>96166301
If you had games (or brains) you would just talk about them and not just whining about D&D like a faggot.

>>96166016
>by a naive Arneson
Nothing Arneson had would have made a million dollars. It wasn't the idea, which had been floating around in gaming circles for a while like Wesely and Bath games, but the execution something Arneson stinked at if you bother reading his rules or the work he did at Adventure Games before finding it too onerous and selling the company. No one who ever brings him up, least of all people like you who think it's some sort of gotcha, would be willing to play his game rules.
Gygax's game meanwhile remains one of the only ones to actually work for long-term play to this day.
>WotC in the late 90s and early 2000s were building up to have a group of impressive design teams
Which resulted in some of the most idiotic and broken cargo culted takes on D&D ever made.
>it became the major nexus for RPG designers to gravitate towards
All publishing utter crap that no one actually uses or even looks at anymore.
>You mean like Gygax? Who ran off to Hollywood for several years because he thought he could become a screenwriter just by owning the D&D brand?
You mean when he networked, got a cartoon made to market the game, had a movie deal in the making and wrote several of the best modules ever made that were released during that period including: The world of greyhawk boxset, monster manual II, B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, GW1 Legion of Gold (1980), WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, EX1 Dungeonland, EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, WG6 Isle of the Ape, T1-4 The Temple of Elemental Evil.
Just to name a few. That's more game value than WotC has put out across their entire existence.
>He let TSR go bankrupt
The Blumes did. Because they spent money on keeping helicopter fleets on standby and gilding sinks among other shit.
>because he was always a mediocre game designer and a failed wannabe novelist AND a terrible business man.
Funny because no one has made more money off RPGs since him.

>>96166590
> several of the best modules ever made
G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief is great fun, and he threw it together at a con.

>>96166590
>Nothing Arneson had would have made a million dollars.
Nothing Gygax had would have made a million dollars. What Arneson brought Gygax was the core of what would become D&D, in a playable state that he had worked on for years that he demonstrated to Gygax, and that's effectively what enabled D&D to hit the market before the other developing games and got that First Mover advantage.

>All publishing utter crap that no one actually uses or even looks at anymore.
Not only is 3rd edition the essential core of what became Pathfinder and 5e, it's still popular in its own right.

> got a cartoon made to market the game
He had next to no involvement with the cartoon, which was already 90% planned out before the creators secured the D&D name after their initial attempt to get a different IP failed. That's why it barely resembles D&D and is more just a generic fantasy cartoon featuring children with a few bits of IP tagged on.

>had a movie deal in the making
lol, let's be real, he was never going to and never did make a movie, especially with the shitty script he kept trying to push.

>wrote several of the best modules
No, he wrote plenty of mediocre ones that only retain any notoriety because Gygax was in the business of trying to build a cult around himself. The funny part is that his most famous module is also one of the worst to play through, but it's at least not as boring and creatively bankrupt as the majority of his mediocre modules.

>The Blumes did
Because Gygax was too busy with his cocaine addiction.

>Funny because no one has made more money off RPGs since him.
That's not something we know, because Gygax's finances were never disclosed, but there's dozens of candidates for people who've made more money off of RPGs, including Steve Jackson and Mike Pondsmith, simply by retaining control over their IPs for more than a decade. It's actually kind of funny how quickly Gygax lost the goose that laid golden eggs.

>>96167238
>Nothing Gygax had would have made a million dollars.
Well except he did.
>was the core of what would become D&D
And which wasn't anywhere near D&D yet until Gygax got involved and actually made something out of it. Arneson on his own published very little and most of it was terrible stuff for Tekumel.
>got that First Mover advantage.
AKA actually having a game worth playing. Hard act to follow I know.
>Not only is 3rd edition the essential core of what became Pathfinder and 5e
Both terrible games. And 5e went out of it's way to simp for the OSR crowd during development.
>which was already 90% planned out
According to Mark Evanier this is wrong, Marx had made a pitch for a D&D knock-off that lay dormant until Gygax got involved.
>He had next to no involvement with the cartoon
He had full script editing control and worked with Dennis Marks on the Hannah-Barbera pitch. Ernie Jr also worked creative control after the first three episodes.
>No, he wrote plenty of mediocre ones
They pop-up on every single "best modules" list which is more than can be said for anything published for your favored WotC crap.
>Because Gygax was too busy with his cocaine addiction.
You're basing this off the claims of an actor nepo kid, Mike Witwer's book, who has no source for it whatsoever.
It doesn't show up in any credible biographies of Gygax's like Peterson who actually cites his sources. Gygax's preferred vice was alcohol and cheap cigarillos.
>That's not something we know, because Gygax's finances were never disclosed
We do actually know from firsthand accounts and TSR sales numbers that were cited multiple times from multiple different people.
>but there's dozens of candidates for people who've made more money off of RPGs
No there aren't. The sales of one year of D&D in the early 80s outdoes the lifetime sales of most other publishers. Just a single basic set sold over 700k copies in Japan alone.
>including Steve Jackson and Mike Pondsmith
lmao

>>96163155 (OP)
Has anyone made a proper comparision between the mechanical differences of elves in all editions and supplements of D&D, because that could be interesting

>>96167443
>Well except he did.
As did Arneson.
>And which wasn't anywhere near D&D
Flat out lie. You do that a lot.
>Both terrible games
You also have lots of contrarian opinions. Explains why your whole world view is wrong.
>According to Mark Evanier this is wrong
According to Mark Evanier you are wrong, with Mark's Sword and Sorcery being retooled into D&D. It was partly inspired by D&D, but calling it a D&D knock-off when it was just a generic fantasy story that wasn't that close to D&D even when it was finally done is just trying for a cheap shot.
https://www.newsfromme.com/pov/col145-2/
>He had full script editing control
He was too busy being blasted out of his mind on cocaine to have any real involvement.
>They pop-up on every single "best modules" list
No, the ones that appear on ever single "best modules" list are ones like Tomb of Horrors, which often outranks all the ones you listed. Seems like its a very subjective field.
>You're basing this off the claims of an actor nepo kid
Aside from there being FBI files calling him a heavy drug abuser. Whether that was cocaine or the benzies/dexies he himself admitted to, the bottom line is that he was burning through money in Hollywood, blasted out of his mind on his drugs of choice, getting nothing accomplished while TSR was bleeding money.
>We do actually know from firsthand accounts and TSR sales numbers that were cited multiple times from multiple different people.
Go on. Best sources I've found is that he had a net worth of about $5m and the FBI file saying he was pulling around $1m a year at the height of D&D's success. That's not actually all that much money in the grand scheme of things, and Steve Jackson has made considerably more money, though that's largely thanks to him whoring out Munchkin rather than GURPS. Pondsmith also has had a fairly successful career, which got a massive bump a few years back thanks to CP2077. Gygax never got to see real video game money.

>>96168967
>As did Arneson.
Nope, Arneson demanded 5% in royalties but the court result was that he was bought out at share price and got 2.5% like Gygax and it was capped at max 1.2 mil. Which is way more than he deserved considering he didn't do any of the work.
>Flat out lie.
t. knows nothing about Blackmoor.
>contrarian opinions.
There's nothing contrarian about shitting on WotC or their garbage.
>According to Mark Evanier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-jVZFjWRlU#t=14m30s
"Let's get the rights to the actual property instead of making a a knockoff of dungeons & dragons."
>He was too busy being blasted out of his mind on cocaine to have any real involvement.
Christy Marks disputes it saying they worked on the pitch together.
>are ones like Tomb of Horrors
Meanwhile if you actually go check instead of guess you'd find S4, T1-4, S3, B2, WG4, Q1, G1-2-3, and more all show up on lists from Dungeon mag, ENWorld, etc and they're all near the top.
>Aside from there being FBI files calling him a heavy drug abuser
You mean where REDACTED said bad things about him and his divorce lmao.
Witwer's interviews has him talking about how he was angling for a film adaptation with empires of imagination.
>he was burning through money
Except we know it was the Blumes who were throwing away money by every factual account and Gygax made the company huge amounts of money.
>Best sources I've found is that he had a net worth of about $5m
His personal royalties for a single year alone in 1979, not counting his large amount of shares or high wages, was $291,662 dollars or roughly 1.3 million a year accounting for inflation. TSR made 1.8 million (roughly 8 million in current dollars) in revenue in a single month that year mainly from his AD&D books.
This is from Peterson looking at financial statements from that time not guesswork from angry ex-wives.
>Steve Jackson
>Pondsmith
lmao

>>96163155 (OP)
that +1 is a whole level of fighter THAC0 skill

>>96167238
really going after Gary hard.
why?

>>96171702
Some people think they can change how people feel about the hobby if they can take him down. They're retarded like that. Usually the same reason why they never go read any of the reliable sources on the subject that actually deal with facts.
I'd bet this one is the same guy who spergs out in OSR threads because he also freaks out over Gygax, pretends to care about Arneson but knows nothing about him or his games and thinks every stinking shit WotC takes is manna from heaven.

>>96171738
did this all start because of that book on the history of TSR and the early tabletop scene?

>>96164090
That is a really weird way of saying that BX D&D and AD&D are two different evolutions of OD&D.

>>96171645
>Nope, Arneson demanded 5% in royalties but the court result was that he was bought out at share price and got 2.5% like Gygax and it was capped at max 1.2 mil.
Arneson continued to pick up 6 figure royalty checks for a full twenty years before getting bought out in 1997. Not bad for 1% effort.
>t. knows nothing about Blackmoor.
It’s good you just flat out gave up here.
>“Let’s get the rights to the actual property instead of making a a knockoff of dungeons & dragons.”
It’s a knockoff of D&D in the same way you can call any generic fantasy a knockoff of D&D. He was just being cute for the podcast. Even just a cursory look at the show, even after adding in D&D IP, still puts it far away from the game.
>Meanwhile if you actually go check
I’m checking, and I’m more than happy to use the “If this ‘best’ list includes Tomb of Horrors, the list is completely invalidated” clause.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/15-best-d-d-modules-of-all-time.662734/
Oh fuck, look at that.
https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2021/12/my-top-10-d-adventures-of-golden-age_0317867573.html
Oh shit, not again.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/dungeon-magazines-top-30-adventures-do-they-hold-up.688548/
Oh damn, what is wrong with these people.
Seems like a lot of these lists that include other Gygax works really seem more than happy to add Gygax adventures even if they’re borderline objectively bad.

>Except we know it was the Blumes who were throwing away money
Gygax bought a mansion in LA. I’m guessing that wasn’t cheap, especially if you also had to fill it with cocaine. He thought he was going to keep making millions forever, but he got cut out of TSR after only about a decade and then had nothing but a string of RPG failures and a couple of Gord books. Having a net worth of 5 million isn’t bad, but considering that he once had control of a game that’s now considered to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars and lost it, that’s quite embarrassing.

>>96171702
Because we have a retard who keeps trying to deify Gygax for some reason, and he needs to be hit with some reality.

Some people keep trying to make him some sort of design genius, when the only good idea he ever had was rushing out D&D before it was finished just to get that first mover advantage. If Gygax actually was the genius he and his sycophants claimed he was, he should have been able to make a good game after losing the D&D name, but he made it clear that he's actually kind of a bad designer and had no idea why people enjoyed D&D. Also, the way he had to try and make Arneson out to be some mentally retarded mutant in order to substantiate his legal claims of why Arneson didn't deserve any money for his idea is just Gygax being an awful and greedy cunt.

Arneson also wasn't some genius, but he had a good idea, and made the mistake of bringing it to the wrong person. Gygax was a greedy cunt and was also hyper-litigous, and was less the "Father of RPGs" and more their captor.

It's not harsh to call him a greedy businessman more than some patron saint of game design, and people would do well to remember he was just human and not even a particularly good example of one.

If you want to immediately kill any drop of respect for the man you may have been tricked into having, pick up one of his novels.

>>96172312
>I’m more than happy to use the “If this ‘best’ list includes Tomb of Horrors, the list is completely invalidated” clause.
So you lost the argument and hade to make up a criteria to not look like it.
>objectively bad.
Maybe if you've never played real D&D before they'd look that way.
>Gygax bought a mansion in LA.
No, he rented one and it doubled as an office and housed three other employees and taxed as a business expense. Incidentally he wrote the books that was the primary income driver of the company while there and still had time to go back and run Gencon.
While the Blumes were busy bringing on "traditional managers" to suckle out the company and pumped up losses nearly 700k and a 500 loss in stock valuation.
>that’s now considered to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars
Funny because WotC era D&D has always refused to share total sales numbers for the D&D brand alone and always want to be bundled under Magic the Gathering sales.
Weird how that works for a supposedly successful brand while TSR is confirmed to have made 26.7 million dollars in 1983 alone or roughly 86.3 million in current dollars, an actual brand nearing 100 mil a year.

>>96172445
>Some people keep trying to make him some sort of design genius
And he was because (both) his games remains solid unlike any game you'd care to champion.
>he should have been able to make a good game after losing the D&D name
He did. It was called Mythus and GDW got sued for publishing it by the co-opters at TSR.
>he had to try and make Arneson out to be some mentally retarded mutant
He said he didn't write a word of the LBBs and this turned out to be confirmed by Arneson's legal team in court.
>Arneson also wasn't some genius, but he had a good idea
Which was already floating around wargame circles. Tony Bath was simulating a fantasy world with roleplaying ideas why people fought, David Wesely was having people assume a role and play it out to win games. Arneson's primary credit is taking single-player skirmish warfare into the dungeon.
>and made the mistake of bringing it to the wrong person.
Arneson didn't have the drive to bring it to anyone he was approached about it.
>Gygax was
The only guy to actually write out an RPG, sell it, help people realize how to play it and then support it for a decade.
Arneson's idea of running a game was not great.
>a greedy cunt
For not giving a guy who didn't do anything at all on the game, not a written word, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year out of his pocket.
>more their captor.
Nothing stopped anyone from publishing original RPGs since. Many did and made successful companies out of it. It's just people like you who can't handle that people prefer Gygax's game to your terrible, terrible shit.
>It's not harsh to call him a greedy businessman
If you stopped at that it would be fine. But you're the kind of jackass who goes and spread actual lies.
>pick up one of his novels.
Already have them all. Mediocre plotting and writing, novelist he was not (although not as terrible as modern romantasy WotC novels). Great material for understanding the real Greyhawk and City of Greyhawk however.

>>96172508
>So you lost the argument and hade to make up a criteria to not look like it.
Wrong. My argument is that you tried to use "they appear on best modules lists, that must mean they're good!" and my argument is that "these lists include complete shit just because they have "gygax" on them, such as ToH, a genuinely terrible adventure. Few of Gygax's other adventures are quite that bad, but they are certainly mediocre, and if ToH got on the list just thanks to the Cult of Gygax, how can you respect any of the other entries?"

Also, he rented a 7-bedroom mansion in LA worth several millions of dollars and only fit 3 people in there? Also, no surprise he claimed it was a business expense, considering he tax-dodged with a shell company in Liberia. I also wouldn't be surprised if one of those "employees" was the "assistant" he was cheating on his wife with and later married.
Man, this guy was kind of all-over a piece of shit, wasn't he?

Also, in all these fun diversions, you seem to be really hoping we don't turn back to focusing on his failures after TSR that showcase just how bad a designer he is. Or his mediocre games before TSR. Kind of hard to deify a man as a God of Game Design when he couldn't even turn out a mediocre game after losing the First Mover Brand Name.
CC, DJ, and LJ should be studied as examples of what could have been, as in how much better D&D could have been without Gygax's terrible ideas crippling it. Those games are like a showcase of the worst parts of D&D, the parts Gygax was likely responsible for. D&D is basically a miracle, a game idea so good even Gygax couldn't completely ruin it.

>>96172559
>Nothing stopped anyone from publishing original RPGs since.
Gary sued just about everyone who tried making RPGs, creating a financial wall that meant only people with lawyers and sufficient capital to weather the legal battle and injunctions could make RPGs. Even though the law sided against him and he was clearly legally in the wrong, it didn't stop him from intimidating and occasionally outright bankrupting rivals.

The only good part of any of this is that he got a nice taste of being on the other side after TSR.

>already have them all
Just admit that he's your dad already and fuck off. I knew you were obsessed with deifying the man, but I'm betting even Gary didn't bother holding onto all of his novels.

>>96172701
>Gets hard countered with facts
>Seethes
Just face it, you're wrong dude.

>>96172627
>Wrong. My argument is that you tried to use "they appear on best modules lists, that must mean they're good!"
Actually I used that to mean people consider them good. I know for a fact that they're good and way better than all the shitty modules WotC has ever put out.
>but they are certainly mediocre
Name some better modules that you've actually played. I need a good laugh.
>worth several millions of dollars and only fit 3 people in there
Four permanent people.
>I also wouldn't be surprised if one of those "employees" was the "assistant"
Nope, they were all TSR guys from back home.
>this guy was kind of all-over a piece of shit
Not even a fraction as big of a piece of shit as you are.
>failures after TSR
Getting sued by TSR you mean. After making the great Necropolis.
And then giving up on game design for another decade before making a mediocre game and a co-writing a few good modules with Troll-Lord.
>mediocre games before TSR.
All fun wargames to my knowledge. Don't Give Up the Ship is still a crowd favorite at gencon, Chainmail was fun and I hear Cavaliers and Roundheads was as well.
>Kind of hard to deify
You're really hung up on people preferring Gygax to you and yours huh.
>CC
Isn't a Gygax made-game and it's a mediocre stripped down 3E to boot.
>as in how much better D&D could have been without Gygax's terrible ideas crippling it.
You really are a delusional loony aren't you.
>Those games
I'd bet good money you've never touched either of the two he actually wrote considering you didn't even know C&C wasn't his.
>the parts Gygax was likely responsible for.
We know what Gygax is responsible for.
All of the 3LBBs, Greyhawk, Eldritch Wizardry, Swords & Spells, core AD&D with some usually bad magazine additions, most of the good stuff in dragon, some of the greatest modules ever written. Just to name a few.
>D&D is basically a miracle
No, just the hard work of one man. The one you're relentlessly seething about.

>>96172701
>Gary sued just about everyone who tried making RPGs
No, just the ones using the D&D name like Judge's Guild and magazines selling using their IP. And later they setup a deal involving royalties for JG to license it.
>Just admit that he's your dad already
You're really assmad aren't you.

>>96172559
>Which was already floating around wargame circles
Arneson had been developing Blackmoor for around 2 years when he approached Gygax, and that was a crucial head start ahead of the rest. It was already in a playable state when he showed it to Gygax at Gencon, though it was far from a publishable state.

Gygax deserves credit for what he did. He took a personal financial risk (of $2000), put in a lot of effort to get the game published, and saw the value of rushing the game out even when it was nowhere near ready.

But, he also did a lot of shitty things, like almost immediately trying to cut Arneson out, used copyrighted material and even stolen art but had the gall to try and patent the game and then tried to copyright the concept and then just settled for attacking people with fallacious lawsuits.

When you compare the adventures they wrote later, Arneson's are not bad. They're not great, mind you, and often rapidly shift in tone from being rather childish to over-thought, but they're competant to the point where I can't really accept the idea that he was a screeching baboon man and only Gygax was brilliant enough to tame him.

They were just two fairly average guys from Wisconsin, with an idea well beyond them. I think we should be happy that the game inspired many other people to contribute to it and develop it beyond just those two, and that RPGs as a whole had a chance to evolve over the last several decades.

>>96172836
>Arneson had been developing Blackmoor for around 2 years when he approached Gygax
As a wargame with braunstein elements. It wasn't until the same year that Gygax saw it that dungeons became the focus.
Tony Bath did the same in his Hyboria campaign and had published his ideas by 1973 I might add. (with NPCs considerations which Arneson did not have)
>It was already in a playable state when he showed it to Gygax at Gencon
Playable in this case meaning Arneson could run something resembling a game by winging it with little consistency.
That it basically had no rules or setting consistency beyond what he felt was appropriate at the time and which he never shared with the players as anyone who played with him in convention games can attest to. Much like Braunstein where you had roles and goals with a referee, not much in the way of game rules.
>Gygax deserves credit for what he did.
Sure, there wouldn't be anywhere near as good of a game without him.
>like almost immediately trying to cut Arneson out
More like nearly five years into it with Arneson not having written a word. Even the guy who wrote Blackmoor, Kask, hated his guts because he basically told him to fuck off when he wanted info on the setting.
Weird really because by most accounts he was very affable working with the Twin Cities crowd on Tekumel.

>>96172836
>>96172918
>used copyrighted material and even stolen art
By a paid artist who traced it. Which they didn't find out until years later and fired him.
>fallacious lawsuits.
Legally sound ones that he ended up winning because they used his IP and brand name to sell their products with permission.
>When you compare the adventures they wrote later, Arneson's are not bad.
Arneson doesn't have any modules at all. The DA series are by David Ritchie. He got co-credit because they're set in Blackmoor. (arguably should've gone to Tim Kask since there was basically nothing to the Blackmoor notes until he published The First Fantasy Campaign post-TSR)
>the idea that he was a screeching baboon man
No one's said as such. What they've said is that he did practically no work on the game as published and that his game wasn't the special thing some pretend. If you know about wargaming, braunstein, tffc then you know roughly what Arneson espoused and it's not that fun.
>I think we should be happy that the game inspired many other people to contribute to it and develop it beyond just those twoo, and that RPGs as a whole had a chance to evolve over the last several decades.
The peak of tabletop RPGs in general was the 80s and most of the good stuff today are just transparent re-releases of old content from Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Traveller, WEG Star Wars, Shadowrun, WFRP, etc. Even the few interesting but flawed releases of the late 90s and early 00s have gone by the wayside and now we just get the devolution of RPGs with WotC play-acting shit and artbook nogames shit. At most we get a few good modules produced by one guy in his garage or someones houserule variations of one of the 80s games that's worth a skim.

>>96172781
>No, just the ones using the D&D name
Those were the few that Gygax won, because the D&D name was protected by Trademark. Gygax was ruled against on multiple attempts to establish a patent/rewrite copyright law, and in the end all he got were a handful or protections for things like characters and certain monsters, and of course the game name itself.

Even the name "Role Playing Game" was created as an attempt to distinguish it from being a "War Game Supplement", as it was described in its first printing, in an effort to secure a patent. Gygax fought hard to try and monopolize the market, and we can only thank the Judges who ruled against him for not crippling the new game format right from the start.

>>96173017
To my knowledge there's no indication that Gygax ever attempted patenting the game, he would know it'd be moot since he was in the business prior to that and patents are a very pricy process. Trademarking yes, and telling magazines using the name to stop doing so or offering a licensing deal if they were doing good work like JG.
TSR didn't become lawsuit happy until after he had been ousted from the company, pretty much all that went beyond regular trademark C&Ds only started in 1984 with Mayfair.

>>96172918
>More like nearly five years into it with Arneson not having written a word. Even the guy who wrote Blackmoor, Kask, hated his guts because he basically told him to fuck off when he wanted info on the setting.
Arneson routinely tried to contribute in the first year and was blocked by Gygax, who was already trying to push him out of TSR. There's extensive correspondance between the two during this period, with Arneson having a weird fixation on adding naval combat and Gygax's responses making much more sense when you realize he was already working on getting Basic made with the intention that Arneson would have no part in it. This whole business was brought to light in their court battle over Arneson's royalties.

It wouldn't be the first time Gygax took a game from someone and then manuevered himself into being its creator while pushing the other guy out, with the same thing happening to Jeff Perren, who did the majority of the work for Chainmail.

Gygax was a manipulative liar, who wanted to build a cult around himself and relied on sycophantic cronies for everything from running Gencon to controlling his businesses. Which, fittingly enough, ended up being his TSR downfall when his Blume cronies ended up being the ones to backstab him.

Gygax is the kind of guy who would tell people a story about how his wife thought he was cheating on her, her secretly following him, and finding him playing D&D instead. What a cute anecdote!

When in reality, he was cheating on his wife.

>>96172962
>By a paid artist who traced it. Which they didn't find out until years later and fired him.
Both the original Chainmail and D&D covers were stolen art. It's not that they didn't know that Greg Bell, a teenager, was stealing the art, it's that they didn't care and couldn't afford anyone better.

Just comparing his actual art that was used in the D&D books, which very clearly looks like it was drawn by a teenager, and the cover arts should make that readily apparent to anyone. I don't really get who is supposed to believe the lie that Gygax didn't know, because that sounds like something a lawyer would try and sell.

>>96173117
>Arneson routinely tried to contribute in the first year and was blocked by Gygax
From Peterson's letters it's pretty clear Gygax thought Arneson's few ideas were not even trying to be in line with the D&D rules they had already written and he was a bit rude about it "We do want a set of rules that has internal harmony" and "It isn’t nice to design totally different rules for aspects of the same game" are both quotes from that time. He requested revisions and after he didn't get any he wrote them himself which is why the 3LBB contains practically nothing by Arneson.
Meanwhile accounts from Kask on Blackmoor say he dropped him a bundle of barely legible notes and then was rude when he tried to inquire about them. Although this has a fair bit to do with a deal they struck after Blume found out Blackmoor was basically unfinished despite several hundred hours being paid for it.
Gygax requested some fanzine articles trying to market D&D and the only time he actually mentioned D&D was to passively-aggresively attack it's design.
>adding naval combat
You're thinking of "Ships of the Line" and "Naval Orders of Battle" which were drafts of wargame rules he did under the TSR but never finished, it wasn't related to D&D.
>who was already trying to push him out of TSR.
Gygax was actually trying to pull him in and have him be full-time employed and offered him stock for those games. He asked for revisions which were promised but never materialized.
The biggest fallout between the two was when Arneson stopped showing up to the office and the shareholders, Gygax and Blume among others, voted to expand the board of directors.
Arneson got angry because he felt he should have more say over the company and Gygax got angry because it was his family's livelihood at that point.
Gygax actually tried to smooth it over afterwads but Arneson brought up Blackmoor royalties being unfair and Gygax pointed out he had barely written anything for it at all and that was that.

>>96173217
>the lie
Meanwhile people from that time like Kask refer to Bell as "that little bastard" and talk about how he got caught.
Not that it was ever illegal to trace but it still pissed them off.

>>96173285
It sounds like a pit of vipers with layers of lies with huge amounts of money riding on who gets believed.

Gygax was a controlling person, and made it clear that he already had gotten out of Arneson what he wanted from him, and running him out of the business with passive aggressive "I want you to contribute, but I don't like your ideas" is a pretty good way of doing that. Deliberately keeping Arneson away from designing for D&D and rejecting his other design projects is also a good way of neutering him.

Gygax and Arneson's relationship was always unequal, and Gygax leveraged that. I think even hiring Arneson in the first place may have been a calculated move, to put Arneson firmly under his control while presenting a different outcome than the fallout with Perren.

Gygax's past and future does not lead me to believe he was being earnest (ha) with Arneson. He may have initially been, and initially wanted a good relationship between them because he genuinely fell in love with Arneson's group's ideas, but when D&D exploded in popularity well beyond anyone's expectations, Arneson's royalties went from maybe a couple hundred bucks if they were lucky to several tens of thousands, and that changes quite a bit.

Gygax had Arneson in an environment where he was surrounded by Gary's cronies and controlled directly by Gary himself, and he could reject any of Dave's contributions as being unfinished, all while keeping him from working on the prestige flagship game he helped create. Those are not good shoes to be in.

Having a retarded man baby siphoning tens of thousands of dollars from you every month must also suck, but that's where the "he said" side starts to sound like exaggeration rather than truth.

>>96173294
>Meanwhile people from that time like Kask refer to Bell as "that little bastard" and talk about how he got caught.
...do you not understand how people lie?
You're presenting an obvious lie, and then trying to support it with an obvious liar?

>>96173294
>Not that it was ever illegal to trace
You can get into copyright trouble if it's not sufficiently transformative (and it's also bad for publicity), and that's likely why they changed the cover from the 4th print on, after the game exceeded expectations and went from a little hobby game to something that could draw legal attention.

Kinda weird that they'd change to considerably worse art for the subsequent prints if they were unaware the original art was stolen.

>>96163155 (OP)
BECMI, fer certain.

>>96173285
>>96173616
The biggest issues with Arneson was that he was a great ideas guy but an absolutely terrible writer which needed an editor to come in and make his writings and notes into a legible readable document.

The shared issue was that both Gary and Dave were combined taking a game killing amount of royalties from each sale and so Gary in what was a honestly greedy move cut him out.
I feel like I bring up When We Were Wizards whenever this kinda topic comes up but fuck if they weren't correct that the lions share of managerial conflict at TSR till Gary got ousted came from those fucking Royalties.

>>96173616
>It sounds like a pit of vipers with layers of lies
You don't have to believe anyone. This is primarily based on source material from that time that Peterson looked at and court proceedings, not he said she said stuff.
Arneson incidentally barely ever finished anything outside of TSR beyond collating some Blackmoor notes for JG and editing some MAR Barker stuff so those complaints jive with his post-TSR record.
>>96173994
>Arneson was that he was a great ideas guy
The bigger issue is that he imo wasn't. He was a One Great Idea guy and then average ideas after that and not a great output guy.
If you've read Blackmoor, including his notes on how he developed it afterwards before shelving it around the time he started hanging with MAR Barker you'll see what I mean, he was more concerned with army lists than the world imo. Blackmoor didn't even have NPCs until after TSR.
>managerial conflict at TSR till Gary got ousted came from those fucking Royalties.
Not strictly right going by Peterson.
The early issue were over material rights (Arneson had a bunch of caveats over the TSR employment contract he was offered), not getting things done (on-point imo and not just for D&D), feeling that he should have more say in company direction and over money being too little. (which again conflicted with him not doing very much on those titles while Gygax et al did 99% of the work)
Most of these fights were before the royalties went up to very high amounts. Once they started hitting those absurd levels they were getting into lawsuit territory.
Amusingly as much as people rag on Gygax if you read up until the board expansion (when he also got harsher about it) he was nice to Arneson aside from minor fights over rules while it was Blume who is quoted having gone full HR trying to guilt him out of contract changes, said to his face he had taken hundreds of hours in wages and produced very little and only noted that Gygax had made excuses for it over some convention work.

>>96173994
>writer which needed an editor to come in and make his writings and notes into a legible readable document
yes that's what an editor does, that's how the writing process works.

>>96173994
They were both kinda fuckheads and far from role models or great designers. Arneson at least had the decency to exist as a parasitic leech and slowly shrivel away, while Gygax tried to maintain control over something well beyond either of them.

They're kind of both just cheaters who didn't deserve to win the race but did anyway. The first printing of D&D was extremely rushed and unfinished, and rushed specifically to beat their rivals to market, and they rode that first mover advantage to the tune of millions of dollars and built not only their own entire careers off of it, but the careers of their cronies and even children.

Thankfully, the genie is out of the bottle and we don't need to pretend we owe either of those two guys anything, and can evaluate their work on its own merits instead of trying to mythologize it. That's kind of the main issue with Gygax, in that there's people who need some heroic figure to use as an authority they can fallaciously (and felatiously) appeal to, and Gygax is convenient for that purpose, minus that one itsy-bitsy problem of him not really being that good of a designer and generally a terrible person.

>>96176165
>maintain control over something well beyond either of them.
D&D died after Gygax left. There was no "well beyond" it afterwards.
>can evaluate their work on its own merits instead of trying to mythologize it.
Which is why Gygax still shines when compared to all the competitors.

It's honestly weird how much petty jealous seething you're doing over someone who hasn't been active in RPGs since three decades back and hasn't been alive two.

Is Gygax's dick rider STILL trying?
Gross, that's necrophilia.

AD&D Elves, because RaC is pretty cringe

>>96163155 (OP)
I always wondered why half elves didn't get that shit.....

>>96163155 (OP)
Shadowdark elves.

>40 year old small company office politics

Pure autism