I don't get "hating" games ...

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Unfortunately, slapping everything with a big paintbrush is a great way to vent and unconsciously or not, a large passive-aggressive attack. It allows you to attack a target without naming the target (which I did above as an example) or even without making an argument at all, simply dismissing them as “those haterz we all know”.

Sounds great to me. It lets you blow off steam without actually having to hurt anyone's feelings. :grin: If we start naming names, then we're really just sitting here hating on people for hating on people. And then it will be perfectly fair for someone else to start hating on us for it.

Hating “hate” is something we can all get behind. It’s also meaningless.

Yeah, but is it, though? Is it really? Because I feel like everywhere I go I see people praising hate (well, "righteous anger," technically, but that's semantics) as the red-hot cleansing force that will burn away all that is bad and rotten and create a better world. Face it, man, being uncontroversial is really controversial in this day and age! :tongue:

You’ve got to post the video, man. Such a legendary song has to be displayed!



And supporting the thesis that quality in music is subjective, I actually thought it was quite catchy... :/
 
Internet = hyperbole. “Hatred” is a word that is too lazily applied. You would never be able to convince me to play 3ed D&D or Palladium / Rifts, like, unless you held a gun to my head. But hatred? Nahhhh
 
I know what RaHoWa is, but what is FATAL and why is is lumped in with the likes of RaHoWa?
FATAL is an elaborate joke and a massive troll against the RPG community. Like every good troll it is played totally straight, convincing many people that it is serious and inducing rage.

  • The intro says "you only need to know a little algebra," and "even that is relatively rare" then goes on to have a ton of math.
  • Character generation requires something like 80 rolls
  • The character sheet is 11 pages long and contains essential measurements such as manhood length, manhood circumference, anal circumference potential, vaginal circumference potential, vaginal depth potential, areola diameter, nipple length, cup size, tongue size, hymen resistance, areola hue, foot size, fist circumference, head circumference, handedness.
  • Over 400 skills including things like Urination and Delousing
  • Lots of offensive things like casual references to rape, rolling for "retard strength" if your intelligence is low enough, etc.
Really I can go on and on but I think you get the idea.
 
Does Classic Traveller have the highest level of maths of a serious game? Some vector algebra and square roots for the ship combat.
 
Oh, GURPS math can run rings around any version of Traveller. There's still nothing in there you shouldn't be able to do if you passed sixth grade. Phoenix command, like Rolemaster leans on tables rather than math. Lee Gold's Lands of Adventure used a formula to compute skill chances. I recall it being a quadratic equation but I bet it was just averaging the stats involved. I should pick up a copy again, it would probably make more sense now that I'm older.Galaxies In Shadow has some math in it, I always find the supposedly simpler methods to be more complex than just doing the math. I should become an rpg shock jock and write deliberately offensive and ridiculous games. That's where the money is.
 
FATAL is an elaborate joke and a massive troll against the RPG community.

Another example is that in a thread back on RPGnet, I commented the game was "the best game I've ever seen with an Anal Circumference Potential stat."

The author then used that as a promotional blurb on his website.

Another good one was when someone called FATAL the "date rape RPG" and the author replied back that was inaccurate as FATAL didn't have rules for dating.
 
Looks good to me.

Citing Fire Fusion and Steel for Traveller 4 is cheating. The equations were all misprinted and it wasn't even used for Emperor's Vehicles (worst Traveller book ever) or Emperor's Star Fleets. The actual rules for FF&S were quite functional and easier to use and an improvement on the TNE version. It's the errata and the equations that made it a disaster.

Oddly enough, Galaxies In Shadow has rules for dating but not rape. Maybe I should add that fact to my rpgnet sig. ;)
 
I've done more than my fair share of ranting against AD&D 2E over the years. I'm one of the (seemingly very few) people who liked where AD&D was headed in 1985 under the resurgent Gygax (Unearthed Arcana, Temple of Elemental Evil, Isle of the Ape, and the Gord novels) and was excited about what he was promising for the future - more new classes, more stuff on the planes, more development of the World of Greyhawk - so I was disappointed when none of that materialized and what we got instead seemed blander and more conservative and low-key and less fun (including/especially the Greyhawk stuff). I always compared what TSR was offering with what I thought we could have had instead.

Where my passive disappointment crossed over into active hate was when Gygax released Dangerous Journeys and it felt to me like it captured some of the same spirit and flavor as his AD&D stuff and seemed like a viable replacement only to be sued into oblivion by TSR out of what looked like pure spite (yes DJ had the same "voice" as AD&D, and covered a lot of the same conceptual ground, but its mechanics were totally different and without Gygax's name has no more similarity to AD&D than dozens, if not hundreds, of other un-sued games). At that point I realized that not only was TSR offering a product I liked less than what it had replaced but that they were actively suppressing the stuff I liked. So after that I became pretty insufferable in my hate for TSR and 2E AD&D, ranting at great length and with great vehemence about all the things I hated about them. Some of those rants still exist on various message-board archives and occasionally resurface, to my embarrassment.

Not that I don't still think 2E AD&D was not as good as what Gygax was promising, and that it's super-crappy how TSR maliciously buried Dangerous Journeys (which was already an unpopular flop and almost certainly still would have failed if left alone, but at least I could've gotten a few more products first - the second bestiary, the Ascalon city set, and the horror genre game), but I've realized as I've grown older and mellowed out that none of it really matters and isn't worth getting upset or wasting time and effort on, and especially that there's absolutely nothing to be gained by antagonizing those people who do like 2E AD&D who I still have more in common with (at least as far as taste in games) than about 99.9999% of people.
 
Does calculus used in developing the system count? Cold Iron uses a Normal Distribution chart in it's resolution mechanics. To generate the chart used for the game, this math equation applies:

Annotation 2020-07-08 123550.png
Actually, it's slightly more complex, instead of x, you need to plug in m*3/20 where m is a modifier added to your attack rating (OCV to use Hero Games terminology) and compared to a defensive rating (DCV). But the game presents a table computed using the formula. And I won't repeat the discussion of how to use the table, rather point you to my overview of Cold Iron: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nyOzdxP8VZV2oSyKnxnS160WBRpC1Cd9fNfn2Va9VAI/edit?usp=sharing
 
Citing Fire Fusion and Steel for Traveller 4 is cheating. The equations were all misprinted
They might have formatting issues, but you're still summing square roots for gun recoil and ratios of powers for other things. It's not FATE-LITE

There's also this beauty:
Screenshot_2020-07-08 IGI-1720 Fire, Fusion and Steel - Traveller - T4 - Fire, Fusion and Stee...png

Get your log tables out
 
I've done more than my fair share of ranting against AD&D 2E over the years. I'm one of the (seemingly very few) people who liked where AD&D was headed in 1985 under the resurgent Gygax (Unearthed Arcana, Temple of Elemental Evil, Isle of the Ape, and the Gord novels) and was excited about what he was promising for the future - more new classes, more stuff on the planes, more development of the World of Greyhawk - so I was disappointed when none of that materialized and what we got instead seemed blander and more conservative and low-key and less fun (including/especially the Greyhawk stuff). I always compared what TSR was offering with what I thought we could have had instead.

Where my passive disappointment crossed over into active hate was when Gygax released Dangerous Journeys and it felt to me like it captured some of the same spirit and flavor as his AD&D stuff and seemed like a viable replacement only to be sued into oblivion by TSR out of what looked like pure spite (yes DJ had the same "voice" as AD&D, and covered a lot of the same conceptual ground, but its mechanics were totally different and without Gygax's name has no more similarity to AD&D than dozens, if not hundreds, of other un-sued games). At that point I realized that not only was TSR offering a product I liked less than what it had replaced but that they were actively suppressing the stuff I liked. So after that I became pretty insufferable in my hate for TSR and 2E AD&D, ranting at great length and with great vehemence about all the things I hated about them. Some of those rants still exist on various message-board archives and occasionally resurface, to my embarrassment.

Not that I don't still think 2E AD&D was not as good as what Gygax was promising, and that it's super-crappy how TSR maliciously buried Dangerous Journeys (which was already an unpopular flop and almost certainly still would have failed if left alone, but at least I could've gotten a few more products first - the second bestiary, the Ascalon city set, and the horror genre game), but I've realized as I've grown older and mellowed out that none of it really matters and isn't worth getting upset or wasting time and effort on, and especially that there's absolutely nothing to be gained by antagonizing those people who do like 2E AD&D who I still have more in common with (at least as far as taste in games) than about 99.9999% of people.
Well, it was a crappy move, I'll give you that:thumbsup:!
 
They might have formatting issues, but you're still summing square roots for gun recoil and ratios of powers for other things. It's not FATE-LITE

There's also this beauty:
View attachment 19718

Get your log tables out
I love elegant mechanics like this.

So, on the AD&D 2e and TSR thing. I think TSR deserved some of the hate they got for what they did to Gary but Gary was also not churning out tons of new material by that point. I can't blame a business for following the money and if the money is a 14 year old's money it's still money. But going after Dangerous Journeys was stupid and cost us TSR and GDW. That's pretty bad. But I think it speaks to how little TSR's management understood gamers and the market for games. Dangerous Journeys might have survived if it evolved into the simpler introductory version but the full on core version was just crazy complex by most standards. It didn't make a bit of sense to go after it on a market competition basis. Thus I can only guess that it was done for spite. Gary was pretty tight with the management at Random House and I've always wondered if the mass return of unsold books was a hostile takeover attempt on Gary's behalf. That might have been the better alternate reality: Random House owing TSR and bringing back Gary. Ah well, we'll probably never know.
 
Last edited:
Seems that many have forgotten that the most hated man in rpgs in the 80s was Gygax himself for his lightining quick cease-and-desist copyright enforcement against fandom, the destruction of SPI, rabid attacks against APAs and dyspeptic Dragon columns.
 
I love elegant mechanics like this.

So, on the AD&D 2e and TSR thing. I think TSR deserved some of the hate they got for what they did to Gary but Gary was also not churning out tons of new material by that point. I can't blame a business for following the money and if the money is a 14 year old's money it's still money. But going after Dangerous Journeys was stupid and cost us TSR and GDW. That's pretty bad. But I think it speaks to how little TSR's management understood gamers and the market for games. Dangerous Journeys might have survived if it evolved into the simpler introductory version but the full on core version was just crazy complex by most standards. It didn't make a bit of sense to go after it on a market competition basis. Thus I can only guess that it was done for spite. Gary was pretty tight with the management at Random House and I've always wondered if the mass return of unsold books was a hostile takeover attempt on Gary's behalf. That might have been the better alternate reality: Random House owing TSR and bringing back Gary. Ah well, we'll probably never know.
Yeah, Gygax was more than capable of being ruthless in his business dealings. I think he was outmanuvered here, but I doubt he was an unwitting participant in the game.
 
Seems that many have forgotten that the most hated man in rpgs in the 80s was Gygax himself for his lightining quick cease-and-desist copyright enforcement against fandom, the destruction of SPI, rabid attacks against APAs and dyspeptic Dragon columns.
You left out the closing down of Imagine. ;)
 
No, there's no hard math in T5 at all. Seriously. Lot's of charts, lots of details, but no difficult math. There is a big set of probability tables that looks scary but they're tables that aren't used in play, where the math has all been done for you. I think it is mainly an argument in favor of the nd6 resolution over 2d6 though it's not presented as such. But if you want to know the odds of rolling a 17 on 9d6 it's on those charts.
 
Seems that many have forgotten that the most hated man in rpgs in the 80s was Gygax himself for his lightining quick cease-and-desist copyright enforcement against fandom, the destruction of SPI, rabid attacks against APAs and dyspeptic Dragon columns.
A lot of my fandom of Gygax is surely connected with my being too young to have been a fan of SPI, a contributor to APAs, or in the market for those semi-pro "quasi-D&D" third party products of the 70s and early 80s. Looking back on that - especially the SPI thing - I totally get why almost every adult/"serious" gamer of that era saw TSR (and Gary Gygax as its public face - a role he was happy to continue to play even if he was no longer making the actual decisions) as villains and assholes, aggressively shitting on the entire rest of the industry (there's a particularly unfortunate and paranoid rantitorial in Dragon c. 1982 where Gygax proclaims GaMA (the game industry trade group) as an anti-TSR cartel) and all but the youngest and most passively consumer-oriented of fans (i.e. anyone who was trying to create or publish their own stuff). If I were 5-10 years older and had actually been on the receiving end of that stuff I'm sure I'd have just as hard feelings towards him as so many other people seem to.

But instead, as an accident of fate, I happened to get into D&D right on the cusp of Gygax's brief resurgence at TSR. I got into the game right as it was going into decline (the 1984 stuff that was of obviously lower quality to what had been released in prior years) followed by the unexpected revival in 1985 with several major new releases, followed by the rug being pulled out and TSR's abrupt change of direction in 1986, and then a couple years later learning the story behind the story from Gary's own mouth (when he was the Guest of Honor at our local convention, promoting New Infinities). So in my view Gygax was not a loudmouth bully but a romantic underdog, heroically fighting his way back from exile to reclaim what was his only to be betrayed and cut down just as victory was within his grasp. This dramatic, almost-operatic, story combined with the sense I already had of the quality of the products (good through 1983, bad in 1984, good in 1985, then back to bad in 1986 and after) really spoke to my 13 year old self and shaped my view of him in a way that even learning all the totally valid reasons that older fans have for hating (or at least resenting and disliking) him was never able to shake. I don't begrudge (anymore...) people not liking him, or even hating him, but likewise nobody at this point is going to change my mind about him either. There's way too much emotion, and way too much of my childhood, rolled up into it.
 
Gygax was a big influence on me as a child as well. Thanks to Gygax I was one of those weird little kids who used words like obfuscate in everyday speech (although as a teen I quickly learned that clear concise speech and simple language is preferable!). Seriously though, I credit Gygax for my excellent vocabulary and good SAT scores.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top