Affront

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that not everyone is a fan. Maybe
he's a little bit disillusioned about D&D? Or he never really did play it..."

http://www.slate.com/id/2186203/?GT1=38001

It's pieces of crap like this guy that make me hate people.

The fact that he has an opinion about gaming does not bug me. Sure, he's a gaming snob. So he prefers GURPS over the d20 D&D system; that's a legit choice. I understand people that make that preference. GURPS, for those that don't know, is an acronym for Generic Universal Role Playing System. In a completely imperfect nutshell, it's like D&D but not restricted to killing orcs and goblins. You could make a game where everyone is a 1920's gangster.

I can even understand the people that dislike D&D. I personally think D&D has gotten out of hand, too many options and ways to play a character that appear to be more ways to fool a DM into letting a player do what they want than working within the system. Too many books, too many alternatives. But I don't hate the game; rather, I let people to their version of the game and I to mine. Everyone is happy.

But his argument goes a step deeper. He expresses anger for the dead man's product, laments what has become of that product, and sneers at the current state of gaming. To read it, you would think that D&D should just shrivel up and die, and that everyone enjoying the games that they do should shake their collective fists in moral outrage because, well, it's just a vehicle for 'hack and slash' gaming. Not just in RPG, but in table top, miniatures, and especially video games. He cries about experience points (the reward that allows a person's character to gain power) being tailored to games of senseless killing, etc.

You know where he's coming from early in his article when he busts out a reference to Star Trek conventioneers having known about (his point) for years.

To this guy, I would wonder if the only games for which he would be happy would be How To Host a Murder and Live Action Role Play. That way we could see how committed he is to his craft, how clever and successful he is in character, and what a fine actor he is.

Bullshit.

There is a place for hack and slash in the world; if there wasn't, it would not have sold nearly as well as it has (Warcraft, Diablo, Oblivion, and these are a small few of the modern titles!). This guy sounds said that his little corner of gaming doesn't get the recognition he believes it deserves, and it's all Gary Gygax's fault. So he'll spit on the grave of a man.

I'm not sainting Gygax by any measure. But hating a man who was first to generate what evolved into virtually every form of modern gaming because you aren't getting your due? That's not sad, it's pathetic. Attitudes like that, when expressed, are what keep gamers in the social basement. That and the bathing thing that some gamers seem to have forgotten.

Please. Be too good for our games. And then do us a favor and shut up. There are more creative people on my side than yours, merely because your article paints virtually the entire gaming community as idiots. Go back and impress people with your 19th century American lexicon. I'm sure that is a big hit amongst the three other people at your parties. I'll go to GenCon instead, where thousands of people enjoy Hack and Slash and laugh and get drunk and give their imaginations a marathon workout for days.

You know, those idiots that play that tired Gygax game.