Edition Wars

I've got other things going on for a week or two so posting will be light. But when something must be said...

This post here bemoans Tim Kask's editorial in the newly-released Knockspell. More specifically, it complains about Kask's antagonistic tone.

Readers can guess how much sympathy I have for that complaint.

Antagonism is a completely natural, and perhaps unavoidable, when it comes to the "Old School Renaissance" (or as I like to think of it, "The Age of the Return to Reason," to continue the antagonism). For several reasons.

1. One, being reasonable doesn't prevent the detractors from taking shots. It doesn't matter how calm and cheerful and friendly an argument is made, people are going to be nasty and it's going to be vicious at times. I have myself been a target, in real-life, not from bloggy/forum types, of people pissing all over me for daring to put up flyers and trying to run not-current-edition games.
   
   (and after Grognardia's whine/rant a couple days back, I think that a reasoned approach is even more antagonistic than a spirited rant... someone calmly and logically and authoritatively picking something apart is certainly more dangerous and upsetting to the (fans of the) picked-apart than a foaming diatribe, which is more easily ignored)
   
   
2. I believe, with all my heart, that saying, "I prefer this edition," is the same thing as saying, "The other editions aren't as good." It has to be. That one is considered impolite is simply a way of controlling the terms of the discussion so as to conceal one's own weaknesses. One edition's strengths and features aren't the only story, and attempting to portray only positivity regarding this is simply lying in an attempt to manipulate and lubricate a more unpleasant message for easier consumption. Different editions don't just lack specific traits, they possess additional features and traits which repel and cause that edition to be the non-preferred. So sometimes one's preferences of one variation of many is defined by the lack of added shit when the actual favored features are more or less shared between all the variations. And different rules promote (if not necessitate) different playing experiences. Pointing out the bad of other editions is a natural part of stating why you enjoy your preferred the most. And a completely valid way of doing so.
   
   Now all of this is magnified to a greater degree within the "discussion" of different editions of the "same" game than it is comparing the positive and negative points of completely different games, and I think that is because of the illogic of discussing differences within something that appears to be one thing anyway because it shares a name.
   
   
3. The goals of the "Old School Renaissance" are no less than to change your game of choice and indeed your entire gaming philosophy. Sure, nobody else will come out and say it. That would be rude. And cries of "You're doing it wrong, motherfucker!" don't tend to bring people around. But really...
   
   
   • We're not selling products, we're advocating a way of doing things. Sure, some of us have a product to sell but I daresay if the magic genie came up to us and said, "You can have a thousand sales, with 100 people using it for play," or, "You can have a thousand people using your product in play, but you'll never sell more than a hundred," every single one of us would rather be played than bought. Traditional marketing blather doesn't work because we're not selling a product, we're selling an anti-market philosophy. "Play old stuff! Download it (with serial numbers filed off!) for free! Ignore the supplement bloat of the current RPG market! Pick and choose amongst these totally unessential optional releases! Most importantly, Do It Yourself!" And for all the attempts at establishing "alternate brands," the retroclones are smokescreens that want you and "allow" you to play and publish for Another Game with a Trademarked Name.
     
     We're the New Wave of Old School Gaming. It's 1979 all over again in multiple ways, as my metalhead readers will recognize from the reference. OD&D is Sabbath. 1e is Priest. They've been around, but then a bunch of upstarts aren't playing the flavor of the day and can't get industry attention so they press their own records and then press their friends' records. We're Saxon. We're Angel Witch. We're Venom (well... Geoffrey's Venom). We're Holocaust. We're Diamond Head. (does this make Castles and Crusades Motörhead, the Last Thing before the New Wave? eek!) Somewhere amongst us is Def Leppard (sellouts!), but also somewhere amongst us is Iron Maiden, waiting to break out.
     
     I want to be Demon. Dave Hill has the best voice.
     
     
   • Traditional gaming is not designed for one-shotting. Sure, it can be used that way, but it's designed for long-term campaign play. Dungeons and Dragons, one example of choice, has different modes of play that naturally evolve over the levels. These games were designed for frequent, long-term play. We're advocating a return to these games and that way of playing. How can anyone honestly sit here and do a blog promoting the virtues of these traditional games, and that mode of play, and expect that telling someone "frequent, long-term play" with the conciliatory add-on "but you're free to like and play other games as well," doesn't result in a conflict to people claiming to lead busy lives? Come on. Our biggest wish, deep down, is that playing our game (which isn't even any one version of the game!) and gathering players (or finding DMs! You think all of us hardcores that are running games wouldn't love to play once in awhile?) is no more difficult than finding players for the latest edition, or better yet no more difficult than finding players of WoW. Yeah, that's unrealistic, but our actitivies are a goal to get us closer to there (and further from here), even if we can never be there.
     
     
   • Traditional gaming is a social and malleable experience, not only in actual gameplay with the home group, but across groups as well. This is where the public awareness and "market share" become important.
     
     Newer editions of the game are published by a division of a multinational corporation and a vested interest in promoting their vision, and guess what, that vision ain't ours. One is going to be a bit cranky when there's a giant gorilla jumping on your head.
     
     Sentiments like "Nobody is taking your old edition away from you," really means, "Shut up and let that gorilla dance."
     
     And we say, "No."
     
     The increased prevalence of not-traditional games really does hurt our efforts at our table, and not just on the "finding people to play with" level. The exchange of cross-campaign ideas becomes more valuable with more input. Right now it's a bunch of hobbyists on blogs and and message boards and POD. I actually got a book containing the words, "This document is 100% compatible with any and all classic, class-based-with-six-ability-score fantasy role-playing games published before 1989 by those with knowledge of Tactics, Strategy, and Resourcefulness. It’s also 100% compatible with modern recreations of those same games," picked up by a publisher and put into retail distribution. I think that's huge. Imagine if that happened more often, with bigger publishers, and what that might inspire by the "rank-and-file" (you and me) that would see it.
     
     

Now then, what Kask is saying (and the funny thing is, I haven't even read the editorial in question... but I have read his thoughts on the subject in his thread (this post in particular, which I commented on in this blog last May) on Dragonsfoot, and that's what I'm using as my basis for "What Kask Said") is a barrage of the edition war on a completely different level. First, two quotes.

From the final paragraph of the OD&D box set:

In this light, we urge you to refrain from writing for rule interpretations or the like unless you are absolutely at a loss, for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way! On the other hand, we are not loath to answer your questions, but why have us do any more of your imagining for you?

And Kask's own words as Publications Editor from the foreword of Eldritch Wizardry (written April 1976):

D & D was meant to be a free-wheeling game, only loosely bound by the parameters of the rules.

Kask knows what he's talking about. He's not an outsider. He is not saying, "Those fuckers did this! You bastards!" He was there. He knows what happened and why it happened. He knew the feedback that TSR was receiving and he knew how it affected TSR and the D&D game.

And 30 years later, he's saying, "We screwed up. We were wrong." And as his 1970s words above show, this isn't even a change in his philosophy. To say that his printing those sentiments today is some sort of attack might be fair. To reply, I could ask, "Why are you being so defensive about it?" Better yet, how can you say he isn't right? Does the fun you are or are not having with later D&D, or another game, invalidate the statement that he thinks they monumentally fucked up by setting D&D down a course of standardization instead of local, home customization? If the Publications Editor (and the guy in charge of Dragon at the start) says that certain changes were made in reaction to fan pressure to not make their own decisions at their own table, who are we to say that isn't so? (see also his July 1976 foreword to Gods, Demigods, and Heroes, D&D's Supplement IV, for more of this same attitude)

... and...

When Gary Gygax played D&D himself in his final years... what version was he playing? House-ruled OD&D is my understanding. What does Arneson play these days when he plays D&D? I would think that the people who made the game have a good understanding about what it's about and the attitude you're supposed to approach with it. But one of D&D's strengths is its versatility, so what Gygax and Arneson and Kask do or did isn't the be-all-end-all. And certainly the fact that Arneson didn't play "AD&D" doesn't mean much. But the fact that the anti-AD&D sentiment was in print by Kask in officially released D&D supplements, and that AD&D was not played by the man who claimed sole authorship on the AD&D books, certainly suggests that Kask isn't even being particularly curmudgeony when claiming that AD&D was the start of the Edition Parade of Successive Rot.

(cue lots of links from people that focus on one sentence, or part thereof, and make fun of that as a complete absurd statement, without acknowledging the further explaining afterwards of the sentence)

(damn I thought this was going to be a quick 5 minute post on the subject... I've done a great many things between waking up too early to start this and finishing it... including gone back to bed... and still... too much writing and the girlfriend is hinting that I need to hurry up so we can walk the dog and have breakfast...)