SydLexia.com Forum Index
"Stay awhile. Stay... FOREVER!"

  [Edit Profile]  [Search]  [Memberlist]  [Usergroups]  [FAQ]  [Register]
[Who's Online]  [Log in to check your private messages]  [Log in]
Slate Vs Gygax


Reply to topic
Poll :: Winner?

Bambi
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Godzilla
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Dolph Lungren
100%
 100%  [ 5 ]
Total Votes : 5


Author Message
TheRoboSleuth
Title: Sleuth Mark IV
Joined: Aug 08 2006
Location: The Gritty Future
PostPosted: Mar 11 2008 11:33 pm Reply with quote Back to top

http://www.slate.com/id/2186203/pagenum/all/

Slate decides its cool to talk shit about a dead man cause the writer has a GURPs hard on. I'll write more about it later.


Image
 
View user's profileSend private message
Cattivo
Joined: Apr 14 2006
Location: Lake Michigan
PostPosted: Mar 12 2008 12:40 am Reply with quote Back to top

His tone is reprehensible, but his points about D&D's obsolete status and the predominance of hack & slash are valid.

Keep in mind, I've never played D&D, except for single player campaigns in computer games such as NWN2 and ToEE, so my viewpoint is mostly as an outsider.
View user's profileSend private message
Tebor
Moderator
Title: Master of the Universe
Joined: Aug 22 2005
Location: Gotham City
PostPosted: Mar 12 2008 12:51 am Reply with quote Back to top

Lundgren is misspelled...

But he wins.

The universe.


"If you will not tell me, I will hurt people!!!" -Nuclear Man

"Do you hear? The alpha and the omega. Death and rebirth. And as you die, so will I be reborn!" - Skeletor

8341 unread forum updates since I left (2/7/14)... Uh-oh.
 
View user's profileSend private messageVisit poster's websiteAIM Address
erock
Title: likes to party
Joined: Dec 21 2007
Location: Phoenix. its hot outside
PostPosted: Mar 12 2008 01:31 am Reply with quote Back to top

Talking ill of the deceased is sorta weird. Especially when his point is against the creation and not the creator. He gets upset because so many hail Gygax as revolutionary so he attacks Gygax.


But personally i thought Gurps was a bit more useful if you wanted to do anime or other video games into pen and paper. It just seemed to mold to whatever you wanted.
View user's profileSend private messageAIM Address
TheRoboSleuth
Title: Sleuth Mark IV
Joined: Aug 08 2006
Location: The Gritty Future
PostPosted: Mar 12 2008 03:34 am Reply with quote Back to top

Thoughts: I'm not familier with GURPs, but I am with HERO system, which is also point buy. And while its good for some things, it puports to be good for everything and fails. For one, its so modular that its overkill. Making oddball character types like a playable treant is easier, but making a barbarian or a wizard that isn't a total weirdo takes forever. Enemies are just as bad. Because there is no baseline, its very easy to create a complete wimp or a enemy thats nutstompingly tough. It has a speed system designed to simulate characters like the Flash, but its complete overkill. Battles end up slugfests that take someaught 3-4 hours each. So in that way, it indirectly discourages hackNslash.

DnD feels streamlined in comparision. No system is the best. DnD benefits from focus.

Not that its perfect either. For contemporary games I prefer the D20 based spycraft, it dumps things that don't work in a modern game like multiple attacks from BAB and the ludicrous HP system, and expands on things that need to be expanded on like skills and ways to resolve conflicts like interrogation(on both ends), chases, and seductions(not necessarily getting tail, but it was made to simulate James Bond style spies, so...).

Scion lets you play as a child of a mythological god. It uses white wolf, and plays very very loose. If it was point buy like HERO, you would spend hours trying to figure out how to simulate the stuff you can do. A D20 would fail outright.

Two things on Hacknslash:
1. Some people don't want to play amateur dramatist. Some people want to make a kind of character like a blaster mage or a beefy barbarian, beat up a bunch of critters, and high five their friends while doing it. I don't think there is a wrong way to play. And if you do, you can do it in DnD. Its not that hard.

2. Gygax and company pretty much made the RPG market, table or console. He came from a background of tabletop military simulations, so it shows in DnD. The high level of conflict that is.

Also, I forgot to mention that I like how GURPS can do anything, except not have a character with 10 phobias, an allergy to uranium, a vulnerability to the vacuum of space, is hunted by eskimos, and a bunch of other low impact disadvantages so they can squeeze every bit of XP out of character generating.


Image
 
View user's profileSend private message
Syd Lexia
Site Admin
Title: Pop Culture Junkie
Joined: Jul 30 2005
Location: Wakefield, MA
PostPosted: Mar 12 2008 06:01 am Reply with quote Back to top

Unless I threw it out (which I probably did), I have some edition of the GURPs manual. It's dumb. It's so open-ended and there are so many different stats that you can have, it's just retarded. Wanna make up your own class? Go right ahead! You can be a Vampire Laser Cowboy Prostitute and there's nothing your GM can do about it. The draw to GURPs is that it doesn't *have* to take place in medieval times. You can have it take place in any setting. You also have to design everything from the ground up. It's too much fucking work.
View user's profileSend private messageSend e-mailVisit poster's websiteAIM Address
Marksyabastard
Title: Pope-on-a-rope
Joined: Mar 06 2008
Location: Louisville
PostPosted: Mar 12 2008 08:23 am Reply with quote Back to top

Gygax's death to me seems symbolic of the death of tabletop gaming at the hands of WOW et al. sadly, more people probably know leeroy jenkins than gary gygax.
View user's profileSend private message
FNJ
2010 SLF Tag Champ
Joined: Jun 07 2006
PostPosted: Mar 14 2008 06:11 am Reply with quote Back to top

I have a leeroy jenkins WOW card pinned to my desk at work.


Image
 
View user's profileSend private message
username
Title: owner of a lonely heart
Joined: Jul 06 2007
Location: phoenix, az usa
PostPosted: Mar 14 2008 12:09 pm Reply with quote Back to top

Marksyabastard wrote:
Gygax's death to me seems symbolic of the death of tabletop gaming at the hands of WOW et al. sadly, more people probably know leeroy jenkins than gary gygax.

true. i would be one of those douchebags.
JEW wrote:
I have a leeroy jenkins WOW card pinned to my desk at work.

thats awesome


Klimbatize wrote:
I'll eat a turkey sandwich while blowing my load

 
View user's profileSend private messageAIM AddressYahoo MessengerMSN Messenger
Display posts from previous:      
Reply to topic

 
 Jump to: