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[Alex C]

I like the part where he completely glosses over the fact that D&D is a violent game because it grew directly from wargames. I mean, honestly, the way D&D developed makes so much sense when you realize that the game is a result of a fairly natural progression. Player builds a li'l army. Player develops favorite li'l battalions in his li'l army. Player has one li'l "block" of troops that never lets him down. Player decides he needs some way to indicate that these guys should be veterans by now. Player decides a particular figurine should be a veteran named Bob, who, by the way, has to be kind of tired of infiltrating Castle Blackmoor by now, because he's done it like a million times and has to be like, level 12 by now. Seriously, from the perspective of raw game mechanics, the big difference between proto-D&D and earlier games was the inexorable move from large scale to small scale, which then led to a deeper 1-to-1 Player-Character relationship. The real contribution Gygax made to gaming history was simply accelerating the process and embracing fantasy elements. Acting like it was Gygax himself who invented the world of table top violence is kinda missing the forest for the trees.

[doombilly]

That slate author has a rep-sort of...
http://gotzune.com/2007/12/idiot-of-the-day-erik-sofge-of-popular-mechanics

[pilsner]

I could be better better situated to respond to the Erik Sofge article given that I've played neither GURPS nor pre-D&D table-top RPGs.  Nevertheless, the man is full of shit -- for a variety of reasons.  The alignment systems primary purpose was to guide role-playing -- it is rarely a combat mechanic (in that it rarely gives you pluses to attack etc.).  The source books focus on combat was premised less on Gygax's obsession with combat and more on the fact that for a DM, combat mechanics would be the hardest and most tedious bit to make up and explain.  Furthermore, story XP almost always played a more significant role than combat XP in terms of bringing your character forward in levels.  At the higher levels, story XP was almost the only thing bringing your forward -- unless you were spending every second day in the outer planes taking on demons and devils single handedly.

Of course, the significance of combat in a given campaign is up to the DM.  Plenty of DMs could provide hours of gameplay with nary a combat in sight.  I didn't play a lot of Gygax authored campaigns, but I'm given to understand that they were as much about puzzle solving as they were about combat.  The most obvious thing a DM could do is make you regret the merciless killing of humanoids and offer you alternatives to avoid it.  And then reward you for roleplaying a character who wasn't into wanton destruction (if that was consistent with the character you set out to play . . . .)

In any event, we know well that the fastest way for a marginal internet scribe to generate notoriety is to smear an icon.  Sofge's article is infantile in the "Look at me!  Look at me!" sort of way.

[doombilly]

I could be better better situated to respond to the Erik Sofge article...

Also he's a -2 Charisma Half-Orc

[Narr]

Erik Sofge in a nutshell:

I AM GOING TO TRY AND MAKE A NAME FOR MYSELF BY BASHING A GAMING ICON AFTER HIS DEATH

[Uber Ritter]

While I am sympathetic to some of the points made in the article about DnD, frankly it's like writing a president's day piece on why Washington was a worthless sexist because he didn't make the constitutional convention give Mary the vote.  Judging the past by the standards of the present is bad form, particularly when you're looking at the import of a figure's past contributions.  As has been said before, keeping in mind that Gygax was coming straight from wargaming really is the only way to understand DnD at all.  If it weren't for those first dungeon crawls all the games I love (Fading Suns, WFRP, etc) probably wouldn't exist.

Also, Gygax is this week's Economist obituary.  It's a decent article, though definitely written for the uninitiated.

[pilsner]

Great obit.  Was it Fark that had the fortitude save headline or Something Awful?  Anyhow, I didn't know Gygax worked in insurance.  That makes so much sense.