What's up with the Zeb Cook hatred?

[geneweigel]

Just to clear some cheap aspersions towards Gary.

The general backstabbing going on predated the specific later personal betrayal that Zeb did with Williams. So thats why Gary had his kids working there in the early 80's as "the Blumes" were driving the place into the ground (bad managing, bad investments, etc.) so thats pretty reasonable call for a much needed "nepotism" at least one based on trust.

If only Gary had chosen someone of a nobler character than Zeb (maybe even a relative) during that time that Zeb was "under Gary's guidance" (Zeb's actual words), etc., etc. but of course somebody can surmise to say if Zeb was that unqualified to work on designs (which we all have the solid proof that he was unqualified) that was his drive for pushing more suitable folks out of the way to get where he was and then ultimately turning on the hand that fed him,

You can "if only" all you want it ain't going to change the fact that this man played Gary and in the end played us all.

DRAGON 121 May 1987:

Several months ago in this Game Lizards
(yes, I wrote that intentionally) column, I
had the perverse glee of asking the ques-
tion: “Who dies?” Perhaps the only mistake
I made was in asking for a response.

ACTUAL QUOTE OF David "Zeb" Cook regarding breaking AD&D.

[Random]

Gene, could you give that quote some context? I don't understand what he means there (although apparently it's something bad, else you wouldn't have quoted it).

[Matthew]

Gene, could you give that quote some context? I don't understand what he means there (although apparently it's something bad, else you wouldn't have quoted it).

That was an article written a few months after one in which Cook solicited reader feedback for what to change in second edition. If you follow all the various Game Wizard articles through during this period, it is clear that numerous changes were proposed, considered, and ultimately rejected. In my opinion this article is very little different to an earlier one where Gygax sought similar feedback on the various subclasses he was proposing prior to Unearthed Arcana and with a view towards a second edition.

I can only imagine that some evidence of a great and ongoing conspiracy is being hinted at here, but honestly I cannot detect it.

[Chgowiz]

Gene, could you give that quote some context? I don't understand what he means there (although apparently it's something bad, else you wouldn't have quoted it).

Several months ago in this Game Lizards (yes, I wrote that intentionally) column, I had the perverse glee of asking the question: "Who dies?" Perhaps the only mistake I made was in asking for a response. Boy,
did I get letters! To date, I've received several hundred replies, some short and some long, from throughout the U.S.A. and Canada, and as far afield as Spain and Japan. There has been no hesitation to tell me your opinions on the Second Edition AD&D® game, and your opinions are useful and appreciated. In fact, I'm going use this column to answer some questions
and reactions.

...

First and foremost, my previous "Who Dies?" article was written with one main purpose - to get a reaction from you. To make sure I got letters, I used some intentionally loaded statements, ones almost
guaranteed to stir you up. A lot of people picked up on this fact, while others treated the whole thing as absolute and final. Let me make it clear: I lied just a little, but it was a good way to see what your opinions were.

One thing is for sure. If I didn't want your opinions, I wouldn't ask for them. I've read every letter that was sent - good, bad, supportive, and critical.

Some-times, just reading the mail has taken the entire day! These letters have had an effect. I’m now re-examining decisions that I had accepted as closed. If anything, I am less certain of the final direction of character
classes than I was when I started. The suggestions (and pleas) that you gave me were invaluable.

Shortly after the mail started rolling in, it was clear that some further explanation was needed on Second Edition. Many of you have followed the comments and hints in DRAGON® Magazine about the proposed
Second Edition project. Well, now the project has become a reality, and its
actual directions have gone beyond the talk stage. The first step was to figure out just what the Second Edition would be.

The rest of the article is basically a statement of where he was at with the rules changes and thoughts at the time. It's a fairly big article. The paragraph quoted by Gene and reproduced above is the first paragraph in the article.

[Guy Fullerton]

Gene, could you give that quote some context? I don't understand what he means there (although apparently it's something bad, else you wouldn't have quoted it).

It's the beginning of an article where Zeb talks about some of TSR's ideas for 2nd edition. The previous article that Zeb refers to in the quote was one in which he threw out some extreme/radical possibilities for a 2nd edition, including the removal of one or more classes, followed by a request for feedback about the extreme/radical ideas.

Between those two articles, and with recently-more-accessible old school philosophy to cast a new light on those articles (and the various editions of *D&D), I think I have a better understanding of why 2nd edition (or TSR, or whatever label you want to throw on it) started to diverge:

While the philosophy & design thoughts behind the 1e rules were strong and substantive, they were also, sadly, very muddled, and likely lost with Gary's departure from TSR.

Most players I've gamed with – even those who played copious 1e & basic back in the day – didn't/don't grok why xp for gp is important in the context of the game. And that's probably because the rationale and play ramifications were only poorly explained in the DMG and basic books. And that's sad, given that xp for gp is such a fundamental concept in old school play. (If the DM doesn't understand the importance of xp for gp, it's likely that the scenarios & environments will lend themselves to a different sort of playstyle than originally intended.) Ditto for things like the intentional lack of a skill system, the importance of wandering monsters, racial level limits, and so on.

So I'm not surprised that many groups saw those rules as silly/strange/archaic, thus leading to house rules & variants that morphed/eliminated those rules, thus leading to new games being produced without those rules, thus leading to players asking for similar changes in TSR/AD&D.


In the Dragon 121 article, there are several passages where Zeb appears to be saying that certain facets of the eventual 2e design will depend (at least in part) on what the majority of players want.

I'd wager to say that many of the prominent K&K posters would say that that sort of design by committee is a big mistake. Some/most players probably didn't realize what they'd be losing by making some of the changes that they were requesting.

[Random]

From that, it sounds like he was just making a joke about the amount of mail he was getting. That's why I was curious as to what was horrible about the quote.

Edit: Fullerton posted ahead of me.

Edit again: So it seems he was jerking with the readers (suggesting radical ideas) in an effort to get them to toss him suggestions for 2E design. I can't say I'm downright offended, but at least I get the reference now.

[Guy Fullerton]

I posted too soon. I meant to end on this:

The failure (for lack of a better word) of 2nd edition was caused by two things: 1) The failure to explain some of important 1e AD&D design points in such a way that the players and/or successor designers could understand them, and 2) the fact that the players' feedback was relied upon so heavily in terms of shaping 2nd edition.

(Personally, I don't think of 2nd edition as a failure per se; I still had fun with it. But I don't play 2nd edition because 1e is still there for me to play and because I now understand its virtues far better than I had in the past.)

[T. Foster]

Thus beginning the long and time-honored tradition at TSR/WotC of taking something that worked (the #1 best selling rpg by probably a couple orders of magnitude) and arbitrarily changing it to reflect the desires of the most vocal complainers, i.e. the people who don't like the game, thus leaving the vastly larger number who do like it out in the cold. AD&D didn't repudiate OD&D, and none of the Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, or RC iterations of Classic D&D repudiated the prior versions (in fact Moldvay, Mentzer, and the RC are all about 95% cross-compatible), but for whatever reason TSR felt the best way to sell 2E AD&D was to repudiate 1E AD&D (especially UA), a gambit which has now been repeated 3 times by WotC (with 3E, 3.5, and 4E -- every one of which was marketed on the basis that the previous version was "broken" and nigh-unplayable). And people wonder why the D&D fanbase is so fractured (and fractious)...

[Stormcrow]

You guys do realize, don't you, that you are making yourselves sound like religious zealots decrying the persecution of your savior...

[Zotster]

You and I can both bemoan the fate of the guy who sold Monopoly for $100 or whatever it was and then saw it make millions upon millions of dollars. Bet he really wanted that IP back, don't you? I wish he had gotten it back ot been able to get some % of the royalties. I know that Gary got royalties off AD&D, millions of dollars worth over the years, so he actually had it vastly better than the guy who invented Monopoly

Just to be pedantic, and because it touches on some of the IP issues here: Monopoly was invented by a group of Quakers who essentially released it to the public domain as an educational aid (demonstrating the evils of property ownership - everyone in the game ends up bankrupt except one fat landlord). Barrow copied the game right down to the spelling mistakes and took it to Parker Brothers who then attempted to buy up all copies of the original and supress them. The Quakers never sued because the whole point of the exercise was to show how evil springs from what people will do to each other in order to obtain ownership of things; a fact that Parker Bros had amply demonstrated and which TSR later underlined. There is some wry amusement to be had from the fact that Parker Bros and TSR's "IP" are now both controled by Hasbro.

I'd always heard otherwise but I stand corrected.

[Zotster]

I can only imagine that some evidence of a great and ongoing conspiracy is being hinted at here, but honestly I cannot detect it.

To be honest, I believe it exists only in Gene's mind.

[Zotster]

The general backstabbing going on predated the specific later personal betrayal that Zeb did with Williams. So thats why Gary had his kids working there in the early 80's as "the Blumes" were driving the place into the ground (bad managing, bad investments, etc.) so thats pretty reasonable call for a much needed "nepotism" at least one based on trust.

Gene, I try very hard not to be rude, as that only leads to further rudeness, but I'd like to say that you don't know what you're talking about here. Sorry, but from what I saw of Gary's family at work, none of them was that useful, at the time at least. (Please note that I'm not claiming the Blumes were any more useful.) Perhaps Gary later claimed he had hired his family only to counteract the Blumes, but from everything I knew then and now, it was pure nepotism on all sides. Neither side had any purer motives than the other, it was all "hey, folks, let's all sidle up to the TSR teat and suck hard!"

And Gene, you have no idea what you're talking about when you lump Zeb in with Lorraine in some sort of vast conspiracy of betrayal. Zeb led the team that created 2e (all based on 1e, for sure). He did not wield any power at TSR aside from having final call on design decisions relating to AD&D 2e. Anything else is BS.

You can say all you want about Lorraine and I'll nod happily. But don't pretend that you have some knowledge of a conspiracy/betrayal cooked up by Zeb and Lorraine, because it never happened. Lorraine was completely capable of doing it on her own and she did.

If only Gary had chosen someone of a nobler character than Zeb (maybe even a relative) during that time that Zeb was "under Gary's guidance" (Zeb's actual words), etc., etc. but of course somebody can surmise to say if Zeb was that unqualified to work on designs (which we all have the solid proof that he was unqualified) that was his drive for pushing more suitable folks out of the way to get where he was and then ultimately turning on the hand that fed him.

You know, I'm going to finally call you on this sort of stuff, Gene. Please link me to modules that you have written that you feel are better than what Zeb did. If you can't or if you do and they're not better than his, you really need to stop saying he's unqualified, as you're not qualified to make that call. Time to put up or shut up, Gene. Let's see it.

You can "if only" all you want it ain't going to change the fact that this man played Gary and in the end played us all.

Again, didn't happen but maybe if you keep saying it while you rub your lucky rabbit's foot, the RPG Fairy will re-write history for you.

DRAGON 121 May 1987:

Several months ago in this Game Lizards
(yes, I wrote that intentionally) column, I
had the perverse glee of asking the ques-
tion: “Who dies?” Perhaps the only mistake
I made was in asking for a response.

ACTUAL QUOTE OF David "Zeb" Cook regarding breaking AD&D.

As others have pointed out, this quote was taken out of context and when read in its true context it's just Zeb asking for fans' opinions of what should and shouldn't be included in 2e.

Edit to add: Since I'm new here I may be overstepping some bounds of propriety with my responses above. If a mod feels that I'm being uncivil, please don't hesitate to tell me so and I'll apologize to Gene and try to refrain from taking certain tones with him (or anyone else on this board) again. Thanks, Mike.

[geneweigel]

I've about had enough from this guy's baiting. In order to put this to bed, I'm going to say nothing more ever on it.

[geneweigel]

I don't need to prove that 2e blows either.

I'm done, I don't even post here anymore. I just came by in the past year or so more due to serious matters but thats done.

As Han Solo said "No reward is worth... this!"

I'll leave if you go away. Hows that?

[Zotster]

I've about had enough from this guy's baiting. In order to put this to bed, I'm going to say nothing more ever on it.

I don't need to prove that 2e blows either.

I'm done, I don't even post here anymore. I just came by in the past year or so more due to serious matters but thats done.

As Han Solo said "No reward is worth... this!"

I'll leave if you go away. Hows that?

Gene, you just promised us you'd say nothing more on this subject ever again. Where is the trust, the sanctity of one's word?

I'm not going to go away, Gene. You don't have to go away either, despite your promise. I'd like you to admit that some things you just make up, but I don't know that you ever will. Truly, honestly, in all sincerity, Gene, Zeb wasn't a backstabbing bastard who conspired to get rid of Gary. He wasn't that sort of person and he didn't have anything approaching that power. Lorraine and the Blumes were all it took, Gene. I was there and while I wasn't in on any inner councils, I caught whiffs of what was going on and I knew the principals personally, at the time it was happening. And things just didn't happen the way you keep saying, Gene, not about Zeb's involvement in it. You don't like what he did with 2e, I understand, totally your right to have any opinion on that you want.