I tend to think that it's easier to watch for bridges being built from the other shore(s) and then to meet them halfway, or more than halfway. I imagine that the things we are doing (incessant internettling and internetizing, and, PDFs, tangible prints, etc) builds a sort of an emergent-behaviour bridge. This board is a bridge (with some trolls under it - or standing stoutly in the middle of it).
The thread at Dragonfoot reminded why I don;t much like that board. I'd not like the idea of D&D being 'marketed' that way. I'm not sure I much like the idea of D&D being marketed in any way really. What's the point of looking at it as a way of making money? As a business?
Just to sustain itself and produce huge quantities of consumer goods? Yeah, right. Nope.
Someone, somewhere will be expecting $$$, demanding it.
Building bridges or burning them down
Moderator: Falconer
Jeffery St. Clair, its nice to hear that Franks a good guy in person, your lucky to know and be friends with these guys and have a unique window into the "real world" they live in (unlike us). I know people often come off badly online (never me of course 
). Anyway, I see FM as someone who honestly sees things differently then me, no harm there (I disagree with most everyone on one thing or another). I think the problem is his occasional tone online (which is probably just a manerism that sounds as if he's speaking down to people, some as knowledgable as himself I'd imagine). I also may have taken his post wrong, in it he sounds as if he's wanting to move in another direction away from traditional 1E AD&D and OD&D. Again, if true, nothing wrong with that...its his opinion. Of course, others might have had run ins with him?
). Anyway, I see FM as someone who honestly sees things differently then me, no harm there (I disagree with most everyone on one thing or another). I think the problem is his occasional tone online (which is probably just a manerism that sounds as if he's speaking down to people, some as knowledgable as himself I'd imagine). I also may have taken his post wrong, in it he sounds as if he's wanting to move in another direction away from traditional 1E AD&D and OD&D. Again, if true, nothing wrong with that...its his opinion. Of course, others might have had run ins with him?"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."
Thomas Jefferson in letter to Madison
Back in the days when a leopard could grab and break your Australopithecus (gracile or robust) nek and drag you into the tree as a snack, mankind has never had a break"
** Stone Giant
Thomas Jefferson in letter to Madison
Back in the days when a leopard could grab and break your Australopithecus (gracile or robust) nek and drag you into the tree as a snack, mankind has never had a break"
** Stone Giant
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blackprinceofmuncie
- Uber-Grognard
- Posts: 2917
- Joined: Sun Sep 11, 2005 9:16 pm
I respect your experience and your opinion Jeffery. I'm sure Frank is capable of being a very nice person if he chooses. Often, however, he chooses to be an asshat. One does not preclude the other.Jeffery St. Clair wrote:BMoP, I don't know what Frank did to you personally to make you refer to him as an asshat.
I've known Frank over a decade and also not been privy to the "asshattedness" of him, but maybe I've just been lucky. I first met him on AOL when I asked him a few questions about his time at TSR in the 80s, and he was always happy to quickly get back to me and give me answers.
In the late 90s when EGG auctioned off the contents of his gaming closet, he had one lot that consisted of 10 copies of the game Divine Right. The auction was run on the old Greytalk mailing list, and Frank narrowly beat me out. Upon finding out from Gary I was the second highest bidder, he offered to sell me one of the games for a pittance (he rememberd me from our brief emails a couple of years before, I think because of my handle "Badmike" it stuck in his head). He threw in another for the same price when I told him the love my youngest brother and I had for the game growing up. At the time the game was selling for $200 plus on ebay and these were in SW condition.....he had no reason to cut me the deal he did, which was almost embarrassing (I offered him more money for the pair but he wouldn't take it).
I've kept a sporadic correspondence with him over the years when I have questions about BECMI rules or the good old days at TSR (we are both probably the last two people in America that still have old AOL accounts from the early 90s). He always got back to me. I even left a very unflattering review of the Immortals boxed set on a site (I'm not a big fan of super high level play, and it was a list called something like "The ten most non-essential D&D products") and he referred to it later ( once again I think he recognized my name) and said something like "Well, there's no accounting for taste, I can't believe you disliked it so much" but he didn't beat me up, merely tried to defend it in a short note to me. I've also mentioned to him once that I didn't care for the lower levels of T1-4 (Something along the lines of "You're expecting this really cool ultimate battle, and all you get are the silly elemental nodes") and he once again sent me a short little defense of what he had done.
There's a game some true asshats like to pull with guys like Frank, basically the bait them into losing their cool, just so they can tell their buddies "I got Gary Gygax to tell me I'm an idiot, hee-yuck" (Actually knew a guy that used to do that to John Wick all the time, he thought Wick was in idiot, I don't know that I disagree). One guy two years ago at Gencon tried to get Frank to sign a PHB.....a 3.5 version.
Frank signed it for him and looked really uncomfortable doing it, but I'm sure that if he didn't, that guy was probably bitching about what an asshole Frank was for not signing his book (the SAME DUDE tried to get Gary to sign it, and to his credit, EGG did after remarking he didn't know why the guy wanted his signature there as he had nothing to do with that book). It may have just been me but I got the impression the guy was getting guys like Gary and Frank to sign his book because he was looking for a blow up or some sort of response, happily neither Frank nor Gary gave him one.
I didn't get to meet him in person until I attended my first Gencon two years ago, he was a amiable and engaging guy, but he was very busy most of the time and I did see him become a bit brusque with one or two persistant fanboy types that wanted either attention or answers he couldn't or wouldn't give. Gencon is a pretty much nonstop wildass get together for a week, and on both ocassions I saw this it was Sunday afternoon and it may have just been because he was tired (and let's face it, he's old, hell I was cranky as shit on the drive home from Indy that year myself and he's got a few years on me).
Last year I brought my wife with me to Gencon, and my wife is a zero level gamer with absolutely no interest in RPGs..I would have to say she has more than a little dislike for them, actually. She didn't know Frank from Adam, and she met him at a dinner we had the first night there, she actually was seated next to him, and they got along very well. We bumped into him a few times the week and actually had dinner with him again Sunday night and my wife got along with him famously. I don't even think gaming was hardly mentioned as they discussed his bakery and the sad fact it was going to have to close down so he and his wife could move closer to be with their very elderly parents as they needed caregivers. Needless to say after the dinner and convo my wife is now a huge Frank fan.....
Also add that when his bakery was open, every order I had from there was quickly and expertly taken care of...it's a damn shame they had to sell their business, those were some of the most incredible goodies I've ever tasted.
As Jeff said, I can't speak for what may have happened between Frank and yourself, I know sometimes in his posts he may come off brusque or dismissive but having met him I think that's just the way it may sound....sometimes while asking him a question online he would just send me a one or two sentence answer, I get the impression he's got a lot going on and a lot of email to answer. In person he's been nothing short of fantastic...there was even an incident last year during a private game he DM'd where a member became unruly, and from all accounts of people there Frank handled it perfectly, he got the situation in hand and didn't have to eject the guy, embarrass him, or make a scene.
A lot of guys I've met online really rub me the wrong way, and then when I meet them in person, suddenly I'm wondering why I thought they were a jackass, they are a great guy! (especially if they buy me a round). Maybe Frank is like that. So I may have just been very lucky over the years to see his good side. Frank is ok in my book.
Mike B.
In the late 90s when EGG auctioned off the contents of his gaming closet, he had one lot that consisted of 10 copies of the game Divine Right. The auction was run on the old Greytalk mailing list, and Frank narrowly beat me out. Upon finding out from Gary I was the second highest bidder, he offered to sell me one of the games for a pittance (he rememberd me from our brief emails a couple of years before, I think because of my handle "Badmike" it stuck in his head). He threw in another for the same price when I told him the love my youngest brother and I had for the game growing up. At the time the game was selling for $200 plus on ebay and these were in SW condition.....he had no reason to cut me the deal he did, which was almost embarrassing (I offered him more money for the pair but he wouldn't take it).
I've kept a sporadic correspondence with him over the years when I have questions about BECMI rules or the good old days at TSR (we are both probably the last two people in America that still have old AOL accounts from the early 90s). He always got back to me. I even left a very unflattering review of the Immortals boxed set on a site (I'm not a big fan of super high level play, and it was a list called something like "The ten most non-essential D&D products") and he referred to it later ( once again I think he recognized my name) and said something like "Well, there's no accounting for taste, I can't believe you disliked it so much" but he didn't beat me up, merely tried to defend it in a short note to me. I've also mentioned to him once that I didn't care for the lower levels of T1-4 (Something along the lines of "You're expecting this really cool ultimate battle, and all you get are the silly elemental nodes") and he once again sent me a short little defense of what he had done.
There's a game some true asshats like to pull with guys like Frank, basically the bait them into losing their cool, just so they can tell their buddies "I got Gary Gygax to tell me I'm an idiot, hee-yuck" (Actually knew a guy that used to do that to John Wick all the time, he thought Wick was in idiot, I don't know that I disagree). One guy two years ago at Gencon tried to get Frank to sign a PHB.....a 3.5 version.
Frank signed it for him and looked really uncomfortable doing it, but I'm sure that if he didn't, that guy was probably bitching about what an asshole Frank was for not signing his book (the SAME DUDE tried to get Gary to sign it, and to his credit, EGG did after remarking he didn't know why the guy wanted his signature there as he had nothing to do with that book). It may have just been me but I got the impression the guy was getting guys like Gary and Frank to sign his book because he was looking for a blow up or some sort of response, happily neither Frank nor Gary gave him one.I didn't get to meet him in person until I attended my first Gencon two years ago, he was a amiable and engaging guy, but he was very busy most of the time and I did see him become a bit brusque with one or two persistant fanboy types that wanted either attention or answers he couldn't or wouldn't give. Gencon is a pretty much nonstop wildass get together for a week, and on both ocassions I saw this it was Sunday afternoon and it may have just been because he was tired (and let's face it, he's old, hell I was cranky as shit on the drive home from Indy that year myself and he's got a few years on me).
Last year I brought my wife with me to Gencon, and my wife is a zero level gamer with absolutely no interest in RPGs..I would have to say she has more than a little dislike for them, actually. She didn't know Frank from Adam, and she met him at a dinner we had the first night there, she actually was seated next to him, and they got along very well. We bumped into him a few times the week and actually had dinner with him again Sunday night and my wife got along with him famously. I don't even think gaming was hardly mentioned as they discussed his bakery and the sad fact it was going to have to close down so he and his wife could move closer to be with their very elderly parents as they needed caregivers. Needless to say after the dinner and convo my wife is now a huge Frank fan.....
Also add that when his bakery was open, every order I had from there was quickly and expertly taken care of...it's a damn shame they had to sell their business, those were some of the most incredible goodies I've ever tasted.
As Jeff said, I can't speak for what may have happened between Frank and yourself, I know sometimes in his posts he may come off brusque or dismissive but having met him I think that's just the way it may sound....sometimes while asking him a question online he would just send me a one or two sentence answer, I get the impression he's got a lot going on and a lot of email to answer. In person he's been nothing short of fantastic...there was even an incident last year during a private game he DM'd where a member became unruly, and from all accounts of people there Frank handled it perfectly, he got the situation in hand and didn't have to eject the guy, embarrass him, or make a scene.
A lot of guys I've met online really rub me the wrong way, and then when I meet them in person, suddenly I'm wondering why I thought they were a jackass, they are a great guy! (especially if they buy me a round). Maybe Frank is like that. So I may have just been very lucky over the years to see his good side. Frank is ok in my book.
Mike B.
http://ntrpgcon.com
"If the time ever comes when all aspects of fantasy are covered and the vast majority of its players agree on how the game should be played, D&D will have become staid and boring indeed." E. Gary Gygax
"If the time ever comes when all aspects of fantasy are covered and the vast majority of its players agree on how the game should be played, D&D will have become staid and boring indeed." E. Gary Gygax
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thedungeondelver
- Intergalactic demander
- Posts: 9798
- Joined: Sat Sep 10, 2005 7:40 am
- Location: ameriʞa
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geneweigel
WTF?
That wasn't the only thread to disappear. Falconer's petition thread has also vanished like so much flash paper.geneweigel wrote:Speaking of burning bridges, Gary's stuff seems to have gone to the wolves.
I posted to a thread about them not communicating (I specifically mentioned if Gygax's material "goes fourth" it will lose its value) and the thread was deleted within a few days.
Just thought I'd spread this around.
"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." - Joseph Campbell
