If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say…

 …don’t say anything at all.  Or so the saying goes.  We interrupt our normal content to talk about this video highlighting the upcoming book, The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1976.  It is a history about the making of the Original game, with scans of the Original books, documents, letters, commentary, and input from game historian Jon Peterson.  I was highly anticipating this book, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

The video features one Jason Tondro, Senior Game designer at Wizards of the Coast (WotC) for D&D, who apparently has been playing since the Original game was around (so you know that he has old school chops, of course.)

Towards the end of the video (around the 38:30 mark,) Mr. Tondro and interviewer Todd Kenreck go into a smug diatribe about how Original D&D wouldn’t pass their “inclusivity reviews” today, and as a bonus, throw a racist, sexist comment about white males from the Midwest, since it is apparently socially acceptable to do so nowadays.  (Calling it like it is.  Political extremists don’t get to redefine these terms to suit their ideology.)

No shi*t!  The criticism was obvious, unwarranted, and ignorant to boot.  The example they use is the fighter class previously being called “fighting-man,” as if it was some deliberate attempt by some insidious, so-called Patriarchy to enforce their sinister will via an obscure, small press wargame in 1974.

Thing is, five seconds on the interwebz can tell you that the term “fighting-man” originates from “Appendix N” authors like Robert E. Howard (of Conan fame,) and Edgar Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan and John Carter of Mars fame,) whose writings inspired the creators of the game (emphasis mine):

“It was Mars, the god of war, and for me, the fighting man, it had always held the power of irresistible enchantment. As I gazed at it on that far-gone night it seemed to call across the unthinkable void, to lure me to it, to draw me as the lodestone attracts a particle of iron.”

 - Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars

“When I was a fighting-man, the kettle-drums they beat,
The people scattered gold-dust before my horses feet;
But now I am a great king, the people hound my track
With poison in my wine-cup, and daggers at my back.”

- Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword

 I find this is a common occurrence with moralist critics.  They don’t seem to “do the work” (the research work, that is) before vomiting subjective nonsense.  Don’t get me started on those dark elves…

Spoiler alert: they're aliens from a (very good) sci-fi novel, written by a female author.

As far as I know, this did not stop female players from playing female "fighting-men" in Original D&D.  If I was to be cynical, which I’m entitled to be at my advancing age, having this guy on almost seems like an attempt to show a sympathetic character so that OG grogs can find their way to the light and repent for their sin of appreciating or even (*gasp*) loving the older games.  It's weird how WotC talks out of both sides of their mouth on classic D&D.  On one hand, they crap all over its legacy, and on the other, they still want your money for this stuff.  Regardless, this kind of commentary from the current faces of D&D seem to lend credence to the idea that new D&D is for people who never really liked old D&D.  Sad.

Original D&D is, like most things, a product of its time; this we know.  Heck!  It didn’t even pass the moralist Christian purity test back then, either (funny how history repeats itself!)  We don't need to be beat over the head with this information again and again.  Fortunately, the game survived the moralists then, and I believe it will survive the moralists now (and tomorrow.)

Old D&D turned me into a newt!  Burn it!

The new (likely sanitized) D&D books will be releasing sometime later in the year (with at least one delayed for the next.)  This will mark the first time in thirty or so years that I do not want buy the next edition of the game (I even have the 5e books.)  I’m just not interested.  I used to think it was a good thing at least, to support the mainstream game even if you don’t play it much (or at all.)  Now I’m not so sure.  In fact, I’m not sure I even want to purchase The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1974, but I do have a lot of respect for Jon Peterson, and I’d really like to read what he wrote (which I suspect is good.)

WotC may own the trademark of D&D (and associated IP,) and is fully entitled to call the shots about the direction in which it goes, but it has increasingly shown itself to be a poor custodian of the game and its history.  The silver lining is the Original game, its spirit, and classic ways of play can at least continue to live on in some form, warts-and-all, regardless of what happens with the official one, thanks largely to the Open Game Licenses (OGLs) and independent publishers with the wherewithal to use them.   To paraphrase something once said about Gary Gygax:
 

D&D is too important to leave to WotC.