The Culture: The Oldfags Never Bothered To Figure Out Why So They Had Nothing To Pass On

Not one untrue word said. NOT. ONE.

Here is the evidence we do have: There were a number of campaigns being run was TINY. The expertise of setting them up and running them resided in a SIMARLY SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE. All campaign instruction documents before AD&D were rough prototypes. No earnest development could have occurred because each campaign was distinct from all others in its theme, concept, and scope. The people playing in these campaigns may have some nice war stories. But they have no idea what was actually going on due to the rules being entirely in, for example, Dave Arneson's head. (This is the “just asked Wesely” cultural ethos of the era.) Any commentary on 1:1 time type rules will immediately give you insight into the level of understanding of gameplay dynamics a person has. (See Lewis Pulsiphers's remarks on that from an old White Dwarf magazine as a PRIME example.) We have published material that shows that key figures were unfamiliar with second order effects of the rule and what type of play structures it could feasibly support. Wargamers of the sixties were not a preliterate culture. Many of them are still alive today. What did they do when there was a resurgence of interest in campaign play? Did they suddenly decide to show up with the “practice and demonstration and mentorship and play reports and conversations at the table” that would help us achieve success at the table? NO THEY DIDN'T. In fact, they did the opposite of all that. They elected to outright oppose the efforts to recover campaign play. Because “not even Gygax played that way”, “only David Wesely can run a Braunstein”, etc. AD&D was the first time in history that anyone elaborated on the subject of campaign play dynamics at all. Apart from Gygax, every one of these “preliterate wargamers” walked away from the very game rules that even make such campaigns possible. They didn't know what they had. And there would be evidence to the contrary if they did.

- Jeffro Johnson

Read on Substack

The Oldfags, too many of whom being Boomers, did what Boomers do and refused to pass on their patrimony.

The worse part is that what Jeffro describes here is something I've seen across the board from Boomers over the years. It's not just a Tabletop thing. They genuinely do not comprehend why they do (or did) what they did, only that it works/worked that way (at the time) so of course it always does so what's the problem? Why bother questioning a damned thing? It Just Works That Way.

This is why they get mad when you show the receipts. You are telling them, to their faces, with facts and evidence, that no It Does Not Work That Way You Fucking Retard and had you bothered to Read The Fucking Manual and properly comprehend--work through--what you read you'd be agreeing with us and not being an arthritic anklebiting asshole.

Now you know why I've come to call them "OldFags".

And those who echo them might as well be Oldfags, so they get the brush too.