The Reconstructed History Thread

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fbmf
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The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by fbmf »

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
While suffering from a severe but thankfully temporary case of dumbass, I accidentally deleted some posts by Frank and others detailing some of the Gaming Den's history, specifically how Frank came to be a part of it.

With the help of Sir Wayne and Mr. Waesel, I'm going to attempt to reconstruct the thread as best I can. Bear with me.
[/TGFBS]
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by User3 »

Frank wrote:
Sir Wayne wrote:
I was just wondering if there was a split or anything, since some folks here post there but not others, you know. But yeah, there is more gaming talk over here; so here we are.


Yes there was. I think I split first. I'll give a sanitized version because there's no particular reason to rake old wounds over old coals.

Here's the deal: I'm a Communist, and Arturick... well... he isn't. But we are both raging assholes. Arturick however, had volunteered to be a moderator over at Nifty. I never had, because I'm a raging asshole.

There was a political discussion, brought about by someone wondering if Paranoia should be updated to the Computer worrying about "Terrorists" to give it a more 2nd milenium feel. I said yes, and Arturick... said that everyone like me should be rounded up and executed as traitors.

Things got heated from there and a lot of bad blood was spilled. Insults were delivered that cannot be taken back. And noone was reprimanded in any way.

THe schism happened not because people were threatening to actually murder other board members, but because the rules against that behavior were not enforced. The NIfty moderator community revealed that they had additional secret rules that there were favored posters who could get away with literally anything and the rules only applied to the other posters.

That prospect didn't sit well with me, on account of being a communist. Even though I was one of the people with favored poster status (actually because of that fact), I could not condone the continuation of the board.

So i stayed exclusively over here, where there is a tighter focus and a set of rules that I can follow and which apply equally across the board. Here, people are allowed to be total raging cocks, which is good because otherwise I don't think I could follow the rules. And what rules there are apply to me the same as they apply to others, so that I can support them.

Apparently, there were some other fallouts among Nifty staff that essentially originated from that, and I'm no longer friends with Medesha over it (she insisted that she couldn't be friends with me unless I agreed to be friends with Arturick again, and I told her that I was willing to be her friend but that I was never going to be friends with Arturick - and that was that). But I stopped following the drama after I left and don't really know how it turned out.

-Username17
Last edited by User3 on Fri Dec 18, 2009 12:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by User3 »

Sir Wayne wrote: Alright. Thanks for explaining that, Frank. I'd a feeling it was something like that (I remember reading one thread where somebody (Da'Vane?) had been deleting your posts, and I know I would've quit over that, heh)....

And you're right. I mean, I disagree with you on a lot of things (being pretty much diametrically opposed politically, among other things >_> ), but some things are universal: if you're going to have rules, they need to be consistent; people need to be treated fairly [or as fairly as possible], etc. Not sure how I feel about that other part, but I guess we should have someplace for angry gamers to yell at each other. :]
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by User3 »

Sir Wayne wrote:
if you're going to have rules, they need to be consistent; people need to be treated fairly [or as fairly as possible], etc.


This sentiment, is like, the essence or soul force or whatever of our VERY BEINGS.

And the violation of this fundamental rule of human interaction is the basis of my nearly unstoppable rage.
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by User3 »

Crissa wrote: Yeah, at least fbmf says when we over step the line (and I make him nervous all the time) and why things go away or need to.

Communication is the next most important point to fairness. I can accept alot of things as long as there is communication.

-Crissa
[1 edits; Last edit by fbmf at 10:37:30 Sun Dec 17 2006]
Last edited by User3 on Fri Dec 18, 2009 12:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by User3 »

Hello I'm new to these forums.

I came across the forums while I was searching for the author of the that shitastic article about dead levels at WOTC. (If you read the discussion about the article, yes that is me the same Leress). I came across another discussion about it and it also had the name of Frank Trollman in it. The way they were talking about Frank it was like he was some ledgendary figure that either left the Wizards boards or was kicked out (I don't know which. Please Explain?) So I did a search for Frank Trollman and came here. I read a lot of the article here and there are some of the most thought out and intellgent things I have seen in a long time. I now have a new understanding about class design and making new classes and the importantance of synergy and well common (logical) sense about it all.

I really like it here none of those stupid "fallacies" that are not fallacies. I now post a WOTC with more knowledge and insight than before.
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by User3 »

Frank wrote: Wow. It's history day.

OK, I was kicked out from the WotC board because Skip Williams was let go during the shift to 3.5 (which at that time was a two man show of Ed Stark and Andy Collins). That's probably not very helpful, so I'll go into some more history on that.

Back in the days of 3rd edition, there were three main authors of D&D (Ed Stark, Skip Williams, and Monte Cook), and a playtesting staff. It was wild times, and noone appreciated the level of discussion and feed back we got, least of all me.

I used to post in an extremely no-nonsense, no embelishment style under the name "Frank". I would clearly separate opinion from direct text interpretation with line breaks, and I would quote the exact page numbers and rules statements that I was basing interpretations on. Like all the time. It must have been pretty annoying.

But it also lent my statements a good deal of weight on the WotC boards. When I made a rules argument, I'd bust out the actual rules and laboriously transcribe the statements point for point into quote boxes so that people could see the text I was basing interpretations on. That meant that when I said that a rule said XXX, it actually said that. And I'd even quote it.

This contrasted severely with the way Skip Williams did things in his capacity as "The Sage". He'd answer rules questions about the rules without necessarily having a copy of the rules on him. Sometimes the answers he'd give were... bad for the game. Classic examples include Monks holding torches and diagonal weapon reach.

But Skip Williams, in his capacity as "The Sage" had decided that the worst thing he could do was admit that he was worng. So he didn't do it. Ever. If he made a flippant answer on a chat room when he didn't have the books on him and someone would bring it up later, he'd never say "Sorry dude, I was way drunk, I have no idea what you're talking about." - he'd come up with some elaborate construction about why the answer was right all along. Sometimes he'd be forced to argue that two opposing answers from himself were both correct at the same time. This caused Skip and I to post answers to similar questions that were very different.

And when people brought up the differences (usually with an angry "But the Sgae says...") I would retain my implaccable demeanor. My standard answer would be something along the lines of "Skip Williams is on crack, the rules clearly say on page XX, page XY, and page XZ that it works like this...." And people noticed. And some people grew over time to hate me for it. But what ultimately got me banned was that some people decided that they agreed with me.

Josh Kablack, the same Josh who occasssionally posts here today and at one time worked on Exalted in some capacity, put up a fateful post on the boards. The title was "Skip vs. Frank: Sorcerers and Quicken Spell". You see, Skip Williams stated in his advice column, and in Tome and Blood, and in personal email, and in the FAQ, and probably embroidered on his underpants even that Sorcerers couldn't benefit from Quicken Spell because of the extra time it takes for a Sorcerer to use Metamagic. Well, under the third edition rules, that's not actually what the rules said. The rules actually said that if a spell took a standard action then it would take a full round to cast as a metamagic spell for a sorcerer. But the rules also said that if a quickened spell took a Fullround or less to cast, it went off as a Free Action (we didn't have Swift Actions back then, but the effect was the same). The rules didn't say that a Sorcerer took any extra time to cast a Free Action spell.

So regardless of whether you applied the feat transform before or after the metamagic transform, the end result was "Free Action". In short, as written, Sorcerers could totally use Quicken Spell with no problem at all.

And this produced a huge flame war. A flame war I didn't even particularly participate in because it was being waged by other people I had never met quoting Skip Williams and me back and forth at each other. Occassionally I'd bump in to correct someone on a page citation and that was about it. The whole thing went on for dozens of pages of replies.

And that might have been the end of it, but someone else started "Frank vs. Skip Part II" a thread about another disagreement between my own quotes and Skip's. And someone else started a "Frank vs. Skip III". And a part four. I think there was a part five. Part six I think was the one that got closed by moderators. Each featured a new issue and the only core structure was that it featured someone quoting me explaining what the rulebook said against Skip Williams explaining what he thought the rulebook meant.

I got emails from WotC game designers warning me that if I didn't stop it that bad things would happen to me. And I told them the honest truth - which was that I could not stop it because I wasn't even involved in their production. I didn't even know most of the people starting the threads or arguing on my behalf.

And when Skip Williams stepped down, so did I. The same day that he signed his mandatory resignation letter, I got banned from the WotC board. Did you know that when a lead designer steps down from a WotC post they get to ban anyone that pisses them off before they go? Well, you do now.

Oh sure, there was a final flame war going on that they claimed was my final warning. They said that I was being too rude to Rich Burlow - but that was just publicity. I hadn't actually said anything insulting or mean in that particular flame fest, nor had I participated in the actual flaming.

---

And then 3.5 came out, and the wording that I said had to be in the basic book if Skip wanted it to work the way he said it was written to work appeared like magic in the 3.5 PHB. And I'm still banned. And at this point, I'm not coming back because I don't care.

I no longer champion the notion that the rules as written can be exactly followed like a legal text. The 3.5 rules are simply too long to do that with. Sword and Fist was 95 pages long and even the 3rd edition DMG was only 253. You could seriously sit down and thumb through all of D&D in an evening and find every rule pertaining to a subject. You could put them all on the table and analyze how they interact.

3.5 made a second complete book about Wizards!. I have no idea what all the rules do. Noone does. The lead designers don't even participate in the production of all the books. There isn't a single person on the planet who has read all of the rules published for 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons.

So my focus has shifted. I no longer attempt to put exhaustive pictures of what the rules actually say together before I propose new house rules. I just don't even care any more. When I write stuff for my home campaigns I do so within the bubble of my own campaign worlds because I no longer believe that there is a default D&D campaign that we can share.

I haven't tried to shift a character from one campaign to another since 2003. And I don't think I'm likely to do so in the future.

-Username17
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by User3 »

Crissa wrote: Frank skipped the part that he was 'allowed back' onto the boards at WotC if he 'never mentioned he was Frank before or now'...

-Crissa
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by User3 »

Crissa wrote:Frank skipped the part that he was 'allowed back' onto the boards at WotC if he 'never mentioned he was Frank before or now'...

-Crissa


Heh, I remember that. That sure was classy of the board mods.

If I were banned simply for being me and then told that I could come back if I refused to admit that I was myself, how enticing of an offer did they think that would be?
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by User3 »

Frank wrote:(she insisted that she couldn't be friends with me unless I agreed to be friends with Arturick again, and I told her that I was willing to be her friend but that I was never going to be friends with Arturick - and that was that)


Huh, odd.

The last thing I told Arturick on the boards was "... and you might be able to understand that if you didn't have your head shoved so far up Anne Coulter's ass you couldn't even see the light of day", and as far as I know Medesha is still cool with me.

But your point about the Nifty Moderating in those days stands. I've been on both sides of the equation, both as favored and as unfavored.

Don't know about now, I'm pretty well sedated these days, and don't have any fighting spirit left in me.
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by User3 »

clikml wrote:
Crissa wrote:Frank skipped the part that he was 'allowed back' onto the boards at WotC if he 'never mentioned he was Frank before or now'...

-Crissa


Heh, I remember that. That sure was classy of the board mods.

If I were banned simply for being me and then told that I could come back if I refused to admit that I was myself, how enticing of an offer did they think that would be?


It sounds more like Skip had him banned and the mods probably aren't allowed to go against their bosses (even former bosses?) in that respect. So saying that he could come back under a different alias isn't necessarily an assinine thing to do. Although I suppose it is possible that the motivation was to make sure Frank lost the 'name recognition.'

Regardless, good story. Makes me sad that it was before my D&D forum days.
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by User3 »

Frank wrote: Actually the whole "you can come back, but only if you never admit who you are" thing is standard WotC policy - a bare nod to the fact that WotC can't ban you if you come back under a different name and never say who you are.

It's a "don't ask, don't tell" policy that centers on the fact that a policy where they tried to investigate you could not possibly be applied fairly - it's entirely possible for people to just sign up with different email addresses and never mention that they used to have an old account.

So since they can't stop everyone from coming back with an assumed name, their policy is to allow anyone to come back with a different name.
But it's still fvcking insulting and I'm not going to do it.

-Username17
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by fbmf »

[The Great Fence Builder Speaks]
That, boys and girls, is the best I am able to do for now. For those keeping track at home, we are missing:

[*] Digestor, having found out Frank's political leanings, initiating stage one of a mating ritual with Frank.

[*] Frank and Digestor deciding who would be on top.

These will be restored if I can find them or someone can point them out to me.
[/TGFBS]
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by Digestor »

There's no need, our love will always shine too bright for any loss of data to hold it back.

<4... I mean <3
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by Josh_Kablack »

There's a bunch of perceptions here I have disagreements with.

But in the spirit of not opening old wounds, I'm going to stick to correcting a factual innaccuracy regarding myself:

Guest (Unregistered) at [unixtime wrote:1166678958[/unixtime]]
Josh Kablack, the same Josh who .... today and now works on Exalted in some capacity


This is no longer true, and has not been for some time. And any such capacity was extremely minor at any times in the past.
"But transportation issues are social-justice issues. The toll of bad transit policies and worse infrastructure—trains and buses that don’t run well and badly serve low-income neighborhoods, vehicular traffic that pollutes the environment and endangers the lives of cyclists and pedestrians—is borne disproportionately by black and brown communities."
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Re: The Reconstructed History Thread

Post by fbmf »

Corrected. Thank you, Josh.

Game On,
fbmf
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