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Post by tdenmark on May 21, 2023 11:01:38 GMT -6
Fighters rather than fighting-men would upset and confound nearly no one. Changing clerics to “clergymen” seems kinda….arbitrarily bizarre for little to no reason, and also, isn’t as flavorful anyhow (considering the class’s ‘place’). (And I even say this as a person who thinks the class is ‘Mary Sue’ and shouldn’t exist in the first place at all…but the thief class should…so…yeah…) It’s a beloved and core class. Don’t mess with it. Heheh I've always preferred the Paladin over the Cleric as a fantasy archetype. I think they are redundant. I wrote a whole ODD/Basic supplement for it based on Templars and Charlemagne's Paladins called Monastic Knights as a replacement for Clerics.
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Post by tdenmark on May 21, 2023 11:06:02 GMT -6
Fighters rather than fighting-men would upset and confound nearly no one. Changing clerics to “clergymen” seems kinda….arbitrarily bizarre for little to no reason, and also, isn’t as flavorful anyhow (considering the class’s ‘place’). (And I even say this as a person who thinks the class is ‘Mary Sue’ and shouldn’t exist in the first place at all…but the thief class should…so…yeah…) It’s a beloved and core class. Don’t mess with it. Heheh btw. I do think Clerics would fit very well in one place: A Dracula campaign.
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Post by tkdco2 on May 21, 2023 12:09:14 GMT -6
Fighters rather than fighting-men would upset and confound nearly no one. Changing clerics to “clergymen” seems kinda….arbitrarily bizarre for little to no reason, and also, isn’t as flavorful anyhow (considering the class’s ‘place’). (And I even say this as a person who thinks the class is ‘Mary Sue’ and shouldn’t exist in the first place at all…but the thief class should…so…yeah…) It’s a beloved and core class. Don’t mess with it. Heheh btw. I do think Clerics would fit very well in one place: A Dracula campaign. Wasn't that the reason the class exists? I think Dave Arneson had a player with a vampire character ("Sir Fang" IIRC) and needed a way to challenge him.
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Post by tdenmark on May 21, 2023 23:19:31 GMT -6
Wasn't that the reason the class exists? I think Dave Arneson had a player with a vampire character ("Sir Fang" IIRC) and needed a way to challenge him. That was my understanding too. That clerics were inspired by Van Helsing and Hammer Horror films. Which makes more sense, because it doesn't exist in the Swords & Sorcery genre that inspired D&D.
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Post by peelseel2 on Aug 12, 2023 5:44:33 GMT -6
Any update on a newer version with edits?
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Post by Marcia B. on Oct 7, 2023 16:47:57 GMT -6
Any update on a newer version with edits? Publishing on Itch and Lulu in two days!
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Post by Marcia B. on Oct 9, 2023 6:28:20 GMT -6
Complete version is now available digitally for free and in print at-cost on Lulu!
Thank all y'all for your continued support and enthusiasm!
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Post by peelseel2 on Oct 9, 2023 7:38:09 GMT -6
Nice! Thanks!
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Post by machfront on Oct 9, 2023 8:54:02 GMT -6
Whoa! Dimensions: square…8.5x8.5?
Really? Wild! Heheh
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oldskolgmr
Level 3 Conjurer
Can the Cleric heal me? What? Alright, the Clerk will have to do.
Posts: 99
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Post by oldskolgmr on Oct 9, 2023 9:04:38 GMT -6
Complete version is now available digitally for free and in print at-cost on Lulu!
Thank all y'all for your continued support and enthusiasm!
Congratulations Marcia B. ! Excellent Job!
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Post by Marcia B. on Oct 9, 2023 12:57:28 GMT -6
Thank y'all!!! Hope it's interesting
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Post by peelseel2 on Oct 9, 2023 13:33:15 GMT -6
Any reason why Balor is crossed out?
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Post by Finarvyn on Oct 9, 2023 14:43:54 GMT -6
Whoa! Dimensions: square…8.5x8.5? There aren't many square books out there, and so I'm not sure how I feel about it. I guess I assumed it would be pamphlet size like the original OD&D booklets.
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Post by Marcia B. on Oct 9, 2023 16:50:30 GMT -6
Any reason why Balor is crossed out? It's a joke about it being removed after the initial print of the game!
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Post by Marcia B. on Oct 9, 2023 16:55:29 GMT -6
Whoa! Dimensions: square…8.5x8.5? There aren't many square books out there, and so I'm not sure how I feel about it. I guess I assumed it would be pamphlet size like the original OD&D booklets. I just thought it would be fun! And I wanted the extra space.
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Post by Finarvyn on Oct 10, 2023 4:08:53 GMT -6
There aren't many square books out there, and so I'm not sure how I feel about it. I guess I assumed it would be pamphlet size like the original OD&D booklets. I just thought it would be fun! And I wanted the extra space. Well, I'll pick up a copy one of these days and experience it for myself. Unusual sizes and shapes aren't a bad thing, but it did surprise me a little.
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Post by Finarvyn on Oct 11, 2023 5:32:02 GMT -6
[Admin voice]
I just wanted to publicly apologize for an error that I made. When I created the FMC sub-board I was careless in setting the permissions and inadvertently left an opening for "guest" posters. This led to a troll who posted very argumentative things to try to hurt a member of this board who has done nothing wrong on this board. I made that part of this thread go away and fixed the security breach.
ODD74 has always been a place where folks can contribute polite conversation about OD&D and other old school gaming products. It is my intent to keep this a safe place for all who play by the rules, and MarciaB has clearly played by the rules here.
[/Admin voice]
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Post by captainjapan on Oct 13, 2023 11:24:58 GMT -6
To clarify to all y’all, the purpose would entirely be to spoof the fighting-man name insofar as it is both clunky-sounding and arbitrarily gendered (where, by doing it to the cleric and not the fighter, it brings attention to the diction as an intentional choice rather than an arbitrary one). “Cleric” is easily and all around the better term, but I’m looking at making a pointed decision rather than a practical or preferential one. Or to summarize, I think it’s as poor a word choice as “fighting-man”, and that’s my motivation rather than a roadblock. When you say, "intentional choice" or "pointed decision", I'm wondering what WERE your intentions; the points you were trying to make with the terminology? I ask, because you felt the need to justify the label, "werefolk", in the main text, with an etymology lesson. "Humanfolk", on the other hand, warrants no so such explainer? You don't think "humanfolk" is clunky-sounding? If I'm correct in my assumption that these choices are of the same character as the choice to replace "men/man" everywhere that it appears; then I think you are unwittingly sabotaging your primary goal with FMC. Using the word choices of the original books makes for a better critique of those books. Readers of FMC are only going to glean half the enigmatic nature of OD&D if you decide to keep the many systems isolated, but then scrub the terminology. Those words had real, practical meaning to the authors. Sorry, if these observations have already been addressed. I'm just now getting around to reading this. Great work pulling this all together, by the way. edit: I found the answer to this in Marcia's blog. You can skip to her Conclusion at the bottom of the post for the relevant information.
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Post by tdenmark on Oct 13, 2023 13:24:40 GMT -6
To clarify to all y’all, the purpose would entirely be to spoof the fighting-man name insofar as it is both clunky-sounding and arbitrarily gendered <mansplaining> It wasn't arbitrary. It was a reference to the literature that inspired the game. Fighting-man is John Carter of Mars. Also, at the time people didn't really think of women as melee "fighters". Remember in the 70's Andy Kaufman stirred up a lot of controversy with his inter-gender wrestling gag. It is only fairly recent that melee fighting women became a thing. Of course there were rare exceptions: Amazons, Boudicca, Norse Shield Maidens, Joan of Arc, Onna-musha (or Onna-bugeisha), Mulan. But those are exceptions that prove the rule. So I think it is a good interpretation to rename the class for contemporary sensibilities. I'm just noting that fighting-man was not arbitrary. </mansplaining>
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Post by captainjapan on Oct 13, 2023 21:09:37 GMT -6
On the other hand, since the Chainmail clone is included in your rules, with uniform terminology, it's probable that readers of FMC won't come away from it with the same questions that preoccupy the minds of players who never purchased Chainmail in the first place. Players like the ones that found their way to these boards, looking for answers.
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Post by captainjapan on Oct 13, 2023 21:16:29 GMT -6
To clarify to all y’all, the purpose would entirely be to spoof the fighting-man name insofar as it is both clunky-sounding and arbitrarily gendered <mansplaining> It wasn't arbitrary. It was a reference to the literature that inspired the game. Fighting-man is John Carter of Mars. Also, at the time people didn't really think of women as melee "fighters". Remember in the 70's Andy Kaufman stirred up a lot of controversy with his inter-gender wrestling gag. It is only fairly recent that melee fighting women became a thing. Of course there were rare exceptions: Amazons, Boudicca, Norse Shield Maidens, Joan of Arc, Onna-musha (or Onna-bugeisha), Mulan. But those are exceptions that prove the rule. So I think it is a good interpretation to rename the class for contemporary sensibilities. I'm just noting that fighting-man was not arbitrary. </mansplaining> Didn't the term, fighting man, come from the same book as the cover illustration for Chainmail?
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Post by tdenmark on Oct 14, 2023 1:14:30 GMT -6
Jon Peterson says "I do note this as a potential source for "fighting-man" in PatW already (p.159), though of course the term was used by E.R. Burrough, C.W.C. Oman, Howard, Leiber and many others whom Gygax drew upon." I used ERB as a source because he was well known, but it was in common parlance among the wargaming crowd. It wasn't an arbitrary use of the term.
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Post by captainjapan on Oct 14, 2023 8:31:09 GMT -6
I sem yo be stuck on the definition of the word, arbitrary. I always thought it just meant the choice of the person making the decisions. I guess it also means random.
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Post by tdenmark on Oct 15, 2023 14:09:44 GMT -6
I sem yo be stuck on the definition of the word, arbitrary. I always thought it just meant the choice of the person making the decisions. I guess it also means random. That is a good point. In this context it could have 1 of 2 meanings: 1. Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle. 2. Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference. So I guess if the intent was #2 that does fit describing how/why Gygax & Arneson used Fighting Man. If the intention was #1 that is what I'm disagreeing with, it seemed to me that is how the word was being used.
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Post by Marcia B. on Oct 15, 2023 19:38:06 GMT -6
To clarify to all y’all, the purpose would entirely be to spoof the fighting-man name insofar as it is both clunky-sounding and arbitrarily gendered (where, by doing it to the cleric and not the fighter, it brings attention to the diction as an intentional choice rather than an arbitrary one). “Cleric” is easily and all around the better term, but I’m looking at making a pointed decision rather than a practical or preferential one. Or to summarize, I think it’s as poor a word choice as “fighting-man”, and that’s my motivation rather than a roadblock. When you say, "intentional choice" or "pointed decision", I'm wondering what WERE your intentions; the points you were trying to make with the terminology? I ask, because you felt the need to justify the label, "werefolk", in the main text, with an etymology lesson. "Humanfolk", on the other hand, warrants no so such explainer? You don't think "humanfolk" is clunky-sounding? If I'm correct in my assumption that these choices are of the same character as the choice to replace "men/man" everywhere that it appears; then I think you are unwittingly sabotaging your primary goal with FMC. Using the word choices of the original books makes for a better critique of those books. Readers of FMC are only going to glean half the enigmatic nature of OD&D if you decide to keep the many systems isolated, but then scrub the terminology. Those words had real, practical meaning to the authors. Sorry, if these observations have already been addressed. I'm just now getting around to reading this. Great work pulling this all together, by the way. edit: I found the answer to this in Marcia's blog. You can skip to her Conclusion at the bottom of the post for the relevant information. Hi Captain Japan!
It would not have been very interesting if I had left “men” as-is. Sure, one could then criticize the male-centric perspective of the text more directly, but one could just as easily take it for granted (which I’m sure many readers would be happy to!). Replacing “men” with a clunky made-up word makes the substitution, and what it is substituting, more conspicuous by the latter’s absence. Similarly, I refer to singular players or characters by gender neutral pronouns while retaining the masculine terms “lord” and “patriarch”—this makes the latter more conspicuous than if everything were gendered male by default. It makes apparent that the gendering of certain words has significance, and is not arbitrary with respect to what is being gendered. It also shows that the text's phallocentrism is deeper than its choice of nouns or pronouns.
(Just “folk” would have been fine as well, especially being a word with racialized implications fit for the apparent setting, but it felt like too clean of a substitution that did not draw attention to itself.) On a tangent, I hope this clarifies that I was not necessarily—if at all—motivated to use certain phrasing in FMC to make it more inclusive or diverse than the original. Steak tastes more like steak when you sprinkle salt on top. P.S., other instances of FMC remixing the original text can be seen in the description of chaotic cleric titles, the “explanation” of the % in lair column, and the “description” of robots/golems/androids. These all differ in various ways from the original, but in a way that makes certain aspects of the text more conspicuous.
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Post by Marcia B. on Oct 15, 2023 19:42:54 GMT -6
I sem yo be stuck on the definition of the word, arbitrary. I always thought it just meant the choice of the person making the decisions. I guess it also means random. That is a good point. In this context it could have 1 of 2 meanings: 1. Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle. 2. Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference. So I guess if the intent was #2 that does fit describing how/why Gygax & Arneson used Fighting Man. If the intention was #1 that is what I'm disagreeing with, it seemed to me that is how the word was being used. The second is more what I had meant.
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Post by hamurai on Oct 20, 2023 23:36:18 GMT -6
I received my print copies yesterday. Great work, Marcia B. !
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Post by Finarvyn on Oct 21, 2023 5:37:53 GMT -6
I received my print copies yesterday. Great work, Marcia B. ! Tell us about them. It's one thing to see a picture, but another to hold one in your hands and read it that way. Is the size good? Binding quality? Give us a review.
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Post by hamurai on Oct 22, 2023 2:35:23 GMT -6
Finarvyn Can do! I ordered a hardcover and a softcover version. Both feel very sturdy with good binding and the pager thickness feels good - for my personal taste, I prefer thicker paper, but just a really tiny bit thicker. For a POD product, this serves its purpose well. Its font and letter size are easy on the eyes. Contrast is very good and it's easy to read in dim light, too. The hardcover version is great for reading at home. It lies well in the hand (I like the square pages!) and has a "good weight", in the sense that it feels like you're holding an actual book and not just a magazine, but also not a weighty tome which exhausts the hands while holding. The hardcover book has the usual flaw these POD books have: It does not lie flat on the table by itself except when in the middle of the book. I tried flattening the book (which is possible without destroying the binding), but it's too sturdy and will turn the pages by itself most of the time. If you want to read a good book in your chair by the fire (or somewhere else, of course), this is the version you'll want to get. The softcover book has a similar issue, but it's less sturdy and when applying some force a couple of times, it accepts its pages being slightly folded to lie flat. It looks like the binding can take this handling. It's clearly the version to use at the table when you're the DM and want a table or monster stats next to your dungeon map. I've ordered a bunch of POD titles over the years and these issues are mostly the same for all of them. That's why I ordered both hardcover and softcover versions.
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Post by machfront on Oct 22, 2023 6:30:37 GMT -6
So, seems (no surprise) a coil-binded iteration would be a good, alternative choice (which I believe ought be for every single thing POD that can not offer saddle-stitched due to page count). I prefer hardback, but, at a page count above 70 or so…everyone needs to have a coil-bound for actual full-force table use!
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