Well, I finally posted Draft 1.26 of the Elthos ODS Rules on the LRPGSW Yahoo Group. This was at the request of one particular member whose been kind of badgering me for quite some time to actually "Do Something!", and so I figured it was better to get this out of the way earlier rather than later. You see he's a member of the Indie Game circle, and has consistantly expressed a certain amount of distain for traditionalist games, of which mine is one. So I really had no expectation that he would like my game system, and I mentioned that on several occassions. I was expecting him to pan it, and he did. In spades. And so did his girlfriend who posted a very similar review along side his. They lambasted the hell of of the poor little draft of the ODS. In fact so much so that it alarmed my fellow members at the LRPGSW and one of them actually dropped out of the group with this comment:
"I just wanted to let you know I took myself off the LRPGSW list. I'm really happy to have met the people I have through it and am happy to have the gaming group and will continue to come to any Cobblestone meetings that I can, but I just pretty much had enough of dealing with Tim and his bullshit. His and his girlfriend's bitchy, rude, nasty, and condescending reviews of a game they didn't even bother to play were more or less the last straw. I didn't read their entire reviews, but the few scattered sentences - all negative, all nasty, all condescending - were enough. Don't listen to them and keep working on your game.
...
I may come back to the LRPGSW when I get a chance, but really, I have no interest in fighting this war against pigheaded morons. I just want to talk about games, and it is unfortunately very difficult to do this on the LRPGSW right now."
So the LRPGSW has taken a hit in the process. I tried to get the member to understand that we Traditionalists can't just retreat from the field, but he's not up for that, and frankly, I don't blame him. It's just that now the LRPGSW is being crippled by the excesses of a rampant propagandist and it's hard for the members to deal with it. In fact, the result is simply that the LRPGSW may wind up disolved, which is something that would hand Tim's faction something of a gloat-worthy victory. I'm not happy about that, but there's also not much I can do to stop it either. Not by myself at any rate. It would require that the other members pony up and save the group. And if not, then it will have to go the way of other savaged groups that litter the internet.
Anyway, the axe fell squarely and without equivocation on my Elthos ODS Rules. It was bound to happen. If not now then the day I released it to the public. And so I think it was good to get it out of the way. And who knows what will happen anyway. The future is not ours to see.
On the other hand, I found, inbetween the missile fire and bomblastic denunciations, a few points which I will go back and consider again for the next revision, after discussing them with The New York Group. I have a feeling that one or more of them will find their way into the next version of the rules. For one thing I think I will drop the phrase "Ultra-Light-Weight" as that is a concept which was merely my impression, but apparently is not as "Ultra-Light-Weight" as some other systems out there that I hadn't seen. Good point, good point. I think I will refer to mine instead as a "Medium-Light-Weight" system. And a few other points of that sort that will probably prove quite helpful in the end.
Anyway, I'm not dismayed. I thought, actually the reviews were hilarious for their over-the-top, and yet scantily clad, assaults. This is the sort of thing that if you wrote a book and had that in it, people would say, "Um... no I don't buy it... no one would actually write something that ... aweful". Well, yes, they would, I'm afraid. Yes, they would.
