Over on grognardia there have started a discussion about The Temple of Elemental Evil. I posted an observation of my own, that most critics of the module seem to have loved T1 as kids and waited with baited breath for the second coming of T2. Now, that's not earth shaking in itself. It has made me very vary about people talking about T1-4, though. Is he thinking the module a failure? Hm, what a coincidence. He is one of those who waited for T2! Those guys just aren't trustworthy witnesses. I don't think they're out to twist truth, I just think they have to much emotion invested in the thing.
Following this train of thought, I come to the next station. I'm thinking of the reviled AD&D sourcebooks Dungeoneer's Survival Guide by Douglas Niles and Wilderness Survival Guide by Kim Mohan. If you read what people at Dragonsfoot write about them, you start to wonder if their favourite dog ate it and died when they were a kid. I have the books myself, and while I can surely see their problems and limitations I find that hatred spewed upon them to be a tad excessive. Are we seeing something like the ToEE phenomenon here?
I probably wont win any friends by saying it, but I have the hyphosesis these people suffer from an overdose of Gygaxitis. It's a common enough affliction caused by expose to High Gygaxian writing at an impressionable age. The symptoms are usually a tendency to consider anything written in High Gygaxian as holy writ, and a stubbornness and inflexibility of the grey matter. No question they get enraged then when someone who is not The Prophet adds things which Was Not Meant To Be, like skills, to the Holy Writ.
So having caused three cases of spastic fits I will stop there. Everything is a matter of perspective, isn't it? What? I have those irrational idea myself? About something else? Nah, don't think so. I'm flawless.
For those who need some help to entangle a big stick of Irony, out of that last paragraph, I'll tell you that I'd love to start a AD&D game myself if I only had the players for it. There you go, now you have something to whack me over the head with.