A blog for Rick Stump, gamer since 1977. Rants from my fevered brain about Old School Gaming, the state of the industry, my ongoing campaign (it began in 1979) and the supplements created by Harbinger Games
The tagline of this blog mentions that I rant.
Buckle up.
Ever know that guy that bad-mouths a movie, or a book, or something and then you learn he hasn't seen/read it? Or the guy that starts disparaging something and the more he talks the more he reveals that the problem is the guy talking made an error? You know what I am talking about.
Inspired by a now-I-can't-find-it G+ thing.
Like the header says, I've been playing D&D and other TRPGs for 40 years and going. RPGs are my hobby of choice. My first planned date with my now-wife was a D6 Star Wars session (which I must write up some day). The default present my friends get me is a bundle consisting of a college-ruled notebook, a book of graph paper, and a pack of mechanical pencils.
My wife has been playing with me since we met, obviously. Once we began having kids we all knew it was just a matter of time. Our oldest (Jack) was inventing D&D monsters when he was 4 (and the lemon devil is feared in my campaigns to this day!). Jack was reading the AD&D PHB by 6 and asking to play soon after, but his 3 younger brothers interrupted a lot, so he and I played a lot of Starfleet Battles, instead.
Finally, it happened. Nick, the then-youngest, turned 6 and had a ton of patience. I had been working on an AD&D 2e S&P campaign (my wife's favorite RPG is 2e with all the Skills and Powers books!). The wife and kids all made characters, and we started a dedicated campaign from 1st level.
The climax, although not end, for that first party is here.
In the 9 years since we have played a ton of RPGs ranging from the Battletech RPG to HERO 6e to a series of playtest sessions for Rolemaster Unified. Three of my four oldest have DM'ed at least a bit and a common lament from Nick is that we need to become independently wealthy so we have the time to play 8 hours a day 4 to 5 days a week. The oldest is running his own group with friends at a FLGS and the kids even run their own games (usually 4e or 5e) among themselves.
One thing that I have noticed is - while I know a fair amount of fellow gamers with kids who play, mine seem older. Jack is almost 21, for example.
So here are some of my observations about my own older second generation players
They Have No Idea How Good They Are
Outwitting traps, puzzles, etc. in games? Modules made by others? Sometimes they don't notice that there is a trick because it is so intuitive to them. My favorite was from the Hidden Shrine
I run a 'classic' module every Halloween weekend. Usually heavily modified.
I was running the 'inverted' version where they start outside. They get to the top. [SPOILERS]
They see the altar to the bat god. The conversation went something like:
Jack: "Mayincatec altar; bat god. We obviously need to spill blood to open a secret door."
Sam: "Into the bat mouth. Probably has to be fresh, too."
Nick: "I bet it bites down."
Alex: "Obviously it won't let go; use the Bag of Beans."
Jack: "Certainly." [end SPOILERS]
Here's the thing; I've never used vaguely Aztec stuff before, I think I've hit the party with 4 traps ever, and none of them had read the thing!
They do this sorta' thing all the damn time, too.
Now I just assume I have to make everything 25% more deadly and that 2 or 3 of my 3 twists won't work.
Time Sucks Don't Work
I gave up on giving them timed quests and then trying to distract them. Oh, I'll give a time limit, but I just know that no amount of 'there might be gold if you pause' works.
They're Opinionated
This may be genetic.
Nick? He's an AD&D, no Unearthed Arcana, 3d6 in order and suck it up, kinda' guy. There is no other "real" Dungeons & Dragons. He hates that I use my house rules in my 38 year old campaign and mentions it a lot.
That's just an example.
Thing is? Its wonderful. They can logically defend their opinions and aren't unwilling to try new or other things. Their strong opinions lead to, oh, Nick's many great new magic items, or Jack's wildly original campaign settings or Alex's stellar roleplaying at the table, or Sam's keen insight into design.
They Love RPGs
They love that I have for this crazy pastime? They caught it. It is something we share and that binds our family together.
Edit-Darn it! The link didn't stick!
Link added.
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Over at another blog Gitabushi is talking about A Princess of Mars and, well.
I'm replying.
Let's just dive in, shall we?
My second oldest son, Alex, had his short review of Dune published at the Castalia House blog the other day. He wrote it in about an hour a few days after finishing the book and I shared it with the editor of CH who was kind enough to put it up.
Alex wrote a largely neutral review ('some parts were great, some parts were terrible, overall average so I don't understand the hype' is a solid summary, IMO) and the overall comments largely boil down to 'yeah, that sounds accurate'.
Reviews are tricky things to begin with because they are subjective opinions. Reviews of older, well-regarded things are even trickier because there are a lot of other subjective opinions already formed. You expect some pushback, especially from the True Fans, and Alex frankly expected a lot more than he has (so far) received.
While still a minor, Alex is a big boy and I usually let him fight his own battles; he has so far declined to even read any of the comments since "...the sorts of people [he] cares about know it is just [his] opinion...".
But there is a review I was made aware of I would like to point out as an example of terrible defense. Alfred Genesson's reply titled 'The Sleeper Must Awaken: A Defense of Dune'.
Let me begin by saying - Mr. Genesson is entitled to whatever opinion of the book Dune he wishes to hold. If he wants to call it the pinnacle of human arts and letters - fine! he can. I am talking about the fact that his post is objectively bad and he should feel bad for writing it.
Let's begin!
Mr. Genesson writes,
" Alex Stump has gone and made some rhetorical opponents with a tirade against Dune. Sure, he claims he's "meh" towards it, but who on Earth gets that passionate over something you're ambivalent towards? Sorry, the word count alone belies not apathy or ambivalence, but rather, antipathy."
I must ask - if the essay was only 1,000 words would this be under the 'antipathy limit'? If the final rating had been 7/10 rather than 6/10 would this raise the 'antipathy limit' word count threshold? Is there a PDF Mr. Genesson could share showing how many words indicate approval, admiration, and pure animosity?
All kidding aside, what Mr. Genesson has done is impart motive with no actual proof. He is saying, essentially, 'no matter what he wrote, I know what he really felt' and trying to justify it with something totally unrelated to the actual point. This is terrible writing, especially when he could have just asked.
He goes on to show a picture of a 1st edition of Dune, which is cool. He continues,
" I'm a going to have to say, his summary and "good stuff" section is well, overly simplistic..."
It is a less than 2,000 word review, so simplistic is the key. This seems like a cheap dismissal of the fact that the review does speak positively of the book and Alex admits it 'sucked him in'. Of course, that would mean his 'antipathy' theory is wrong, so....
He then writes,
"...he gets bits wrong here. Melange does indeed grant longer lifespans, but prescience? Only to the Kwisatz Haderach, the Messiah figure of the story."
Let me be very blunt - the instant I read this I came very close to dismissing the rest of Mr. Genesson's reply and almost didn't finish reading it.
Why?
It is very badly wrong. As in, 'sell off that first edition because you don't deserve it and go actually read the book' wrong.
A central plot point of Dune is that melange is essential to FTL travel because the astrogators use it to see the future. The book Dune explicitly states that melange gives prescience to Bene Gesserits that have access to it, to astrogators, to Fremen during their communal events, etc. It is strongly implied in Dune that anyone who consumes enough spice gains at least limited prescience. The Kwisatz Haderach is different in his level of clarity, etc. but it is a matter of degree.
This is a critical misunderstanding of what is arguably the central plot point of the book and means that I personally find Mr. Genesson to have very little credibility as he continues to discuss Dune.
Mr. Genesson then writes,
"Alex calls the "man vs. machine" story cliched, but how many times have those in the Pulp Revolution crowd pointed out that the so called cliched stories of the old Pulps are in fact, better, and more compelling stories?At any rate, this is centuries after the Butlerian Jihad, and I fail to see the point of complaining about a background piece that the book isn't even about. His immediate comparison here is to The Matrix, and honestly, that's only a mediocre film addressing VR, AI, and philosophy. It looks pretty, but if that's compelling to you, I'm guessing you don't or watch much SFF."
Whether a story is good or bad does not change whether or not it is cliched. Also, Alex wasn't complaining, he was discussing the background. And Alex never mentioned whether or not he found the Matrix compelling, he was mentioning that Dune was written well before the man v. machine concept was recently popular. Just as with the 'antipathy' bit at the beginning Mr. Genesson is inventing emotions and motivations out of thin air. This strawman he is erecting seems to be so he can try some character attacks.
Mr. Genesson starts to really go off the rails,
"Mr. Stump believes this book to be painfully long. I suggest he avoid Mr. John C. Wright's Somewhither at all costs, then, if he can't handle that. I find this argument specious and indicates a lack of attention span and possibly discipline. Please, try getting though Pierre Bayle's Commentary, I did. Get back to me."
In addition to the strawmanning for character attacks, Mr. Genesson is now bragging about his own 'abilities' [he seems to be obsessed with the length of his... reading materials]. This was rather cringeworthy as I read it, but I soldiered on.
It also reveals he misunderstands the point. War and Peace is a long book, but a pleasant read. A Jack Chick tract is only a few pages, but still 'painfully long'.
Mr. Genesson joins a list of other people who miss a plot point,
"As to Dr. Yueh's betrayal, everyone has a breaking point, and the fact is that nobody is immune to such, and even hardening and conditioning only go so far. Since it's the Harkonnen that have her, he was likely shown the horrors they have or will visit upon her if he doesn't cooperate. Where does loyalty and honor dictate one protect first? Yueh has an impossible decision to make, and acts with as much honor as he can given the situation."
Yup. Totally misses the point.
The book explicitly states that Suk School conditioning is so intense that it is assumed that anyone who has gone through it would die before telling a lie or betraying an employer. It is so incredibly powerful if the Emperor knew they had broken it House Harkonnen would be wiped out. Herbert has Yueh break over what an illiterate street tough would try first. It isn't the fact that Yueh broke that is a plot hole, it is that it was so damned easy it was laughable that is a plot hole.
I have my own take on it here.
Mr. Genesson again misses the point,
"Further argument against this [argument that Dune is pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli] is the fact that the Arabs have not reclaimed any of the desert, yet the Jews in Israel have indeed done so."
Alex didn't say 'Arabs', he said 'Palestinians'. You know, the landless, wandering, looking for a home Palestinians? The ones that OPEC nations marginalized and largely refused to shelter, a stance Palestinians in the '60's thought was because they were focused on protecting their profits from spi..., I mean, oil? The ones that fought the Israeli army that was largely considered unbeatable and that lived in its own harsh desert "world"?
Yeah. Them.
Mr. Genesson just keeps digging,
"Not to mention that Mohommadans do not search for a Messiah..."
Wow. Just... Wow. Yes, Islam has a Messiah figure. In Islamic eschatology the "Guided One" (or the Twelfth Imam, etc.) will come to earth just before the Last Days and the yam al-quayammah, the Day of Judgment, to fight the Masih al-Dajjal ('anti-Messiah') to rid the world of evil for Allah.
This is Comparative Religion 105 level stuff. This is 'I watch PBS sometimes' type knowledge. This is an 'I am too lazy to spend the time to google 'Islam messiah' and read the top hit' error of fact.
In Dune Paul takes the name Muad'dib
The Arabic word for "Guided One" is Mahdi.
Yes - Paul is meant to be a messiah figure!
Mr. Genesson also keeps building that strawman,
"Addressing his criticism of the Bene Geserrit..."
What criticism?
No, seriously. Alex never criticised the Bene Gesserit. He simply mentioned they are obviously patterned on the Jesuits. Period. The end. Nothing positive or negative, just - 'look at this parallel'.
Mr. Genesson is trying to refute something that never happened.
Mr. Genesson goes on to state that he has a different opinion of Dune's characters and dialog. Sure!
Mr. Genesson continues his wave of assumptions with this gem,
"I get the impression that Mr. Stump doesn't understand stoicism..."
I'd like that turned into an essay so I can figure out why, personally.
Mr. Genesson signs off with a non-sequitur,
"When you play Social Justice, the world loses."
Which seems apropos of nothing. Perhaps he ends every blog post that way.
Now that I have gone through Mr. Genesson's "defense" let me be blunt;
Mr. Genesson, the title of this blog post is for you.
I don't know you and I refuse to speculate as to your motivations, but here is why your response is objectively bad and you should feel bad.
You made errors of fact about the essay you are responding to.
You made errors of fact about Islam.
Most damning, you made at least one critical error of fact about the book Dune.
Wayne Rossi reminded me that I have been meaning to do this for a long time. 1) What is the deal with my cleric's religion?
See here. Shorter version - you're Catholic.
2) Where can we go to buy standard equipment?
Any true town or larger has places to get gear. You begin in Ekull, a city on the frontier so prices are decent.
Ah, the internet, where you can argue over all sorts of things. The most recent internet argument I got into was with someone explaining that monsters with a no-save level drain are badwrong and there is no reason to have them other than,
"...imbecilic blind worship of the past..."
Uh-huh.
Of course, I had already pointed out some reason for having such monsters in your game, to wit;
Instilling terror in the players
Driving quests for spells, etc. to get Restoration
To 'throttle' level progression without nerfing XP/raising the bar or railroading players
Now, I guess I might have just tossed in a link to a past article of mine, but there is that to say and more, so here we go.
Ah, the internet, where you can argue over all sorts of things. The most recent internet argument I got into was with someone explaining that monsters with a no-save level drain are badwrong and there is no reason to have them other than,
"...imbecilic blind worship of the past..."
Uh-huh.
Of course, I had already pointed out some reason for having such monsters in your game, to wit;
Instilling terror in the players
Driving quests for spells, etc. to get Restoration
To 'throttle' level progression without nerfing XP/raising the bar or railroading players
Now, I guess I might have just tossed in a link to a past article of mine, but there is that to say and more, so here we go.
Jeffro, he of the Hugo Nominations, has been looking at the old Oriental Adventures book for 1e and has written a second blog entry about it. I am going to talk about me and then about Jeffro's article.
As some of you may know, my oldest 4 sons (ages 13 to 19) and my wife are my primary group. About 6 months ago, just before Christmas, #4 pulled down my original copy, first printing, very worn Oriental Adventures so he could memorize that, too. Next day he was sharing the book with his brothers and they were all admiring how fun, weird, and compelling it is.
Christmas is a busy time for us, so we were doing a ton of other things until the end of the Christmas season in February. Second weekend in February? They all made characters for OA, and the wife did, too:
Wife- Shukenja
#1- Wu-jen
#2- Yakuza
#3- Bushi
#4- Kensai (as a spirit folk of bamboo the only non-human)
I spent a few sessions doing a Seven Samurai - they protected a remote village from bandits in return for food and shelter and ended up leveling (as designed) and getting used to the new rules. They then moved to the town of the local daimyo looking for better positions, learned of a plot by a ninja clan to trigger a war between the local daimyo and his closest neighbor. Using a variety of stratagems they got received minor positions at the local castle or got 'close enough', eliminated the low-level ninja, and stopped a surprise assault on the outer gate, giving defenders times to react and proving the real threat was a third party. The players had to use guile, contacts, and deceit as much as spells or combat to succeed.
They loved the non-standard monsters (I created 4 more from Japanese mythology), the different yet same cultural cues, and the unusual class abilities. I explicitly had everything set in my Seaward campaign (I have been using OA in my 1e campaign since the book came out) so they hope to have future crossovers.
#1 in particular liked the wu-jen, although he found the differences in how they use their "chance to know" very different than standard AD&D spell acquisition for mages. He also liked the 'six hours to learn all spells, regardless of level or number' fun and different - he roleplayed out his character meditating, chanting, burning incense, and bargaining with unseen spirits to get back spells. His 'spellbook' was just the required chants to ask the right spirits for the correct spells.
#2 loved teh mix of sneak, fight, and know people of the Yakuza and his ability to use contacts to answer questions was a key element of the main adventure.
#3 played his bushi with gusto, emphasizing his lower-class origins and his outlook on his profession as a way to get paid while drinking, fighting, and impressing farm girls.
#4was a little down at first; all through the village saving he rolled lousy and rarely hit anything. but at the key fights in the castle he was Can't Miss Man, cutting down tough foes by himself more than once
A key figure, though, was my wife. While she is Irish/Polish by ancestry one of her dual majors was Japanese and she went on to study Chinese and Chinese Literature. Since we were in my Japanland, she was in her element. She enjoyed the book and the 'Asian, yet generic' information in the main rules. She most appreciated giving the entire 'inscrutable Oriental' stereotype a total miss.
So, now that our very recent trip to Asialand is covered, let me address a few points that Jeffro brings up in his second post, linked above.
Jeffro asks,
"...shouldn’t oriental style magic be a bit more exotic?"
More exotic than spending hours studying abstract symbols so that you have 5 dimensional constructs stored in your mind, eager to be released, such that when you do release them you summon or create energies from beyond the walls of reality?More exotic than that?
More importantly, while I understand he is vexed by the fact that the description of how much time it takes a wu-jen to relearn spells is a touch ambiguous he seems to miss a simple fact - either reading is radically different from standard memorization procedures. OA states specifically that spells come from spirits, rather than from mentors or libraries. Sure, if you encounter a scroll you can learn from it, but the implication is these scrolls come from spirits, first- or second-hand. And with the rigid times, rather than the fluid level-based times of the DMG, it smacks of exactly how my son played it - you don't memorize spells, they are slapped into your mind by spirits as part of a ritual where your 'scrolls' are a lot more like a sutra to be chanted, like this;
So you meditate for a few hours, then burn incense and perform small rituals to summon the spirits, then appease them with offerings (and by confirming that you have, indeed, obeyed all the odd taboos that wu-jen must follow!), then then you fisnish with 2 hours of chanting the sutras from your "spellbook" and at the end, breathe deeply of the smoke from the last of the incense. If you obeyed your taboos and performed your chanting properly you also inhale your spells.
Rather different than reading a book for 15 minutes per level of the spell for each spell, right?
As a matter of fact, this would make the reading 'six hours per spell' pretty hardcore. You have to summon and appease a different spirit for each spell! Every spell in your memory is much more precious because of the time needed to recover it....
"Wait a minute," you say, "I didn't read any of that in the OA!"
Sure you did. I mean, it wasn't forbidden, was it? And even if it was....
The classes and mechanics of classes in OA are pretty different and the spells, elemental bonuses, ki powers, taboos, and how spells are memorized by wu-jen are pretty different than standard!
The Jeffro writes,
"The bottom line here is that to get a game off the ground, I either have to do the design work involved in creating these sorts of tables myself. OR I have to use the tables from the Dungeon Masters Guide and then manually retheme the results to something feels a little more “eastern”... … the former is simply not going to happen. (With the number of functional, completed game designs on the market, why would I ever do that?! Bah!)..."
Which functional, completed game designs? It was 1985. It was this, Bushido (Which I played a lot and enjoyed, but made AD&D look like a stripped-down version of S&W) or Land of the Rising Sun which was based on Chivalry & Sorcery but much more complex and difficult to play and one reviewer stated 'just play Bushido, it is easier to learn'.
So....
And as for 'making all sorts of tables myself'.... Yeah. It was '85. That's what you did.
Look, when the MMII came out with its lists of monsters by occurance my friend Sean uttered a prayer in French because he usually did that by hand so he could make custom encounter lists. My Seaward stuff includes a set of manila folders which hold my custom encounter tables for each region of the campaign area. Almost everyone I knew did that.
That is just for the Lower Briars and calls a bunch of sub-tables, too. The first draft for this thing is on the basement closet, longhan, in fading Bic ballpoint from lunchtime in 5th grade.
Of, since Jeffro is really looking at OA for the first time now, almost 1/3rd of a century later, when there are tons of pre-made things all over the place, sure! Get it from somewhere else! But then?
And this leads me to the end of his post. He writes,
"Y’all got handed a half baked book that looked good on the shelf and that’s it. It was not in the interests of the company that sold it to you to ACTUALLY SOLVE THE GAME DESIGN PROBLEMS THEY WERE PUSHING ONTO YOUR DUNGEON MASTER. That poor sod either had to be so good that he didn’t need the supplement in the first place or else he had to shell out cash for modules that would only complete the design process on an adventure-by-adventure basis."
Sorry, Jeffro. I like you, and I like your writing, but this is simply wrong.
"Not having pre-made encounter charts" is not a 'game design problem'. More importantly, you, yourself, name this book for what it is -a supplement. In 1985 you might have to go to a university library to get access to things like 'monsters of Japanese folklore' or 'legends of China'. Having a list of monsters and classes was a huge help to guys that didn't have access to that sort of resource. A bunch of new, unusual classes, rules for making custom martial arts, tons of new spells - that was all pure gold.
One of the most interesting things Jeffro wrote is this,
"[the DM] either had to be so good that he didn’t need the supplement in the first place..."
One of the things I noticed in the first minute of picking up the D&D 3e PHB was a change in assumption about the players and DM, and I miss it. The biggest, most profound, change was the loss of the presumptions of competence, creativity, and confidence.
Gygax and crew didn't make modules at first because they assumed that anyone running the game was not just capable of creating their own adventures, but that they would far prefer their own stuff. The same folks hesitated to publish settings because they assumed anyone who wanted to build a campaign world could and if they did so it would not just be good enough, they would prefer it.
I bought OA when it came out. I never saw a module in anyone's hands. Heck, I didn't remember there had been modules until a few weeks ago. And the only time I saw Kara-Tur was on the shelf of a buddy who is a completist. By the Fall of '85 when I was at DLI I know of at least 3 OA games there: one set in Japan, one in Korea (with all new monsters and a mix of OA and PHB classes), and the third in a fun Thai/Philippines/China setting, also full of unique creatures, spells, and a class or two.
I also really enjoyed meeting a magic-user in 1986 that was PHB with martial arts as his only weapon. He was from Lyonesse, but was orphaned and raised in a monastery for a decade until an uncle retrieved him and taught him magic. Tons of fun.
Here's the bottom line. Jeffro has every right to be upset about anything he wants to be upset about. And it can be really hard to 'get' that OA was not meant to replace anything ever, just be stuff to add to your game and, with effort, make a more Asian Asialand. But I had never encountered the same pains Jeffro did with this book.
First Stated Obstacle: Administration would be unmanageable-
The writer argues that because the EU takes forever to do simple things an interstellar emprie would be too difficult to rule. His Solution: Instantaneous communications and really centralized government. Maybe implants so debates are superfast. Why this is wrong: In Real Life the planet Earth has had a few empires that were larger than the EU and ran quite smoothly, thank you. The Spanish Empire controlled more than 1/8th of the world's land in the 16th Century and was much more efficient than the Black Legend would have you believe. The Achaemenid Empire covered 6% of the world and controlled an incredible 44% of the world's population in the 6th Century B.C! The Achaemenids lasted 220 years and their empire was son efficient and stable that their core concepts have been copied by other empires throughout history.
All without instantaneous communications.
The key is de-centralization. As a matter of fact, the entire point of the traditional monarchy/aristocracy system so familiar in Europe, Asia, etc. is that it is very good at generating efficient leadership hierarchies at the small, medium, large, and gigantic levels. Local issues are dealt with by local rulers (barons) and as issues become larger and more complicated higher levels of authority, many of which are also local!, kick in. There may even be a system, group, etc. to provide oversight.
In a fair number of the largest pre-modern empires issues as serious as wars would be dealt with and settled before the central authority even knew that they had existed. And yet, from the Persians to the Mongols to the British, there was no real weakening of the ultimate authority of the central ruler.
And the dire need for fast communications is also a little off. Look at the longest-surviving corporate (in the older meaning of the word, 'formal group activity') human endeavor - the Catholic Church. The Church uses a structure akin to the traditional feudal one (or vice-versa) and uses a concept called Subsidiarity to guide how things work: Subsidiarity boils down to 'make all decisions as far down the hierarchy and as locally as possible'. Regions of the Church cut of from Rome for years, even decades, not only survived but flourished during lack communications but had very little difficulty in submitting to Rome once contact was reestablished.
These reasons are why so many Space Operas have barons and kings!
Second Stated Obstacle: Accomodations Would Be Complicated-
Having even humans from different levels of gravity would complicate things His Solution: Point this out and mention how you'd have to accommodate different people. Why it bugs me: Why mention something as an obstacle when it is not really an obstacle? I mean, sure - mention that you have to do it. Star Trek did it a few times. It was sometimes a plot point in Babylon Five. The Sector General short stories and novels are ALL ABOUT 'hey - aliens are different'. The number of science fiction stories that overcome this 'obstacle' by just mentioning that you must put a little effort into it are legion and, in the end, this is like claiming 'writing about America has an obstacle because some people need ramps for their canes.'
Huh?
Third Stated Obstacle: Warfare Would Be Impractical-
The author makes a few arguments against interstellar war: battles aren't very exciting; you can't take over a planet; there is no reason to fight interstellar wars because there will be plenty of resources. His Solution: Copy Iain Banks or have little to space in your space opera. Why this is wrong and it bugs me: First, a lot of war is fought at extreme ranges with targets represented as dots on a screen now. Battle robots have been in use since the Vietnam War!
Yes, really. The Aegis System uses what are essentially defensive battle robots.
Now, I don't know about you, but I have noticed a few conflicts over the past few decades even though a ton of combat is really remote and very abstract with things like cruise missiles, UAVs, etc.
Note: The Russian flyovers of an American ship amused me, but the pearl-clutching over 'attack runs!' amused me more. The pilots were letting the ship see the planes weren't armed. In contemporary combat a plane attacking a ship wouldn't ever be in sight of the ship - they would fire ASMs for miles and miles away.
So vast distances, robots in battles, dots on a screen - none of that even makes sense as an objection to war.
As far as taking over a planet, that depends. The idea of militarily attacking a planet being impossible and someone exploiting that assumption is a huge plot point in the book Dorsai!, for example.
As for how you could do it in at least on fictional setting with relatively low number of troops and without glassing cities, I wrote up a little something on that topic about, oh, 14 years ago. In the end it can take a lot fewer troops than you think to secure a nation and that would be true of a planet, too.
For example, in 2003 the population of Iraq was about 23 million people and they had an army of about 375,000 troops. The nation was seized by about 380,000 troops in about 40 days. Not 'totally pacified', but 'the previous government and military were effectively removed and key positions were controlled by invaders'.
Personally, I don't think the ability or of invaders to conquer a planet matters as much as the fact that if an outside for can project enough force to be capable of at least some orbital bombardment a planet can be no less than isolated and in effect blackmailed into surrender. In short, if you can annihilate entire cities at a time with rocks a planet is going to have to win or lose in orbit.
As for the idea that abundant resources will mean the end of war?
Ridiculous.
Wars are, yes, sometimes fought over resources. But more often they are not. Ideology, religion, self-determination, revenge, and other factors are causes for war. The Great Siege of Malta was not about resources; the Balkans Wars of the 1990's were about groups of killing killing and dying to become part of smaller, weaker, poorer nations. There are very literally hundreds of real life examples that show than many wars, especially high-intensity ones, are not about resources.
Fourth Stated Obstacle: Trade Would Be Unnecessary-
The writer states that the vast resources of space combined with the sheer costs of transport would render trade moot. His Solution: Rare materials and economies of scale. Why this bugs me: His 'obstacle' and his 'solution' are called 'contemporary economics'. The Silk Road was hideous expensive - yet it ran for 1,500+ years! Why? Rare materials.
Right now the United States is in a manufacturing boom (yes, really) yet a majority of consumer goods are made in other locations and shipped large distances to be sold in the US. Why? Economies of scale.
Anther factor he missed: art. Africa, Europe, South and Central America, Asia, and the Indian sub-continent have multiple film and music production centers, some of extremely high quality. Yet American movies and music are imported to these nations both draining cash from local economies and stunting local businesses. Why? Perceived artistic merit.
To me this entry isn't about an obstacle it is just 'try to make your economics at least semi-realistic'.
Fifth Stated Obstacle: Energy Production Would Outmode All Conflict-
The writer essentially just repeats obstacles #3 and #4. His Solution: Don't do that. Why this bugs me: It is just a repeat of items #3 and #4.
In fairness, I have been thinking about these topics for almost 40 years (since I picked up the Traveller LBBs just before I saw Star Wars) and writing about SF world building for longer.
My science fiction worldbuilding aid Sea of Stars has been a Silver Pick on RPGNow since 2002 (hint, hint)!
Why does it bug me, really?
Simple - the author made a classic mistake of thinking he was discussing worldbuilding but actually just telling us his own assumptions and opinions. We all do it, but it needs pointing out.
