Old D&D editions and clones - AD&D

Way back in the days, I got to take a peek at the game books used by the older brother of one of my class mates and gaming buddy. It was a hardcover volume, and I still remember to this very day that the illustrations struck me as very silly and amateurish. That book was the 1st ed AD&D Players Handbook.

Many years later and I talk to a guy who once he got that game started up a game, and the game is still running, even though the game sessions now are a year or so apart, was started in those early days. That coincided with WotC releasing 3rd ed. D&D and I felt inspired, and bought the game. So I guess AD&D has been a game that has influenced me, pushed me toward other games and coloured my perception of things.

Still, I have never played the game.

I tried to gather some players some years back when I scrounged up a bunch of Rob Kuntz modules, but never managed to get enough for a whole party. It stayed the un-played edition.

I took down one of my two copies of the PHB and perused it. Yeah, I have two copies of a game I've never played. I have three copies of the 2nd ed. DragonQuest and I haven't played that either. Why are you looking at me like that? Anyway. I took down my copy of the PHB, and decided to check it out. Fiddly bits. Dozens of fiddly bits. You come to the section on how to make a character, and it starts with how to roll up your stats. Is this power gaming or what? You are told you need superior stats, and oh do you need them. Multiple bizarre little things are calculated off those stats, like how good you are at lifting gates. Some stats are even rolled with both d6 and a percentile score. Involved is the word.

The thing is, much of this first saw the light of day in the OD&D Supplement I - Greyhawk, and you understand that Gary and Rob must have loved fiddly bits. In their campaign there were so many subsystems and extra house rules added on top of OD&D that the game beneath was barely visible. This is a game for people who love a game, not a tool for creating stories in secondary worlds.

I actually don't have a problem with lot of rules. I have played MERP, and own more than one edition of Rolemaster. I have both Burning Wheel and Burning Empires, and would even consider running them. But, then there are rules. Let's take a look at Surprise. That section of the rules begin by telling you what surprise is, and then suggests you roll a d6, or a d8 explains that then there's a 1 in 8 or a 1 in 6 chance. Then there's a nice table to show how many time increments difference there is in rolling difference sets of results on those dice. It's both simple and extremely convoluted at the same time. Say whatever you will about Rolemaster or Burning Empires, but they are far more consistent and thus handle the weight of those rules quite differently.

Sometimes I catch the wonder, the fantasy and the strange beneath the over- and under-explained rules. I see why some of this caught the imagination. There was arcane mysteries to be unlocked in this mysterious tome, and since I love Call of Cthulhu you can guess why that speaks to me. But, I still don't want to run this game. Playing D&D as a game - as a challenge for the players, not their characters -  would be a different challenge. Maybe one day, but I would probably chuck much of that Gygaxian cruft. It's just not my style.

Saturday Night thoughts on the sparsely populated dungeon

It's Saturday night, and I feel a Saturday Night Special feeling coming over me.

Some of you might have read my last post on dense Gygaxian dungeons. Given it is Saturday I got to thinking about those places that make the subterranean underworld its flair, and those moments of "sensawunda". Let me quote you from the 5th ed. Tunnels & Trolls rule book.

"Let your imagination go wild - you can do anything you want because this is your creation. Put in a lot of stuff - nobody likes a dull dungeon. "

So, populating your dungeon. I know some people likes the idea of a big underground labyrinth where there are one third empty rooms or something like that. Each to his own. I don't say I don't like to play that way. But, I've come to realize that I'm no longer fond of creating dungeons like that.

I love to invent those crystal waterfalls, devious traps, combat encounters with multiple co-operating foes or locales of majestic proportions and awe inspiring weirdness. Putting down corridors of nothing on graph paper is no longer fun.

Sure, I could use a computer to generating it for me, but I would not find it fun to run either. What I would like to have is a way to make those slow moving bits be outsourced to  a second GM and then I could step in a run the Saturday Night Specials. Maybe. Is there a way to get it all?

I'm beginning to feel I understand what Ken St. Andre wrote above and how well it applies to me. I don't like a "dull" dungeon. It would be cool, though, if you could just rattle off some twists, turns and empty rooms without bother to have the first part make sense or be ever repeatable (like for backtracking out of the dungeon or repeat visits), and then dive into it. Too bad I like the idea of repeat visits to the dungeon. I would never be able to improvise the same map twice.

If that could be done, I'd be very happy.

Different Old Schools - dense or sparse maps

I was listening to a podcast talking about that famous picture of EGG running a game at a con, sitting with a dense map in front of him and a very terse key. I think almost every aspect about that map and its implications have been talked about, but some of that just now filtered down to me.

If you have a dungeon where there are rooms everywhere, and the map is that dense, there wont be much space for some things. If you look at many published maps in the blogging community of the old ways, they most often don't look like that. We often do maps with variation in room sizes, some oddly shaped ones and some hallways connecting sections of the level. You know the drill. Gary's map is just crammed full of fairly small rooms.

Imagine if you will a section of the level taken over by gnolls. They might have made one room a lair, another treasury and maybe a larder where you can free some captives, useful for stocking up on PC alternatives if death does occur. Did you see what I did there?

If you have rooms that looks like an abandoned throne room, you will have a gnoll lord sitting there. But, if your dungeon is just crammed with small rooms, you probably never get that 'naturalistic' feel. If your dungeon is more labyrinth than anything else, the kind of play we call player skill is something different that I have been thinking about all this time. Sure, it's skill when you take note of resources, map carefully to note when there's a gap in there indicating a hidden room. But, if the layout makes no sense, then exploring and mapping to make sense of what's "down there" wont make sense. At least not they way I thought about it. 'Naturalism' is not about dungeon layout, in Gary's example.

Some years ago I heard about Ken St. Andre's dungeon Gristlegrim, and though it peculiar. Ken had done a bunch of dungeon rooms on index cards, when they players walked around the dungeon he grabbed another room from the pile. I thought it made the idea of a dungeon moot, since you could not map it and you could not "make sense" of it. Now I realize that maybe that was not so different from Gary's densely packed paper of small rooms in a labyrinth. Labyrinths was never fun, in my book. After you wandered around in the coal mine in Zork, and realized you had to drop stuff to make the similar looking room distinguishable I think the labyrinth had served its purpose.

I think I prefer some kind of naturalism to my dungeons, even though I now think Gristlegrim makes more sense. It's probably more like Castle Greyhawk and the Jakallan Underworld than my dungeons are.

Some thoughts on character empowerment house rules

Today I read this blog post, about Gary Gygax's house rules for D&D. Reading that I was thinking back to how the rules for T&T have changed over the years.

For those of you who have read 5th ed. T&T and then compared it to the latest edition, the reaction might have been negative. It's not like the later editions of D&D, but even though the rules have stayed mostly the same there have been a shift in tone. Just looking at the list of 1st level spells known to a newly rolled up delver makes that clear.

Just like the rules Gary used, linked to above, the latest T&T edition is empowering characters, especially at lower levels. I think this is a sign that the old style long term campaign play have fallen out of favour. I know that Ken no longer have a regular group. Do anyone of you know if Gary had one during the later years? When you mostly play at conventions, you don't slog through from level 1 to name level, it just makes sense e.g. to start at level three with max hit points.

Now, would anyone claim that this is not old school enough? I know that some people have argued for long campaigns to get a proper feel for "the old ways". While I can appreciate that, I want to emphasize that two founders of the hobby apparently play differently.

Yeah, I know. It's silly, isn't it? I don't know if this is just me trying to somehow make myself feel better about the fact that I don't seem to be able to get a group to commit to long term play. At least I'm in good company.

I'm not alone in thinking alignment languages are silly

(edited: fixed line breaks, Arrgh!)

Question:
So if I may, where did the idea for aligment tongues come from? Do you see them as fully fleshed out languages?

Answer:
"As D&D was being quantified and qualified bu the publication of the supplemental rules booklets. I decided that Thieves' cant should not be the only secret language. thus alignment languages come into play, the rational being they were akin to Hebrew for Jewish and Latin for Roman Catholic persons.

I have since regretted the addition, as the non-cleric user would have only a limited vocabulary, and luttle cound be conveyed or understoon by the use of an alignment language between non-clerical users.

Cheers,
Gary"

(from Dragonsfoot)

R.I.P Gary

You probably know what day it is today. Let's remember Gary and what he did for our hobby.

Some thoughts about how to organise rpg rules

I was just reading the Swords & Wizardry forums and found a thread about how neat it is to be able to take the .doc format file of White Box edition and edit it to the rule hack you want. The reason it is so handy, according to one poster, is that you can make a booklet with just the rules for the players. Even though it's not always explicitly said, that do imply that there are rules just meant for the game master.

When I was younger, and was first introduced to this wonderful hobby of ours, everyone read all the rules. One boxed set with one or two booklets was the norm. But, in contrast with, say, D&D it wasn't clearly labelled for the Player and for the GM. I haven't asked anybody else about it, but I think most people did like we did, and bought the box if you played the game. That usually meant that in each group you had maybe half as many copies of the rules as there were players. It also meant that almost everyone had read everything in there, including the rules for casting and learning spells, the chance to catch gangrene or what modifier you'd get for trying to use your Listen skill in thick fog. I never saw a problem with that.

When I first actually opened a rule book for D&D, it was the 2nd ed era. Not only were there two books, they also had the weirdest layout with the same section in the two books saying slightly different and (in theory) complementary things. I was thoroughly confused. For some reason there were things which you got the impression you should hide from the players! With my background that seemed preposterous. What was there to hide?!

Now today I realized that this way of splitting up information have shaped me more than I've imagined. The idea of having a standard list of magic items which sooner or later everyone knew about, or a list of standard monsters, is just an alien concept where I'm coming from. Now, many years later I have kind of adapted and know that the way things are, can be different in different places. But, to put this in perspective I think a game were everyone knows how to play the game, but where magic and monsters are all unique creations by your GM/DM is really a more interesting way to play the game. The mystery and wonder of fantasy sure is easier to maintain that way, and for those interesting in the history of the hobby it is the way to experience how it was when Ken and the Phoenix circle, Dave and the Twin Cities players, and Gary with his Lake Geneva group played. Nothing was yet codified, and every piece of magic was new, and wonderful. Imagine that.

Playing the Dungeon of Voorand - giant frogs!

Last Thursday we had our latest session of my Tunnels & Trolls megadungeon campaign. I am a few days late with the write-up. Sorry about that.

I have now notified my players that I will wrap up this campaign, but since this is a campaign of the "sandbox" style, I can just go on playing without having to bother to much with wrapping up of "story lines". That is a relief.

We chatted a bit about what the players wanted to check out now. They have found entrances and stairs to multiple levels and sublevels. How it fits together is still pretty much unclear, but apart from a short pilgrimage by our half-dragon to the majestic wyrm guarding a treasure on a rock in a lava sea they decided to focus on tying up loose ends on the fairly well explored level two.

The maps came up on the table and then they started to chart the places they had missed or left for later. They moved around a bit, mapped and became confused and gleefully kicked in the doors that had been stuck (my little piece of old school nonsense). One of the rooms that occupied the characters and their resources was a classic "Green Devil Face" where they spent some time figuring out what triggered the trap and how to possibly evade it. Much fun was had with electricity. Don't try it at home!

Having gotten through the trapped room they finally found my jungle. I shall spend a few sentences explaining where that one came from. As some of you might know, Gary and Rob put in many "sub realms" and other dimensional pockets in the halls of Castle Greyhawk. I know that WG6 Isle of the Ape was a homage to King Kong, and also somehow a part of the Castle. That sure is one weird castle. But, if they could, then can I. Naturally, being a fan of Blackmoor I couldn't help including some giant frogs. All added and stirred gently became a sub realm which can be entered on level two of the Dungeon of Voorand, a gigantic cave filled with dense jungle which is magically kept lit and rainy. My poor players suddenly found their characters fighting random encounters in a jungle, underground. I was happy when I managed to roll up a gigantic frog and a werewolf. The first one was slaughtered, with love and the other one with magic. I decided to be generous and allow not only silver weapons (none available at this delve), but also magic. I think the ability in T&T to power up your spells saved the day. Only one of the characters now have to be chained up in the cellar come the full moon.

Outside the dungeon there's now a fully stocked tavern, built and manned by hyenakin. Food and drink should be available for anyone coming in or out the dungeon thirsty and hungry. Should that not be enough, one of the magic trinkets found in the dungeon can be seen outside. It was a small red bouncing rubber ball, but enchanted to double in size each time it bounce. It's now as large as the tavern, and fastened with chains and is a popular tourist attraction. Could I have planned this myself? Lucky me I have players with imagination. Sometimes I think they have to much of that, though. They have had their own "gazebo moment", and refuse to trust the tavern inside the dungeon. Well, now there's competition and it should benefit all.

How to succeed at adventuring according to Gary Gygax

I just looked through my copy of the 1st ed PHB. In it are described some tips on how to be successful at adventuring. Apart from the importance of having an objective, is also mentioned that having two maps is the key to success. One map could get destroyed by a fire ball, or some other environmental hazard. It brought home to me the idea that the player's map is not just a help for the player's memory, but also an object in the game. The advice is actually something I recognize from the first place I read it, in the Swedish game Drakar & Demoner. Back then I thought it odd that it said that the DM should destroy the physical map his players had drawn if the in game map was destroyed. I really wonder how common it ever was for gamers to actually do that. A very special kind of immersion, indeed.