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I was browsing through some old White Dwarfs and found the following letter by Gary, which I'd missed back in the day. A bit of nostalgia, anyway!
Quote:
Dear WD,
I read the article Combat and Armour Class by Roger Musson with considerable dismay. I t appears that the good gentleman does not know what D&D and is all about. Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy game, of course, and this most reasonably indicates that statements regarding "realism" in a game must go out the window. (Quite frankly, there is no game with any true realism in it, or i t would be real and not a game. Folks seeking realism should go and participate in whatever the game is based on, if possible, viz. if they are looking for realism in wargames they should enlist in the military service.) I t got worse thereafter. D&D is a HEROIC fantasy game. Who can slit Conan's throat at a blow? The examples are too numerous to mention, but the point is that the game is aimed at allowing participants t o create a heroic character who is not subject to some fluke. Getting killed requires a lot of (mis-)play in most cases. How does the fighter escape the dragon's breath? The same way other superheroes do - bending a link of chain or slipping into an unnoticed crevass in the rock he was chained t o or whatever, i.e. the same way all other larger-than- life sword & sorcery heroes manage t o avoid certain death. In summation, most players find that the game of seeking and gaining, with the ensuing increase in character capability is the thing. Combat at best is something t o be done quickly so as t o get on with the fun, and I T MUST NOT BE LOADED SO AS TO GIVE PLAYERS NO CHANCE TO ESCAPE I F I T IS GOING AGAINST THEM. Neither, of course, must i t be a walkover. (And Conan is usually in a shirt of mail in battle!) Enough said.
Best Wishes, E. Gary Gygax, Lake Geneva,-USA.
__________________ Linking inactive. Try a search engine if you'd like to see what I'm up to.
I loved those early issues of White Dwarf. They definitely favored a much more grim and gritty feel than The Dragon did back then, so it's no wonder they disagreed with EGG.
I loved those early issues of White Wolf. They definitely favored a much more grim and gritty feel than The Dragon did back then, so it's no wonder they disagreed with EGG.
I expect that you mean White Dwarf - although I also liked the early issues of White Wolf
Roger Musson's article was great, and I remember it hugely influenced our games for the better. Gary's letter, unfortunately, seemed quite typical of his pronouncements at the time and made him sound ridiculous. His hyperbole is pointless and weakens the already weak argument he was making in the letter.
It was written at a time when he seemed as if he was trying to keep the genie in his own bottle, but it was well and truly out and being enjoyed in myriad different ways beyond the 'official' way he would have preferred.
A sad recollection for me, actually.
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I'd like things to go back and forth from "ARGH!" to "WOOO!" more frequently. - Kamikaze Midget
Interesting, Can someone summarize the article this letter was a response to for me? To put help it in context?
I can't summarise that article - but Roger Musson was (as far as I'm aware) the first person to publish a vitality/wound system with hit points being easily lost and regained, while wounds were harder to take but when taken went directly to Constitution. This later article was called "How to lose hit points and survive".
So I wouldn't be surprised if the earlier article was doing something similar - perhaps armour as damage reduction, or dragon breath as an attack (a la Rolemaster or 4e) rather than something granting a saving throw.
"I may be unconscious, but at least I still look good!" - - Me (at the Halfling Musketeers game GenCon '06)
On one hand, taking away their weapons is a dead giveaway that they will need them. On the other hand, by the time conflict starts the players will already have opened the rulebooks and found the parts that deal with bare-handed combat, performing disarm moves, and using improvised weapons. Players may blunder through dialog with shocking ineptitude, forget the name of the country they are in, or get confused about which side they are on, but once it comes time to roll for initiative they all turn into Sun Tzu. - Shamus Young DM of the Rings
The article was pretty complex with Combat Armour Class (normal AC), Encumbrance AC (armour type AC), Target AC (a bit like touch AC and reflex save together) and Prone AC.
Good line from article : "Now conjure an image of your favourite fantasy hero, be he <snip>. What is he wearing? Nothing very special, usual, lest it be a leather loincloth. Now think of your favourite D&D fighter - a walking sardine-can of magic plate armour ..." This lead to a no armour AC of all fighting classes of 20-Dexterity.
Interesting article, although not as god as the 'how to lose HP and survive' one of my all time fave WD articles.
I have to say Gary was right on this one. The D&D combat system was designed for quick abstract resolution so that the meat of the game, exploration and treasure seeking, could be resumed quickly.
Articles that were written to bring more simulation/realism to the combat system were in conflict with central themes of D&D. Detailed tactical combat was not a key focus of D&D at all.
In this article Gary was merely stating what was obvious-that one shouldn't look for realism in D&D combat because it was never designed for it.
Through the years there have been many added rules and sub-systems designed to add more detail and complexity to the D&D combat system and they all have had the effect of moving D&D farther from what it was designed to be.
Complaining that D&D is flawed because it didn't support detailed, simulationist combat is like being dissappointed in a naval battleship that can't fly. The D&D simple abstract resolution system is a poor model to base any kind of tactically focused on. No matter how much extra material is piled on top, the foundation is still composed of simple gamist abstraction.
D&D does what it is supposed to do very well.
__________________ Death is for amateurs -Charlie Sheen
Gary's logic sort of goes off its own rails a bit though. He says "In summation, most players find that the game of seeking and gaining, with the ensuing increase in character capability is the thing. Combat at best is something to be done quickly so as to get on with the fun,.."
If the goal is an increase in 'character capability' (by which we can only assume combat capability since that is the only capability actually increased by gaining levels in OD&D), then why is combat itself something to be done quickly so as to get on with the fun? If combat is thought of mostly as a chore to be gotten over with then why is increasing combat capability the main goal?
I think that internal logic mishap is what lead to later editions D&D becoming much better at modelling combat, both from the standpoint of attempting 'realism' (and here I think we can also substitute for the word 'realism' the term 'associated mechanics' as opposed to 'disassociated' or 'abstracted' mechanics) and from the standpoint of making combat more tactically interesting.
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