weasel fierce said:
Im curious as to, in the early D&D games, how much character and personality did the players put into the PC's ? How much did they differ in personality, or was the PC mainly a mechanical way to interact with hte game ?
The main thrust for most players back then was the action, so a few PCs were unnamed, and we referred to them rather caustically as "Joe's fighter," or "Bob' cleric."
The core group, the regulars, were much more concerned with developing their PCs, interacting with each other and some NPCs in character.
How much involvement did you have with the creation of the Moldway/Cook or Mentzer D&D rules ? Im personally a big fan of Mentzer's D&D, and still play it from time to
time. My players tend to be fans of a bit more character detail though, so its mostly AD&D 1 (with some elements of 2nd edition)
Moldvay and Cook worked under the Blumes afgter 1981, so I had little input in their work.
Frank Mentzer worked directly under me. He would sketch out what he planned, and I would comment. He then would move forward as agreed to, the creative part then as he saw fit knowing the game and my style.
In AD&D, I wonder about the bard's connection to druids. Where did the inspiration for this come from ?
Historically, bards were a class of druid. We don't know much at all about what the druids did in their religious practices, but we know their organization into three branches--the priests, lawyers (ovates), and bards.
Likewise the Rangers use of magic user spells, as opposed to more nature based magic. Was the ranger originally intended as something else than the foresting, robin hood type ?
Ask the originator of the class, Joe Fischer. I polished his original material for The Strategic Review, and all the readers loved it the way it was, to it remained in that general form for the AD&D game.no sense in fixing something that isn't broken as far as most players go.
Do you have a webpage or similar, where the changes you have made to oD&D could be found ? Im sure there's a lot of people who would love to have a shot at "gygaxian" D&D
No, that game is the property of others, not me.
Did you ever have players who wanted to play their character as a different class than what they had picked ? How did you handle such situations ?
Yes. I made them create now PCs.
Do you ever use alternate means of earning XP, such as story or objective goals (i.e. party earns 1000 xp for reaching the heart of the dungeon, where the artifact lies or some such) or rewards for good roleplaying ? How much of the earned XP do you recommend coming from such sources, as opposed to killing and looting XP (traditionally the main source of experience points)
I gave XP awards for clear thinking, use of spells, clever solutions to problems, and sometimes for repartee. Determining what constitutes good roleplaying is situational and subjective. Most other awards are based on action and easy to determine. Basing XP awards thus means no players felt discriminated against. Besides, all of the players scorned amateur theater and loved hack & slash, so it was quite difficult for me to have them enjoy much in the way of yakking unless i worked very hard to make a scenario that was interesting to them and demanded roleplaying that came naturally because of the circimstances established.
Cheers,
Gary