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Why OD&D Is Still Relevant
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<blockquote data-quote="robconley" data-source="post: 7693163" data-attributes="member: 5636"><p>The problem is that most people then and now tend to treat RPGs more as a game where the rules are hard and fast. So what is not in the rules is forbidden. Now obviously this contradicts the central premise of RPGs where the point is to be a character interacting with an imagined setting. So this tension plays out in different ways depending on the people and the game. In my experience this mostly show up in what the character has to make rolls for. </p><p></p><p>Now the thing is in the gaming culture of the upper midwest this the above wasn't a big part of it. There were a couple of factors going on that caused this but the two most important things to remember they had few published sources for rules, and for the most part they were inserted in accuracy in fighting out the miniature wargame battles. </p><p></p><p>My impression from reading Playing at the World, Hawk & Moor, and antedotes, this lead to the assumption that unless it was specifically said or wrote otherwise, the default is whatever worked in the real world. When looking at the rules they actually wrote they seem incomplete but when you look at how they played, the gamers brought in all the stuff they read. Most of them just didn't write it down as pretty much everybody interested got to read the same books.</p><p></p><p>OD&D was written in the context of that gaming culture. It doesn't say explicitly that any character can pick locks or find traps because it was just assumed. Gygax though it would be a mildly popular game among the wargamers he knew. But it became more than and spread to corners of the country and world that did not share the same assumptions as the wargamers of the early 70s. </p><p></p><p>The best way to approach OD&D is to start with the idea that the game is about playing a character interacting with a imagined setting. That the rules are just the one of the tools a referee can use to decide whether a given action succeeds or not. That the focus of D&D is not to play the game with precise rules, like chess or go, but to play a campaign where the player play characters interacting with a setting with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="robconley, post: 7693163, member: 5636"] The problem is that most people then and now tend to treat RPGs more as a game where the rules are hard and fast. So what is not in the rules is forbidden. Now obviously this contradicts the central premise of RPGs where the point is to be a character interacting with an imagined setting. So this tension plays out in different ways depending on the people and the game. In my experience this mostly show up in what the character has to make rolls for. Now the thing is in the gaming culture of the upper midwest this the above wasn't a big part of it. There were a couple of factors going on that caused this but the two most important things to remember they had few published sources for rules, and for the most part they were inserted in accuracy in fighting out the miniature wargame battles. My impression from reading Playing at the World, Hawk & Moor, and antedotes, this lead to the assumption that unless it was specifically said or wrote otherwise, the default is whatever worked in the real world. When looking at the rules they actually wrote they seem incomplete but when you look at how they played, the gamers brought in all the stuff they read. Most of them just didn't write it down as pretty much everybody interested got to read the same books. OD&D was written in the context of that gaming culture. It doesn't say explicitly that any character can pick locks or find traps because it was just assumed. Gygax though it would be a mildly popular game among the wargamers he knew. But it became more than and spread to corners of the country and world that did not share the same assumptions as the wargamers of the early 70s. The best way to approach OD&D is to start with the idea that the game is about playing a character interacting with a imagined setting. That the rules are just the one of the tools a referee can use to decide whether a given action succeeds or not. That the focus of D&D is not to play the game with precise rules, like chess or go, but to play a campaign where the player play characters interacting with a setting with their actions adjudicated by a human referee. [/QUOTE]
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