D&D General Younger Players Telling Us how Old School Gamers Played

[Charlaquin]

He doesn't say, "This is how Gygax and his friends played." He goes out of his way to say, "This is how people played it in the before times and it blows my mind that they did it this way." while getting it completely wrong.

Ok. So, would we all agree that there were many different ways people played, whenever “the before times” was? And if so, is it that controversial to say that some people played like he describes? And if so, is it not understandable that his mind would be blown by realizing this? And if so, would it not be forgivable that he might have gotten a little overexcited about this realization and perhaps unwittingly exaggerated its presence in sharing that excitement with his audience of mostly young, relatively inexperienced players?

 

[Maxperson]

okay, so most people didn't know about it sounds exactly like the things said on this site every day about every DMG rule... so what is wrong with that?

It's wrong for one. That's what's wrong with it.

where I disagree they normally built dungeons as part of there worlds, I think he is pretty clear in meaning the dungeon being the important part and have not heard this repudiated yet.

We created worlds. All of use in the group I played with. Three of us DM'd and it was not just dungeons or with dungeons as the most important part. Well, for one of us they were.

and both of these were confirmed in this thread...

Progress in the games I played in was measured by character levels and magic items found, not rooms. Essentially gaining personal character power. And outside of game conventions, my 1e game play was 90% with one group. The remaining 10% were some very short side excursions with other groups.

again confirmed in this thread.

And this never happened in any group I played with. If we ended the night with us in the dungeon, that's where we picked up the next time we met with no time elapsed.

again look at the context... not the whole world, the group. As snarf said the 20 or so players to that 1 DM

The guy literally says every DM played the same world and tracked time. Not one DM. In my group the three of us that DM'd had three different worlds that we created.

 

[Maxperson]

If you know what Woodstock was like, you weren't there.

You win the thread.

 

[Maxperson]

The Golden Rule is to treat others as you want to be treated.

The Platinum Rule is don't tell someone else that you know better than they do what they experienced or how they feel.

What's the Electrum Rule. There's got to be one.

 

[Charlaquin]

Wait, no one read the 1e DMG? I've read that thing cover to cover a hundred times. Even with Gary's rambling and alternating from "this is your game" to "if you don't play according to these rules, you're not playing D&D", the wealth of content in that book is amazing and I love to refer to it today.

Sure, there's some "screw over your players, they don't deserve class abilities", but there's a random dungeon generator, lists of herbs and gemstones with possible magical abilities, a list of ecclesiastical titles, a dissertation of many different types of government, magic items, artifacts, games of chance...it's a treasury of information, unlike, say, more current versions of the DMG.

“No one reads the DMG” is an exaggeration even today. Surely, people have read the 1e DMG, just as people have read the 5e DMG, just as people have read every other DMG. Likewise, people have skimmed every DMG without reading it in its entirety, people have learned every edition of DMG from other DMs and not read the respective DMG, and players of every edition who don’t DM have avoided reading the respective DMG (and other players who don’t DM have read it anyway). The broader point is that then, as now, rules sometimes get overlooked, because not everyone reads them all, and not all of those who do read them all actually use them all. As such, some amount of techne is bound to be lost as over time DMs begin to rely more on metis, and that metis gets passed on to new DMs who learn from them, while the techne stays behind. Then a few generations later, we’ve got DMs who look back at the old rulebooks and realize, “hey, the rules in here describes a completely different game than the one I’ve been playing all this time! The game must have been played so differently back then!”

 

[Maxperson]

Ok. So, would we all agree that there were many different ways people played, whenever “the before times” was? And if so, is it that controversial to say that some people played like he describes?

Sure.

And if so, is it not understandable that his mind would be blown by realizing this?

Maybe. I see people from groups with multiple DMs that share the world post here fairly often. I don't think it's so far fetched to think that new folks might consider that style of play.

And if so, would it not be forgivable that he might have gotten a little overexcited about this realization and perhaps unwittingly exaggerated its presence in sharing that excitement with his audience of mostly young, relatively inexperienced players?

Exaggerated? He took something that a small minority of players did and said everyone did it. That's not an exaggeration. That's very, very wrong.

 

[Yora]

So, rather than just lambasting this guy for being wrong about “how it was really played,” anyone want to like… Point out what specifically he got wrong, and set the record straight? I understand y’all are pretty well-informed on the matter, I’d be more interested in hearing your perspectives than… whatever this thread has been so far.

No!
If people under 50 make mistaken assumptions about what people did in the 70s, it's because there is very little interest among the grognards to engage with them and share their stories of the olden days.
People are eager to hear them, but there seems to be no desire to reveal their secret lore.

 

[pemerton]

Ok. So, would we all agree that there were many different ways people played, whenever “the before times” was? And if so, is it that controversial to say that some people played like he describes? And if so, is it not understandable that his mind would be blown by realizing this? And if so, would it not be forgivable that he might have gotten a little overexcited about this realization and perhaps unwittingly exaggerated its presence in sharing that excitement with his audience of mostly young, relatively inexperienced players?

To me, the key idea conveyed by the things the video guy is excited about seems to be: the setting exists as a vehicle for (or underpinning of) location-based adventuring. The setting is not an end in itself, or an object of exploration.

The italicised idea is reinforced not only by the contrast of "dungeons" with "worlds", but also the idea that PCs might travel between campaigns in a single "world"; and that time is tracked (as per my post upthread) in a way that is not intended to reproduce Appendix B of LotR, but rather is intended to facilitate a concept of downtime between adventurous excursions.

The attribution of the italicised idea to some "back in the day" group of players seems less interesting than the idea itself, which does contrast with many contemporary approaches to D&D.

 

[Charlaquin]

Maybe. I see people from groups with multiple DMs that share the world post here fairly often. I don't think it's so far fetched to think that new folks might consider that style of play.

If there’s one thing I know about ENWorld, it’s that we will find a way to argue about anything. But if there are two things I know about ENWorld, it’s that first thing, and that we are not even a little bit representative of how most people play. I think to most players these days, the notion of such play outside of organized play like AL, is pretty outlandish. Some of the more dedicated fans will have heard of West Marches and might or might not know that it sometimes works this way.

Exaggerated? He took something that a small minority of players did and said everyone did it. That's not an exaggeration. That's very, very wrong.

I think people are reading him very uncharitably. I’m 100% sure he knows that not everyone did it. He probably overestimated how common it was, maybe by a lot. I think that’s a far cry from “telling old-school gamers how they played.”

 

[Charlaquin]

To me, the key idea conveyed by the things the video guy is excited about seems to be: the setting exists as a vehicle for (or underpinning of) location-based adventuring. The setting is not an end in itself, or an object of exploration.

The italicised idea is reinforced not only by the contrast of "dungeons" with "worlds", but also the idea that PCs might travel between campaigns in a single "world"; and that time is tracked (as per my post upthread) in a way that is not intended to reproduce Appendix B of LotR, but rather is intended to facilitate a concept of downtime between adventurous excursions.

The attribution of the italicised idea to some "back in the day" group of players seems less interesting than the idea itself, which does contrast with many contemporary approaches to D&D.

Yes, very well said.