From The Dragon #28:
On the change from original D&D to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. (The End, according to Diaglo
) Selected extracts from an interview.
Q. Suppose it is game night at your house; you have a bunch of “normal” D&D players, you’ve invited them all over for their first AD&D adventure, in the new, modified AD&D campaign. What kind of pep talk or briefing would you give them before they sat down and actually adventured?
What do you feel that you would point out, what would you warn them about, etc.?
Gary Gygax: The first thing I’d do. . . would be warn them that the party is over. Things are tougher, more controlled. They really needn’t worry if they are experienced players; role-playing is one thing and fantasy games are another thing, and with D&D or any similar game, for that matter, whether it be something as basically non-complicated as perhaps Tunnels and Trolls, or something as detailed and complex as Chivalry and Sorcery. They have the basic ideas of the game down. They would have to roll whole new characters—they’d have to begin afresh. Their background experience, of course, would be useful to them. And what would they find? A game where the DM is far more able to handle situations as they arise; AD&D provides the DM with a far stronger framework that answers his questions and needs far more explicitly and more extensively than the other systems do.
Q. Along the same lines, then, if someone were to ask you, “Why did you do AD&D?”, is that what you would answer them? Why did you feel that it was necessary to “re-do” D&D?
Gary: I didn’t really “rewrite” D&D per se. I looked at D&D and said, “This is a game form designed for a much different audience than is actually playing D&D.” So what we want to do is to provide a quarter-million, or a half-million, or whatever the number of players and referees is, with a game form that is really usable to them. D&D is only a loose structure and doesn’t answer many of the needs of the DM. AD&D is a much tighter structure which follows, in part, the same format D&D does, but it is a much stronger, more rigid, more extensive framework around which the DM can build his or her campaign. The whole of D&D was built to make the game, the adventure campaign, more viable for the DM who had to put all these hours and hours of work into structuring the whole thing. With D&D, the DM can find that unless he or she had been extremely careful, one winds up with a campaign that lasts six weeks, or maybe even six months, but then everybody is beyond the parameters of the rules. With AD&D, growth is slower, it’s more structured, and it’s designed so that you won’t run out of game in six weeks, or six months. Perhaps in six years you will, but that’s a whole different story.
Q. lf you could predict the future, see into your crystal ball where the letters and responses are at, what do you expect the response to AD&D to be? From the old D&Ders? From the new, unexposed to-fantasy-game players? What do you think it’s going to do for fantasy gaming? For TSR?
Gary: Well, we’ve had some response already from D&D players with regard to AD&D. The letters have basically been: “Gee, this is all different from D&D! Why didn’t you warn us?’ And John Mansfield, in his magazine Signal said, “Don’t think you can plug D&D into an AD&D format, because you can’t.” I agree. In fact, in one of the recent columns in your magazine, I pointed that out. They are different. You can’t do it. Basically, players and referees are going to say, “Thanks a lot,” when it’s all done, because all the work they put into setting up a game won’t go down the tubes in such a short time, as it would with D&D— not in all cases, but in most cases. D&D tends to allow too rapid growth of player-characters and the game gets beyond the control of the DM far too quickly. In AD&D, all of these problems have been taken care of. The character classes have more balance, and the growth rate of player-characters is kept in check far more closely. For the amount of work that a DM has to put in—probably two hours for every hour of play—you’re going to get some real returns, instead of a short-lived campaign.
Q. Back to your earlier comments, that inevitably players will find areas that don’t suit them, areas that may be “wrong”, areas that are treated in a way that the consensus feels to be wrong, whether or not it is, and if the game is expanded upon, or when it is expanded upon, it will be expanded upon in modules. Are the majority of D&D players going to have to pick up every one of these modules, like you used to have to do with all the supplements? You really had to keep up with the supplements to keep up with the ongoing, ongrowing D&D when it first came out. Is this going to
happen again, or are you going to be able to take the DMG, lock yourself on a desert island, and have a good time with it?
Gary: This question will take about ten years to answer; it’s highly extensive. First of all, D&D came out in the form it did because it was still a baby when it was done. It was done in a hurry to answer the demands of many hard-core gamers, and it was written for a whole different audience. But even though the audience was different, their basic abilities were not all that different from the anticipated audience. And most of these good people have great minds and imaginations, and nearly everyone of them is going to be able to say, “Boy, that would be a perfect game if only this rule or those rules were changed, and I know how to make it a perfect game.” This is rather typical of gamers, and so they’re going to want to immediately change things and amend things to make it “the perfect game.”
To some extent, this can be done with AD&D, because there is still enough flexibility within therules to allow it, without really changing the scope of the game. As the game matures, and we want to add on, without coming to what would be called perhaps “the third generation of fantasy role-playing,” we will add to it through modules, or perhaps through articles. These additions or clarifications or whatever won’t really be necessary to be obtainedfor any player, because, hopefully, they won’t be earthshaking revisions of the rules. If that comes up, what we’ll have to do, really, is publish an article saying, “this is a horrible revision, please take note, and free copies are available for all you good people who bought it.” But I really don’t envision that. Yet, the people who are active inthis—perhaps not all the vocal ones or the ones you read about, but who generate the volume of mail—have enough questions or enough comments on certain areas, we might then look at a second edition, let’s say, of AD&D to cover these points. Again, if it becomes necessary, it will be well publicized prior to that. We don’t envision AD&D as being an ever-changing thing except as follows: Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes is really a necessary part of AD&D, because the deities are necessary to the game. So, eventually, those with viable campaigns move on to add deities to their games. And this will be possible within the next six-months, or a year, or whatever—whenever a much revised and expanded GDH is available. We also contemplate adding monsters to the game because monsters get burned up. It’s always nice to be able to throw a new monster at the players, so. . . . The people in the U.K. are going to have their chance to add some monsters to the game, and who knows? There might be two volumes to the Monster Manual, or three, over the years, but that’s about the size of it: a slowly growing work, as the players want it, not as the players must buy it.
On the change from original D&D to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. (The End, according to Diaglo
) Selected extracts from an interview.Q. Suppose it is game night at your house; you have a bunch of “normal” D&D players, you’ve invited them all over for their first AD&D adventure, in the new, modified AD&D campaign. What kind of pep talk or briefing would you give them before they sat down and actually adventured?
What do you feel that you would point out, what would you warn them about, etc.?
Gary Gygax: The first thing I’d do. . . would be warn them that the party is over. Things are tougher, more controlled. They really needn’t worry if they are experienced players; role-playing is one thing and fantasy games are another thing, and with D&D or any similar game, for that matter, whether it be something as basically non-complicated as perhaps Tunnels and Trolls, or something as detailed and complex as Chivalry and Sorcery. They have the basic ideas of the game down. They would have to roll whole new characters—they’d have to begin afresh. Their background experience, of course, would be useful to them. And what would they find? A game where the DM is far more able to handle situations as they arise; AD&D provides the DM with a far stronger framework that answers his questions and needs far more explicitly and more extensively than the other systems do.
Q. Along the same lines, then, if someone were to ask you, “Why did you do AD&D?”, is that what you would answer them? Why did you feel that it was necessary to “re-do” D&D?
Gary: I didn’t really “rewrite” D&D per se. I looked at D&D and said, “This is a game form designed for a much different audience than is actually playing D&D.” So what we want to do is to provide a quarter-million, or a half-million, or whatever the number of players and referees is, with a game form that is really usable to them. D&D is only a loose structure and doesn’t answer many of the needs of the DM. AD&D is a much tighter structure which follows, in part, the same format D&D does, but it is a much stronger, more rigid, more extensive framework around which the DM can build his or her campaign. The whole of D&D was built to make the game, the adventure campaign, more viable for the DM who had to put all these hours and hours of work into structuring the whole thing. With D&D, the DM can find that unless he or she had been extremely careful, one winds up with a campaign that lasts six weeks, or maybe even six months, but then everybody is beyond the parameters of the rules. With AD&D, growth is slower, it’s more structured, and it’s designed so that you won’t run out of game in six weeks, or six months. Perhaps in six years you will, but that’s a whole different story.
Q. lf you could predict the future, see into your crystal ball where the letters and responses are at, what do you expect the response to AD&D to be? From the old D&Ders? From the new, unexposed to-fantasy-game players? What do you think it’s going to do for fantasy gaming? For TSR?
Gary: Well, we’ve had some response already from D&D players with regard to AD&D. The letters have basically been: “Gee, this is all different from D&D! Why didn’t you warn us?’ And John Mansfield, in his magazine Signal said, “Don’t think you can plug D&D into an AD&D format, because you can’t.” I agree. In fact, in one of the recent columns in your magazine, I pointed that out. They are different. You can’t do it. Basically, players and referees are going to say, “Thanks a lot,” when it’s all done, because all the work they put into setting up a game won’t go down the tubes in such a short time, as it would with D&D— not in all cases, but in most cases. D&D tends to allow too rapid growth of player-characters and the game gets beyond the control of the DM far too quickly. In AD&D, all of these problems have been taken care of. The character classes have more balance, and the growth rate of player-characters is kept in check far more closely. For the amount of work that a DM has to put in—probably two hours for every hour of play—you’re going to get some real returns, instead of a short-lived campaign.
Q. Back to your earlier comments, that inevitably players will find areas that don’t suit them, areas that may be “wrong”, areas that are treated in a way that the consensus feels to be wrong, whether or not it is, and if the game is expanded upon, or when it is expanded upon, it will be expanded upon in modules. Are the majority of D&D players going to have to pick up every one of these modules, like you used to have to do with all the supplements? You really had to keep up with the supplements to keep up with the ongoing, ongrowing D&D when it first came out. Is this going to
happen again, or are you going to be able to take the DMG, lock yourself on a desert island, and have a good time with it?
Gary: This question will take about ten years to answer; it’s highly extensive. First of all, D&D came out in the form it did because it was still a baby when it was done. It was done in a hurry to answer the demands of many hard-core gamers, and it was written for a whole different audience. But even though the audience was different, their basic abilities were not all that different from the anticipated audience. And most of these good people have great minds and imaginations, and nearly everyone of them is going to be able to say, “Boy, that would be a perfect game if only this rule or those rules were changed, and I know how to make it a perfect game.” This is rather typical of gamers, and so they’re going to want to immediately change things and amend things to make it “the perfect game.”
To some extent, this can be done with AD&D, because there is still enough flexibility within therules to allow it, without really changing the scope of the game. As the game matures, and we want to add on, without coming to what would be called perhaps “the third generation of fantasy role-playing,” we will add to it through modules, or perhaps through articles. These additions or clarifications or whatever won’t really be necessary to be obtainedfor any player, because, hopefully, they won’t be earthshaking revisions of the rules. If that comes up, what we’ll have to do, really, is publish an article saying, “this is a horrible revision, please take note, and free copies are available for all you good people who bought it.” But I really don’t envision that. Yet, the people who are active inthis—perhaps not all the vocal ones or the ones you read about, but who generate the volume of mail—have enough questions or enough comments on certain areas, we might then look at a second edition, let’s say, of AD&D to cover these points. Again, if it becomes necessary, it will be well publicized prior to that. We don’t envision AD&D as being an ever-changing thing except as follows: Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes is really a necessary part of AD&D, because the deities are necessary to the game. So, eventually, those with viable campaigns move on to add deities to their games. And this will be possible within the next six-months, or a year, or whatever—whenever a much revised and expanded GDH is available. We also contemplate adding monsters to the game because monsters get burned up. It’s always nice to be able to throw a new monster at the players, so. . . . The people in the U.K. are going to have their chance to add some monsters to the game, and who knows? There might be two volumes to the Monster Manual, or three, over the years, but that’s about the size of it: a slowly growing work, as the players want it, not as the players must buy it.
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