[EDITION WARZ] Selling Out D&D's Soul?

[Garnfellow]

Are we talking about the same The Dragon? Are we talking about the The Dragon wherein nary an issue passed that didn't contain something new for the game, and very often alternate rules? The very same The Dragon that contained all those alternate classes? Alternate poison rules? Alternate unarmed combat?

We absolutely are all talking about the same Dragon. There was a very, very weird schizophrenia going on in that magazine during this time. The key is to read the Sorcerer's Scroll articles from the period -- while Dragon was producing some excellent variant rules, the Scroll was pushing a very limited and hyper-orthodox vision of what Official AD&D was -- and wasn't.

If you can get access to it, the Best of the Dragon volume II collects many of these articles in one place.

 

[cildarith]

Yeah, I think for me those few lines in the DMG exhorting DMs to make the game their own got drowned in the many, many Sorcerer's Scroll articles and other Official Pronouncements (tm) from Lake Geneva that declared "If you aren't playing the game as written, you aren't playing Official AD&D, but rather some inferior variant."

This really stuck in my craw, especially when it became clear that (1) even Gary didn't follow the rules as written, (2) several subsystems in AD&D were seriously broken and deserved to be chucked (initiative, unarmed combat, etc.), (3) Dragon magazine was churning out extremely cool stuff every month that often cooler and/or mechanically better than much of the "Official" material, and (4) I was coming to AD&D from the Moldvay basic/expert set, which was a much cleaner ruleset that encouraged experimentation.

After all, whose fricken game was this, and why should I be browbeaten for trying out some critical hit charts?

This complaint about Sorcerer Scroll articles does come up from time to time in discussions like these, but I've never quite understood why people gave these editorials so much weight. The folks I gamed with read them, shrugged, and dove into all the variant rules in Dragon (and White Dwarf - which did a better job in many ways) with enthusiasm. Certainly some of the stuff was unbalanced, unneccessary, or overly complicated (Leomund's Tiny Hut, anyone?), but it was all fun.

I think one of the hard things about discussing 1st edition is that, depending on what primary texts you read, you could come away with radically different views of the game. How much magical loot should PCs have access too? If you read the DMG, it sounds like a 9th level fighter should feel glad to have a +1 dagger, a +2 shield, and a philtre of love. If you ran the GDQ modules, you would expect a 9th level fighter to have a +3 sword, +3 platemail and a +3 shield, as well as a girdle of giant strength and a ring of regeneration.

This is quite true.

I wonder . . . it seems like some of the hardest core fans of 1st edition over on Dragonsfoot are British. Was Dragon magazine readily distributed across the pond in the late 70s early 80s? I know White Dwarf from the same period had a much more libertarian and experimental view of the game, in stark contrast to the party line that was coming out of Lake Geneva. For that matter, the TSR UK contributions from the early 80s seemed to push the game boundaries a bit more than the TSR US contributions.

I have the same impression of WD and TSR UK. Those old WD issues were very slim (32-48 pages, and bi-monthly in the early years), yet they managed to pack more useful stuff for D&D between the covers of a single issue than two or three issues of Dragon (and this was during the period that many people consider the "Golden Age" for the latter publication).

 

[The Shaman]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there were extremely few groups out there that used 1e RAW. I'd go a step further and say that the vast majority barely scratched the surface of the RAW.

Why would that be? Because of fantastic game design? Because of wonderful fluff that inspires? What possible reason could there be that people felt the need to chuck out large sections of 1e RAW?

Because they learned the game without ever owning the books themselves?* Because they bought the books and never read them completely or thoroughly, preferring to rely on anecdotal knowledge instead? Because they mixed and matched pieces from the different versions of D&D that were all available at the time?

*I played OD&D and the blue box and never gave the books more than a cursory scan - during the game I told the dungeon master what I wanted my character to do, and he told me what I needed to roll. It wasn't until 1e AD&D that I actually started buying and reading the books myself, so I could be the dungeon master. I didn't buy a copy of OD&D until 1979, after I purchased all three 1e AD&D core books.

 

[Raven Crowking]

You're missing the point RC. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there were extremely few groups out there that used 1e RAW. I'd go a step further and say that the vast majority barely scratched the surface of the RAW.

Why would that be? Because of fantastic game design? Because of wonderful fluff that inspires? What possible reason could there be that people felt the need to chuck out large sections of 1e RAW?

I would suggest that there were a number of factors:

(1) 1e actively encourages you to alter the RAW.

(2) Some systems (particularly the unarmed combat system) were dogs. IMHO, of course. (I think I have already agreed multiple times that the 3e RAW is, IMHO, better than the 1e RAW -- I just don't like to see it tarred for crimes it didn't commit! ).

(3) Some players might have found the Gygaxian prose style difficult....although IME, more people actually read the 1e rules than read the 3e ones throroughly. Moreover, many people I knew/know read 1e for enjoyment.

Were I to guess, using my own experiences and those of people I know as a basis, I would say that (1) and (2) far exceeded (3).


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

We absolutely are all talking about the same Dragon. There was a very, very weird schizophrenia going on in that magazine during this time. The key is to read the Sorcerer's Scroll articles from the period -- while Dragon was producing some excellent variant rules, the Scroll was pushing a very limited and hyper-orthodox vision of what Official AD&D was -- and wasn't.

If you can get access to it, the Best of the Dragon volume II collects many of these articles in one place.

Again, I think that the DMG preface is pretty good overall for this, and gives a pretty clear idea of what was intended. It describes an idea in which there are many unique campaigns, all of which have some points in common. It goes further to say that the points in common do not have to be the same points.

I.e., the more points in common with the RAW your game has, the easier it is for a player to switch from another game to your game. The more you change the RAW to suit your game world, the more unique and interesting that world will be. The trick is trying to find the right balance point between the two goals.

Of course, EGG was a bit more wordy when he said it!

That piece of advice, BTW, is as relevant today as it was when the 1e DMG was first printed.


RC

 

[Kormydigar]

taking someone's shiny magic armor and weapon is grossly unfair, and has rendered that character now unlayable.

No one wants to have sex with a character without shiny magic items!!! I agree with the spirit of this post but some typos are just too funny.

 

[Raven Crowking]

that brings us back to your previous post, which Raven Crowking has admirably addressed already.

I think that's the first time that "Raven Crowking" and "admirably" have ever been used in the same sentence.

 

[Raven Crowking]

No one wants to have sex with a character without shiny magic items!!! I agree with the spirit of this post but some typos are just too funny.

Of course. If you don't have a Rod of Splendor or a Wand of Wonder, you won't be making any half-elves any time soon.

 

[Mokona]

Modern Ford cars look nothing like a Model T. What is in a name? D&D is still Dungeons & Dragons because the name affects how players use the game mechanics. Just like the Ford name conveys a non-physical essence of the product.

 

[The Shaman]

No one wants to have sex with a character without shiny magic items!!!

"Yeah, I got your Rod of Lordly Might right here, baby..."