EGG on 'The Spirit of AD&D'

[Squire James]

I am not terribly certain about the good/evil axis with regards to Humanity in the real world... I guess that depends on if the Democrats or the Republicans win the next election .

I tend to agree a with Gary with regards to Humanity in my fantasy worlds... the heroes are generally defenders of Humanity against the forces of Darkness. The fact that some of those defenders happen to be half-demon, half-trolls do not alter this assertion.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I like a few shades of moral grey. The concept of monolithic, genetics based morality just erks me. (In a game it erks me. In the real world it just down right f@@ks me off as I'm sure everyone here would agree.) And while I can see why people would want their game to be nice and simplistic, as outlined in the Gygax quote, personally it aint for me.

As for people going around saying that there is only one way to play the game, and that way is the way that only accepts the simplistic morality of Good Us, Evil Them, that worries me. It's dangerously close to applying that simplistic game morality to the real world. Specifically: telling people what to think/enjoy in a game they play.

>>> The game is muscular and certain and active<<<

It can be, and frequently is. But it doesn't have to be. People are free to play RPGs as they like and explore any issues they like while doing so. It's this freedom that is the true underlying spirit of the game: the potential to take it anywhere and do anything; to explore any concept you want in any way you want.

 

[haakon1]

pg 26 Role-Playing Mastery (1987), by E Gary Gygax:

"This is a fantasy RPG predicated on the assumption that the human race, by and large, is made up of good people. Humans, with the help of their demi-human allies, are and should remain the predominant force in the world. They have achieved and continue to hold on to this status, despite the ever-present threat of evil, mainly because of the dedication, honor, and unselfishness of the most heroic humans and demi-humans - the characters whose roles are taken by the players of the game."

. . .
I wondered to what extent you think your own D&D games and campaign worlds conform to this analysis?

It fits my campaign(s) very well. I go Greyhawk, with some Tolkien thrown in. In Greyhawk, evil is usually an insurgence. And in my campaign world, most people are basically neutral scared or neutral good.

It's a bit like the Spider-Man movies, where many random New Yorkers in a subway car or street scene or burning building scene either want to help Spidey or at least wish him well. The villains and the abusive Daily Bugle editor and so on are relatively rare.

As for human domination, yes, most realms that matter in my game are run by humans. Their demihuman allies also appear, but more often in peripheral roles.

The PC's also tend to be human or their allies, and good to neutral. 3 parties:
1) 3 humans (from 2 cultures/cultures) and a 1 half-orc. Alignments = LGx2, NG, CG
2) dwarf, elf, half-elf, and halfing. Alignments = LN, CN, NGx2
3) 5 humans (from 2 cultures & 5 countries), 2 elves, half-elf. Alignments = LGx3, NGx5

 

[Jack7]

Only for his game and some other people's.

You do understand it was his game he was talking about.
He wasn't speculating on your game.

That being said however D&D is not chess.
It is not cerebral and existentialist, though it does not preclude those things from time to time.
Or preclude anything else for that matter.

But it is, essentially, about heroism.
And heroism is not words, or rhetoric, or argument, or debate.
That's for the forensic class and the doctoral thesis.

Heroism is about deeds. Good deeds, selfless deeds, dangerous deeds, deeds in service to another. Imaginary deeds in context, granted, it is after all only a game, not real life.

But then again it was not designed as a game to inspire crunch, fluff, mathematical calculation, or ephemeral bouts of indecision and personal angst. Those things are merely tools and means to an end. They are devices, not to be confused with a real purpose.

The game was designed so that players role play heroes and heroines, not philosophers and pedagogues. Champions, not chatterers. And maybe even by role playing heroism to learn something about what that might be like in real life. One never knows til he tries.

If in time it became that other thing, that speculative game of the all things are equal under the sun, and what's really important is how fast you level up, rather than what you accomplish along the way, well, that certainly wasn't the fault of Gygax. That came much later.

But Gygax was speaking about his game.
I reckon he understood his own purpose okay.
And I do agree with him on that one, and that is a fact.

 

[shilsen]

You do understand it was his game he was talking about.
He wasn't speculating on your game.

I understand that he was talking about his own gaming tastes, but when the quotation begins with "This is a fantasy RPG predicated on the assumption..." it sounds like he's speaking about how the game is meant to be played. And your comments in the post I quoted certainly sounded like you were making broad comments about the game in general, rather than specifically how Gygax or you play it.

That being said however D&D is not chess.
It is not cerebral and existentialist, though it does not preclude those things from time to time.
Or preclude anything else for that matter.

But it is, essentially, about heroism.

Are you talking about the game as played at your table, or making general commentary again? If it's the latter, then I'd say the game can be about heroism. But there's no objective reason why it has to be.

And heroism is not words, or rhetoric, or argument, or debate.
That's for the forensic class and the doctoral thesis.

Heroism is about deeds. Good deeds, selfless deeds, dangerous deeds, deeds in service to another. Imaginary deeds in context, granted, it is after all only a game, not real life.

And again we're back to issues of individual definition again. I can think of lots of good deeds or selfless deeds or dangerous deeds or deeds in service to another which have nothing, by my definition, to do with heroism.

But then again it was not designed as a game to inspire crunch, fluff, mathematical calculation, or ephemeral bouts of indecision and personal angst. Those things are merely tools and means to an end. They are devices, not to be confused with a real purpose.

The game was designed so that players role play heroes and heroines, not philosophers and pedagogues. Champions, not chatterers. And maybe even by role playing heroism to learn something about what that might be like in real life. One never knows til he tries.

I sincerely doubt that the game was designed by Gygax to teach people to be heroes by pretending to be them. But I'll buy that it was designed to let players play heroes and heroines. Which, of course, makes little difference to the game as it exists today, or even as it existed back in 1e, since people are capable of playing it in a myriad different ways.

Which is one of the really cool things about D&D. I can play it to roleplay a hero. I can play it to roleplay a villain. Hell, I can play it to roleplay a character who's both hero and villain, philosopher and pedagogue, champion and chatterer, all at once. A game that lets you do that is pretty darn cool.

If in time it became that other thing, that speculative game of the all things are equal under the sun, and what's really important is how fast you level up, rather than what you accomplish along the way, well, that certainly wasn't the fault of Gygax. That came much later.

Never played 1e myself, but from what I've gathered from reading a lot of people discussing their experiences with it and hearing others I know talking about it, I'd say you're dead wrong. People cared how fast they leveled up and killed Thor with their star destroyers pretty soon after Gygax put the game on the market.

But Gygax was speaking about his game.
I reckon he understood his own purpose okay.
And I do agree with him on that one, and that is a fact.

No argument at all about the above presumably being Gygax's purpose. I was just pointing out that his purpose is mostly irrelevant to how individual groups and people play the game, then and now and in the future.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

But then again it was not designed as a game to inspire crunch, fluff, mathematical calculation, or ephemeral bouts of indecision and personal angst. Those things are merely tools and means to an end. They are devices, not to be confused with a real purpose.

The game was designed so that players role play heroes and heroines, not philosophers and pedagogues. Champions, not chatterers. And maybe even by role playing heroism to learn something about what that might be like in real life. One never knows til he tries.

If in time it became that other thing, that speculative game of the all things are equal under the sun, and what's really important is how fast you level up, rather than what you accomplish along the way, well, that certainly wasn't the fault of Gygax. That came much later.

Verse 27: "and Gygax created the game whole and pure"
Verse 28: "but then people came along, playing it"
Verse 29: "making it impure and tainted."

 

[S'mon]

I agree with those who argue that "the human race, by and large, is made up of good people. Humans, with the help of their demi-human allies, are and should remain the predominant force in the world. They have achieved and continue to hold on to this status, despite the ever-present threat of evil, mainly because of the dedication, honor, and unselfishness of the most heroic humans and demi-humans - the characters whose roles are taken by the players of the game" makes a sound basis for a campaign*, and I often use it as the basis of my own, but one thing I find interesting about it is that it resembles Tolkien far more than it resembles the swords & sorcery fiction usually seen as Gygax's primary influence. In the worlds of Conan, Fafhrd/Mouser and Elric it would be hard to claim that humanity is presented as largely good, or that the heroes are selfless champions of humanity - indeed non-human opponents are often rare or non-existent.


*One thing I like about it is that it does actually teach a degree of moral behaviour, in my experience. The Good & Lawful side, through co-operation, can often prevail against more numerous and powerful evil/Chaotic forces, because the latter are always likely to turn on each other for temporary advantage.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I thought this was a very interesting perspective. I wondered to what extent you think your own D&D games and campaign worlds conform to this analysis?

Gygax's RPG worldview was strongly influenced by the sci-fi & fantasy lit of his youth, in which you'll find a lot of themes that one might consider "space-opera"- especially the feel that humanity has a kind of manifest destiny to fufill.

As for my campaigns...well I don't have true "racial" alignments as set in stone, and national/tribal alignments are political conveniences- IOW, IMC you can find a LG Drow in any given Drow city, if you look hard enough.

Humans and almost all truly corporeal races (not demons and other extraplanar entities) have the full panoply of alignments available, and individuals probably generally tend towards "Neutral Leave Me Alone, I'll Leave You Alone."

However, each of my campaigns has their own unique flavor.

I have no problem casting a group of humans as large, xenophobic militaristic nation on the rise, intent on racial genocide. Ditto for halflings, gnomes, or any other race.

I also have no problem casting Orcs or Neandertals as powerful but shy & retiring.

 

[Maggan]

Well, I'd like for my players to have PCs that are heroes. And act like heroes.

But they don't. They have adventurers that act like adventurers. If they come out heroes, it's mostly because of circumstance, rather than forethought.

But then again, my preferred setting is the one for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, where people are basically bad. Or rather, people are basically people.

/M

 

[amethal]

Well, I'd like for my players to have PCs that are heroes. And act like heroes.

But they don't.

Me too.

I recently ran Shelter from the Storm (part three of War of the Burning Sky). There's a (not very graphic) scene in that where an inquisitor is torturing a prisoner.

I cut that out, because I'm not keen on running torture scenes in RPGs. However, it didn't help, because the PCs captured one of the inquisitor's soldiers and started torturing their own prisoner.

In my experience the typical party of adventurers consists mostly of ruthless and selfish characters, with a few downright nasty ones for good measure.

Also, D&D is a game where you can often be penalised for being good aligned, at least in 3.5. In our last session, the party got unholy blighted a dozen times. My CG character took twice as much damage as his two neutral colleagues. (Nobody has ever cast the chaotic or good versions on us, and I doubt they ever will.)

The bad guys also had some sort of effect where every time I hit them I had to make a Fort save or suffer strength damage. Needless to say, it didn't affect the two N characters.