"HF" vs. "S&S" gaming: the underlying reason of conflict and change in D&D

[Obryn]

But they all have some deep similarities in their higher concepts, worldviews, etc. that you can group them all under a man-made label called S&S, that has quite an important consensus on how it is supposed to be.

I don't think you really can for this list, though. Yes, there are definite S&S elements in it. There are definite non-S&S elements, too. There are also definite gamist elements.

You're narrowly focusing on S&S without showing the gameplay elements of old-school D&D which make it so. Your listing in your first post isn't about S&S elements - it's a list of oldschool gaming elements you've labeled S&S.

Also, there's another argument here - that it's somewhat irrelevant how Gygax himself played the game. If other players used the OD&D rule-set for different play-styles, Gary's is not somehow more legitimate just because he originally wrote the game.

-O

 

[Fanaelialae]

They only thing you got to do is get the AD&D DMG and check out the inspirational reading list. Check out the early Dragon Magazines, what kind of literature is discussed there, and the dozen of EGG articles saying that D&D is NOT TOLKIEN.

You can read the Q&A threads of EGG here at ENWorld, when he speaks about the main inspirations for the game, how it was much more rooted in S&S rather than HF, how he called Tolkien's masterpiece "The Bore of the Rings", how he said hundred of times the Tolkien races where there just to make the game sell better.

I thought this was much more common knowledge that what I supposed.

Gygax wasn't the sole creator of D&D though, a fact which you seem to be ignoring. Dave Arneson had a large hand in the original game as well.

S&S acting as one of the inspirations for D&D is not the same thing as D&D being a S&S game. One could as easily say that D&D is a wargame, since wargames also inspired and shaped D&D. IMO, that is a gross oversimplification.

 

[Remathilis]

So in what way are you disagreeing with the OP? Because this is exactly what he's saying.

Didn't say I was.

I was disagreeing with some other opinions that because it started out "S&S", it should have STAYED there and that the change toward HF is what "ruined" D&D.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I don't agree on high body count, and dungeon crawling - you can see in my blog that my campaign is mostly city and wilderness adventuring - Wilderlands of High Fantasy style.

And as long as players play well and are lucky enough, they won't die.



They only thing you got to do is get the AD&D DMG and check out the inspirational reading list. Check out the early Dragon Magazines, what kind of literature is discussed there, and the dozen of EGG articles saying that D&D is NOT TOLKIEN.

You can read the Q&A threads of EGG here at ENWorld, when he speaks about the main inspirations for the game, how it was much more rooted in S&S rather than HF, how he called Tolkien's masterpiece "The Bore of the Rings", how he said hundred of times the Tolkien races where there just to make the game sell better.

I thought this was much more common knowledge that what I supposed.

Dungeon crawling maybe less so, but high body count? If you play the game as written, there is no avoiding the high body count. Death is random and unavoidable, and luck is the only savior. Smart play can only reduce the number of death rolls. As for Tolkien, his books have always been bigger than the entire S&S library, and was inserted into D&D by player demand. D&D has always been in the hands of the people playing it, not Gary's. Gary has a voice, as does Howard and Tolkien, but the people sitting at the table have always been the loudest. Because Gary said so is a lame justification for anything, especially considering how early D&D was the wild west, with everybody doing their own thing probably moreso than any time since.

I'm curious; do you think there was a mechanical aspect to this, or is it just a question of presentation?

Because I wonder how much presentation affects gamers, unless they're new to the game being presented. I don't imagine many gamers who played 1e played 2e significantly differently than they did 1e. Unless they got kinda swept away by one or more of the campaign settings and the ideas it espoused.

In my 2E gaming experience, thanks to DM intervention, the survival rate for 1st level characters defined as living until 5th level or until they leave the campaign, whichever comes first, was about 75-80%. The survival rate for 5th level characters and up was much higher, even before Raise Dead. Characters were given second and third chances by DM fiat, because players preferred playing one character over a long period of time. Aside from the introduction of negative HP, which I believe was an optional rule, the system was just as deadly. The presentation of the game and the expectations of the people playing it changed the game to match a different ideal, in contrast with the actual system.

I'm also curious what you mean by player empowerment. I don't think I disagree with what you're saying, at least with my interpretation of the words, but my interpretation isn't the only one out there, as I've seen on many an OSR screed. I like to think that 3e made character more mechanically interesting, gave a lot of interesting choices to players building their characters, and delegated a fair amount of the busywork of running the game to the players. In that respect, it was empowering. I don't think of it as a zero sum game where empowering players means emasculating DMs or something, though.

No offense intended to women DMs.

By player empowerment, I mean a combination of giving PCs game breaking powers well beyond what they had in earlier editions, while basing the system on the PCs and the DMs NPCs using the same rules on an even playing field. Players were given the power to bully DMs within the system for the first time.

 

[Zulgyan]

That is common knowledge. However, what the game says it's doing (in one, confined, narrow place) and what it's actually doing are not necessarily the same thing. Saying that D&D is S&S because look at Appendix N; it's full of S&S influences is, at best, a very circular argument, proving nothing.

At best. And for a "best" scenario, that's obviously not very good.

I did some analysis of the game itself on the OP. Ok, I'll expand.

In AD&D by EGG:

1) Being good or evil is just the same for survival, progression and success. Being good or even beign the protagonist, grants you no special consideration. You are all by yourself. The system or the DM does not help you out.

2) Power and luck is the only thing that will define a battle, not your higher or better morals. There is no cosmic justice in the D&D world. If you are stronger, more resourceful and lucky, you win and nothing will punish you for that aside from an revengeful enemy.

3) Advancement is by killing and looting (1 XP for 1 GP). Killing an evil or a good guy is just the same. Looting from an evil temple or from charity is just the same - no moral judgments on the source of XP and $$$.

4) No XP given for quests. So if you help the peaceful villagers, they is no XP from that aside from what they pay you. If you kill them and take their stuff, you'll win just the same XP and the extra XP for the villagers. Then you can go kill the evil monster and take his stuff as well. Nothing in the system punishes you for doing that.

"Quest" is a spell 5th level cleric spell that works like a curse, more than something noble and idealistic to do.

5) Gods have stats and can be killed. They are just super-powerful monsters.

6) Nowhere it says that being evil is against the premise of the game, as the 4E books say. You even have an evil-only class: the assassin.

7) Guidelines for demon summoning, totally available for the players.

8) More randomness, more unbalance, more weird unexpected stuff. No forced balanced encounters, no prescript treasure.

9) The only reason for being good, is to have access to the nifty paladin and ranger abilities, and too be able to use some magic items reserved for the good guys - so it's totally in self interest, no real altruism.


That makes the game strongly sword & sorcery in my eyes.

 

[Zulgyan]

Didn't say I was.

I was disagreeing with some other opinions that because it started out "S&S", it should have STAYED there and that the change toward HF is what "ruined" D&D.

PLEASE quote where I said that, and I will ask for pardon.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I did some analysis of the game itself on the OP. Ok, I'll expand.

In AD&D by EGG:

1) Being good or evil is just the same for survival, progression and success. Being good or even beign the protagonist, grants you no special consideration. You are all by yourself.

2) Power and luck is the only thing that will define a battle, not your higher or better morals. There is no cosmic justice in the D&D world. If you are stronger, more resourceful and lucky, you win and nothing will punish you for that aside from an revengeful enemy.

3) Advancement is by killing and looting (1 XP for 1 GP). Killing an evil or a good guy is just the same. Looting from an evil temple or from charity is just the same - no moral judgments.

4) No XP given for quests. So if you help the peaceful villagers, they is no XP from that aside from what they pay you. If you kill them and take their stuff, you'll win just the same XP and the extra XP for the villagers. Then you can go kill the evil monster and take his stuff as well. Nothing in the system punishes you for doing that.

"Quest" is a spell 5th level cleric spell that works like a curse, more than something noble and idealistic to do.

5) Gods have stats and can be killed. They are just super-powerful monsters.

6) Nowhere it says that being evil is against the premise of the game, as the 4E say. You even have an evil-only class: the assassin.

7) Guidelines for demon summoning, totally available for the players.

8) More randomness, more unbalance, more weird unexpected stuff. No forced balanced encounters, no prescript treasure.

9) The only reason for being good, is to have access to the nifty paladin and ranger abilities, and too be able to use some magic items reserved for the good guys - so it's totally in self interest, no real altruism.


That makes the game strongly sword & sorcery in my eyes.

Non-S&S parts of AD&D:

1. Non-human races with special powers

2. Ranger class, which was an almost exact ripoff of Aragorn from LotR

3. The Monk, based on the martial arts genre

4. Spellcasting, the power and scope of which go beyond both S&S and HF as you level up

5. Magic items that let you turn invisible, fly, have 18/00 Str, or shoot 100 Fireballs useable at will or nearly so.

6. Science fiction inspired Psionics

7. Exotic monsters with strange powers, like Beholders, Mind Flayers, Basilisks, Demons, Devils, Dragons, ect.

8. If we are talking about Gary's writing, add in the Greyhawk setting, which is far more HF than S&S.

I'm sure there are more, but those are off the top of my head from memory, since I don't have the books handy and haven't read them in over 10 years.

 

[Zulgyan]

I will repeat what I said before:

1) I never said OD&D or AD&D were 100% sword & sorcery. They just leaned more strongly towards it, than today's D&D.

2) Many of the stuff you mention are just trappings and cosmetics.

3) Also, you are falling in the "Howard is the only S&S" mentality. S&S is much more diverse than just Howard-like S&S.

 

[Remathilis]

1) Being good or evil is just the same for survival, progression and success. Being good or even beign the protagonist, grants you no special consideration. You are all by yourself.

Did I miss the special "good heroes have +10 hp" rule in 3e or 4e? As far as I know, a 3e fighter starts with 10+ con mod hp, wether they are LG or CE...

2) Power and luck is the only thing that will define a battle, not your higher or better morals. There is no cosmic justice in the D&D world. If you are stronger, more resourceful and lucky, you win and nothing will punish you for that aside from an revengeful enemy.

That hasn't changed either. My good alignment isn't granting me that +10 hp, nor a +2 to hit, damage and AC. Again, this hasn't changes from OD&D to 4e.

3) Advancement is by killing and looting (1 XP for 1 GP). Killing an evil or a good guy is just the same. Looting from an evil temple or from charity is just the same - no moral judgments.

Well, we did away with the "getting rewarded twice" rule for gp and instead allowed purchasing of magic (which is a power-up akin to levels, if you think about it) but XP is determined by CR, Level or HD again with no concern to alignment of the subject.

4) No XP given for quests. So if you help the peaceful villagers, they is no XP from that aside from what they pay you. If you kill them and take their stuff, you'll win just the same XP and the extra XP for the villagers. Then you can go kill the evil monster and take his stuff as well. Nothing in the system punishes you for doing that.

As Far as I can tell, Quest XP was an optional rule in 2e, 3e, and 4e. You can play all of those editions with straight "monster kills" and "obstacles overcome" XP. In 4e, quest XP is just a "monster level" the PCs get for doing X, add a monster of the appropriate level and you don't even throw off the XP chart. And 3e's quest XP was an "ad-hoc" rule with nothing even acting as a guideline.

"Quest" is a spell 5th level cleric spell that works like a curse, more than something noble and idealistic to do.

Notice in 3e, it got combined with Geas?

5) Gods have stats and can be killed. They are just super-powerful monsters.

::Looks at 3e Deities & Demi-gods:: Did you know Thor's AC is 75?

6) Nowhere it says that being evil is against the premise of the game, as the 4E say. You even have an evil-only class: the assassin.

And yet 4e has tieflings and infernal warlocks...

7) Guidelines for demon summoning, totally available for the players.

Summon Monster? Check. Planar Ally? Check. Planar Binding? Check. 3e's good.

Summon Abyssal Maw (Wizard 5: Daily, Arcane Power). Ok here too!

8) More randomness, more unbalance, more weird unexpected stuff. No forced balanced encounters, no prescript treasure.

I don't consider "more randomness" a good thing, I REALLY don't like "more unbalance". Weird and Unexpected is still in the game (grab any 3e/4e Goodman DCC module) and balanced encounters and prescript treasure are guidelines. Ignore them if you like. WotC won't come and confiscate your d20's if you make 1st level PCs fight Orcus or get a Staff of Power (though you might have some confused Players)

9) The only reason for being good, is to have access to the nifty paladin and ranger abilities, and too be able to use some magic items reserved for the good guys - so it's totally in self interest, no real altruism.

And the reason to be evil is... Right. Oh, and there are no forced alignments in 4e: Feel free to play an unaligned ranger or CE paladin.

That makes the game strongly sword & sorcery in my eyes.

Sweet! D&D is still S&S! 3e is S&S! 4e is S&S! (though both lose a little for the transition) You've completely undermined you own argument. I'm with you that D&D moved from S&S to HF, but when you equate game mechanics like this (esp ones still used in the game) your argument loses steam.

 

[Mallus]

Being good or even being the protagonist, grants you no special consideration.

Protagonists (ie player characters) can advance in level. That seems like 'special consideration' to me.

There is no cosmic justice in the D&D world.

The presence or absence of cosmic justice is up to the individual DM. It has nothing to do with edition.

No XP given for quests.

While this is technically true, most of the people I gamed with used 'quest XP' long before it was officially introduced in 2e.

Nowhere it says that being evil is against the premise of the game, as the 4E say. You even have an evil-only class: the assassin.

Again, true. But note that while 4e says playing evil is antithetical to the game, it removes any alignment restrictions from the classes, including the beloved-by-some paladin.

More randomness, more unbalance, more weird unexpected stuff. No forced balanced encounters, no prescript treasure.

More-or-less balanced encounters have been a staple of every edition of D&D. Why do you think they printed suggested PC level ranges on the covers of all those classic AD&D modules?

That makes the game strongly sword & sorcery in my eyes.

AD&D resembles swords and sorcery in some ways --well, in the rather loose way a set of game rules can be said to resemble a literary subgenre-- but not in others.