How we experienced the game, in totally different and incompatible ways

[Quasqueton]

So, what does this mean for discussions on "how AD&D1 was"? I mean, take my threads following the Temple of Elemental Evil and Against the Giants series. There are some folks in that thread saying the data looks exactly like they remember AD&D1, and there are others saying that it looks nothing like their AD&D1 experiences.

Some people say that "in the old days" magic items were rare and wondrous. Others say that "in the old days" magic items were loaded in dungeons by the metric ton.

Some folks say that a DM's word was inarguable and always accepted by Players back in the day. And others say that there was plenty of bickering, whining, and arguing back in the day.

And so on.

If both of these are right, how can we have any meaningful conversation on the subject? I guess this explains why most threads about AD&D1 and/or the old days is really just a bunch of arguing.

This also explains why some old players accept and love D&D3 as a normal and natural evolution of D&D, and others complain and hate it as an aberration of the game.

Quasqueton

 

[WayneLigon]

But how could a player go through 10+ years of AD&D1 only experiencing one style of the game, even after relocating, going to college, etc.?
Quasqueton

I think that in general people self-select the D&D groups they play with. If there was only one D&D group in town and their style of play was too far outside my comfort zone, I'd rather not game. People with radically different play styles more often than not might meet once or twice, but that's about it; in my experiece you'd be lucky if they talked to each other. A person will generally gravitate to a style of play they know or are comfortable with. If I was, say, a 1E gamer and went to a new game only to find out they gave XP for GP, I'd probably not go back again: obviously they're idiots. If I went to a group who played maybe a couple hours and spent the rest of the time watching videos on the 'net or reading or passing around comics or whatever, I'd probably not game with them, either.

Thus, when it came time to tell about groups I'd played with, I'd probably not ever even remember those other groups I tried or heard about that did not match my preferred style of play.

 

[WayneLigon]

If both of these are right, how can we have any meaningful conversation on the subject? I guess this explains why most threads about AD&D1 and/or the old days is really just a bunch of arguing.

If you're looking for a universal basis for discussion for any RPG, you're never going to find it. That's what makes RPG's such a unique artform: every single gaming group is different. All of them. Sometimes in small ways, sometimes they're playing the same game in name only. Even individual campaigns are different, depending on the what the GM wants to do. If you played in my Eberron game and then a couple years later played in my Eastern Empires game, you'd never guess it was the same game system because I use such different assumptions and styles for each.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

The English language and basic ideas of organization were not invented in the last few decades and didn't need to be invented from scratch for the RPG industry. Related topics being grouped with related topics is hardly something EGG and his peers wouldn't have heard of.

When I first read this, I thought you were saying "The English language and basic ideas of organization were invented in the last few decades." I was all, "what the heck? What language was everyone speaking before that, then?

Later
silver

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

When I first read this, I thought you were saying "The English language and basic ideas of organization were invented in the last few decades." I was all, "what the heck? What language was everyone speaking before that, then?

Pig Latin. THEY just don't want you to know the truth, is all.

The world was also in black and white, and only gained colors a few decades ago. THEY claim it's just film that changed, but that's just a cover-up.

 

[JDJblatherings]

The English language and basic ideas of organization were not invented in the last few decades and didn't need to be invented from scratch for the RPG industry. Related topics being grouped with related topics is hardly something EGG and his peers wouldn't have heard of.

The recognition of what was and wasn't a related topic wasn't necessarily there yet. When the game was first invented people didn't even know it was a role playing game. Sure lycanthropy could have been in a different section but what section was that?

Hobbyist wargames of the era were about as well organized (some pros were better) and were the model gary was building from.

Player experience diversity wasn't the fault of ts the DMG anyway people were playing for half a decade and longer before the DMG was on the scene.

 

[JDJblatherings]

Well, he could have used the rules that all the other books on the market which weren´t RPGs utilized? I mean, the golden laws of organization, indexing, layout and knowledge management have not sprung out of the earth fully formed after the 80s.
Mind, i quite like the AD&D manuals, their organization lends them a certain charm not found in current RPGs. (It´s easiert to feel like that, of course, without using them in play. )

People are forgetting the majority of rpg publishers knew nothing of proper layout of books they were not publishers before that.

Layout and design has also changed incredibly since the 70's. I used to work with multiple sheets of paper to generate a colored image with ink and screen on those layers , my hands would get dirty, i'd cut myself with my knife now and again by accident or slice off the the bottom quarter of a row of type and I might be one of three or 4 people involved in the production of a single image, now it's all in a computer file and I don't get my hands dirty, I might never touch paper in the production process and I certainly don't have to worry about losing a type chip or using too much adhesive and I've been responsible for 80%+ of the art in an entire text book. (that's a lot of art these days)

Rules and standards are just notions anyway even in the same publishing house all those can vary wildly from projet to project.

 

[gizmo33]

One thing that has amazed me in the discussions about older Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D1, especially) is how two people can have such totally different experiences with the game even though they both played extensively and with numerous groups.

I've been sketpical that what is said now about the way people played is the same as how it was back then. I'm not saying that folks are being intentionally dishonest, there are plenty of other reasons for the disconnect. But utlimately, I think the truth is going to be hard to discover in any situation where there is as much (apparently) at stake as in the edition wars. An edition war thread (and any discussion of previous editions can become one quickly) IMO is not a good place to learn the truth. I think 1E has plenty of good stuff to offer, and not everything in 3E has been an improvement. But I don't trust a lot of what I read from fellow grognards regarding the issue, so I feel sorry for a 3E person trying to make sense out of it.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Well, I moved around quite a bit, and my experiences changed more "regionally" than locally.

Locally, folks tended towards simlar rules/rule enforcements. Not to say that there weren't variations, but you had to actually get a bit away from an area before you'd find a different style.

My experience (being rather poor and moving around a fair amount) was that there wasn't a lot of options for networking with other gamers. Since people were bringing in their friends to play, the friend learned "how" to play from someone else, so it tended to be self-reinforcing.

Some groups were totally kick-in-the-door-WAHOOOO! and others would spend some half an hour trying to anticipate any kind of danger that might be represented by the door, and deal with it, while having several plans already in place for whatever might be on the other side of the door.

I suspect part of the problem with people's experiences is that many people didn't move out of the local gaming area, and therefore while they might have had a range of experiences in terms of a number of different groups, they may not have actually been exposed to completely different pools.

You even see hints of that still, with folks saying how D&D is the only thing played in their area, and others complaining that it's all White Wolf (or whatever).

 

[RFisher]

Regarding organization, not so. Wargames had been around for many years before hand. Look at Avalon Hill, SPI, etc. games from the period. En Garde is also well organized as well as Traveller, not much later than OD&D and prior to PHB and DMG IIRC.

& look at Chainmail & other products by the early TSR people. Their wargame work was just as disorganized as their RPG work. It wasn't a sign of the times, it was a sign of the creators.

I think Gary (as the driving force behind the early-TSR as well as the author credited on the 1e books) didn't think playing strictly by-the-book was important enough to bother organizing things better. So what if there's a nitpicky little rule that got overlooked? So what if people played AD&D more by the Basic Set rules they already knew that strictly by-the-book? He didn't play it strictly by-the-book, & he didn't expect others to either. (Though he may have been surprised by just how far from the book some went.)

But back to the better organized wargames: I always liked something about the x.y.z format that AH & others used. (Even in some RPGs!) Sure, it seemed a bit exessive, but it was always nice to be able to cite rules by chapter:verse in discussion.

If both of these are right, how can we have any meaningful conversation on the subject? I guess this explains why most threads about AD&D1 and/or the old days is really just a bunch of arguing.

& it doesn't help that I so often chime in with my classic D&D view. (& that I perhaps have a tendency to be blind to classic D&D beyond my favorite incarnation.) (^_^)

I don't know, but I enjoy the conversations, & I think my gaming (under any system) has been improved because of them.