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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Listening to old-timers describe RP in the 70s and 80s
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<blockquote data-quote="Blackmoor_Film" data-source="post: 9141589" data-attributes="member: 6968402"><p>It depends on how old the gamers were in a group.</p><p></p><p>My first group were teens, I was oldest at 14, and they only wanted to go to the dungeon. As the one who got bullied into being the DM I lasted maybe a year doing that. I had to abandon that group and find slightly older gamers who wanted to do more complex adventures.</p><p></p><p>Yet, as DM for the Mega Dungeon group, I got down to 9 levels of dungeon in my first one. The concept of creating situations that were more complex than simply 'kill the thing and take the stuff' was always foremost in my mind. Yet, most DMs would use short hand when creating things, so an old dungeon will ony have a note saying: Wizard and his warrior girlfriend, lvl 10 23 hp ac 9 and lvl 9 hp 37 Ac 2. Most of the detals were in the DMs head, as most DMs knew their own dungeon like that back of their hand.</p><p></p><p>The rules we had were not well written and left a lot of gaps. There was no way to create meaningful adventures without the Game Referee designing them. I actually never used random tables since I intuited that even Zenopus Dungeon was not random.</p><p></p><p>Even today, it is hard to peel my players away from the big pay-out of dungeon dives. If they are on an adventure and stumble on an underworld they'll get fixated on the exploration of the unknown for many sessions.</p><p></p><p>I do recall eventually finding Judges Guild and their wilderness and city which was something I really wanted to do. Perhaps, the most influential game out there for doing more than the cookie cutter campaign is Empire of the Petal Throne. My second group went crazy over that world setting and we dumped D&D in favor of home brewed TFT: Melee and Wizard around '78.</p><p></p><p>I consider E.P.T. to be essential reading for any Game Master rgeardless of what system they use.</p><p></p><p>Perhaps what was the biggest driving force for early D&D play being focused on dungeons is the rules themselves. Wilderness adventuring was just too brutal if played according to what was in the system for D&D. None of us realized that even the creators of the games didn't use their own rules they published.</p><p></p><p>It may be hard to understand that without internet or even email, the resources we had for learning from each other were very limited. You had to wait a month for your favorite magazine to come out. Then again, the internet has created what I call tiny pearls of useful knowledge that are buried in a sea of manure.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Blackmoor_Film, post: 9141589, member: 6968402"] It depends on how old the gamers were in a group. My first group were teens, I was oldest at 14, and they only wanted to go to the dungeon. As the one who got bullied into being the DM I lasted maybe a year doing that. I had to abandon that group and find slightly older gamers who wanted to do more complex adventures. Yet, as DM for the Mega Dungeon group, I got down to 9 levels of dungeon in my first one. The concept of creating situations that were more complex than simply 'kill the thing and take the stuff' was always foremost in my mind. Yet, most DMs would use short hand when creating things, so an old dungeon will ony have a note saying: Wizard and his warrior girlfriend, lvl 10 23 hp ac 9 and lvl 9 hp 37 Ac 2. Most of the detals were in the DMs head, as most DMs knew their own dungeon like that back of their hand. The rules we had were not well written and left a lot of gaps. There was no way to create meaningful adventures without the Game Referee designing them. I actually never used random tables since I intuited that even Zenopus Dungeon was not random. Even today, it is hard to peel my players away from the big pay-out of dungeon dives. If they are on an adventure and stumble on an underworld they'll get fixated on the exploration of the unknown for many sessions. I do recall eventually finding Judges Guild and their wilderness and city which was something I really wanted to do. Perhaps, the most influential game out there for doing more than the cookie cutter campaign is Empire of the Petal Throne. My second group went crazy over that world setting and we dumped D&D in favor of home brewed TFT: Melee and Wizard around '78. I consider E.P.T. to be essential reading for any Game Master rgeardless of what system they use. Perhaps what was the biggest driving force for early D&D play being focused on dungeons is the rules themselves. Wilderness adventuring was just too brutal if played according to what was in the system for D&D. None of us realized that even the creators of the games didn't use their own rules they published. It may be hard to understand that without internet or even email, the resources we had for learning from each other were very limited. You had to wait a month for your favorite magazine to come out. Then again, the internet has created what I call tiny pearls of useful knowledge that are buried in a sea of manure. [/QUOTE]
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Listening to old-timers describe RP in the 70s and 80s
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