D&D 1E Mearls on AD&D 1E

[Waller]

Mearls was talking on Twitter about 1E.

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/974552386109763584

At Gary Con, I had the chance to play AD&D with @lukegygax and I’m struggling to capture exactly why it was such a profound experience. On the face of it, it was a well run dungeon crawl cut from the raw stuff of the game’s earliest days.

But there was something else at work. AD&D worked in part because the entire game is one, giant puzzle. Everything is just out of conceptual reach. The rulebooks themselves are dungeons to explore, treasures hidden here and there.

The game and its approach to the dungeon crawl isn’t about story, or world building, or any of the concepts that have grown around D&D over the years. The game dwells at the edge of perception, its lack of definition its defining trait.

Within that ethereal space, the game comes to life. The experience unfolds in a dream-like state, everything in doubt until it unfolds, and even then often leaving little meaning to those who did not experience it firsthand.

I could tell you that I played a fighter of middling ability, that we were ambushed by orcs, defeated an evil priest and his trogolodytes, and overcame an ogre. Our half-orc fighter was killed by that last threat.

But that doesn’t really capture it. I’d say we went to a strange place of twisting corridors, where danger and death lurked around every corner, where battering down a door to find an empty room brought a mix of relief and disappointment.

That still doesn’t do it justice. It’s like trying to explain why it’s fun to be terrified by a well done horror movie. It makes no sense, but there we are, queuing up The Exorcist again for the umpteenth time.

There is definitely an alchemy to making an AD&D dungeon crawl - yes, with mapping - work. Going into it looking for a clear understanding, with an eye toward disassembling it, is the surest way to spoil it.

Yet that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, and wondering why it is that counting off squares and sketching a map - Yes, there must be a secret chamber HERE! - was so satisfying.

My friend Pat pointed to a Joseph Campbell lecture I’m going to listen to in order to help untangle this. The lesson here is that it is smart to surround yourself with friends who are smarter than you.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Can't wait to read all the responses elaborating on why Mearles is completely wrong, wrong, wrong and more wrong.

(Just kidding...I can definitely wait.)

 

[Arilyn]

Can't wait to read all the responses elaborating on why Mearles is completely wrong, wrong, wrong and more wrong.

(Just kidding...I can definitely wait.)

Of course he's wrong, cause I personally hate this style, so you should too!

Honestly, this kind of play does make my eyes glaze over, but that's why it's great we have so many different kinds of games and styles these days. Tribalism in our little community is ridiculous.

 

[darjr]

Anyone know what lecture he meant? A link? [MENTION=697]mearls[/MENTION]

 

[iserith]

A dungeon crawl works because it's an archetypal story. Run well (and played well) it hits on something that resonates with our very nature. You start out, probably, with nothing. You journey into the underworld on a quest to overcome monsters and take their gold and bring it back to share with others. The character is reborn into something more powerful than it was before in the doing. If it ends well, it's a comedy. If it ends badly, it's a tragedy.

Those are all archetypes deeply rooted in our psyche. So OF COURSE it's profound. It's not about the game system at all, though the better the system is at helping generate and support such stories, the better it is in my view.

 

[Prakriti]

That hit me right in the nostalgia.

 

[jgsugden]

The only surprise here is his surprise. AD&D lacked structure, allowing for a more abstract and open games. Hunting for rules in AD&D created the atmosphere of rules lawyers that turned abstract hidden lines of text into an advantage their PC could abuse.

What surprises me is that 5E seemed like an intentional move from the abundance of structure in 4E back towards the lesser structure we saw in 3E, but even that is far more structured than AD&D. There are fewer 'hidden rules' than in AD&D, but there are still a lot more areas of the game (vision, stealth, diplomacy) where the DM has to decide how to adjudicate the game rather than look for the exact ruling on what they should do.

 

[Zardnaar]

1E the gift that keep on giving. And laughing at cavaliers getting hit with energy drain.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Can't wait to read all the responses elaborating on why Mearles is completely wrong, wrong, wrong and more wrong.

Whatever some of us may think of his design chops, agenda, or style, his love of the game is apparent.

That hit me right in the nostalgia.

That's the main thing, definitely, nostalgia shades our perceptions in wonderful ways, sometimes. When they said "you can't go home again" (ie, you can never recapture the wonder of childhood) they reckoned without 1e AD&D.

Mearls certainly managed some 140-character heartfelt near-prose-poems, there. I mean, I despise twitter in general, but reading that, I felt something, genuinely.

That he is essentially talking about the game being a chaotic, unplayable mess, if viewed as a mere game without the experience of having played it back in the day, in no way diminishes that.

 

[Monayuris]

THIS is exactly how I feel when I'm playing B/X or AD&D.

Its not just about nostalgia. Its about the game is really a puzzle. The dungeon crawl is a real tactile experience that has to be considered and interacted with. It doesn't run everything down to a die roll. You don't beat the dungeon by having an optimized character or the highest perception skill. There is no mechanical element to fallback on, instead you have to engage in the game directly.