My Response to the Grognardia Essay "More Than a Feeling"

[Nikosandros]

Well, I don't think there's a lot to be gained by continually restating our divergent opinions at each other.

Agreed.

 

[Remathilis]

I really dislike the usage of the word antiquated. Games aren't like technology where there is a constant improvement and as a matter of fact, I have no problems at all with, for example, percentile strength. I dislike and don't use level limits, but this has nothing to do with progress in game design... I stopped using them before 2nd edition came out.

I meant antiquated as in "no longer commonly used" and by that, I mean no recent RPG (aside from the faithful clones) use them. C&C doesn't. Neither does BFRPG. Obviously, WotC editions of D&D don't, nor does any d20 inspired variant ruleset (be it M&M, Conan, Trued20, or such.) Of course, no other RPG NOT derived of D&D (Storyteller, Shadowrun, Palladium, or d6 WEG) uses mechanics like these either.

Simply put, Level limits, % strength, and Thac0 (as well as a few others) are antiquated because no one uses them beyond the games that already have them. No new RPG (even so called retros or retro-inspired) seem to use them either. They belong to the dustbin of history from a designers standpoint.

 

[gizmo33]

There are differences, but they are much smaller than the difference between AD&D and 3rd edition.

There is no objective reason to say this at all - comments to this effect on either side IMO are completely without substance and get us nowhere.

Take, for example - a cantaloupe, a basketball, and a strawberry. Is the cantaloupe more like a basketball, or like a strawberry? To settle this in an objective way, you need a measure of difference (perhaps call it a metric). Otherwise IMO you're talking about opinion in the guise of fact. (Is AC 15 really different from AC 5? How many "difference points" should that mechanic count for?)

So a cantaloupe is similar to a basketball in size and shape. But if you're going to sit down to dinner then a different set of criteria for "sameness" than size should probably be used.

This criteria might be defined for old-school. Though that criteria might leave out things that some else wouldn't leave out (as was pointed out earlier). Ultimately, like with the dinner analogy, I question the usefulness of any set of criteria. Define what you mean, for example: "old school games have the flumph" and then people can decide what they want to do about that information.

 

[M.L. Martin]

And I disagree with that. AD&D in particular represented a fairly radical departure in design philosophy from OD&D, and I believe 3e was the natural, evolutionary endpoint for that design philosophy. 3e and 1e were, fundamentally, designed around the same principles and for the same reasons, in spite of the differences in execution.

BD&D, arguably (perhaps) was truer to the original design principles of OD&D, or at least it lacks the change in philosophy that Gygax himself has described plenty of times that informed the formulation of AD&D.

I can easily run BD&D adventures in AD&D doing the very little conversion needed on the fly. 3rd edition is a wholly different game that maintains only the exterior trappings of AD&D.

How much trouble am I going to get into for saying that I agree with you both?

Mechanically, BD&D and AD&D are closer to each other than 3E--they tend to use the same basic structures, methods and meanings of terms, although with some variations (AD&D tends to add details and nuances where BD&D lacks them). The rules for 3E, though recognizably the same general game, tend to have some striking differences.

Philosophically, 3E is the endpoint of the AD&D vision as set for by Gygax in the article in DRAGON #26 and other places, although the game was not always faithful to this even under his authorship and management--a unified, comprehensive and consistent set of rules that addresses everything and can be treated as uniform across groups. (This, I believe, was one of the reasons so much emphasis was placed on 'official' rules during the 1E era.) BD&D never had that, and emphasized the group and the DM's authority over the rules more than the 'official' material.

Interestingly, I think the games moved closer to one another in some ways during the 2E era. BD&D acquired more bells and whistles with things like the Gazetteers and Creature Crucibles, and AD&D 2E got much less uptight about 'official' and became almost bewilderingly open to group customization, optional rules, and molding the game to fit the setting and the group.

Another reason I think the difference between the two philosophies is harder to see is that while AD&D (after moving both forwards, backwards and sideways along its development track in 2E) evolved into 3E, BD&D never really evolved to match. It never even got the wholesale revision that was 2E, much less the 'rebuild the game to make it more itself' that 3E was. I have heard, however, that some of the folks brainstorming 3E at TSR/WotC were considering a rules-light, storytelling-focused revision. I would really like to see what lines they were thinking along; while the other two visions for the Third Edition ('clean up the game but keep the fundamentals the same' and 'rebuild it to make it the best (A)D&D it can be') have good exemplars these days (C&C and 3.X), we haven't really seen what the 'lighter, story-focused D&D' might have been.

4E? At this point, I think 4E's the third stream, alongside B/X--BECMI/RC as one continuum and 1E--[2E]--3.0--3.5 as the second. Its philosophy seems different from either, something of a hybrid but with its own unique take on the D&D experience, the role of the rules, and other philosophical concepts.

 

[Ariosto]

Matthew L. Martin, have some XP!

2E explicitly backed off from the "conformity" philosophy, but also nurtured the notion that the best way to be a nonconformist was to buy lots of official "option" products.

The 1E message seems largely to have been a dead letter, house rules proliferating regardless of what Gary Said (which was the reverse of what Gary Said Before).

But that message, plus additional rules, is to my mind really the big difference between OD&D and AD&D. If I want to include much of the expansions to the former that were included in the latter, then I'm inclined to prefer AD&D -- because the mostly subtle revisions seem to me by and large improvements. They are pretty subtle, though.

Some people were blissfully unaware that the several different lines were supposedly "different games". Others even today know but don't give much of a darn and blithely mix a bit of this with a bit of that. Hardly anyone in my experience cares whether a module is for OD&D, Holmes, 1E, Moldvay, Mentzer or 2E (except that 2E has a poor reputation in some quarters for a lot stuff that has little to do with practical mechanics in modules).

 

[Desdichado]

How much trouble am I going to get into for saying that I agree with you both?

None by me. Although AD&D really started sailing in a completely different direction, it hadn't really gone very far away from BD&D mechanically yet. I'll be the first to admit that. I do, however, think that the release of AD&D and the design philosophy that informed it, were a real watershed moment in the evolution of D&D. Because of that, I don't know that I see a movement that is inclusive enough to have AD&D, BD&D and OD&D wrapped up in it as one that's based on anything concrete other than "released before about 1983 or so." If you've got systems from both sides of the watershed divide, then you're too inclusive to have created a movement that's meaningful as separate from simply older D&D.

 

[Ariosto]

Well, some AD&D devotees have raised that concern. "Is the rising tide really going to float our boat?" I think there's still even some worry about OSRIC stealing thunder from the classic Gygaxian canon.

Still, the fact that some very highly respected members of the online AD&D community are also OD&D fans helps to ease tensions. Some "elder statesmen" very ably bridge the deeper 1E/2E rift as well. Heck, there are quite a few who turned back from (and perhaps some still playing) 3E who can speak with wisdom and diplomacy from firsthand appreciation of the "new school" design philosophy.

There are even people who enjoy 4E -- but don't feel compelled to play the "just the same" or "better" card in addressing something distinctly different.

For that matter, there seem to be quite a few who use house rules in one way or another similar to some techniques in 4E! It does not follow that they like the new game.

D&D has a notable hegemony in the movement. Tunnels & Trolls, Traveller, RuneQuest and other seminal games are clearly in the back seat, with the D&Ders at the wheel. That those three games have editions in print that are not so far from the old ones (although Mongoose RQ is a pretty notable departure) may be part of that. Basically, though, I think it just reflects the perennial (so far) position of D&D.

 

[M.L. Martin]

Matthew L. Martin, have some XP!

:bows: Thank you; you're too kind.

2E explicitly backed off from the "conformity" philosophy, but also nurtured the notion that the best way to be a nonconformist was to buy lots of official "option" products.

Heh. They did have to try and make money, although it got rather extreme. I think the sense that you didn't have to make everything 'official' may have been a bit of a liberation for the designers, who didn't have to keep all previous material in mind when designing, and they may have gone overboard in response. Still, there were some gems amid the dross and half-baked ideas, and I think the official game has lost a lot (not all) of that willingness to offer variants and new takes on subjects since the 3E changeover. Perhaps it's part of the greater emphasis on organized play, which was as I understand it one of the reasons for creating AD&D in the first place, or the desire to create a 'reunified' fanbase after the 'fracturing' of 2E days.

The 1E message seems largely to have been a dead letter, house rules proliferating regardless of what Gary Said (which was the reverse of what Gary Said Before).

True; to my understanding, even the 1E rulebooks and DRAGON articles waffled. But wasn't there a lot of debate and Forum wars over 'official' AD&D and the 'right' way to play back then? I wasn't there; I know the era only through old Dragons and hearsay in places like this.

Because of that, I don't know that I see a movement that is inclusive enough to have AD&D, BD&D and OD&D wrapped up in it as one that's based on anything concrete other than "released before about 1983 or so." If you've got systems from both sides of the watershed divide, then you're too inclusive to have created a movement that's meaningful as separate from simply older D&D.

I get the impression that the Old School Movement is largely OD&D in philosophy, seeing AD&D as a set of 'rules options'. However, I only know it through what's said in places like this and RPG.net; I visited Grognardia once and spent enough time on it to realize I'm pretty much an archnemesis of the old school movement, given that my fundamental influences include things like 2E, Dragonlance (although the post-WoS material and the whole 'Balance' concept have turned me off) and Ravenloft.

 

[Ariosto]

But wasn't there a lot of debate and Forum wars over 'official' AD&D and the 'right' way to play back then?

I can't speak to BBSs, CompuServe, etc.. The Dragon, of course, had its back-and-forth in "Out on a Limb" and replies to queries in "Sage Advice" -- plus philosophy "From the Sorcerer's Scroll". In my experience, it was chiefly Dragon subscribers who made up the minority of players who knew (much less loudly advocated) the "official" line in the '80s. The much smaller-circulation 'zines such as Alarums & Excursions, The Wild Hunt, The Dungeoneer, and so on -- even Different Worlds and The Space Gamer -- were more eclectic even than Dragon (which in those days was not precisely a "house organ" of TSR). "Noisy minority" pretty well characterizes the One True Wayers in my memory.

As to organized play, I'm pretty impressed by what I've seen of the 4E RPGA in my neck of the woods. I wonder about the hindrances posed by complexity and other aspects of WotC's design -- but on balance, it looks to me better suited to the putative end than was 1E AD&D.

However, I think the latter suffered not only from inadequate editing but also from the author's heart not really being in the project of standardization. In his later years, when the Dungeon Master ran D&D it was the funky original game with (naturally) a few house rules.

 

[Invisible Stalker]

"I see my manticore walking away..."


I may have been too young, but I can't recall any edition conflict over Basic D&D and AD&D back in the day. Now when 2e came along when I was in college, that made the 3e/4e edition wars look like a walk in the park. And that was without the internet.

For the record, you can put me in the "Second Edition deserved to die and I hope it burns in Hell!" camp.

I agree that 4th Edition is off in its own little stream, that could be a reason I've liked it.



Those of you out there that follow comic books (especially DC) know what real "old school running wild" looks like. Let's see how those 4e fans deal with THAC0, level limits and 3d6 chargen shoved in their game. Now I'm off to the DC boards to once again demand that Barbara Gordon return as Batgirl.