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

[Ariosto]

It's true you can get rid of [the different rules] fairly easily, but if you do, why play AD&D at all? You're really playing 74 OD&D or B/X.

The flip side is why play with the full OD&D line when that's really playing a "beta version" of AD&D?

To a whole lot of folks, one is simply "playing D&D" regardless of which books are at the table and how much material from them one incorporates into the game. "Fairly easily" strikes me as an understatement; it's as simple as not even bothering to digest the bits one finds uninteresting! Plenty of people have taken that naïve route without a second thought.

From what I saw, it was par for the course in the '80s to pick up Advanced books after starting with a Basic set. The hardbound volumes essentially offered more "stuff": classes, weapons, armor, spells, monsters, magic items and so on. The mechanics were so similar among editions as to make differences practically irrelevant to using such stuff.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I don't relish the idea of adding fuel to the flame-war, but I might as well put in my two cents.

I consider myself a part of this so-called "old-school renaissance," although I'm rather an aberrant element within it. I don't care for Moorcock and Leiber novels; I don't believe that "real D&D" ought to be plot-free swords and sorcery; I despise the "sandbox" campaign style; and when I run OD&D, I use a friggin' skill system, because I don't have time for my players to pat along the dungeon walls with 10' poles until they find my "DM fiat."

(What's more, I think people are right in saying that "old school" makes the whole movement sound exclusionary. I prefer "retro" myself. The Retro Renaissance... yeah, that's the ticket.)

But what's really at issue here is not whether nostaliga or emotion are playing a part. Obviously they are. Duh. What matters, and this was the essence of the Grognardia post, is that older RPGs have objectively different qualties from newer RPGs. This should not be a controversial statement, but apparently it is.

Think about it. Different RPGs with different rules have real, actual differences that make certain playstyles conducive. You could certainly try to run a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl with the Vampire system or the old Cthulhu system, but who the hell would ever want to? They're not meant for that! Vampire is for storytelling! Cthulhu is for maddening horror! You turn to D&D for dungeon crawling!

Ditto for different editions within a single RPG lineage. Presumably, different editions of the game have different rules. (Or so I've heard, anyway.) It only stands to reason, then, that the rules themselves (and the descriptive text that accompanies the rules) will lend themselves better to whatever play style is popular at the time.

Each edition gets its own zeitgeist. When the 2nd edition AD&D books proudly proclaim, "this is not a combat game!", you take it for what it is and run a plot-heavy, setting-rich 2nd edition game. It will have a different feel from a 1st edition game or a 3rd edition game or an Original/Classic game.

I happen to prefer Original/Classic and 2nd edition to the other versions of the (A)D&D game because these editions have real, objective qualities which are inherent in the rules and the presentation of the rulebooks, which influence the way DMs and players approach the game, and which make the game more fun for myself and my group.

Are we nostalgic about these editions? Some of us are. Some of us played these editions first, learned these play-styles first, and so, quite naturally, we prefer rules that lend themselves to our favorite play-styles. If I had been raised on d20 v3.5, I would probably feel nostalgia for the play-style promoted by d20 v3.5; but don't tell me that I can easily play 1st edition and "approach it with a v3.5 mindset."

Think about how nonsensical this appears on the surface. "First edition rules; third edition feel!" Maybe it could be done. In theory. But, once again, who the hell would ever want to?

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I don't relish the idea of adding fuel to the flame-war, but I might as well put in my two cents.

I consider myself a part of this so-called "old-school renaissance," although I'm rather an aberrant element within it. I don't care for Moorcock and Leiber novels; I don't believe that "real D&D" ought to be plot-free swords and sorcery; I despise the "sandbox" campaign style; and when I run OD&D, I use a friggin' skill system, because I don't have time for my players to pat along the dungeon walls with 10' poles until they find my "DM fiat."

(What's more, I think people are right in saying that "old school" makes the whole movement sound exclusionary. I prefer "retro" myself. The Retro Renaissance... yeah, that's the ticket.)

But what's really at issue here is not whether nostaliga or emotion are playing a part. Obviously they are. Duh. What matters, and this was the essence of the Grognardia post, is that older RPGs have objectively different qualties from newer RPGs. This should not be a controversial statement, but apparently it is.

Think about it. Different RPGs with different rules have real, actual differences that make certain playstyles conducive. You could certainly try to run a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl with the Vampire system or the old Cthulhu system, but who the hell would ever want to? They're not meant for that! Vampire is for storytelling! Cthulhu is for maddening horror! You turn to D&D for dungeon crawling!

Ditto for different editions within a single RPG lineage. Presumably, different editions of the game have different rules. (Or so I've heard, anyway.) It only stands to reason, then, that the rules themselves (and the descriptive text that accompanies the rules) will lend themselves better to whatever play style is popular at the time.

Each edition gets its own zeitgeist. When the 2nd edition AD&D books proudly proclaim, "this is not a combat game!", you take it for what it is and run a plot-heavy, setting-rich 2nd edition game. It will have a different feel from a 1st edition game or a 3rd edition game or an Original/Classic game.

I happen to prefer Original/Classic and 2nd edition to the other versions of the (A)D&D game because these editions have real, objective qualities which are inherent in the rules and the presentation of the rulebooks, which influence the way DMs and players approach the game, and which make the game more fun for myself and my group.

Are we nostalgic about these editions? Some of us are. Some of us played these editions first, learned these play-styles first, and so, quite naturally, we prefer rules that lend themselves to our favorite play-styles. If I had been raised on d20 v3.5, I would probably feel nostalgia for the play-style promoted by d20 v3.5; but don't tell me that I can easily play 1st edition and "approach it with a v3.5 mindset."

Think about how nonsensical this appears on the surface. "First edition rules; third edition feel!" Maybe it could be done. In theory. But, once again, who the hell would ever want to?

The problem with this is that the "zeitgeist" that RPGs get attributed is often a cliche. Vampire is not a game primarily about storytelling just because it´s rules engine is called that. Lots of people played and play it as a superhero-smash-heads game, and it has always been my opinion that is has been successful because it allows that.

So, "3.5 mindset" and "4e mindset" and "1e mindset" are exactly the problem here - these are chliches constructed on the internet, nothing more. Vocal minorities try to sell you their interpretation of their own RPG experience as "what it was" and "what it is" and "what it should be." At its core, its a thoroughly arrogant thing, like the people saying on messageboards "i would care about 4es rules, but the implied playstyle is just not to my tastes."

Game systems don´t imply things. People do.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Game systems <snip>

...are found in books. Written by people. With authorial voices. So they imply things.

 

[Ariosto]

Think about how nonsensical this appears on the surface. "First edition rules; third edition feel!" Maybe it could be done. In theory. But, once again, who the hell would ever want to?

Exactly! When I want the kind of experience 3E delivers, 1E is not going to fill the bill. Where are my feats and skills? What happened to the combat rules? Multi-classing and prestige classes? Casting spells daily, and free casting? Whipping up magic items? And so on.

 

[Ariosto]

On the rules-burden of AD&D: The 1st ed. PHB is (sans reference sheets) 122 pp., half of them devoted to spells. With OSRIC, about 60 pp. -- the "Creating a Character" and "How to Play" chapters -- give all the essential "rules" per se (as opposed to spells, monsters, magic items, and encounter tables) for players and GMs alike. B/X clone Labyrinth Lord adds spells in that space, but includes fewer of them (as well as of character classes and other stuff). Spells in OSRIC take up about 80 pages.

The 4E PHB devotes 36 pp. to skills and feats, and 33 pp. to combat. Combat takes about 6 pages in OSRIC, about 8 in LL (which includes naval rules left out of the former). The 4E chapter on character classes (which includes the spells) is 126 pp. -- longer alone than the entire 1E PHB, and for fewer classes (8, vs. 11 in 1E).

Differences in layout and writing style affect the density of actual rules, but experience with the games gives me some sense of what's involved in a typical session. I don't find a big difference between B/X and AD&D (even with weapon speed factors and adjustments versus armor type), except for the DMG systems for grappling, pummeling and overbearing.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Huh. I thought the purpose was to create a structure of rules suitable for tournament/RPGA gaming that, at the DMs whim, could be changed to suit his style (making the design goals close cousins to every edition of D&D afterward).

To a degree this is true. The goal was to create a framework whereby the rulings of various DMs would be similar enough to allow for tournament gaming, and also to allow D&D players to move from one game to another with comparative ease.

However, even while saying that, Gary attempted to make clear that the rules in the book would not be the same from campaign to campaign, but would have points of similarity that would make transition from one game to another possible. He went so far as to say that the points of similarity between any two campaigns would be different than those between any other two.

It was not the function of AD&D 1e to create a paradigm in which the DM had to refer to (and defer to) the books in order to play.

I haven't read through my newest issue of Dragon Roots yet, and it may be that Tim Kask's column has changed from the proof version, but if not, one can read Mr. Kask's comments re: this topic in Dragon Roots #3.

(I'll check the column today & make sure it hasn't been changed to a different topic from the proof; the proof column was a bit "ranty", so it might have.)

In any event, no apology is necessary for having appeared snarky earlier, although I thank you for the courtesy of saying so.


RC

 

[Desdichado]

Each edition gets its own zeitgeist. When the 2nd edition AD&D books proudly proclaim, "this is not a combat game!", you take it for what it is and run a plot-heavy, setting-rich 2nd edition game. It will have a different feel from a 1st edition game or a 3rd edition game or an Original/Classic game.

Yeah, well that doesn't really work, though. Because the core rules of 2e were almost exactly the same as the core rules for 1e. Although the paradigm and presentation may have changed (although that's debateable) the rules didn't. At least not significantly. It wasn't until late in the 2e life cycle, and assuming that a lot of non-core options were layered in, that you could make the claim that mechanically you were doing something significantly different.

Think about how nonsensical this appears on the surface. "First edition rules; third edition feel!" Maybe it could be done. In theory. But, once again, who the hell would ever want to?

Heh. Apparently, a whole hell of a lot of people. It's not nonsensical at all; you can have enjoyed the "feel" of first edition just fine while simultaneously finding the ruleset frustrating and unsatisfying.

:shrug:

 

[Oni]

I don't relish the idea of adding fuel to the flame-war, but I might as well put in my two cents.

I consider myself a part of this so-called "old-school renaissance," although I'm rather an aberrant element within it. I don't care for Moorcock and Leiber novels; I don't believe that "real D&D" ought to be plot-free swords and sorcery; I despise the "sandbox" campaign style; and when I run OD&D, I use a friggin' skill system, because I don't have time for my players to pat along the dungeon walls with 10' poles until they find my "DM fiat."

(What's more, I think people are right in saying that "old school" makes the whole movement sound exclusionary. I prefer "retro" myself. The Retro Renaissance... yeah, that's the ticket.)

But what's really at issue here is not whether nostaliga or emotion are playing a part. Obviously they are. Duh. What matters, and this was the essence of the Grognardia post, is that older RPGs have objectively different qualties from newer RPGs. This should not be a controversial statement, but apparently it is.

Think about it. Different RPGs with different rules have real, actual differences that make certain playstyles conducive. You could certainly try to run a hack-and-slash dungeon crawl with the Vampire system or the old Cthulhu system, but who the hell would ever want to? They're not meant for that! Vampire is for storytelling! Cthulhu is for maddening horror! You turn to D&D for dungeon crawling!

Ditto for different editions within a single RPG lineage. Presumably, different editions of the game have different rules. (Or so I've heard, anyway.) It only stands to reason, then, that the rules themselves (and the descriptive text that accompanies the rules) will lend themselves better to whatever play style is popular at the time.

Each edition gets its own zeitgeist. When the 2nd edition AD&D books proudly proclaim, "this is not a combat game!", you take it for what it is and run a plot-heavy, setting-rich 2nd edition game. It will have a different feel from a 1st edition game or a 3rd edition game or an Original/Classic game.

I happen to prefer Original/Classic and 2nd edition to the other versions of the (A)D&D game because these editions have real, objective qualities which are inherent in the rules and the presentation of the rulebooks, which influence the way DMs and players approach the game, and which make the game more fun for myself and my group.

Are we nostalgic about these editions? Some of us are. Some of us played these editions first, learned these play-styles first, and so, quite naturally, we prefer rules that lend themselves to our favorite play-styles. If I had been raised on d20 v3.5, I would probably feel nostalgia for the play-style promoted by d20 v3.5; but don't tell me that I can easily play 1st edition and "approach it with a v3.5 mindset."

Think about how nonsensical this appears on the surface. "First edition rules; third edition feel!" Maybe it could be done. In theory. But, once again, who the hell would ever want to?

I like to think of a games mechanics as a tool. Basically all rpg's are a similar tool trying to do a similar job. How they handle and how well they handle certain aspects of that job varies from tool to tool, but they can all do it in a fashion. So it is up to the person using the tool to pick the one that does the job in the way they most prefer. Of course you give two people the exact same tool, and they may not use it in exactly the same way. How their tool of choice is implemented is up to them, they may not even use it the same way each time. So when you want to run a game of some sort you have to go choose the tool you want to use and decide how you want to use it. How you choose to approach the job doesn't dictate what tool you use, you choose the one you're most comfortable with (since they're all basically made for the same set of tasks).

 

[Campbell]

Is the reference to Champions? If so, then it seems reasonable that there might be "old-school Champions" fans to whom it is significant that (e.g.) the fourth edition hardbound had almost 7 times as many pages as the original rules book, or that it cut Endurance costs in half. That's not relevant to whether the original game -- from the perspective of old-style D&Ders -- represents a significant departure in basic design philosophy.

It's design goals do in fact differ from AD&D, but they also differ substantially from a lot of other games that are not AD&D. The point I was largely trying to make is that while old school might in fact be a meaningful descriptor new school isn't especially if you're going to use it to describe the RPGs that came out during the 80's, early 90's, and today.

The newer approach is not necessarily relevant to whether they enjoy the game, either. Why should every game have exactly the same design goals? The old-school view is that old D&D accomplished what it set out to do better than alleged "improvements" -- better, in particular, than what has since been offered under the Dungeons & Dragons brand.

Those "improvements" did not share the exact same design goals as the editions that preceded them. Instead, they were designed to create a D&D experience that would be relevent to the audience of the day. One should look at each game is its own element and apreciate them for what they are. 4e and 3e weren't trying to be AD&D, and they both succeed admirably at arriving at their design goals while retaining certain thematic elements that have been with D&D since the beginning.