perception of OD&D/AD&D as random deathtraps

[Glyfair]

If such was good, and the buying public thought it was good, we'd still be getting ghouls and orcs next door to each other in dungeon adventures. Some "old school" dungeons *were* bad. (And there were many good ones, too.)

Sorry, that doesn't follow. People's taste change and expectations change.

Back when AD&D was just beginning to come out the Apple II was released and it could be upgraded to a whopping 48K of memory. Today people wouldn't try to run a toaster on that.

Black & white TV sets were still on some people's homes. People wouldn't watch a black and white TV today. You even have to twist a lot of people's arms to get them to watch a classic B&W movie (see "Ted Turner" & "colorization").

Just because that was the standard back then and an adventure could be considered "good" without an ecology doesn't mean the market wouldn't evolve past that.

 

[Quasqueton]

Back when AD&D was just beginning to come out the Apple II was released and it could be upgraded to a whopping 48K of memory. Today people wouldn't try to run a toaster on that.

"We didn't need more than 48K memory back then. We could use our imaginations, and the game developers knew this. They assumed people would fill in the images with their own minds. They didn't waste memory space with extraneous coding to throw the graphics up in our faces."

But the 48K was a limitation on the technology, not on the design skill. There were good old computer games and bad computer games all built within the 48K limit.

Black & white TV sets were still on some people's homes. People wouldn't watch a black and white TV today. You even have to twist a lot of people's arms to get them to watch a classic B&W movie (see "Ted Turner" & "colorization").

"We didn't need color visuals back then. Watchers knew what color the sky and grass was, and black and white were perfect for showing whether the cowboy was bad (black hat) or good (white hat). TV producers understood that people could fill in the colors of the world with their own imaginations, so they didn't waste effort trying to make wardrobes and sets colorful because that would and does take attention away from the story."

But the black and white was a limit on the technology, not on the design skill. There were good and bad shows/films back then.

Just because that was the standard back then and an adventure could be considered "good" without an ecology doesn't mean the market wouldn't evolve past that.

Just because the standard back then was based on little or no understanding of good design philosophy, because the hobby and genre were brand new, doesn't mean that everything created back then was good.

Back then, gamers were starving for new material and adventures, so there were some writers and publishers putting out crap just to get something out. And some people bought and ran the crap because they had nothing else to do. (It didn't really matter to the 12 year olds, because they were just having mindless fun with their friends, anyway.) But there were some writers and publishers putting out good stuff because they either knew good design instinctively, or they paid attention and learned/figured out what would make for a good/well designed dungeon.

I don't think adventures are/were better (old or new) because they had nonsensical, illogical, or wonky design elements. Wonky elements are wonky, and are bad design.

If a bad design element is present in a dungeon today, people will point at it and say "that's bad." And most people will agree with the statement. Strangely, though, a bad design element in an old dungeon gets defended as some kind of wise and good design decision to be respected because we didn't need good design in the old days. If wonky design elements were better for us in the old days, why did some designers give us some logical, sensical, and well explained adventures in the old days?

Quasqueton

 

[SavageRobby]

You're not equating technology with design skill; I would. Technology is nothing more than implemented skill and knowledge; game/module writing (while more artistic) isn't much different. Just as the design skill of computer engineering has gotten better, so has the design skill of RPG creation, and in different subsets (settings, modules, game design, game theory, etc).

Many of those old modules were great - for their day. Some, despite the wacky ecology (or complete lack thereof) are still pretty good. But some just don't hold up.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Was this lack of information actually a conscious design decision by the writers and publishers, or are people just coming up with excuses, 30 years after the fact, to explain the wonkiness?


Quasqueton

I think certain things can be assumed. a forge in a dungeon can be assumed to have proper ventilation without actually stating the fact. With that kind of logic, when shopping the classifieds for a used car, I should ask if it has a steering wheel, an engine, a trunk,do the doors have windows, is the windshield transparent, etc. After all, he didn't state all that in his ad.....

 

[Quasqueton]

I think certain things can be assumed. a forge in a dungeon can be assumed to have proper ventilation without actually stating the fact.

I agree. I'd probably have no problem with a working forge in a dungeon. (I can't directly speak to the dungeon in example, because I don't know it.)

With that kind of logic, when shopping the classifieds for a used car, I should ask if it has a steering wheel, an engine, a trunk,do the doors have windows, is the windshield transparent, etc. After all, he didn't state all that in his ad.....

With the logic some are trying to pass off, if I notice the car is missing tires and radio, I should realize that this is actually all good and improves the driving experience: Good drivers can drive on the rims, and the radio distracts from attention to the road.

Quasqueton

 

[T. Foster]

With the logic some are trying to pass off, if I notice the car is missing tires and radio, I should realize that this is actually all good and improves the driving experience: Good drivers can drive on the rims, and the radio distracts from attention to the road.

I'd say it's more like buying a car that doesn't have an onboard GPS navigation system that you can ignore but can't turn off and that you have to pay a recurring monthly service fee for, and then having everyone who either never drove a car without such a system or has been driving with one for so long that they've become totally accustomed to having it (plus a smattering of people who work developing and/or selling GPS systems) constantly telling you 1) that the fact that old cars didn't have on-board navigation systems shows that people in those days never knew where they were going and just drove around at random hoping to eventually stumble upon their destination and that while such joyrides might be fun for awhile, now that we're adults with places to get to we obviously need GPS systems to get us there, and/or 2) that the existence of paper maps proves that even in those primitive days everybody (or at least almost everybody, certainly everybody we knew -- perhaps you and the people you knew were all just joyriders who never needed to get anyplace) had to spend hours in advance studying the map and charting their route and then had to drive around with giant unwieldy paper maps spread out across their dashboards trying to track their progress and either stopping every few feet to get their bearings on the map or constantly getting into wrecks because they're too distracted by the map and not watching the road.

 

[Quasqueton]

T. Foster, correct me if I'm misunderstanding your analogy, but it seems you are saying:

All old dungeons had wonky design elements with no explanation as to why or how and everyone then liked it and didn't need logical elements or explanation. The wonky was actually a good thing, wisely done by talented and knowledgeable designers. New dungeons don't have these wonky elements, and people ignorantly think their absence is a good thing.

Is that what you're saying?

What seems to happen around here, is that when someone finds a wonky situation or setup in an old module, someone takes the point as an accusation against all old modules. If someone points out a very stupid trap in an old module, someone jumps up to defend how "we didn't need all your silly logic and explanations in the old days."

Apparently there were no bad modules in the old days. None, at all. The whole market was full of greatness, and if you find something that seems wonky or stupid to you, well, that's because you just don't understand and appreciate the reasonableness of it all.

No only is this willingly delusional, it reduces the appreciation of the truly great modules of the old days. If we can't identify and admit that there were bad modules in the old days, then we're saying that The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh is no better than The Forest Oracle, and that is a travesty against the art.

Quasqueton

 

[Korgoth]

Originally posted by Hussar in another thread:

If the players do not need to know something, then, almost always, the DM doesn't need to know either.

That statement comes from a discussion about trying to have semi-realistic economics in your game world (like, tracking the impact that huge gold expenditures by the PCs will have on the community).

For those who agree with that sentiment regarding game economics, do you not also agree with it regarding game ecology?

Maybe it just has to do with who we are. I think Americans, for example, on average think with a lot more sophistication about ecology than about economy. So maybe, nowadays at least, ecology is a "burning issue" whereas we don't mind just assuming that the "money stuff" works itself out.

I have been reading a Judge's Guild product lately: Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor. This one is for OD&D. It really constitutes, somewhat like module B2, a "SitRep" of a location: prominent features and installations, disposition of forces, details of contents. The whole thing says nothing about, for example, poop. It just simply doesn't address where the various humans or monsters drop their deuce. I assume that's because it doesn't make any difference! If it was possible to infiltrate the fortress through the loo, then the loo would have been detailed. But none of the privies are mapped out... it's just not an issue.

Ecologically, poop is a big deal. But I find a module perfectly useful and meaningful even when it makes no mention of this very important part of life and ecology. I assume that the monsters do indeed make poopy from time to time... they pretty much have to if they actually eat stuff. But I'm not going to put it into a room description unless it needs to be there... let's just assume that sometimes there's a loo and we all ignore it.

Or is loo-ignoring a problem? If the answer is "NO", then I think we can make some progress. Because the exact same move I just made regarding the disposition of solid waste, namely "let's just assume it's there and there's no issue with it" can be used to handle all sorts of questions. This is the kind of move you can make "on the fly" as it were.

Suppose someone asks "How do the orcs and ghouls dwell in such close proximity?" Well, clearly they do. So the DM just makes an off-the-cuff move like "These ghouls don't like the taste of orc flesh" or "The orcs feed the ghouls their trash" or "The ghouls never leave their lair" or whatever. You can come up with this during the game, or you can even make these notes when you prepare to run the adventure.

Interestingly, "Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor" advises the Judge to tailor the module and its encounter locations to his particular campaign. So I believe this sort of activity was assumed: if monster ecology or monster sociology are important to you, you will fill in those details. Likewise, if your whole group is really hot on geology, you'll probably describe what kind of rock things are made out of and what sorts of crystals appear in the surface of the columns, etc.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I see both points of view on dungeon design. First, I like for things to "make sense" to some degree; that is, I don't want to disrupt the sense of verisimilitude. On the other hand, I don't think published modules need to have perfectly logical and realistic explanations for everything as part of their design and presentation. Part of the fun of being a DM is exercising your creativity.

I've been running B4: The Lost City and have come across some situations like those mentioned. For example, my players came across some giant oil beetles in a storage room inside the pyramid. There were two entrances to the chamber: a door (typically stiff and difficult to open) and a secret door. After dispatching the beetles, my players starting looking for another way into the room, since it appeared obvious to them that the beetles weren't "supposed" to be here (they were breaking into crates of food), and couldn't have entered through either of the doors. The module makes no mention of how the beetles got into the room or where they came from. Thinking fast, I described the PCs' search as discovering some air shafts in the wall, high up near the ceiling amidst the decorative carvings that are typically used as a border throughout the place. Having established the presence of these air shafts, I've extended them throughout the complex, and make passing mention of them from time-to-time. They act as ways for small vermin, gas traps, distant sounds, et cetera to be inserted into the adventure in a logical way. The module doesn't mention them at all.

One of the early encounters in the module is a group of sprites in a room with some crates and boxes. Sprites on the upper tiers of a pyramid buried in the desert. No explanation is given for why they're there. I presented them as being sprite-like fey, but not typical woodland sprites. I decided these fey actually lived in the fungal forests of the Lost City, itself (deep below), and the ones in the room were on an excursion to the upper tiers. I've also adapted the "Lost City Fey" to be Neutral parties that sell intelligence to the highest bidder (or sometimes to multiple bidders), and use the air shafts, etc. to move about in secret, spying on everyone and everything. This "silly encounter" thus becomes a integral and interesting part of the adventure.

I've tweaked the map, slightly, to allow easier passage between the upper tiers and the buried lost city without going through secret/undisturbed areas. This kind of tweak was probably anticipated by the designers, because the module mentions that all the factions of the city have means of access to the pyramid which are not shown.

I've changed monsters. As written, the module has a variety of monsters from varied ecological niches, all living in close proximity. I've created the idea of a subhuman slave caste (a long-conquered neanderthal-like people) with workers and "monitors." These subhumans have replaced some other encounters, but I've largely kept the original stats. For example, baboon become subhuman workers. Ogres become subhuman monitors. White apes become monitors that hurl rocks and have white ape stats. An owlbear became a rouge/feral monitor who's been drinking and has owl-bear stats. Et cetera.

Another Lost City DM posted on Dragonsfoot about how he came up with a whole mini-plot because of a dragon in a room that didn't have any egress large enough for a dragon. Obviously, it was a polymorphed dragon, and it was secretly plotting to usurp the BBEG role.

Anyway, I'm not trying to claim that all old-school adventures were good, but I think people tend to be too quick to dismiss something as "bad design" or "silly" or whatever. I think designers used to *expect* DMs to make additions/changes/alterations to the adventures (heck, B4 gives you whole tiers that are just maps and monster/treasure listings, not to mention the basics, but no details, on the Lost City, itself -- only the upper tiers are fully developed/detailed in the module). It's not that old-school designers didn't know how to design things that "made sense;" they were smart guys, too. I think they just had a different set of priorities and expectations about how the adventure would be utilized.

I used to think "damn, if I buy a module it's because I don't WANT to take the time to come up with all the details." However, lately I've found that I'm using modules as a boost/starting point for my own creativity (and it also helps that I'm running OD&D, so "coming up with all the details" is a lot quicker than it would be under heavier RPG systems). YMMV.

 

[Ourph]

Was this lack of information actually a conscious design decision by the writers and publishers, or are people just coming up with excuses, 30 years after the fact, to explain the wonkiness?

I don't know if it was conscious or unconscious, but it was certainly the standard at the time. The point isn't to "explain the wonkiness" it's to show that "wonky" is an inapt description. "Incomplete" might be more accurate, but that depends upon your own personal preference for how much and what kind of detail such a product should contain.

I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the idea that illogical dungeon layouts and populations without any explanation as to how or why was a good design choice. If such was good, and the buying public thought it was good, we'd still be getting ghouls and orcs next door to each other in dungeon adventures. Some "old school" dungeons *were* bad. (And there were many good ones, too.)

I didn't say anything about it being a "good design choice". My assertion isn't that the dungeon is good, but that it is not "wonky". It could be interpreted as irrational, but it takes very little effort to see rationality as well, especially if you aren't expecting rationality to be spelled out.

Wouldn't it be nice if the writer mentioned this in the text? Just a sentence. You know, so I don't have to come up with something on my own in the middle of a game.

I don't understand what you would have to come up with on your own in the middle of the game. If a Thief finds the trap and then makes his Remove Trap roll, what information would you need that isn't provided? All you need to do if the roll is successful is tell the Thief the trap is disarmed. If the roll fails, the consequences (acid and/or spears) are spelled out. The entry seems absolutely complete to me.

Most people don't buy adventures to get just a map and monster stats. Most people expect/want the writer and designer to have actually put thoughts into the work, and explain those thoughts.

Again, I made no assertions about the quality of the product. My point is that the "wonkiness" of the examples cited is questionable. There are reasonable explanations for all of the details laid out in those entries. An adventure module can be both rational and poorly designed. Based on the fact that Judges Guild was fairly successful with its old school products, I would say that "most people" were satisfied with what they were buying when they bought JG modules and believed that there was sufficient work and thought behind the product to continue to buy them. As other people have noted above, markets and consumer expectations change. That doesn't mean the JG modules weren't considered good products by the people they were being marketed to at the time.

Apparently there were no bad modules in the old days. None, at all. The whole market was full of greatness, and if you find something that seems wonky or stupid to you, well, that's because you just don't understand and appreciate the reasonableness of it all.

I think a better restatement would be that some people are too quick to see irrationality when what they are really experiencing is a lack of a prepackaged explanation. If I can invent a rational explanation within seconds of reading a criticism that the situation is irrational, it doesn't seem, to me, that the criticism is particularly valid. Old modules tend to be "information sparse". That is a valid criticism. Some old dungeons had elements that were unquestionably weird (you can still explain the weirdness by assuming the mad wizard who designed the dungeon specifically designed the place to be weird, but that's still admitting that the design is weird). If you don't like weird, saying those dungeons are "too weird" is a valid criticism. Debating whether a particular criticism is valid or not isn't the same thing as saying all criticisms are invalid.

I don't think adventures are/were better (old or new) because they had nonsensical, illogical, or wonky design elements. Wonky elements are wonky, and are bad design.

I'm not sure how we got from "these elements aren't wonky" to "wonky is good design". That's not a position I'm attempting to defend. If, after my post, you still feel the elements cited by der kluge are wonky, that's fine. IMO they are not and I've already pointed out why I think so.