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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9198988" data-attributes="member: 42582">I thought I would go back to my original D&D books. Here's what I found:D&D v1 (Men & Magic), pp 3-6, 9, 12-13It is relatively simple to set up a fantasy campaign, and better still, it will cost almost nothing. In fact you will not even need miniature figures . . . The campaign referee . . . will have to devote a number of hours to laying out the maps of his "dungeons" and upper terrain before the affair begins. . . . These rules . . . cover the major aspects of fantasy campaigns . . . They provide the framework around which you will build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity - your time and imagination are about the only limiting factors . . . New details can be added and old "laws" altered so as to provide continually new and different situations. . . . First, the referee must draw out a minimum of half a dozen maps of the levels of his "underworld", people them with monsters of various horrid aspect, distribute treasures accordingly, and note the location of the latter two on keys, each corresponding to the appropriate level. . . . When this task is completed the participants can then be allowed to make their first descent into the dungeon beneath the "huge ruined pile, a vast castle built by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses". Before they begin, players must decide what role they will play in the campaign, humans or otherwise, fighter, cleric, or magic-user. Thereafter they will work upwards - if they survive- as they gain "experience". . . . Before the game begins it is not only necessary to select a role, but it is also necessary to determine what stance the character will take - Law, Neutrality, or Chaos. . . . The "common tongue" spoken throughout the "continent" is known by most humans. . . . It will be necessary for the players to equip their character with various basic items of equipment. Selection of items is strictly up to the players . . .The equipment list includes 50' of rope, the famous 10' pole, mirrors, and various water-going vessels.D&D v3 (The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures) discusses movement, searching, and listening at doors, on pp 8-9. On p 15 we are told"Blackmoor" is a village of small size (a one-horse town), while "Grayhawk" is a large city. Both have maps with streets and building indicated, and players can have town adventures roaming around the bazaars, inns, taverns, shops, temples, and so on. Venture into the Thieves' Quarter at your own risk!And on pp 12-14 there is an example of dungeon-based play. This includes the following (pp 13-14):REF: . . . doors east and west. CAL: Listen at the east door. REF: (After appropriate check) You hear shuffling. CAL: Two of us (specifying which two) will throw our weight against the door to open it. All will be ready for combat. REF: (After rolling two dice: ) The door opens! You can't be surprised, but the monsters -you see half-a-dozen gnolls - can be. (Here a check for surprise is made, melee conducted, and so on.) CAL: Okay, what does the room look like . . . REF: . . . The elf has noted that there seems to be a hollow spot near the east end of the southeast wall. The floor and ceilings seem to have nothing unusual. The room contains the bodies of the gnolls, a pile of refuse in the north corner of the west wall, and two trunks along the wall opposite the one which sounds hollow. CAL: The elf will check out the hollow sound, one of us will sort through the refuse, each trunk will be opened by one of us, and the remaining two (naming exactly who this is) will each guard a door, listening to get an advance warning if anything approaches. REF: Another check on the hollow sound reveals a secret door which opens onto a flight of stairs down to the south. . . One chest is empty; the other had a poison needle on the lock. (Here a check to see if the character opening it makes his saving throw for poison.) The chest with the poison needle is full of copper pieces - appears to be about 2,000 of them. CAL: Empty out all of the copper pieces and check the trunk for secret drawers or a false bottom, and do the same with the empty one. . . . REF: (Cursing the thoroughness of the Caller!) The seemingly empty trunk has a false bottom . . . in it you have found an onyx case with a jeweled necklace therein. . . . CAL: . . . I will secure the case and necklace in my back pack, while the others will, by turn, fill their packs with coppers. REF: This will require four turns. (He checks for monsters wandering in, and on the forth try one is indicated. However, as there was a listener at the door it is approaching, he also checks to see if it is detected, allowing a good probability that it will be heard.) As you complete your loading the dwarf at the west door detects heavy footsteps approaching. . . . CAL: . . . Our Magic-User will cast a HOLD PORTAL on the west door while the elf opens the secret one. We will then all beat a hasty retreat down the stairs to the south. Onward, friends, to more and bigger loot!It is blindingly obvious that this is a game of shared imagination having a core structure of (i) a referee (GM) who prepares, via map-and-key methodology, a series of situations for characters to encounter, and (ii) "player" participants who each declare/control the actions of a particular character, saying what that character does in the imaginary situation, with the situation changing as a result.The role of imagination is reinforced by some of that stuff from Men & Magic. What is rope used for? Or a pole? What does one do with water-going vessels? The answer is, obviously enough, whatever one can imagine doing with them, subject to everyone agreeing. In the particular dynamics of this RPG, everyone will agree if the referee agrees: the referee has a lot of authority over what follows from declared actions. Other RPGs display many variations in how declared actions are resolved - departing to greater or less degrees from "GM decides" - just as they illustrate other ways, besides map-and-key, whereby situations can be prepared and "presented to"/"framed for" the players and their characters.But the core is clear in these books. Crystal clear, in my view.</blockquote>

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