The glory of OD&D

[Numion]

I know the original AD&D did. Gygax always encouraged this idea. Sadly, some don't get it.

Then why was Gygax railing against those who modify the official rules, in Dragon magazine editorial? Saying that they weren't playing AD&D and all that crap.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Then why was Gygax railing against those who modify the official rules, in Dragon magazine editorial? Saying that they weren't playing AD&D and all that crap.

Gary went through a phase when his position was that OD&D was for house-ruling, but AD&D should be broadly standardised worldwide with only a few variations. He took some flak over it, it seems, and then published a very long rant (several double-paged spreads) about the issue in one of the early Dragon magazines. It was all conflated with justification for the recently-launched, and "official", Barbarian class which many fans didn't like so much, and had also resulted in some flak.

It's occasionally been said that Gary doesn't take criticism very well, and he rarely bows to fan pressure; what Gary publishes is Gary's vision. He may have gotten a bit hot under the collar on that occasion, and I think the rant was overstated.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I believe the original idea was to position D&D as the "house rule and play it all sorts of ways" system, while AD&D was to be positioned as an official set of standard rules that could be used for tournament play, etc. For example, in the preface to the Dungeon Masters Guide, Gygax wrote:

...Returning again to the framework aspect of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, what is aimed at is a "universe" into which similar campaigns and parallel worlds cn be placed. With certain uniformity of systems and "laws," players will be able to move from one campaign to another and know at least the elemental principles which govern the new milieu, for all milieux will have certain (but not necessarily the same) laws in common. Character races and classes will be nearly the same. Character ability scores will have the identical meaning -- or nearly so. Magic spells will function in a certain manner regardless of which world the player is functioning in. Magic devices will certainly vary, but their principles will be similar. This uniformity will help not only the players, it will enable DMs to carry on a meaningful dialogue and exchange useful information. It might also eventually lead to grand tournaments wherein persons from any part of the U.S., or the world for that matter, can compete for accolades...

Remember that, at the time, D&D games tended to be very different, because the OD&D system left so much open and undefined, and thus encouraged house-rules. Even the published supplements with their sometimes very different approaches and systems grew out of separate D&D campaigns. AD&D was to be something of a "unifying force."

For better or worse, AD&D gradually drifted away from that objective. I don't find it terribly odd that Gary's opinion on the matter may have changed, too.

Edit: I see P&P gave a similar response while I was busy looking for and copy-typing that passage. Oh well.

 

[Garnfellow]

Then why was Gygax railing against those who modify the official rules, in Dragon magazine editorial? Saying that they weren't playing AD&D and all that crap.

This used to drive me crazy. I know there's a line in the introduction to the DMG that invites DMs to make the game their own, but reading the Sorcerer's Scroll articles from this period, you come away with a very different impression altogether: if you aren't playing the rules exactly as they are written, you aren't playing "official AD&D." (And anything not official is almost certainly inferior, because no DM at home has as much experience as Gary Gygax, the man who invented the game.)

AD&D 1st edition was a great system, but it had plenty of legitimate and troublesome bugs. Unarmed combat, for example. But the official TSR line at the time revolved around this weird "Gygaxian infallibility" principle: rather than admit a rule was problematic, we would get some convoluted rationalization why the rule was perfectly fine. And if you didn’t buy this rationale? Well, you didn’t invent D&D, did you, so you must not know what you’re talking about.

I really hated the hypocrisy and wrong-headedness of this position. (I don't think I've actually used the word “hypocrisy” since high school.)

An important part of Dragon Magazine's mission was to present variant rules, and every month you would open up a new issue and get some get some fantastic new unofficial rules. And these new rules would often appear right next to the latest Sorcerer’s Scroll article railing against the abomination of variant rules. Even though it was well known that Gary himself actually ignored the rules much of the time and was reputedly a great improviser at the table.

Here’s an example: There’s a Sorcerer’s Scroll article that utterly lambastes the very notion of weapon specialization in AD&D as a preposterous idea! That is, preposterous until Gary and Len Lakofka introduced the concept in a later Sorcerer’s Scroll article.

As time went on, I found myself increasingly on the outside of “Official AD&D” looking in, and I was getting worn down by editorials from the AD&D dogmatists telling me my game was somehow wrong. I didn’t have a crazy set of variants -- no 50th level dwarf paladins, no umber hulk PCS. I had just picked up a few nice house rules here and there based on some Dragon Magazine articles, and found myself increasingly at odds with many of the new rules Gary was bringing into the game. I hated much of Unearthed Arcana, for example -- the new spells were great, but I thought most of the new races and classes were out-and-out broken or badly implemented.

I was actually about to jump ship to GURPS when Gary left TSR, and that kept me playing AD&D for a few more years. I understand what Gary was trying to do by banging and banging on the “Official AD&D” drum: he wanted a standardized ruleset to facilitate tournament play, and wanted to distinguish AD&D from BD&D (which was supposed to be the “anything goes” cousin.)

I just think TSR’s approach at the time was ham-handed and off-putting. I know plenty of other DMs from this period that were really turned off by the “If It’s Not Official AD&D (tm) Sanctioned Material, It’s Crap!” party line. I suspect this is a huge reason why second edition AD&D took a completely different approach to design by having a loose core rulset with a galaxy of optional add-ons.

 

[Garnfellow]

It's occasionally been said that Gary doesn't take criticism very well, and he rarely bows to fan pressure; what Gary publishes is Gary's vision. He may have gotten a bit hot under the collar on that occasion, and I think the rant was overstated.

I think this was way more than a one-time blow up. Although I haven't looked at it for a long time, IIRC, the collection of Sorcerer's Scrolls from the second Best of the Dragon collection should be a good example of what Numion is talking about.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I think this was way more than a one-time blow up. Although I haven't looked at it for a long time, IIRC, the collection of Sorcerer's Scrolls from the second Best of the Dragon collection should be a good example of what Numion is talking about.

It was a phase, as I said; but there was one particularly memorable Dragon article.

 

[JoeGKushner]

So when do we get to see actual play postings?

 

[Jack Morgan]

Because DMs can and do play favorites. Balanced rules help with this.
Because DMs can and do make inconsistent rules decisions that can greatly affect the party in a negative way. Codified rules help with this.
Because DMs can and do have mood swings. Knowing what your character can do and not having to rely on an ad-hoc DM decision that depends on whether his day at work was nice or not can help alleviate this.
Because DMs can and do forget. And they shouldn't have to be the only ones to know the rules.
Because some players playing in a non-codified system expect that their characters can do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. And many DMs don't know how to deal with this without resorting to heavy-handedness and/or arguments.

No offense, really- but why play in a game where these problems are bad enough that you'd need a rule shield to help allieviate them?

 

[Sammael]

No offense, really- but why play in a game where these problems are bad enough that you'd need a rule shield to help allieviate them?

Because many people do not have a choice, due to a lack of other players/groups in their environment. Or, rather, they do have a choice - play with a not-so-good DM, or do not play at all.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Because many people do not have a choice, due to a lack of other players/groups in their environment. Or, rather, they do have a choice - play with a not-so-good DM, or do not play at all.

Or they could stop whining and DM themselves.

RC




EDIT: I thought that was funny when I wrote it, but looking at it stare at me, I can see how some might not think so. Yet, really, there's more than a kernel of truth in there. If your DM is so poor you can't stand it, run your own game. Or go hiking. Or read a book. Or snog someone.


P.S.: As someone who loved & fully defends 1e as a great game system, that stuff about Gary rings awefully true to me. Too much "Make it your own game, but not as much as you'd like" and too much "Do as I say, not as I do" for comfort. At least, once you get beyond the original PH, DMG, and MM. Of course, if we were all judged solely on our most inane comments, I doubt any of us would fare well. I know I wouldn't.