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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9082076" data-attributes="member: 42582">Roughly because of what [USER=7035894]@Clint_L[/USER] posted just upthread.Positing that greed is a dramatic need in Moldvay Basic is like saying that the "characters" in the boardgame Forbidden Island have a dramatic need of escaping the island. It's just a "lampshading" to make play go.Christopher Kubasik's discussion of this back in his <a href="https://playsorcerer.wordpress.com/2008/07/23/the-interactive-toolkit-part-two-why-do-modules-suck/" target="_blank">Interactive Toolkit</a> is still pretty on point, in my view:The basic plot form of a story is this: A central character wants something, goes after it despite opposition, and arrives at a win, lose or draw. All roleplaying games involve this basic plot in one form or another. Dungeon & Dragons fulfilled this requirement brilliantly and simply. Characters wanted experience points and wanted to gain levels. Any other want they might have had – social, political or personal – was subsumed within the acquisition of levels. Did you want social recognition? A greater understanding of the ways of magic? Influence over people as a religious leader? Pretty much anything your character might have wanted was acquired by gaining levels. Dungeon modules worked for this very reason. A D&D character who wanted to become a lord didn’t go off and court a princess. He became a lord by wandering around dungeons, killing monsters and overcoming traps. The game offered no rules for courting a princess, but did provide rules for becoming a lord at 10th level, after looting enough arbitrarily placed holes in the ground. Modules disintegrated the moment a player got the bright idea of having his character become a lord by courting a princess. Suddenly the world opened up. Instead of getting what they wanted by pursuing a single activity – namely, overcoming traps and monsters characters now wanted to interact with people, gaining what they wanted through individual action and detailed plots. The motivation behind hitting on the princess rather than crawling through a series of traps is obvious. First, and perhaps most importantly for some, the idea of wooing a princess was more fun than hanging out in a dungeon. Second, just because the rules didn’t say anything about wooing didn’t mean you couldn’t do it. As we all know, the minute an idea pops into a player’s head, he’s going to try it. Third, the goofiness of acquiring the title of lord by looting holes grated against the sensibilities of many players. They wanted to become lords in ways that made sense.The gameworld of B/X D&D "warps" itself by providing endless opportunities for dungeon exploration and looting!</blockquote>

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