That's maybe why I think it's right to say that the reconstructed play style of the OSR is not the same as the Classic play style (and then you can go further and say there was no one "classic" playstyle. This interview with Jon Peterson is interesting that regard).
thoughts on Apocalypse World?
- Thread starter Bird Of Play
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aramis erak
Legend
That assumes a LOT of facts not in evidence...
(bit of a rant...)
We hear a lot about it in print - because early D&D discussions were largely in wargaming magazines and local fanzines; the latter mostly don't survive. But we also see in Dragon a lot of questions that show that, by 1976, a lot of D&D players were not experienced wargamers. And then there are folks like Liz Danforth, Bear Peters, and Michael Stackpole... who, thanks to Ken St. Andre, started "D&D" with a totally different ruleset, since Ken St. Andre (a wargame designer) disliked the OE rules and rewrote them... largely without reference to wargames mechanics.
Did some come in as experienced wargamers? Oh, hell yes! Me included... but I was introduced to D&D by guys whose only wargames wee Risk, Stratego, and Chess. (unless you count checkers and chinese checkers; but I count those as abstracts, and chess is a painted on theme...) Me? I'd played Avalon Hill's 1776 and Outdoor Survival, and Tactics II, plus all of the above "family-game wargames"... but that's also summer of 1981.
And most of the guys I met thereafter playing, even if they started before I did, had no prior wargaming. I'd estimate about 1 in 3 to 1 in 4 had any minis-gaming or counters-on-map gaming experience, tho about 3 in 4 had experience with those 3 "family game" war-themed games... Chess, Risk, and Stratego.
We need to avoid typcasting the 1974-1977 era as "mostly wargamers" because there is a known preservation bias for the commercial wargaming magazines. We know that the first sales are in wargame conventions... but within the year, a few stories of accidental hobby-shop buys by non-wargamers start. And also recruiting of non-gaming friends into D&D without wargames first also start to show up in the available historical information. And the first variants without intent for wargaming experience (EG: Tunnels and Trolls).
At best, we legitimately can say wargamers were the intended audience. (Various statements over the years by Gygax, initial sales at wargaming conventions, and my own correspondence with Mr. Arneson.)
Aldarc
Legend
The first video is basically the players learning the virtual tabletop. They previously did exclusively in-person gaming. So it's also something of a learning curve: i.e., new system + new software, etc. It does pick up.
Fair enough, but then it's not clear that there's such a thing as classic D&D.
aramis erak
Legend
And, from the people I've known, that's the fundamental truth at hand. The advice to make the rules ones own were taken to heart...
Ken St Andre was doing Theater of the Mind by early 1975. EPT scenarios at Cons were still using minis, rulers and terrain in late 1976 - just look at Strategic Review.
Some of the guys I've gamed with in the 80's and 90's were in the USN in the mid 1970s... their games were, they claimed, mostly theater of the mind from when they started D&D, tho' one was using cardboard counters on maps (I've seen his counters - 1cm square, on cereal box). Some were using the alternate combat system, some the chainmail ones (chainmail's actually three games in one...). This was due largely due to the needs of shipboard life.
Some switched to T&T (or Monsters Monsters) after it hit actual commercial sales in ,ate 1976... same time as 3th ed T&T and 1st ed Monsters! Monsters! ... (M! M! being T&T from the monster point of view. Originally adapted by Steve Jackson {US})...
@aramis erak
Do you count T&T as free kriegsspiel or free kriegsspiel adjacent?
Personally I wouldn't because it has a clear combat system and a clear save system which covers the bulk of everything else exploratory-related (a bit like defy danger in DW). But maybe you see it differently?
Do you count T&T as free kriegsspiel or free kriegsspiel adjacent?
Personally I wouldn't because it has a clear combat system and a clear save system which covers the bulk of everything else exploratory-related (a bit like defy danger in DW). But maybe you see it differently?
aramis erak
Legend
Adjacent. Especially in solo use. It can put toes into FK in GM-run mode
It's worth noting that the save system also includes default damage for failure: 1 per 2 points under TN. And it's for almost any "Are you (ability) enough to do (action)" and not just exploration. Had a player make a Cha SR 3 to convince a bull to attack the orcs ... PC did speak bovine, so it was indeed convincing, and not driving/intimidating.
Also, there's the XP issue... SRs are a primary source of XP (For others:SR's open ended 2d6 roll vs TN of 15+(level×5); Attribute reduces the TN, not increases the roll, because due to XP, those are no longer equal. XP is total roll times SR Level.) A GM not assigning them often is slowing experience, often by as much as half.
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Tun Kai Poh
Hero
I think it's been done - this is a solarpunk RPG about communities working together to overcome a rapidly mutating environment. The emphasis is on nonviolence... Arcology World by BasiliskOnline
This is not in 5th ed is it? (Which is the version I have.)
Faolyn
(she/her)
I'm late to the thread, and I haven't played any PbtA games. In reading through the section on MC moves and looking at the threat map (think they could have picked a less legible font for the samples?), I'm still confused. It seems like it provides the same sort of info that any other method of prepping does, just in a different format. There's still "monster statblocks" to write up, they just don't have hit points and stuff like that. What's the actual difference? Note: this is a serious question, not a gotcha or anything. I've heard a lot of good things about the system, but I just can't get it.
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