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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5990533" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>If you compare the advice in 2e, and the modules from that era, to the advice in Gygaxian D&D, and the advice from <em>that</em> era, you'll see that they are quite different.</p><p></p><p>Classic, Gygaxian D&D is about "skilled play". For a definition of this, see the last few pages of his PHB, before the Appendices start: you talk to your fellow players before the session, plan which part of the dungeon you are going to scout and/or hit, choose the appropriate PCs from the stable, equip them (by deducting the appropriate amounts of money from their sheets and adding on the appropriate equipment) and then turn up to the referee's dungeon ready to play. Actual play involves marching orders, pre-prepared procedures for handling doors, combat, retreat, evasion etc. Never getting distracted by wanderig monsters. And focusing on the extraction of loot (given the GP = XP rule).</p><p></p><p>It's a style of play in which I have little personal interest, but I think quite a few people liked and like it (given the enduring popularity of Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, etc).</p><p></p><p>2nd ed AD&D uses the same PC build and action resolution mechanics (more-or-less), but a different XP mechanic. And if you look at modules from that era, they emphasis the "adventure hook", the story, etc. The rulebooks talk about similar sort of stuff. (Dragonlance, back in 1st ed days, was the progenitor of this. Ravenloft is an interesting intermediary, I think, with the flavour of a "story" module but the grinding dungeonesqueness of a Gygaxian one.)</p><p></p><p>I personally find 2nd ed a bit irritating, because I don't think the PC build or action resolution rules really suit the sort of play it seems to be aiming at, and the typical solution - both suggested in published materials, and implemented at tables at least in my experience - is massive amounts of GM force "in the interests of the story". (The whole of the Forge really has its origins in a reaction to this sort of stuff in AD&D 2nd ed and in White Wolf games.)</p><p></p><p>I understand it as referring to Author stance without the retroactive narration of the PC's motivation - ie you choose actions for your PC because you (the player) think they are fun or sensible things to do, and you don't bother addressing the question of what your PC's motivation is in the fiction. (Author stance, in contrast, involves retroactively attributing an appropriate motivation to your PC; actor stance involves having a motivation already attributed to your PC, and working out your PC's actions on the basis of that pre-established motivation.)</p><p></p><p>In those classic dungeons, PCs don't have motivations. The <em>player</em> has motivations, and the PC is a vehicle whereby those motivations are enacted.</p><p></p><p>That's not to say that the fiction doesn't matter. In Tomb of Horrors, and I think perhaps even more in White Plume Mountain, fictional positioning is very important. But it's the fiction of doors, ceilings, levers, tripwires and 10' poles. The PCs don't have any social life, nor any inner life - there is no fiction of that particular sort.</p><p></p><p>I still don't understand how hit points aren't plot coupons.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 5990533, member: 42582"] If you compare the advice in 2e, and the modules from that era, to the advice in Gygaxian D&D, and the advice from [I]that[/I] era, you'll see that they are quite different. Classic, Gygaxian D&D is about "skilled play". For a definition of this, see the last few pages of his PHB, before the Appendices start: you talk to your fellow players before the session, plan which part of the dungeon you are going to scout and/or hit, choose the appropriate PCs from the stable, equip them (by deducting the appropriate amounts of money from their sheets and adding on the appropriate equipment) and then turn up to the referee's dungeon ready to play. Actual play involves marching orders, pre-prepared procedures for handling doors, combat, retreat, evasion etc. Never getting distracted by wanderig monsters. And focusing on the extraction of loot (given the GP = XP rule). It's a style of play in which I have little personal interest, but I think quite a few people liked and like it (given the enduring popularity of Tomb of Horrors, White Plume Mountain, the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, etc). 2nd ed AD&D uses the same PC build and action resolution mechanics (more-or-less), but a different XP mechanic. And if you look at modules from that era, they emphasis the "adventure hook", the story, etc. The rulebooks talk about similar sort of stuff. (Dragonlance, back in 1st ed days, was the progenitor of this. Ravenloft is an interesting intermediary, I think, with the flavour of a "story" module but the grinding dungeonesqueness of a Gygaxian one.) I personally find 2nd ed a bit irritating, because I don't think the PC build or action resolution rules really suit the sort of play it seems to be aiming at, and the typical solution - both suggested in published materials, and implemented at tables at least in my experience - is massive amounts of GM force "in the interests of the story". (The whole of the Forge really has its origins in a reaction to this sort of stuff in AD&D 2nd ed and in White Wolf games.) I understand it as referring to Author stance without the retroactive narration of the PC's motivation - ie you choose actions for your PC because you (the player) think they are fun or sensible things to do, and you don't bother addressing the question of what your PC's motivation is in the fiction. (Author stance, in contrast, involves retroactively attributing an appropriate motivation to your PC; actor stance involves having a motivation already attributed to your PC, and working out your PC's actions on the basis of that pre-established motivation.) In those classic dungeons, PCs don't have motivations. The [I]player[/I] has motivations, and the PC is a vehicle whereby those motivations are enacted. That's not to say that the fiction doesn't matter. In Tomb of Horrors, and I think perhaps even more in White Plume Mountain, fictional positioning is very important. But it's the fiction of doors, ceilings, levers, tripwires and 10' poles. The PCs don't have any social life, nor any inner life - there is no fiction of that particular sort. I still don't understand how hit points aren't plot coupons. [/QUOTE]
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