OSR Why B/X?

[Parmandur]

As Reynard referenced with his allusion to The Elusive Shift, I think everyone here is aware that there were multiple strains of play in the old days. There were differences between how Gary ran things vs how Dave ran things, but more prominently, there was the difference between the Gygaxian approach to play as primarily a game, appealing to wargamers heavily, and the approach to play it as a way to enact and create a story, more embodied by, say, Lee Gold's crew on the West coast. Non-wargamer SF fans. The arguments over gold for XP and how unrealistic it was (for the Trad and pre-Trad players) were a perennial refrain running from roughly 1975-1989.


I've spent way too many hours with those texts. While the 2E books are certainly clearer, no, they're definitely written in support of a contrasting play mode. 1E is Gygax. You CAN play Big Damn Heroes but the core expectation is that being a Lawful Goody-Goody is a limitation, drawback, and likely liability in your primary job of Getting That Bag. 2E is post-Gygax, post-Angry Mothers From Heck, written in a kind of wishy-washy manner trying to support Gygaxian play AND story-first play, and the mechanics largely hew close to 1E due to the editorial mandate to maintain a high degree of reverse compatibility, but the expectation is definitely that you're probably Heroes doing Good Deeds, and the XP system was revised to support that expectation.

Yet we have a firsthand account in this thread thst suggests that 1E was not, in fact, like that for Gygax...?

 

[Mannahnin]

Yet we have a firsthand account in this thread thst suggests that 1E was not, in fact, like that for Gygax...?

If some random person writing 50 years after the fact asserts things about the past which seem to directly contradict texts from that period, both the rulebooks themselves and the words of the creators recorded in editorials, letters to fanzines, and personal letters reported on by respected and scrupulous historians like Jon Peterson, which should we find more credible? Especially when the person simultaneously makes counterfactual assertions about more recent history that we personally witnessed and participated in?

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you started with 1E there is a continuity that allowed you to play 2E in a way like you did 1E (however that is). But if you started with 2E and then looked backward, stylistically and in the published adventure design they are very different games.

The TSR versions of D&D (and the games based on them) are a spectrum. They are more like each other, and more cross-compatible, than any of the WotC editions are to them or to each other. Those are entirely different games that borrowed a lot of the nomenclature and took the marketing space.

 

[Parmandur]

If some random person writing 50 years after the fact asserts things about the past which seem to directly contradict texts from that period, both the rulebooks themselves and the words of the creators recorded in editorials, letters to fanzines, and personal letters reported on by respected and scrupulous historians like Jon Peterson, which should we find more credible? Especially when the person simultaneously makes counterfactual assertions about more recent history that we personally witnessed and participated in?

I would take the information that, in play, 1E was not necessarily being played the way the creators broadcast as being quite relevant to understanding how 2E came to be.

 

[Micah Sweet]

As Reynard referenced with his allusion to The Elusive Shift, I think everyone here is aware that there were multiple strains of play in the old days. There were differences between how Gary ran things vs how Dave ran things, but more prominently, there was the difference between the Gygaxian approach to play as primarily a game, appealing to wargamers heavily, and the approach to play it as a way to enact and create a story, more embodied by, say, Lee Gold's crew on the West coast. Non-wargamer SF fans. The arguments over gold for XP and how unrealistic it was (for the Trad and pre-Trad players) were a perennial refrain running from roughly 1975-1989.


I've spent way too many hours with those texts. While the 2E books are certainly clearer, no, they're definitely written in support of a contrasting play mode. 1E is Gygax. You CAN play Big Damn Heroes but the core expectation is that being a Lawful Goody-Goody is a limitation, often a drawback, and likely liability in your primary job of Getting That Bag. 2E is post-Gygax, post-Angry Mothers From Heck, written in a kind of wishy-washy manner trying to support Gygaxian play AND story-first play. And the mechanics largely hew close to 1E due to the editorial mandate to maintain a high degree of reverse compatibility, but the expectation is definitely that you're probably Heroes doing Good Deeds, and the XP system was revised to support that expectation.

What the rules support is more important than any expectation of play (although that's not unimportant). WotC taught me that, in all the different games named D&D they've published.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which makes it an even stranger assertion that 2E was just 1E compiled and cleaned up. I maintain that the only way to assert that is to have ignored the shift in style and play focus that occurred during the 2E era, either because one had already made that shift (the Hickman Revolution did not come out of nowhere) or because one simply ignored the particulars and used 2E to continue to play in the old school style.

My group used the 2e rules for new stuff, and of course appreciated all the awesome setting material (never to be equaled), but still used the 1e rules as a base and mostly played the same way we always did. To us, 2e was just more material to use in our games, and didn't require any change in playstyle.

 

[Reynard]

My group used the 2e rules for new stuff, and of course appreciated all the awesome setting material (never to be equaled), but still used the 1e rules as a base and mostly played the same way we always did. To us, 2e was just more material to use in our games, and didn't require any change in playstyle.

Yes. That is exactly what I said for one particular use case. That doesn't invalidate the other use case.

 

[Mannahnin]

My group used the 2e rules for new stuff, and of course appreciated all the awesome setting material (never to be equaled), but still used the 1e rules as a base and mostly played the same way we always did. To us, 2e was just more material to use in our games, and didn't require any change in playstyle.

It didn't require any change in play style, particularly for old players who were just taking bits from it and not adopting it wholesale. Why would you change your style of play?

But TSR was definitely promoting the more heroic AKA Trad mode of play, across their entire product line. From rules to modules to epic novels about Heroes with a capital H.

There was a whole gradual process taking place mostly through the 80s. Products embodying both styles were sold, and even the Hickman Revolution stuff did contain bits of the old style, even as they adopted more and more conventions of, (e.g.) illusionism to maximize the Story and reduce the randomness of the Game. The Hickman Revolution gets named that in part because of the success of his modules and ones echoing his style, and in part because the ascendency of that style coincided with Gary's waning influence at and final ouster from the company. 2nd ed came at the tail end of that gradual process, a few years after Gary left and stopped being the dominant influence on the tone and style of the game. The XP rules are just a little example embodying the shift. And of course they meant nothing to existing players whose approach to the game was already well-established and who had no interest in changing it.

Edit: Two days after this post Professor DM dropped a vid about what a watershed moment Castle Ravenloft was. Now linked above.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes. That is exactly what I said for one particular use case. That doesn't invalidate the other use case.

Sure, but I can only talk about my own experience, and I'm rather partial to it. That's still how I prefer to play given the opportunity.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It didn't require any change in play style, particularly for old players who were just taking bits from it and not adopting it wholesale. Why would you change your style of play?

But TSR was definitely promoting the more heroic AKA Trad mode of play, across their entire product line. From rules to modules to epic novels about Heroes with a capital H.

They were definitely promoting it, but all I cared about was what they offered, not how they expected me to use it.

That's my big problem with the current stuff. They've changed what they offer to more closely match how they expect me to use it, and the more time goes on the more they change it.