D&D General Younger Players Telling Us how Old School Gamers Played

[Umbran]

I think it’s pretty obvious he didn’t literally mean everyone.

Unless he said something along the lines of, "and this was one obscure thing that most people didn't use," if it gets mentioned in such a video, the effect is to imply it was commonplace.

 

[Maxperson]

I think it needs to be acknowledged that Gygax's rulebooks - especially the DMG - contain a lot of material that was written to deal with particular debates that were current at the time (eg defending D&D's hit points against hit location and critical combat systems), or that was an attempt to reduce to writing an idea or an aspiration, where Gygax himself didn't necessarily follow the process or approach that he wrote down.

In the PHB, for instance, the early pages talk about players becoming thespians, but the actually rules text and advice towards the end on procedures of play makes it clear that this is not something on which the game is going to bring about if you go along with them.

And those rules and advice also rest on assumptions about dungeon design and GM methods which Gygax himself contradicts to a degree in his advice to GMs in his DMG, which has a greater focus on "living, breathing" setting elements.

Maybe the 1e books weren't written as rules to be followed at all. It seems like the 1e AD&D books are basically large 5e DM's Toolbox sections of optional rules. In that context there are no real contradictions since DMs would not be playing both optional rules at the same time.

It would certainly explain a lot.

 

[jdrakeh]

Oh, Jesus Christ. These BrOSR guys again! Although I didn't get into D&D as a dedicated hobbyist until 1994 or so (I first played Holmes Basic in '83), I've played with a couple of former TSR employees and several people who were actively playing D&D in the late 1970s in my time. NONE of them used the "game time equals real-world time" rule. Not one of them. Zip, zero, zilch. These chuckleheads keep making the argument that people who don't use that rule aren't "true D&D fans" (whatever the hell that means) or aren't "playing the game correctly". They are absolutely, positively, ridiculous clowns.

 

[overgeeked]

Ugh.

That's sums up what I think about this. Videos like this: There are...a lot of false assumptions here.

First is that we were unaware of this rule that time in the game world matches real world time. We were aware. Heck, because there was no internet or cable TV to occupy our time, we spent more time reading and rereading books cover to cover. We all knew the rules. But we also all knew how many of them conflicted each other and we ignored what we didn't want to play with.

Second, an assumption that you either ignored real life time (like modern game) or that you followed real life time no matter what. No. While most everyone I played with back then ran a living world where time did move on outside of the game, it didn't follow real life time. That's a clear distinction.

The third assumption was that all players played in a shared world. No. The DM's game was their world, but that didn't extend from DM to DM. Good lord, that would be impossible to even try to manage.

I gotta tell ya, it's starting to get old constantly hearing from people who weren't even born yet telling us all how old school gaming was back in the day. How about just asking us? We're not all dead yet. The premise of this argument is false. What lent to old school gaming was not that we followed the passage of real life time between sessions into the game itself, but that the game was a living world where time in that world kept going regardless of what the players were doing, but the passage of that time was up the DM for what made the most sense for the adventure and not a real world calendar.

*Yes, I know there might have been some people who played like this, but I've never met one in real life and I'm confident they were the exception rather than the rule.

The thing old-school players forget about this is that it’s not a conversation that includes us. The younger gamers getting into old-school gaming are not talking to us, they’re talking to each other. So the video isn’t saying old-schoolers didn’t know this or that rule, rather that the new to old-school gaming crowd missed it until recently. Ben Milton did a video about this rule awhile back which is what sparked your linked video.

I started in 1984. We played in one shared world but never used the real time between sessions thing. It’s also important to remember for that to work you have to end the session with heading back to town. Not something people wanted to do that often unless they had to.

The one that gets me is people thinking we used every rule in the AD&D books. “Have you seen all the rules for initiative in AD&D? It’s a monstrously impossible game. It’s unplayable!” No, we just went with the simple rules from the PHB or we cribbed from B/X and/or BECMI.

There is definitely a feeling a lot of institutional knowledge has been lost and is going to be lost in the next few years. I’m glad we have people like Jon Peterson researching the history and writing books. And the Secrets of Blackmoor people.

 

[jdrakeh]

The one that gets me is people thinking we used every rule in the AD&D books. “Have you seen all the rules for initiative in AD&D? It’s a monstrously impossible game. It’s unplayable!” No, we just went with the simple rules from the PHB or we cribbed from B/X and/or BECMI.

It's funny that you should mention that - without exception, every single AD&D (1e) game I've ever played in, used some kind of house rules for determining initiative.

 

[pemerton]

These chuckleheads keep making the argument that people who don't use that rule aren't "true D&D fans" (whatever the hell that means) or aren't "playing the game correctly". They are absolutely, positively, ridiculous clowns.

Who is making this argument? Is that in the video?

 

[overgeeked]

Everything GenZ loves is made by GenXers.

My kid’s head nearly popped off and went walkabout after we watched Pump Up the Volume and I explained how it was my grandparents’ generation selling my generation rebellion against my parents’ generation.

 

[jdrakeh]

Who is making this argument? Is that in the video?

The self-labeled "BrOSR" folks (not the Brazilian OSR folks who originated that label, but the absolute idiots who co-opted it to mean "Bro" + "OSR" as, in "we One True Alpha Fans of D&D" folks). I assumed that the video maker is amongst their ranks (or at least sympathetic) because these folks are singularly obsessed with the rule in question to a pathological degree. This may have been unfair of me, but in point of fact, I've never seen anybody outside of that sphere claim that the "game time equals real-time" rule was ever popular, influential, or a cornerstone of common D&D play. This is pretty much the main pillar of the BrOSR folks, with the arguments I mention in the quoted post (i.e. One True Way, etc, etc) being extensions of that.

[Edit: Yeah, he doesn't seem to be one of the dyed in the wool BrOSR guys yet, but he's definitely on the path re: attributing this rule as a once common, influential, and popular cornerstone of D&D play, it seems.]

 

[overgeeked]

I don't think that is true, and I almost universally reject what @Yora is saying.

It's not that old gamers refuse to share campaign stories; rather, that for most of us, old campaigns are like dreams. It might mean a lot, but telling the story of it almost never means a lot to the person to whom you're telling it.

Seriously- go up to someone and watch their expression when you say, "Hey, let me tell you about this dream I had ..." Most people don't want to hear about your past dreams, how your fantasy football team "pulled one out" over the weekend, or this really cool campaign you were part of in the '70s.

It’s the hilarious joke you tell that falls flat and you add, “I guess you had to be there.”

If asked, we share. Sometimes .... we OVERSHARE. It's profoundly easy to get people to talk about themselves- but most of us don't ask. Because, in fairness, most of us don't care. The reason I reject what @Yora is saying (and the general approach in the thread, but that's my next post) is because there is plenty of information out there. There are people to ask. There are people talking about it. There are histories in written form. There are documentary movies. If you don't know, it's because you don't want to know ... which is fine! You don't have to care about the history of the game to play. But don't blame others for your lack of curiosity. "Gatekeeping" isn't stopping you from buying a book, or watching a documentary, or asking people.

Exactly.

And for anyone who wants to ask older people about their gaming habits back-in-the-day, maybe don’t argue with them and tell them they’re wrong about their experiences because you read a blog or watched a video by someone who wasn’t alive when we were playing AD&D.

 

[Lanefan]

Oh my gawd. I have TRS80 and printer I could give this project. But the ribbon is dry and I have seen tractor feed paper in a while.

Seriously - you still have a TRS80? If it still fires up, that thing's probably worth a small fortune by now!

14"x8" fanfold tractor feed paper is what I use for keeping DM notes during play. Impossible to find in shops since about 1995, but fortunately about ten years ago I stumbled onto some being given away at a rummage sale, which will last me a lifetime and more.