How accurate is this?

[tkdco2]

I'm a fan of Professor Dungeon Master's Youtube videos, and I just saw this one. It's about Gary's house rules.

There's a reference about rogues, which means not all of them are Gary's original house rules. But Gary was alive during the 3e era, so he could have just added these rules.

Anyway, just wondering how accurate the video is. I'm fairly certain that a lot of it is, but is it 100% spot on?


www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCnAKb3sK2A

[dicebro]

The “Professor” doesn’t do much research before issuing his proclamations. This video was disappointing.

[Deleted]

Apr 15, 2021 7:20:49 GMT -6 dicebro said:

The “Professor” doesn’t do much research before issuing his proclamations. This video was disappointing.

If you scroll down a bit, you'll see Luke Gygax shoot the list down as a lot of bunk in the comments, too. 

Which is kinda weird, though, because at least some of these houserules are well-known on the internet as having been used at some convention games and front porch games in the 2000's. I'm not sure who to trust here. The assumption would be Luke Gygax is the authority on his dad, but on the other hand, his dad could have easily used some house rules in games he never played in or observed. 

The screen shot is almost certainly not Gary's handwriting, though. It's probably some fan's creation. There was nothing about a thief in either of the anecdotes I read before. Both used only 3lbb character options. 

[tkdco2]

I missed the comments by Luke Gygax. Maybe I posted the video here before he commented. Thanks for pointing it out.

I'm surprised Professor Dungeon Master didn't do a better job on his research; he's usually more accurate. That said, he tends to focus on 5e and his own house rules.

[dicebro]

Don’t get me wrong. I like The Professor. I just think he made a lot of assumptions in his dialogue with his buddy in that video.

[Zenopus]

I think the disconnect here is between what Gygax used in the '70s versus what he used when he ran OD&D in the '00s. The internet compilations of his "house rules" are mainly of the latter.

It looks like the Professor sourced his stuff from here:

cyclopeatron.blogspot.com/2010/03/gary-gygaxs-whitebox-od-house-rules.html

Those are compiled from actual Gygax posts, but they refer to his late era games.

[Deleted]

I was kind of disappointed at first as well but I think we need to approach this more as a friendly chat on a pub than a research work...


I'm saying this because having a chat on internet have been more and more difficult lately , everyone wants "sources" for any kind of information or dialogue. I wonder if these people sit down on a pub with buddies and shoot down any conversation because of a lack of "sources", those must be very boring friends.
Professor Dungeon Master seems to suffer from these shoot downs in multiple of his videos.


This rant is not for you guys, but addressing specially YouTube and Reddit communities.

I don't think Professor even thought or wanted to approach this in a research manner, a fan pointed out these house rules and he said "let's take a look with a childhood friend". Do you think he wanted to make a research about those house rules or he wanted to have some fun with his childhood friend?


I think Luke might be a very fun guy to hang out, he's very charismatic on videos, but I can't look at him as an authority on this.
That's because I've seen some of these house rules myself on Gygax posts around...


This is a very complicate thing to call for "sources", some time ago I've asked some people if they remembered about a house rule of Gygax using 3d6 for Saving Throws instead of a d20, people got very rude and confrontational quickly, asking for sources and bad mouthing that I didn't presented any sources for my "claims".

It was not a "claim", I've said "I think I remember Gygax saying x in a interview, do you guys ever heard about it?", it was a question.
Imagine you in a pub trying to hanging out with these guys, you say "I think I remember" and people start screaming "SOURCES!!". Geez. 

Why this is a complicate thing to call for sources? That's because there are over 500 pages of Gygax answering questions, a lot of interviews, some of them aren't online anymore and wasn't preserved on waybackmachine. Anyway, I don't have enough free time to read those 500 pages of Gygax's Q&A again, and I'm sure a lot of people also can't. And a lot of those house rules suffered alterations over time...

Luke said "zero hit points was dead", I don't think so, I'm sure Gygax said more than once around about those negative hit points house rules. I also saw a lot of modifiers he used different from the books. About re-roll of ones I'm not sure.

I'm not surprised by any of these rules except for Damage Reduction, I don't remember seeing DR on any of those Gygax posts over the years but I didn't read all those 500 pages, this is one thing I'm very interested in knowing about. I'm not a fan of DR but I'm curious to know what people think about it and how it's used on OD&D games.

[Deleted]

The DR thing was definitely mentioned by Gary himself at one point, on the Troll Lord Games forum. Sadly, that's been flushed down the commode by the internet over the years. It's referenced multiple times, including an old thread here.

It's a shame the original TLG forum no longer exists, of course. There's still multiple archived internet threads of Gary talking about how he ran his home games, though, notably at ENworld and DF. I know he made some comments about his white box games there a time or two but I'm not sure how much those comments apply here and there's a ton of threads to dig through to find relevant Gary quotes. (That's a good problem to have!)

[bobjester0e]

I've seen that very same jpg "document" before, most likely on Dragonsfoot, that someone other than Gary posted.

I may be wrong (I often am!) but I do believe that this is the crib-notes of that fan who played in one of Gary's games.

Perhaps Gary glommed onto later rules for his own D&D games from his later RPG rules, like Lejendary Adventures as well as other RPGs like 3.5 rules.

I wouldn't venture any guesses as to which rules inspired the rules on this crib-sheet, but the crib-sheet does seem more amenable to playing one-shot games for conventions or one-time get-togethers that Gary enjoyed on his front porch before he passed.

I don't agree with the Professor's conclusions on this particular video, but, like Jack said, this is more of a pub-crawl discussion than actual D&D game rules genealogy research.

Edit: I like Professor Dungeon Master. He has solid advice for the 5e crowd, and that comes from 40 or so years of D&D experience, which I think is missing from a lot of all official 5e internet advice and rulesmanship. (I also love Seth Sorkowsky's videos on Traveller, even though his focus is mostly on Mongoose rules...)

[dicebro]

It is my understanding that Gary didn’t have much, if anything,  to do with any edition past 0e and AD&D1st edition because he was not with TSR. Since Luke is Gary’s son, I would trust Luke’s memory any day of the week over a self proclaimed Professor of DMing. Whatever may have been published in the books isn’t authority on how he actually ran his own games. Nothing against the old Prof. he’s got a good show and some great ideas. But If you claim to be a Professor, then you might want to know some basic history on your topic of discussion. Otherwise your credibility will suffer, and people won’t waste their time watching you speculate. Just saying.

[tkdco2]

On an unrelated note, it's nice to see other fans of Professor Dungeon Master and Seth Skorkowsky here. In case you missed it, both of them were in a conversation with Questing Beast last February. It was quite an entertaining chat.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLRnLhDp3hE

[jeffb]

I hopped into that comment section a few minutes after the vid was posted to set the Prof straight. (jeff b on yootoobz, as well)

I haven't bothered to read comments after the first day or so, but if Luke is disputing it, he needs to do some research as well. Several old ENWorlders posted that info back when Gary was alive running his front porch games and they played in it. IDK if it was a one shot or a weekly thing, but if you are willing to do the research, the info is out there.


I was a regular ENWorlder at the time, and Gary (Col. Pladoh) was pretty active on his Q&A threads. People can learn alot about how Gary's views and rules had changed since the early days. He was not terribly happy with AD&D in his old days, and when he played D&D (as opposed to his other games, LA, in particular), he played the original game with house rules like were posted.

One of my sig quotes I used forever came from a convo I had with him when discussing modern D&D (3E, but also any heavy game) "Maybe I'm just getting too old to want to have to deal with a heap o' rules and the steaming heap o' rules lawyers who go with them."

Also, we learned a fair amount of how things like pieces of art and description slipped by him, and he would have shot them down otherwise during AD&D's "midwife-ing" (As Kask puts it). Kobolds being a big offender- Gary hated the depiction done by DCS. They were never meant to be scaly dog men, but rather twisted looking gnomes.

So yeah, the Prof should have done his research-it would not have been difficult to find out where these came from. The Prof has jumped on the clickbaity titles in recent months for his vids too. I'm a little disappointed in him between that and this latest vid.

[dicebro]

And I want to know where the Professor got his education. Was it an ACCREDITED D&D University? 

[Deleted]

You probably already saw this since you commented on the video, but Tim Kask mentions the Prof's video at a bit after the 40 minute mark here. 

[tkdco2]

It's possible that some of the rules were later adaptations rather than original house rules. The rogue is obviously one of them. But it may be that either they were tried and discarded or just not used very often.

[Deleted]

Yeah, like I said, the original sets of rules from two convention games are pretty well-circulated online. Nothing from Greyhawk or later is present in this list. Certainly not language like "rogue" or "wizard". I really believe whatever it is PDM was looking at was some fan's expansion on this idea. I'm baffled why he made a whole video about it when the top google search for "Gary Gygax House Rules" yields the link I just shared instead. If the man won't use simple Google for a video at this point, he's clearly not interested in the barest modicum of research, so I'm of a mind with Dicebro on that aspect. 

[aldarron]

Um folks, we've discussed those rules on this very forum, such as HERE

They are indeed from Gary, for games he was running in the 2000's. There's nothing remotely new here, but I did enjoy the Prof's discussion of them.*

*In fact, the bulk of these were incorporated into my Zero Edition Dungeoneering rules (Champions of ZED).

[tkdco2]

Thanks for the link, aldarron.

[jeffb]

Apr 23, 2021 9:23:34 GMT -6 dicebro said:

And I want to know where the Professor got his education. Was it an ACCREDITED D&D University? 

Clearly he was dozing off during History.

[simrion]

Apr 26, 2021 7:41:03 GMT -6 jeffb said:

Apr 23, 2021 9:23:34 GMT -6 dicebro said:

And I want to know where the Professor got his education. Was it an ACCREDITED D&D University? 

Clearly he was dozing off during History.

Sleep Spell can be a real "beeyach!"

[dicebro]

Apr 26, 2021 7:41:03 GMT -6 jeffb said:

Apr 23, 2021 9:23:34 GMT -6 dicebro said:

And I want to know where the Professor got his education. Was it an ACCREDITED D&D University? 

Clearly he was dozing off during History.

Or Degree was purchased through a correspondence school perhaps.

[aldarron]

Apr 27, 2021 7:52:17 GMT -6 dicebro said:

Apr 26, 2021 7:41:03 GMT -6 jeffb said:

Clearly he was dozing off during History.

Or Degree was purchased through a correspondence school perhaps.

I'm sure you guys are just joking around, but these aspersions on the good professor, who really is a professor, seem rather uncharitable, considering he pointed out at the start he did not know if the rules were genuine. In any case, as I pointed out above, the rules actually are quite genuine and originate with Gygax. Here is another link to the rules from 2005 so you can see for yourself Dragonsfoot

[tkdco2]

Yes, he is an English teacher, IIRC. And yes he admitted at the beginning that he didn't know about the authenticity of the rules and made an educated guess. Thanks for pointing that out, aldarron. It wasn't my intention to poke fun at him. He's one of my favorite YouTube content creators. I just wanted to verify the history of the rules.

[jeffb]

I do enjoy his channel and have subbed since his early vids. I also agree with him often on gaming/DM philosophy (e.g. see today's Initiative vid)

However, It is absolutely MY intention to poke fun at him. He did zero research and gave it a clickbait title (which, as I said, he's fallen into lately- that earns him extra sarcasm points from me).. So I don't feel one bit bad for him. If we were hanging around drinking beers I would show no mercy and give him a ration of shirt about it in good fun. I would do the same to anyone here or in my group, and I'd expect the same in kind were the shoe on the other foot.

[simrion]

But I'm "a professor" and I'm a "DM" you are supposed to believe me!!!

[bobjester0e]

I really liked his Group Initiative video from a couple days back. What he describes is nearly what I used in my 5e group when I took over in 2016 or so.

[Deleted]

May 1, 2021 16:33:47 GMT -6 bobjester0e said:

I really liked his Group Initiative video from a couple days back. What he describes is nearly what I used in my 5e group when I took over in 2016 or so.

Side Initiative is popular because it's simple and fast, but it's also far more predictable and less dynamic IMO

[bobjester0e]

Players declare actions, initiative is rolled, declared actions are resolved in initiative order, DM interprets those actions as they affect (or not!) other actions at the end of the round. IME anything could happen!

[jeffb]

If I had my druthers, I'd have NO initiative except for certain situations where a "roll off" might be necessary. When I started playing Dungeon World that was a huge revelation/game changer for me.

The Prof tried that as well with his group, and it didn't work out. It really depends on your group. Rules lawyers, people who just feel the need for structure, and many of us old schoolers dismiss the idea without trying it, but I've no issue with adopting some more "modern" mechanics I see as improving gameplay at *my* table- "No initiative" is one of them.

That said, rolling every round, group initiative generally adds to drama, especially when a PC is in a dire situation at the end of the previous round or a situation could drastically change by the fall of the dice. It keeps players focused between turns. So for that reason, I usually use it in my D&D games. Cyclic initiative ala WOTC editions is completely the opposite and I hate it with a passion*


*exaggerated opinion for internet purposes

[badger2305]

May 3, 2021 7:29:40 GMT -6 jeffb said:

If I had my druthers, I'd have NO initiative except for certain situations where a "roll off" might be necessary. When I started playing Dungeon World that was a huge revelation/game changer for me.

The Prof tried that as well with his group, and it didn't work out. It really depends on your group. Rules lawyers, people who just feel the need for structure, and many of us old schoolers dismiss the idea without trying it, but I've no issue with adopting some more "modern" mechanics I see as improving gameplay at *my* table- "No initiative" is one of them.

That said, rolling every round, group initiative generally adds to drama, especially when a PC is in a dire situation at the end of the previous round or a situation could drastically change by the fall of the dice. It keeps players focused between turns. So for that reason, I usually use it in my D&D games. Cyclic initiative ala WOTC editions is completely the opposite and I hate it with a passion*


*exaggerated opinion for internet purposes

I'm not fond of cyclic initiative a la 5e, either.

IIRC, Lee Gold wrote about rolling for initiative where the difference between the d6 rolls for each side determined for how many rounds the winning side had the initiative. It's an interesting thought - and would result in some different tactical thinking, possibly.