In which Gronan muses about how D&D has changed

[Deleted]

Inspired by the other thread in this subforum, I've been thinking about the question of how D&D has changed, and I think I've come up with what seems the biggest change to me.

When Dave started "Blackmoor", which I've been told was a team vs team game, it was his invention... he wanted to RUN a game, and got players. When it morphed into more of what we now call an RPG, it was still "Dave's game" about "Dave's world".

Likewise when Gary started running Greyhawk, it was "Gary's got this cool new game called Greyhawk. You're a bunch of guys exploring an old abandoned wizard's castle." Again, Gary created a world, and found players for it... somewhere around 20 players in the early 70s in the cow's anus that was Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

And that was the first year or so of how the game grew... "Hey, who wants to explore MY dungeon?" The game was centered around the referee, and the idea of the game was to explore the referee's world.

At some point this changed. The mindset became, "We want play being a bunch of heroes, who can we talk into refereeing?" The game became centered on the idea of the players' adventures rather than the referee's world.

That's actually a pretty phenomanal paradigmatic shift, and I think it's the core change beneath all the other changes made to the game.

[badger2305]

Jul 28, 2011 12:14:46 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Inspired by the other thread in this subforum, I've been thinking about the question of how D&D has changed, and I think I've come up with what seems the biggest change to me.

When Dave started "Blackmoor", which I've been told was a team vs team game, it was his invention... he wanted to RUN a game, and got players. When it morphed into more of what we now call an RPG, it was still "Dave's game" about "Dave's world".

Likewise when Gary started running Greyhawk, it was "Gary's got this cool new game called Greyhawk. You're a bunch of guys exploring an old abandoned wizard's castle." Again, Gary created a world, and found players for it... somewhere around 20 players in the early 70s in the cow's anus that was Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

And that was the first year or so of how the game grew... "Hey, who wants to explore MY dungeon?" The game was centered around the referee, and the idea of the game was to explore the referee's world.

At some point this changed. The mindset became, "We want play being a bunch of heroes, who can we talk into refereeing?" The game became centered on the idea of the players' adventures rather than the referee's world.

That's actually a pretty phenomanal paradigmatic shift, and I think it's the core change beneath all the other changes made to the game.

Much agreement. Recognizing the role of the referee - and particularly their creative ownership of their own campaign - has pretty much been lost until recently. Even within the Old School movement, this paradigm shift has not been really acknowledged by many people.

[geoffrey]

Jul 28, 2011 12:14:46 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

[T]he idea of the game was to explore the referee's world.

That's how I like it best. That is why I play D&D. As a referee, I want to create a world and enjoy the players exploring it. As a player, I want to experience the wonder of exploring the referee's world.

This is why I couldn't care less if my characters never get past 1st level, and why I couldn't care less if my character gets killed every single session (as long as I can roll-up a new character and jump right back into the game). My characters are merely lenses through which I explore the referee's game world. Hero? Villian? Peon? Utter nobody? Who cares? As long as I can explore, I'm getting what I want out of D&D.

[Finarvyn]

Great observations. I've always loved making my own worlds, my own campaigns. I guess that's why I'm the referee 98% of the time. So much more fun that just playing...

[jdn2006]

Gary Gygax ws designing the sort of game and adventures he liked playing and he seemed to have simple tastes, with a bent towards adventure and "anyone and everyone can play" concepts. I don't know if that is true, but it's the image I get from his work.

Today's gaming is based on "How can we make millions of dollars?" and "Let's sell games and materials to the top tier of gamers who can and will buy whatever we publish"

I like the OSR concepts of "Lets make fun games to play how we like them. Screw making money and getting rich." It better fits my interest in playing for the fun of the adventure.

[DungeonDevil]

Intriguing observations.
Another paradigmatic shift that I've perceived is the change from getting xp (and consequent advancement) from undertaking 'outside activities' (i.e. "interests", see FFC), but in the Gygaxian model xp was acquired through dungeoneering alone, AFAIK.

Another phenomenon is the change from an a) inclusion of a robustly wargaming-centred experience [Blackmoor, FFC], to b) wargames marginalisation to ultimately the present-day c) wargames exclusion. (However, from what I've heard of the current iteration of rules, there seems to be a return to a 'wargamey' type of play, but it is still, oddly, referred to as a roleplaying game.)

[thorswulf]

Sadly, so many DM's I know really didn't get into the exploration of creation- they missed the point. I too have been guilty of this. Sometimes the rules seemed to be the master, not the guide. I have to wonder if the very words like handbook, guide, and manual stifle creativity?

The Dungeon Crawl Classics rpg and its character funnel approach is refreshing in this manner. It reinforces the idea of take what you get and DO something with it as a player, not how can I build a kickass monster killer. Some of the troop style games (ala Ars Magica) give a gamer a chance to build some continuity of their own, which is vital to a healthy game.

The wargame aspect in the newest addition is just crass marketing as far as I am concerned. Most people I know had about as many miniatures as me back in the early eighties- about 10 or 20. Most of them were player character types because a 10 year old doesn't have that much money to buy minis with, and they still don't as far as I can tell. I love minis, always have, always will. I still get an itchy feeling in my wallet when I see a vary cool mini.

[randyb]

There was an interim step in the paradigm shift. From the beginning "explore the referee's world" to the Dragonlance-inspired "be entertained by the referee's story" to "collaborative storytelling" (aka PC adventures), the last being a reaction to the second (and the excesses thereof), while the first was all but forgotten until the OSR brought it back.

[Finarvyn]

Aug 1, 2011 17:54:33 GMT -6 thorswulf said:

Sadly, so many DM's I know really didn't get into the exploration of creation - they missed the point.

I think you're right. I almost always create my own worlds, even if I take someone else's general idea as an inspiration. I've hardly ever run any other campaign "by the book" except for maybe Blackmoor and the JG Wilderlands.

But many of the gamers I know have always started with a pre-created world and ran someone else's game.

[gloriousbattle]

Huh, I should read the boards more often. If I did, I would have put a post here about the paradigm shift of "player character as potential king vs. player character as endless adventurer."

In any case, I think that was the most dramatic shift to have affected the early game, when it changed from being about winning a kingdom (like it was for Aragorn and Conan) to simply going from one adventure to another (like Fafhrd and Grey Mouser).

[Deleted]

Aug 1, 2011 15:59:39 GMT -6 DungeonDevil said:

but in the Gygaxian model xp was acquired through dungeoneering alone, AFAIK.

Incorrect; we were doing outdoor adventures within a few weeks of starting the game. XP was acquired entirely through acquisition of gold. Monster XP was chump change compared to 1 XP per gold. Therefore, if you could get the gold without fighting the monster, all to the good. Theft, strategem, con games, stealth, misdirection... anything that served to get your hands on the treasure.

[Deleted]

Aug 4, 2011 9:31:54 GMT -6 gloriousbattle said:

Huh, I should read the boards more often. If I did, I would have put a post here about the paradigm shift of "player character as potential king vs. player character as endless adventurer."

In any case, I think that was the most dramatic shift to have affected the early game, when it changed from being about winning a kingdom (like it was for Aragorn and Conan) to simply going from one adventure to another (like Fafhrd and Grey Mouser).

From the very first, some people didn't want to settle down and build a stronghold.

[gloriousbattle]

Maybe, but thems wuz the rules.

[Deleted]

Aug 4, 2011 17:55:36 GMT -6 gloriousbattle said:

Maybe, but thems wuz the rules.

True. I would agree that the huge paradigm shift occurred when strongholds were removed from the rules... although the question of how much "rules follow play versus play follows rules" is a bit of chicken-or-egg proposition.

[ragnorakk]

I think that as more and more people began to play D&D, the average age of the players dropped. Holmes had suggestion as "adults" 12+. I can't remember off the top of my head but I think that the age recommendation for B/X dropped the inclusion of "adults". Anyway - the more that younger kids played, the less meaningful the stronghold endgame became. Sure, some kids (me) were inspired by information in the rulebooks to check out books on castles and armor and etc - but I doubt that I would have been able to referee such a situation very well at that age.

[howandwhy99]

The major paradigmatic shift occurred when the game stopped being a strategic pattern recognition puzzle and became about improvisational storytelling.

This is the reason decades of books in our hobby have concepts tied to numerical outcomes. It is how almost every non-storytelling game is played. And it's how most folks engage with the world around us. It is one person building a cooperative reality simulation game and then hiding the configuration of the game and treating the rules as a code, something not known to the players, but to be deciphered throughout play.

This is why we don't read the modules before play. It's why we hide the "rules" behind screens. It's why a good DM never tells the players what's really going on when out of game. Its why we take notes at the game table. And it's why all the original modules are mysteries we seek to solve until the players are satisfied with their conclusions. And its why all the original rules are only guidelines for referees to build their own set code before play.

The storytelling paradigm is extraneous to puzzle and strategic game design as it ignores the pattern recognition element of games. The dice were never resolution mechanics, but expressions of progressions both linear and curvilinear.

EDIT: Unfortunately there is a kind of absolutism in the literary community which won't accept any kind of explanation such as this whether puzzles or strategizing is fun for others or not. On the other hand, we can think, talk, design, and play our puzzle games as we choose to and enjoy them for our own reasons. Others approval is unnecessary and I can only hope other peoples derision of this uncommon understanding is risen above and not responded to in kind.

[Zenopus]

Gronan,

You are thanked in the Preface to the first (Holmes) Basic Set for your idea contributions. Did you help out at all with this set, or is this (as I suspect) a carryover from the Greyhawk supplement? There are nine other folks who are thanked, and they all appear to be either authors of, or acknoweldged in, the supplements. I note that Jeff Key and Alan Lucien were also thanked along with you in both Greyhawk and the Basic Set.

[Deleted]

Jul 28, 2011 12:14:46 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

When Dave started "Blackmoor", which I've been told was a team vs team game, it was his invention... he wanted to RUN a game, and got players. When it morphed into more of what we now call an RPG, it was still "Dave's game" about "Dave's world".

Likewise when Gary started running Greyhawk, it was "Gary's got this cool new game called Greyhawk. You're a bunch of guys exploring an old abandoned wizard's castle." Again, Gary created a world, and found players for it... somewhere around 20 players in the early 70s in the cow's anus that was Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

And that was the first year or so of how the game grew... "Hey, who wants to explore MY dungeon?" The game was centered around the referee, and the idea of the game was to explore the referee's world.

This is how my current campaign "The Ruins of Murkhill" which has now entered its 3rd year of continuous play is built and run. Right now they are trying to cross continents and oceans to get back to the ruins if they can.

[Deleted]

Aug 11, 2011 20:17:58 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

Gronan,

You are thanked in the Preface to the first (Holmes) Basic Set for your idea contributions. Did you help out at all with this set, or is this (as I suspect) a carryover from the Greyhawk supplement?

I have never looked at the Holmes set, so I couldn't say.

However, it may be that some of my contributions to OD&D were used in the Holmes set (giant slugs, f'r instance) or it's a playtester's acknowledgement.

[aldarron]

Aug 11, 2011 13:26:09 GMT -6 howandwhy99 said:

EDIT: Unfortunately there is a kind of absolutism in the literary community which won't accept any kind of explanation such as this whether puzzles or strategizing is fun for others or not. On the other hand, we can think, talk, design, and play our puzzle games as we choose to and enjoy them for our own reasons. Others approval is unnecessary and I can only hope other peoples derision of this uncommon understanding is risen above and not responded to in kind.

You might find a broader acceptance of puzzle "fun" among some sociologists and cognitive anthropologists. While I think its a good characterization you make, I don't see the break between storytelling and coded problem solving to be quite so sharp when you consider the structured/coded elements of narrative and motif. But the earlier style of gaming certainly relied more on randomizing coded elements: more poker, less chess.

[Zenopus]

Aug 12, 2011 10:10:25 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I have never looked at the Holmes set, so I couldn't say.

However, it may be that some of my contributions to OD&D were used in the Holmes set (giant slugs, f'r instance) or it's a playtester's acknowledgement.

Thanks for the info. Giant Slugs are found in the Greyhawk Supplement, but did not make it into the Holmes Basic set. I'd love to hear about any other contributions of yours that we used in OD&D or the Greyhawk Supplement.

Interesting that you've never looked at the Holmes set! This confirms that it generally didn't make much of an impression on folks already playing D&D. They either kept playing D&D, switched to AD&D or went on to other games. Which is expected. Why would a veteran player be interested in a "basic" set?

[Finarvyn]

Aug 14, 2011 8:53:18 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

Interesting that you've never looked at the Holmes set! This confirms that it generally didn't make much of an impression on folks already playing D&D. They either kept playing D&D, switched to AD&D or went on to other games. Which is expected. Why would a veteran player be interested in a "basic" set?

I was that way. Started with OD&D, tried out AD&D when it came out, stuck with OD&D. A few of my friends switched to AD&D and DM'ed that version, but when I ran a game it was always OD&D.

I followed the evolution of D&D through 2E, 3E, and 4E. Bought many of the rulebooks. Some of my friends DM'ed those, I mostly stuck to OD&D until C&C came along. Now I do both.

I did have one friend who bought a copy of Holmes, but I never really looked at it. I didn't even become interested in any of the Basic versions of the game until much later, once I had a "real job" and had enough money to go back and buy then on e-bay just to see what the fuss was about.

So I'd say that Basic D&D had zero impact on me at the time.

[Deleted]

Aug 14, 2011 8:53:18 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

Interesting that you've never looked at the Holmes set! This confirms that it generally didn't make much of an impression on folks already playing D&D. They either kept playing D&D, switched to AD&D or went on to other games. Which is expected. Why would a veteran player be interested in a "basic" set?

Exactly. Even AD&D we looked at as material to mine new things out of. The statement that AD&D was somehow a different game was met universally with eye-rolling.

[grodog]

So, Michael: what's your take on Rob's interview @ hillcantons.blogspot.com/2011/08/no-borders-or-limits-conversation-with.html and specifically the shift in how the game changed after modules became the published norm vs. creating your own adventures?

[Deleted]

Aug 16, 2011 8:43:54 GMT -6 grodog said:

So, Michael: what's your take on Rob's interview @ hillcantons.blogspot.com/2011/08/no-borders-or-limits-conversation-with.html and specifically the shift in how the game changed after modules became the published norm vs. creating your own adventures?

Pretty much spot-on with what I remember. I've talked other places, RPGnet for one, about Gary and Dave being so baffled about people wanting them to "provide answers". I didn't know that about the first module, but I sure believe it.

Interestingly, I had thought the Gelatinous Cube came from me garbledly explaining my Giant Paramecium to Tom Champeny, and then six months later or so seeing the GP and figuring, "Oh, like a game of Telephone". On the other hand, we all were throwing so much stuff around back then, who knows.

The giant slug is all mine, though. Mwa ha ha ha ha!

[badger2305]

Rob's thoughts as well as those of Michael, reminded me of a post of Kabuki Kaiser from last year. I think it's relevant.

[Deleted]

I have never used a module and have often wondered why anyone would want or need to. For me, at least, it is too much fun making it up myself to want to spoil things by using sometime pre-made by someone else. I have talked to several DM's offline who can't imagine running a game without modules. We are each incomprehensible to the other.

[Deleted]

In regard to Rob's interview, I would add that I was an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan from first exposure and I have never limited my D&D campaign to medieval fantasy only.

BTW Gronan Gelatinous Cube and Giant Slug and the like. If you are responsible in anyway for all or part of the ideas for any of them - Thank You! And have an Exalt!

[kent]

Jul 28, 2011 12:14:46 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

when Gary started running Greyhawk, it was "Gary's got this cool new game called Greyhawk.
...
"Hey, who wants to explore MY dungeon?" The game was centered around the referee, and the idea of the game was to explore the referee's world.
...
At some point this changed. The mindset became, "We want play being a bunch of heroes, who can we talk into refereeing?"

That is a subtle observation but quite profound.

Further, one might say that for the *come and explore my world* game the rules are secondary or subordinate to the world and could largely remain in the head of the creative DM. Whereas for the *we are a heroic gang, lets kick ass (somewhere)* kind of game the rules need to be more up front and explicit and balanced to promote democratic fairness as the players, being central to the game, eye each other and measure each other up.

[gloriousbattle]

Aug 16, 2011 17:12:10 GMT -6 @theperilousdreamer said:

In regard to Rob's interview, I would add that I was an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan from first exposure and I have never limited my D&D campaign to medieval fantasy only.

Same here. Now that there are a couple of good OD&D not-Barsoom rulebooks out there, I use them regularly, and my present player character is a Thark warrior named Nars-Narkas (I know, I know...).

Also, even from the earliets, there were hints of other OD&D tips-of-the-hat to Barsoom. Hargrave's rules included Throons (Thark-Warhoons?) which were exactly like the Green Men, though Dave changed their color to blue-black.