Klytus, I'm bored.

[Deleted]

All of which happened...

[Deleted]

It's the Arabic letter 'nun', an abbreviation for "Nazarene," used as a word for Christians in Syria.

[geoffrey]

Back in the early days of D&D, was it assumed that clerics worshiped God and that anti-clerics worshiped the Devil? Or was there a pantheon that players worshiped? Or perhaps this was all in the background and not really addressed?

[Deleted]

Not addressed. There were "gods of Law" and "gods of Chaos." I named the first temple -- "First Church of Crom, Scientist." The major chaotic temple was "Church of the Latter Day Great Old Ones" (nee Lovecraft)

[cadriel]

Gary wrote about religions in Alarums & Excursions back in 1975 (transcript of letter here):

I recall that I told Bob Sacks that in Greyhawk we do not have existing religions included, for this is a touchy area. We have such groups as "The Church of the Latter Day Great Old Ones," Church of Crom, Scientist", "Brethren of St. Cuthbert of the Cudgle", and so on. Gods sometimes intervene. There are some artifacts and the like which aid clerics. In general, however, clerics are powerful enough without much aid, for they have quite a few advantages and work up very quickly. Fighters are really the ones whom everyone should be irate about, for they have the hardest time of it, if not backed up by other classes or by lots of other fighters or blessed with the most powerful of magic gear.

Pretty much as gronan describes it.

[scottyg]

The Powerhouss Church of the Presumptous Assumption of the Blinding Light should be mentioned. One of Ernie's PCs was a cleric, Serten I think, and Gary added St. Cuthbert's clerics to mess with him.

[talysman]

Ha! I think that's the first *official* Firesign Theatre reference I've heard...

[scottyg]

Yes, Pholtus of the Blinding Light's humble origins. Their hymn was taken from Firesign too.

[Mr. Darke]

What advice would you give for those that want to introduce newer players to the more 'Old School' or classic styles of play? Any suggestions on world development, adventure structure or similar would help. I am really wanting to give my kids a good experience with something more like the game the way it was played.

[Deleted]

Yes, I've got a whole chapter on that in my book.

My best short advice would be get them to play some wargames first. "This is not a game about being a hero, this is a game about finding out if you live to become a hero. We don't know who's Luke, who's Wedge, who's Biggs, and who's Porkins until we play."

[oakesspalding]

Cheers @gronanofsimmerya! The First Church of Crom, Scientist is absolutely and utterly classic.

I'm trying to think of a joke about what their Reading Room would look like but the humor muse is failing me.

[Mr. Darke]

Sept 21, 2014 20:31:56 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Yes, I've got a whole chapter on that in my book.

My best short advice would be get them to play some wargames first. "This is not a game about being a hero, this is a game about finding out if you live to become a hero. We don't know who's Luke, who's Wedge, who's Biggs, and who's Porkins until we play."

Good idea but the problem is that one of the players will be six and I am seeing how well he does. My daughter is a big fan of Swords & Wizardry and BFRPG and she gets it well enough. I was just wanting to go for a more classic feel for the game.

[geoffrey]

Michael, I was surprised to see adventuring groups given names in the Forgotten Realms boxed set published in 1987. I don't remember any of the names, but it was stuff similar to "the Red Reavers", "the Free Swords", "the Circle of Heroes", etc. I was surprised because I had been playing D&D since 1980, and I had never seen or heard of naming an adventuring group. I still feel a bit of surprise when I see named adventuring groups (most lately as I've been reading Dwimmermount).

Did you guys back in the 1970s ever name your adventuring groups?

[Deleted]

Oh HELL no. For one thing, there were no "groups" other than "which subset of players happens to show up today." Secondly, with character names like Xagyg and Gronan and Lessnard and Belric of Telefone, can you imagine the group names?

[Deleted]

Sept 23, 2014 18:39:18 GMT -6 Mr. Darke said:

Sept 21, 2014 20:31:56 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Yes, I've got a whole chapter on that in my book.

My best short advice would be get them to play some wargames first. "This is not a game about being a hero, this is a game about finding out if you live to become a hero. We don't know who's Luke, who's Wedge, who's Biggs, and who's Porkins until we play."

Good idea but the problem is that one of the players will be six and I am seeing how well he does. My daughter is a big fan of Swords & Wizardry and BFRPG and she gets it well enough. I was just wanting to go for a more classic feel for the game.

A 'classic feel' is "high mortality rate and no punches pulled." You might be thinking of something else.

[scottenkainen]

>Secondly, with character names like Xagyg and Gronan and Lessnard and Belric of Telefone, can you imagine the group names?

That's the first I've heard of Belric of Telefone. Who played him?

~Scott "-enkainen" Casper

[Deleted]

One of my players I went to college with in Minneapolis, a guy named Michael Wollan. Just some guy.

[cadriel]

I know you put a McDonald's in one of your own dungeon levels. Were there any places in any of the "classic" dungeons that you played in where that kind of thing was done less satirically? Like, the monsters having a bazaar, or gambling, or arena games, or anything like that?

[scottyg]

Greyhawk had its Arena of Death as a sub-level of 3 I think. Did any of your characters see any action there?

[Deleted]

Never made it to the arena, or the giant's bowling alley, or the machine level.

[scottyg]

We're you involved in any player vs player situations? Gary told me a story once where he was playing Yrag in Blackmoor and he got into a fight with the PCs Rob and Terry were playing. He ended up killing them and the elves that controlled the place put him on trial. The decided it was justifiable and let him go.

[Deleted]

I never personally was, no.

[aldarron]

Hey Mike, the draft rules pages you had and recently passed on to Jon Peterson, were those photocopied for you to take along because you were going away to college or did you have them some time earlier?

[Deleted]

I asked Gary for some stuff so I could run the game at college.

[cadriel]

I was discussing this thread on my blog, and a commenter asked if I could pass his question along to you.

I would like to ask a question or two of Michael myself, however registration is restricted. If you could ask how mazes were governed in play without driving the players or GM mad, I would greatly appreciate it. Perhaps players attempted to map their path as they went, and/or used the old ball of string trick, or a compass? I could see some players losing all interest or their wits if they entered a maze and had to navigate blindly without actually being able to see the maze or sense a heading as you may be able to do in real life with these highly visual puzzles.

[Deleted]

I think he's asking "How did you map?"

First... first time Gary and Rob went into Blackmoor, they tried the old "ball of string" trick. After about an hour, they felt several tugs, then a good hard yank and the ball of string jumped out of their hands and unrolled itself. The end of the string disappeared into the darkness, and they heard "SLURRRRRRRRRRPPPP!!!!"

And rather than retyping a whole bunch of stuff, refer the person to this:

forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?687506-D-amp-D-Any-Dark-dungeons-and-how-to-deal

(Warning: Four letter words)

I post over there as "Old Geezer."

If they still have more questions let me know.

[geoffrey]

Michael, suppose you and players A, B, and C were in the middle of exploring a dungeon level when the DM yelled, "Oh, nuts! Look at the time! I'll be late for work!", and the game had to stop immediately.

Suppose a week later you and players A and B both showed up to continue the game. "Where's C?" Sick as a dog. Couldn't come.

What happened with C's character? Ignored? Played by the DM? Played by another player? Or what?

Any and all of your insights are appreciated.

[Deleted]

Geoffrey, Gary was the DM and worked out of his home, back then.

Now, we just stop where we are, and somebody runs C's character next week. The referee is mildly obliged to prevent "C's character will wrestle the giant while the rest of us escape"... in other words, the absent player's character is not a suicide commando.

[geoffrey]

Thanks for that. Another question, if I may:

I know that the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk included plenty of sub-levels. Is it fair to say that the number of levels below ground was a good indicator of how dangerous the level or sub-level was? For example:

Levels 1, 1A, and 1B were geared to 1st-level characters.
Levels 5, 5A, 5B, and 5C were geared to 5th-level characters.
Levels 13 and 13A were geared to 13th-level characters.
Etc.

So, in other words, a group of three 6th-level PCs could think to themselves, "We had better not go deeper than level 6, or we'll be in over our heads."

Or perhaps dungeon level was not closely geared to character level?

[Deleted]

Close but not guaranteed. There was a nest of six trolls on the first level. If you ignored your dwarf complaining about the troll stench, your problem.

No dwarf? Well, that will teach you.

Also, we frequently would go a couple levels deeper on purpose; great risk, great reward.