How do you politely say...

[subplotkudzu]

 Over the last few days I've been dipping in to the first edition DMG to remind myself of what the game was really like. I had intended to post some comments on the how DMing theory had changed over the last three decades. I may yet, but first, I have to comment on this: 

http://www.slate.com/id/2186203/

Now I'm trying to find a polite way to tell the author that, with his points had been debated to death decades ago and "hurting bad fun" condescension, his best course of action is to go f*** himself. 

"The problem with D&D is that it plays like a video game?" No, the problem with video games is that they play like the weakest, least innovative sort of D&D - which is not the sort of D&D that Gygax played, or really that anyone else plays either. 

"More importantly, characters in this new system [GURPS] could be fleshed out down to the smallest detail, from a crippling phobia of snakes to a severe food allergy." Funny, I played D&D characters with a fear of snakes too, and the system didn't have to bribe me to do it by saying that having a fear of snakes gave me the points to be a better archaeologist. I just decided the character was afraid of snakes. And without D&D, GURPS would be non-existent. The creators who you mention whose works "far outclassed" Gygax have been writing eulogies to him, which makes it clear they understand all gamers debt to the original D&D concepts, even if this writer doesn't 

Pisses me off.

Comments

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I'll grant Stafford, more or less, since RuneQuest first appeared in 1978. That's still years after D&D first appeared but was at least concurrent with the AD&D Players Handbook. He's still building on Gygax & Arneson's original designs, mind you, but his work is a great example of mythology rather than wargaming as the core of the game.

Would Stafford have developed RuneQuest without D&D? Highly unlikely, as he had spent a decade working on Glorantha with no gaming intent before D&D appeared. But at least in this one the author was in the ballpark.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Wasn't the mechanics of RuneQuest influenced by the Perrin Conventions? I have the impression those came out in Alarums and Excursions before the publication of RuneQuest, and that they might have been presented originally as house rules for D&D. Anyone know the history better than I do?

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I just raised the question with Lee Gold; hopefully she'll be able to clarify.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I got an answer back from Lee:

"The Perrin Conventions were Steve Perrin's house rules modifying D&D distributed by Steve to his gaming group. A lot of us had house rules in those days.

"Steve contributed to A&E for awhile, mainly announcements about RQ. He had contributions in 12,13,14,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,25,26, 30,31,32,37,40,42,56.

"A brief dip into ancient A&Es reveals that Steve Perrin didn't do mailing comments, just writeups and house rules -- lots and lots of them. Some of these later became the Perrin Conventions which later became RQ."

Lee also wanted me to comment that anyone whose interested can get copies of the issues to which Steve contributed for a nickel a page, plus postage.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

John M. Ford had a spiel that I am trying to relocate, where he discusses about a half-dozen proto-RPGS that predate D&D, including Diplomacy.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

... I was just now, literally just now reading demiurgent's eulogy for Mr. Ford (at the end of a particularly long and rambling wiki-wander). What the hell?

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of life-long, hardcore gamers (including myself) first heard about RPGs from a couple of articles JMF wrote in IASFM around 1978, arguably making him a figure of equal influence in the early RPG days.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Am I misreading you, or are you positing that Mr. Ford had as great an influence on RPGs as Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson?

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

Am I misreading you, or are you positing that Mr. Ford had as great an influence on RPGs as Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson?

In that he was responsible for roughly doubling the fan base within a few months at a crucial time via his articles in IASFM, yes. Per your item 4, he was the first person to present an expectation of quantitative roleplay rules to a truly national audience.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

All due props to Mr. Ford (of whom I remain a big fan), I am leery of analyses of precursers to seminal events. Yes, there were comedia del artes, and Diplomacy, but they were very different animals that now look similar only in hidesight. MAR Barker's Tekumel war games and Stafford's Glorantha war games existed, but none of them were Role Playing in the sense that we now understand it. Call me an old stick in the mud, but I also doubt that any of these would have made the jump to RPGs as we know it (or even something similar) without Gygax and Arenson's moment of genius. These men might have been uniquely poised to implement that genius in their existing fantasy worlds, but that still depends on the initial inspiration.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

on the Motie hand, Chainmail and early D&D were hardly "Role Playing in the sense that we now understand it" themselves. Remember, these were games where the players were expected to submit their actions to a Caller to minimize table chatter... I'm not quite sure how this meshes with the (colorful) characters of legend, unless all the examples of play provided in the books weren't how the founders actually did it.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

From the AD&D 1E DMG, in the discussion of encounters, combat and initiative (p61): "As has been detailed, hit points are not actually a measure of physical damage, by and large, as far as the characters...are concerned. Therefore, the location of hits and the type of damage caused are not germane to them... Are crippling disabilities and yet more ways to meet instant death desirable in an open ended, episodic game where participants seek to identify with lovingly detailed and developed player-character personae? Not likely!" (Emphasis added.)

Yes, the DMG did describe using callers, the example given in the DMG has the other players speaking freely to the GM and each other, while the LC (lead character) is the one who tells the DM the final version of their plans are to prevent argument. However, the magic user doesn't need to confer with the LC before wrenching the spider off her back, for example, nor does the cleric need to clear his exploration of the pool with his magically illuminated staff (and the LC has already indicated that they should call off the search). OK, none of the characters have names or personalities, but they're also all first level characters in the players first dungeon. I don't think my initial forays had much by way of those either.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

(I confess I tend to focus overmuch on callers, because it was and still is such a "WTF?" convention to me - none of my groups ever used them. Or weapon speed or AC modifiers ... O NOES we're DOIN IT WRONG!)

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

My groups didn't use them either, but we also a)didn't come from a wargaming background and b) were more willing to engage in pointless "you said you did this" "No I didn't" arguments in the 5th grade. I can easily see how more adult players with a more formalized mindset would see the presence of a "first among equals" player giving the final description of actions to the GM could be a benefit.

Memory does not serve is callers are described in the Red and Blue box D&D sets, and alas I no longer have my copies.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

What part did EGG and Arneson supply, in your opinion?

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

1) The connection between the assumption of a characters personality or "role" to the formalized mechanics of action resolution in wargaming.

2) The right of the players to set their own goals and agenda independent from those of the scenario moderator.

3) The ongoing development of the assumed role character through multiple, theoretically endless sessions of play.

4) The standardization of a set of rules for such play, and the publication of same to a broad national audience. This last is just as much of a leap of inspiration as any of the above.

MAR Barker was a teacher at their school and built off their concepts. Steve Perrin designed the RuneQuest engine as his D&D house rules. Greg Stafford turned his Glorantha setting into an RPG because the war-game players wanted to use the setting for that. All of these early work sprang from not just the intiial 3 points but the collection of them in point 4. Without that, we don't have RPGs, and we might never have had them outside of a brief span at the University of Minnesota in the late 60's and early 70s.