 Chris Graves (left) and M. Griffith (right) working on Secrets of Blackmoor. Photo by Ryan Swan. Doing a documentary about the early days of Dungeons & Dragons and especially one telling the story of Dave Arneson and his group of gamers is a real long shot.
The greatest proof for how ridiculous and irrational this idea is can be seen on Kick Starter. Kick Starter is littered with the wreckage of many people's movie dreams. It is the place people turn to in order to fund small films. By small, we mean less than a million dollars. Film projects begin with every good intention and all kinds of fantasies of success, and yet the reality of funding and then producing a film often leads to failure. If you ignore all the other films except for the D&D films the pattern becomes all too obvious. Many have tried to make documentaries about the history of D&D, yet most have failed. For us, it's a marvel that Secrets of Blackmoor came to completion first! We started our production later than all the others and we had less than half the budget of those others. On top of that, neither of us is truly a documentary film maker. Chris is more of a narrative film cinematographer and Griff is an art video maker. We didn't really know how to make a documentary and invented our own workflows and strategies with each step that arose as we moved forward. Again, we're perplexed that the movie with the least funding and the least experienced crew is the film that you can see right now. It's still the only Origin of D&D History film. If you do not make feature films, this may not seem like that big of a deal, yet, it is. And 6 years may seem like a long time to make a documentary. Most indy film makers we know spent 10 years making their documentaries. So there you have it. Two guys, without enough sense to realize that making a film is hard, bet everything to make the first D&D documentary ever - It's a fluke! We often joke that we were too stupid to know that we should fail. We love it when people visit our social media, Face Book and Twitter, and say nice things about Secrets of Blackmoor. Yet what we had hoped would happen in regard to the film is not happening much at all. We truly believed that: If You Build It - They Will Come. Now we are learning that they will only come if they know about it. A lot of you have seen the film. You enjoyed it. Now you've moved on. Yet we're still here and we need your help more than ever. We want to make Volume Two of Secrets of Blackmoor. We've already begun shooting for it and we have tons of amazing footage already shot. The problem is that Volume One is kind of stalled out. People aren't renting it online in very high numbers and we can't seem to even sell out our remaining DVD stock. This is with online advertising that we have to pay for. It comes down to one simple problem. Although you know about Secrets of Blackmoor, most gamers have never heard of the movie. We're still out there posting about the film. We've also tried posting on gamer forums with little success. If we do it ourselves, our posts get deleted because it looks like SPAM to moderators. We could create a bunch of sock-puppet accounts and make posts ourselves while pretending to be other people, yet that is really disingenuous. It's just not our style to do things in this manner. We need your help. Everyone who has seen the film likely knows someone else who has seen the film. Out of millions of RPG players, the reach of our fans is limited on social media. The aggregators that share posts and tweets are designed to be somewhat circular. We are literally posting to each other. We are all trapped in a bubble together. We need help getting out of this bubble. What the film really needs is endorsements, by gamers, for gamers. It needs a genuine voice, your voice, saying: I watched this, it's awesome, you should watch it too. Here is the link. We need those of you who liked the film to go to gamer forums and ask people if they have seen Secrets of Blackmoor and what they thought of it. We need you to post the link to the trailer and movie rental page on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/sobfinal This brings us to another issue. We chose Vimeo for our Video On Demand streaming service because Vimeo offers the best deal to indy film makers. We recently ran ads and discovered that although people will click the link to the Vimeo site, they won't sign up. It's just a hassle to sign up for yet another service. We get it, we're kind of the same in that way when it comes to having to sign up for yet another web site. We've decided to try out Amazon now. Yet Amazon takes a large percentage of our sales. Half of what you pay to see the film goes to Jeff Bezos. This means we need to sell twice as many movie rentals just to cover our production expenses; this is money we already spent while making the film. If you help us drive viewers to the Vimeo page it really helps us defer costs. Please help us break the bubble by reaching out on gamer forums and creating discussions. Talk to people about the film and why you like it. Thanks, Chris and Griff
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 Here I am sitting at the computer. I really should be working on work, but being the kind of scatter brained person that I am, I am thinking about methods for running Arc Story RPG campaigns. That's the thing, everyone I talk to wants to create an epic world setting, yet few people are focusing on how to do so. I've got some ideas that you may want to consider when creating your own world setting. Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Campaign is the first fantasy campaign ever, and is still being run to this day. Bob Meyer has taken over as the last Game Master. The very first session he ran for the Blackmoor Bunch began like so: "The King is Dead. There is chaos in the kingdom. The half men have taken over Blackmoor. The King's daughter needs help." This is Bob's opening statement and thesis about the game that is about to be played. It's only four sentences long, yet everyone knows what is going on in Blackmoor and what lies ahead for them. Because traditional play resides in team play, the focus of this story has nothing to do with each individual player. What matters most is the story of Blackmoor: What will happen to the realm? Has the Egg of Coot finally won the great war against the Barony of Blackmoor? Is there even a glimmer of hope for humanity? Even more pertinent: What is Bob doing as a referee?  Blackmoor session being run by Bob Meyer, 2016 It's Not About You In my usual fashion I am going to begin by offending my readers. I feel this is the best way to get you to pay attention, read further, and possibly rage at me in the comments, or social media. Lets begin with you as a player character in an RPG. You are not Important. Contrary to contemporary RPG ideals about character fulfillment, and more importantly player fulfillment. The Arc Story Campaign has nothing to do with you as a character. Sure you become part of it, but it exists despite your character. Role Playing is not just your character talking to another character. It is the entirety of game reality. When you say "I open the door" you are role playing. You see, in Traditional Role Playing the focus is the in-game experience. This means everything within the RPG Game Engine construct, as Rob Kuntz has so kindly labelled it for us in his book, Dave Arneson's True Genius. The Game Engine is: the story setting; the spaces; the objects; the monsters and people and what they do. It is essentially everything you interact with when you play. The focus is not the characters. The Player's Character should be superfluous to the Arc Story. Thus, that 8 page back story you spent the weekend writing up; throw that puppy in the trash right now. No one cares that you were orphaned/ born a noble/actually are an outcast werewolf alpha - blah blah blah. Let me set something straight here, you are not the creator of the world story. The Referee is the one who sets the stage and they are the boss. If they walk out of the room, your game is over! If you want to argue this point with me, I will wave my wand of negation and tell you this: without a referee you aren't playing an RPG, you are playing something else, which is fine if that is what you like. Collaboration Ideally, one should confer with their Referee in order to establish a player character's background history so that it fits within the world story. A good Ref will let you be anything you want and work that into the existing world setting they have in mind. The injection of your character into a pre-existing world story needs to be a collaboration between the player and the referee. Yet character background should not be revealed to everyone right away. In real life people might meet you and ask what do you do? Well, the response is usually something about your work. In a fantasy world it's pretty clear who the fighters, and clerics, and wizards are. If you also happen to be the son of someone powerful, it may be in your best interest not to reveal that because you might risk being kidnapped for ransom.  You Are Doing It Wrong I've watched a lot of referee's try to create Arc Story Campaigns over the years and more than once I've seen them fail. Failure can range through a variety of reasons, and can be a bit of mix and match. Here are some good examples. NERFing Your Way To Failure I had a close friend who wanted to run an epic adventure in hell, but all his player characters were low level. He needed high level characters to do the kind of game he wanted. Yet in those days we were sort of fixated on the idea of earning your experience levels. His cure was to run a low level campaign in order to LEVEL everyone up. Well, he really did not want anyone dying because he had to have his party of lords and wizards. This is when he began to NERF his game. No one could die no matter what kind of situation the players were in. Before long he was also handing out ridiculous magic items to his players in order to beef them up for their journey to hell. He really wanted to get his perfect dream campaign running at any expense. Despite all this wasted time in low level NERF world, I never heard of a hell campaign ever happening which is really kind of sad. A Simple Cure: GO STRAIGHT TO HELL! Give everyone a High Level Character with Magic Items to begin with, and just play an over the top game. Yup, no reason not to do this. The Perfect Dream Campaign Fail Admit it, as a Referee you want to create the RPG version of: ___place the name of your favorite fantasy book series here____. We all want to run the ultimate campaign. The thing is that being obsessed with this level of perfection will mean that you will never ever run this dream campaign. Nothing you do will be good enough for you. You will become That Ref, the one people meet in public who says things like: Yeah, the campaign is going awesome. Just spent 2 weeks writing up the background history on the gelatinous cube empire! Yet the problem here is that the OCD perfect Ref never actually runs anything in this perfect world. Most people who know this Ref write them off as a blow hard because all they do is talk about how perfect their campaign is going to be. And again, there is No Campaign! A Simple Cure: Just play. Begin a campaign and get your chops as a referee. Ref'ing takes time to learn, so do it now. As you play you can begin to add in your Arc Story. The Arc Story Bully This is yet another kind of Ref. They have actually created an Arc Story, but their entire premise is extremely complex and precise. It requires very specific events to occur in the right sequence for it to work. What they've done is more akin to writing a book. There is absolutely no space for players to actually play in this game. As a player you are now a spectator as the Referee walks you through their book. This Ref makes the players wear a straight jacket and literally bullies them through the story. Perhaps a more apt term for this is railroading? Along with these horrible Ref'ing traits, these kinds of Ref's also do a lot of NERFing and characters can never die because it doesn't fit the story; as it has been proclaimed that the wizard is destined to destroy the forces of evil and return the world back to normalcy. I have to rant a bit because I feel this is the worse kind of Arc Story Referee. The Bully Ref only cares about their story. The players aren't there to interact with the world. They are there to watch this Referee's genius at work and praise them for it. I drop out of campaigns like this the minute I detect the play style is happening because it is pure narcissism. A Simple Cure: Get over yourself. Learn to play well with others. Allow the players to do what they think is interesting even if it means going off script in your grand scheme for the world story. These are just a few ways that you can go completely off the rails when you design your huge arc story campaign. It comes from not being flexible enough to let your game concept create itself. You are not J.R.R. Tolkien. You do not have to sit down and write a massive manuscript ahead of time. That's right, your arc story will create itself. If you follow some core RPG story guidelines it actually just sort of happens by itself.  The Launching Point An Arc Story is easier if your premise is simple like Bob's, "The king is dead…" - THAT'S IT! That is your core story element. Everything else will arise from this simple concept. If you keep it simple it allows for sub plots to get woven into the overall story and many of these will not be connected to each other. You can know there are 3 princes and one princess, yet what has yet to be discovered is that there is a bastard child that can legally vie for the throne. There is a struggle to see who will ascend the throne. Oh oh, maybe the players are somehow connected to court and there are rumors that the king was actually poisoned and did not die naturally, who is the culprit? What if a player is the bastard love child? Or better yet, thinks they are, but really aren't. Because the king has allies, these alliances are now in question. Will the new king, or Queen hold to these alliances, or will the new ruler desire conquest and greater power? A neighboring kingdom see's opportunity in the instability of the moment. They attack another kingdom in order to reclaim what they think is rightfully theirs. It helps to know the Motives for why people do things. Everyone has their own agenda and often everyone thinks they are working within their rights. Perhaps they aren't wrong either. Humans think they are the important part of this entire story, and yet... Thousands of years ago humans took advantage of a situation and moved into an area that was ruled by a race of faery creatures. The humans drove these creatures into hiding and took over their domain. Well, guess what, things are unstable again. The immortal faery race has been biding its time waiting for an opportunity. They have made alliances with other creatures from the wilderness domains. Their time has come! What is more, this part of history is ancient knowledge that has been forgotten by the mortal races. Perhaps one of the players finds an old scroll that reveals this story? As a referee you do not need to know every little detail of this story. All you need to know is that things have changed and things will continue to change. You just need a good set up for your world to come to life. In fact, with all that is going on, there are rumors that spies from the northern empire have been in your city asking questions. They are looking for something known as the Blood Seed Saphire. It is some kind of powerful artifact of unknown powers. Oh, hey, one of your players is in the market and bought some fish to eat, and the fishmonger wrapped it in some old parchment that happens to be an old map that reveals an underground maze with strange names and markings. What is this Stair of Whispers? Who are these Icicle Men? What is this Alter of the Diadem? Who would call a cave The Chamber of Dreams? Hmmm.. the Blood Seed Shrine? As you can see there is plenty for a group of players to investigate now. beginning with the large scale political maneuvering that is bound to impact the player's lives even if they ignore it. What if rumors begin to circulate that the eastern kingdom has been sacked and over-run by a Lich and his army of half men that came pouring out of another dimension into this world. Maybe the players get asked to cross over into that other dimension and steal something from the Lich in its own realm. Or, intrigue over an ancient artifact. Even what lies underground in an ancient catacomb can draw the players back into the larger story of war in the realms. What if the players accidentally end up in possession of the Blood Seed Saphire? If anyone finds out they have it, it could spell trouble. You can argue with me on this method for creating a campaign story line. Yet, my main objective is to point all of you Game Masters to how this is being created. Everything is being arranged so as to create potential. And this potential will lead to the creation of a story world. In fact, because everything is stated as an open ended situation, many of these story concepts will generate many other sub plots to the grand story. With this simple world premise "The king is dead..." you can now release your players into this world and they will begin to interact with it. They may even become the levers that move great powers and alter history. Your story is now fleshed out well enough that even if an entire party of characters gets killed on an adventure, the world just keeps existing and the movers and shakers in this world will keep on doing what they do. The story is not based on a single adventure concept, which often is so fixated in how the story needs to be played that it becomes a severe case of railroading. This world setting is now a living organism. Sorry, your party got that special artifact and then got killed on their way back to town - eh, tough luck! Yet the story must go on. Your players who died have now released the artifact into the world from its ancient resting place, surely someone will now have it in their possession and be using it for good or ill. See how this simply generates yet another story line within the world setting?  Don't Seek Answers, Ask Questions!
Ask yourself questions that lead to story plots with no answer. Allow the answer to arise from in game actions by the players. Stay flexible in how you view this planned setting. Another big problem is that it's easy to become pinned on just one story theme. If you keep playing this game and keep asking questions, the natural outcome is that you end up with a lot of story ideas. They key is to focus on questions: What if unbeknownst to anyone, the princess is secretly studying the dark arts and plots to enslave and torture everyone at court? Ok, we have a Launch Point! Yet another weird plot twist for our world. Who knows maybe she will succeed and the players will be banished to the wilderness or risk death by staying in the town secretly waging war against the minions of the princess. Gee, I hadn't thought to have the entire kingdom fall under despotic rule, but it sure does pose some interesting possibility. Since the players do not know everything about this world, you can keep changing things and adding ideas as you think of them. Keep notes and keep scribbling. Your world is growing as your players are living in it. You will likely discover that this kind of story potential concept will lead you to create the most imaginative campaign setting your players have ever experienced. Now that Secrets of Blackmoor is finished we need help from all of you who have seen it. We aren't a huge movie company with lots of money for advertising. You won't be seeing Secrets of Blackmoor toys at the drive through. What will help this film's success is active participation by people like you. >>> vimeo.com/ondemand/sobfinal <<< Please Share this trailer link around. Post about the movie on your favorite gamer forums. Post about it to your gamer friends. Let us know where you talk about the movie, we'd love to come and join the conversation. We're just regular gamers like you. Thanks, Chris and Griff  This year I wasn't sure about posting on the day that we lost Dave Arneson. There is a tendency to turn famous people into banal fridge magnets via meme's on social media.
Michelangelo's David has gone from being one of the greatest works of art in human history to being a meaningless trinket. Our David was only 23 when he devised an entirely new way for playing a game. His methods for running an RPG are used by every game since his creation of Blackmoor in 1971. He invented the Dungeon game as well. He implemented countless ideas still used in games today. He was also just a regular guy. A gamer like all of us. He wanted his games to bring joy to people. There are many quotes of Dave saying that we should try to find time for enjoyment and play in our sometimes complex lives. If you've seen our documentary what you see are Dave's friends. The only way to know Dave, or anyone, is by the people they choose to surround themselves with. These are all good and kind people who also happen to be hard core gamers. They also stuck by their friend Dave through thick or thin. Not many people can say that about their friends. Chris and I were truly touched by the bonds within the Blackmoor Bunch. It is one of things we often speak to each other about. So perhaps one can think about Dave in terms of what his friends lost when he passed away. Every one of us is connected to every other one of us. We are never alone. We share ourselves with each other. We carry each other in ourselves. When I have lost loved ones, it isn't that I have lost them, I have also lost part of myself that they reflect back at me. That's the crutch of it. We lose part of ourselves. I know I felt a need to understand, what to do now that I am carrying half of me and half of them without access to both our halves that have been lost. Dave would not want a day of sadness. What Dave would want is a day of celebration. Dave was deeply spiritual. He would hope that people could find goodness and joy and forgiveness in their lives. Of course, he would also be trying to find a way to sneak in some gaming. I like to look back at young Dave before all the fame. A good hearted kid who just wants to get together with friends and share the bond of gaming. Somewhere within that experience of sharing ourselves with each other through gaming one can find the essence of Dave Arneson. I wrote this blog post some time ago. Due to time pressure with working on film things I set it aside. When I returned to doing this series I could not find this article anymore. I had forgotten to rename it and it existed as "Untitled 34" on my hard drive. After a bit of hair pulling I sat down and wrote a whole new article! Of course, now that I have spent twice as much time working on these I found the original article hiding in plain sight. Although the two blog posts deal with the same subject, they do so in subtley different ways. Those interested in looking in depth at OD&D and the How and Why of the game may find both articles interesting. I will go ahead and post this one and then post the second version later. I feel like this post needs a lot of editing, yet if I edit it I may alter it so much that it will evolve into a copy of the second article. It's best if I just publish these ideas as they are, warts and all - Griff Links to all the other articles in this series can be found here: www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/feeling-ones-way-into-how-odd-works https://www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/feeling-ones-way-into-how-odd-works-2 https://www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/feeling-ones-way-into-how-odd-works-3  Tonosiborg cover art by Ken FletcherHow the Wizard Gets the Short End of the Wand It's been some time since we spoke about OD&D and what seems to be going on within the design. When I left off discussing combat I talked a bit about things like built in NERF and how attributes for basic classes were an abstraction. I also talked about Back Loading as being the special and unique expansion point for characters within the mechanics. The only direct combat benefits players get as Front Loading are a minor bonus for missile weapons and bonuses from magic weapons. With the publication of D&D Greyhawk supplement I, the system takes on a huge overhaul. Yet due to keeping many of the original concepts such as attributes and classes it also just takes on more kludge. No one really likes to say it, but D&D is a big mess from day one. Some will argue that AD&D fixed it, but really all it did was organize the kludge and add more NERF. Garbage in - Garbage out. Newer editions have moved closer and closer to creating an all purpose mechanic that can be applied for everything as a challenge roll. Of course the newer editions fix the kludge, but they also pander to player experience in the form of really heavily NERF'ed systems. Sorry folks, but if you analyze 5e what you see is a broken system because it is so weighted toward players. As a good example take the character sheets for all the players in your campaign and see what the odds are for each of them succeeding in a roll to find a hidden object. If everyone is looking it's not likely anything will ever remain hidden, so why bother hiding things or even rolling for them? -I am going to keep being snarky about NERF in RPGs because I feel it does not need to be there at all- Also, consider that Tunnels and Trolls was probably the first game to create a well written and cohesive set of rules. Or, that other systems would arise that use skill purchasing as a form of advancement. Front Loaded Combat Bonuses for Fighters At last, a cure for all those hidden Back Loaded bonuses like Hit Points and Armor Class. Because the Back Loading that was present in the original game didn't feel right to players, and also because the abstraction of having attributes having almost no impact in game play, Greyhawk added several things to the combat system that specifically help fighters: the Attribute based Strength Chart; different hit dice for each class; and weapon based damage dice.  As you can see the ranges for Strength values grant Fighters bonuses when fighting. What's more, the 18 Strength Fighter makes a second percentile dice roll and may end up being super duper powerful. Enter the Str:18/00 Fighting Tank; I've never seen anyone roll one up in all my time playing since the odds of hitting an 18 on 3D6 and then a 00 on percentiles is less than 1%. Now players had something special to work with and what that special amounts to is more NERF'ing in favor of the players. A first level fighter with a +2 attack bonus is now fighting as accurately as a 4th level fighter in OD&D. The 18/00 first level Fighter is attacking almost as well as a 7th level character; if you can find a +1 sword *POOF* you are now starting as a 7th level warrior. A good Strength roll also gives a character added damage, so the damage die roll averages are now higher. Since Wizards are likely not very high on strength they won't be getting any bonuses in combat. More Back Loading for Fighters Page 8 in Greyhawk has an interesting description that implies a lot about what character could do, yet is not explained "Dexterity affects both the ability of characters to act and react and fire missiles." Somehow you can use dexterity to do things, which implies the use of die rolls vs. an attribute per the unwritten Arneson rule in my previous article. This section then goes on to give fighters even more bonuses with this passage "Fighters with dexterity of greater than 14 can use their unusual manual dexterity to attempt to dodge and parry opponents' attacks." It goes on to say that for every point above 14 they gain a +1 on defense. This is unclear as to how it is applied. I am inclined to think it simply raises a fighter's armor class by up to 4 points. That's right, an 18 dexterity fighter with plate armor and shield is now defending as a -2 armor class which implies that no 1 hit die monster can hit them. Or??? You can cluster weak monsters into a single attack of more Hit Dice for just one die damage. Magic User's are you feeling weak yet?  Wizards and the Curse of the D4 A lot changed for M.U.'s in Greyhawk. New spells were added and some spells got tweaked a bit. Those who read closely would know that their Magic User could create a familiar called a Homonculous. Sadly, this little creature is hidden on page 68 under the corrections. Most players overlooked them. After much reading I found it and Berlini the Great always had one on his shoulder! The fundamental weakening for M.U.'s came through the hit dice and the weapon based damage. M.U.'s are only allowed to use a dagger as their combat weapon, and their hit dice accrue more slowly in OD&D. In fact the experience level gain for a wizard is much slower than any other class. Wizards don't become an interesting character until they have several spells per game session, otherwise they are more like the kicker in a game of football and only get brought on under special circumstances. On the front end of combat, damage has changed as Fighters now get to use 8 sided dice with swords and M.U.'s are limited to 4 sided dice with daggers. This means that the 1st level wizard has a very reduced chance to get a killing blow on a 1st level monster like an orc. On page 10 of Greyhawk a change in hit dice is listed as such: Fighting men use 8 sided dice, Clerics use 6 sided dice, Magic Users use 4 sided dice. (The new Thief class use 4 sided dice as well.) As you can see, the lowly M.U. is now also losing out on the back end of combat by having even less hit points. In OD&D normal men, even a farmer or store keeper would get 1d6 hit pints and still do at least 1d6 damage. Compare this with Magic Users who are now so severely penalized with D4's that the entire class should just be renamed to the Nerd Class as they no longer can fight as well as a lowly begger on the street! If you add it up now, the 1st level M.U. only has 1-4 hit points, can only do 1-4 damage, and worse of all has no armor. Lets hope she can find some magic goodies along the way, yet even a single arrow shot spells death for her. MEDIC! In OD&D the Cleric is a very much overlooked character class. Spell advancement is delayed, yet they help add much needed fire power to the front lines as they can wear armor and do the same amount of damage. Greyhawk reduces their hit points and their weapons now do less damage. Their focus is now as the healer for the party. The only designer who really explores Clerics in a D&D style game is M.A.R. Barker. Empire of the Petal Throne comes complete with deities and temples and most of all, a little chart that can be used by clerics of any level to pray for divine intervention. If you play OD&D, it's worth lifting this one chart and adding it to your game.  The Class System The Class system is actually a clever idea. Each Character has a specific profession that comes with inherent ability in a variety of skills. What the classes do is eliminate the potential for the Min Max that happens in Skill Based systems. It is a good concept so long as it is kept to a minimum. Greyhawk added two more classes, the Paladin (FTR sub class) and the all new Thief. With 5 classes total the system is still bare bones enough that neither of these classes break the system fully. In fact the Thief class added a much needed technician type to the mix. It's sort of amusing we ended up with thieves as I've rarely seen thieves act like thieves on a typical dungeon dive. Perhaps a mechanical scholar type would be more interesting as most thieves would hang back until a party needed someone to go open a treasure chest or fiddle with a lock. Mixing Metaphors What these new classes do is kludge things up enough that some of the original concepts in OD&D are now being swept aside as the design moves to a more direct approach. This goes back to what I described as Abstract vs. Linear design. OD&D treated attributes as a form of potential rather than an actual value. How the values broke down in terms of bonuses was in the form of ranges, low, below average, average, above average, gifted. Yet most gamers did not see through the values they wrote down for their characters as being a function of die roll averages and wanted something more linear. X value = Y bonus, and we gamers want to see it affecting our hit probs!  I've got an 18 on my attribute, that should be worth something extra! Yet more modification to die rolls. i.e. Attributes modify even more die rolls. Thus once Greyhawk arrives with it's incremental attribute charts the original concept for classes of using Attributes toward one's ability to advance in experience is now being broken. It's good design, from the perspective of user experience, to switch away from classes and prime attributes toward this direct interpretation of attributes and front loaded bonuses, yet what it also does is create artifacts within the system. And when I say artifacts I mean Kludge. There are many things within the rules that could easily have been reworked more elegantly, yet what one sees in OD&D, the Supplements, Basic Holmes edition, and AD&D are essentially the exact same concepts that are merely being fiddled a little bit and carried forward. As an example lets look at the door opening mechanic as it is used frequently during a dungeon adventure. It isn't part of a unified game system. It is a lot like what one sees in how Chainmail is written. There is a core mechanic and then there are all these conditional and provisional rules that dangle out in conceptual space. For those who are computer programmers this kind of sloppy design is just plain bad programming. Consider that Perrin created a simple, effective, and fast playing game with his original design of Chainmail for massed combat that was published in Domesday Book. Arneson created a simple, effective, fast playing system that he printed out as the first draft of Don't Give Up the Ship. Yet those simple systems were too small to be a good game product. It's hard to charge 5 bucks for a 12 page book. Thus a lot of Klunk got added into both games to increase page count and also to fiddle the rules in order to cover specific troop types and historical battles. It's the same with all things after OD&D. Despite the fascination with the new fangled dice, door opening is done on a six sider. You roll the die and on a 1-2 the door opens. Of course part of this klunk comes from the plug and play style of the era. Gygax had Megarry's Dungeon! board game to look at and it had a rule for door opening, so that is how the Klunk just slides right into the design. Gygax and Arneson were clever and OD&D's design is a lot like object oriented programming. Why redesign a component when you can simply plug one in from another game? With Greyhawk the Strength Chart adds an incremental door opening ability that is still based on the D6. Even in AD&D it doesn't change much either. There's a Reason for the Klunk If anything, added Kludge and Klunk was seen as cool in the early days. A lot of games were produced that would come with special charts for special conditions and that was sort of exciting for us consumers. We were proud of our 'Nerd Powers' then. Being able to memorize and rattle off obscure rules gave us 'Nerd Bragging Power' too. It hasn't really changed in newer editions. Also for many designers these weird rules did not seem awkward. Unified Design Was Not Unknown In those Early Days The game rules Dan Boggs found that are most likely written by Richard Snider reveal that even before D&D is published such concepts as having one universal mechanic are already being considered. The tiny reference to door opening in those rules reveals that a character should treat it like an attack vs. a wizard. Thus as one gains ability in fighting, one is also gaining ability in door opening! and many of the attribute mechanics involve mathematical equations which is very much like what one sees in many later games where you tally a character's bonuses vs. a monster's bonuses to get a a number you test for a hit or miss. Another missing design concept is non binary rolls. Everything in earlier D&D, with the exception of things such as turning the undead by Clerics, morale, or the intelligent sword rules all of which can have a variety of results, is always a binary roll. Get equal to or greater than the value and you succeed and if you don't it's total failure. Contrast the Binary form of the OD&D rules with how Greg Svenson uses attributes with a chart for more nuanced results when players attempt to wear one of the crowns of power.  Play Balance It's likely the primary reason that M.U.'s get the shaft is because of the lingering concept of Play Balance which comes out of war games, yet RPG's are not war games. Many of the war game systems were leaning toward ways to balance a game so that each side in battle would have an equal chance of winning. Most common were the army point buy systems for creating a balanced scenario. I personally find David Wesely's ideas on War Gaming to be the most interesting, as his approach has more to do with variable results rather than fixed set ups. Thus a scenario would have hidden objectives. A good example is the delay scenario which can be seen in Secrets of Blackmoor. This was a huge napoleonic set up. There were over a thousand figures on the table. Each side was briefed secretly. The Russian team's objective was simple: Advance the army down the road and try to get as many troops to the besieged city as possible. The French team was supposed to block the road and stop those troops from arriving at the off board city. Yet there is a problem, as the Russians already are on the road. That kind of unbalanced game objective is very flexible. If the russians can get half their troops off the board, they still win a partial objective. We are no longer looking at the typical Zero Sum even in a two sided game. Instead our goal is based on the scope of our success which may have nothing to do woth the scope of the opposition's success. With D&D certain elements of balance are applied to the game. I am sure many of you have noticed how absurd it is that each dungeon level has more and more powerful creatures. It works because 1st level players need a toddler level experience or they all die. Yet when you look at it, it is a bit ridiculous. And as I've said before, these dungeon level balance concepts come from David Megarry's game where deeper you go the worse it gets. Yet his reason for having balance between players is because his game, is at its core, a race game where players compete against each other for point totals. These ideas of balance were also applied to the classes in order to make a character of one type be equivalent to a character of another of the same level. Again, Megarry had a victory point system with more powerful characters types needing more points. In OD&D each class had a different experience track and Magic Users were on the slowest one of all. On the plus side, the characters being somewhat balanced across classes were also kept fairly balanced to the monsters. Sure there is a little bit of NERF'ing, but over all it's fairly even. If you play a lot of different systems, not all of them require balance. Yet as D&D grows away from the Living World concept I described in a previous article, the demand for an increase in player enjoyment creates greater and greater amounts of NERF'ing from one edition to another. This kind of HEAVY NERF is likely an influence coming from computer games where the only thing that matters is enjoyment for the average player without any regard to any kind of simulation of reality, or universal game balance.  Detail from Tonisborg Dungeon, level 10 "The Scholars Crown" by Greg Svenson Is the System Changing or Staying the Same?
The core of this entire discussion is about the parallel development for how Classes gain, or lose ability through the addition of the attribute based bonus charts and whether or not classes merely use their attributes as an indicator of their ability to learn and advance more quickly. The Abstraction vs. Linearity debate. Well, the answer is simple -- Both systems remain in place. We know this because the new Thief Class gets no bonuses to ability based on Dexterity. Any Thief performs all their Thief abilities in the same manner. The only effect above average and gifted values will have on the character is through bonuses to Experience Points. The previous Abstraction from the OD&D books is even expanded, as dwarves, elves, and half elves are allowed to reach higher levels based on prime attribute scores. Again, is this an abandoned concept after all? Just to pound a core concept home, the hit die change is a complete oddity. Average men are supposed to use six sided dice for hit points. Even your average peasant has 1- 6 hit points. Yet M.U.'s and Thieves only get 1-4. Our monsters are still using six sided dice as well, unless you note the suggested d8 in Greyhawk, yet our fighter has gotten boosted up to the eight sided die! When Monster Manual comes out in 1977. It too advises using a d8 for monsters, which allows for the use of d4s for half hit point monsters. This makes sense. Yet within 2 years Fighters get the NERF once again and get d10s! OD&D is Perfect Each of these two approaches make no sense when used together, it's just an anomaly of the OD&D system. Since trying many games over the years I've come to realize that most game systems try to solve problems encountered in OD&D by using other mechanics, yet with the addition of more complexity comes the addition of new problems. The situation is one of playing a huge game of Whack a Mole; beat this one down and another pops up over here. Consider that it's been nearly 50 years and all the designs since are still trying to solve the issue of: Streamlining v. Kludge Mechanics. My advice is simple, just keep playing OD&D with, or without Greyhawk supplement. Or add in some Holmes Basic to the mix. Keep the rules under the hood by using them pretty much as they are. Do not try to analyze the realism of the simulation as long as everything seems to be working well. Most of all, stay focused on the core mechanic for all Role Playing Games, the RPG Game Engine -- Pssst, it's all make believe.  Image from the upcoming Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg book I wrote this last night before I went to bed. Then I thought maybe I am being too negative and sat on it a bit. Well, here goes anyway. Since coming back to gaming I see something odd within the RPG gamer community. People don't seem to trust their referee's, or DM's. People are very critical of their referee's. They complain that their ref's aren't fair, or aren't creating the world setting they wanted. There seems to be an attitude that the game can exist without a referee, or that the referee is merely there to be like an entertainment computer that runs the modules for them. Another thing I find strange, despite all this demand for a certain type of referee, many will not be the referee despite making these demands. This is odd, how can you even know what a referee does and is worthy of criticism over if you've only been a player? I suppose it is easy to pass judgement if you've never done it. There will be extremes, people who do not yet know how to DM well, or occasional bad calls, and yet RPG's exist because the referee concept was created. Being the DM is not something where you can say aloud: I am a great DM now. It is a life long journey and most of us are always looking to pick up new and old tricks from other ref's. Most of all, if your referee leaves - the game is over. When I began playing many of our players had campaigns using different systems. I ran D&D. Elmore ran our T&T games and Traveller. Chad ran some Traveller too. Tracy ran TFT. We'd take turns and help each other be better by adding ideas to our group. Over time we all got better together. I doubt any of us were perfect, but we had fun. I think those who DM are special. Sorry, it's just my feeling about it. They invest time and effort and also try to create something new through their games. I find it hard not to take it personally if someone attacks me for how I run my game. Our games are like living books or plays. No one ever says: Gee, that Tolkien, the book was awesome except for that one thing, he should really rewrite it the way I want it. Our referee's, or DM's, are the keepers of secrets and that only works if we trust and respect them. Be kind to your referee's, they are in the hot seat and most likely they are doing the best they can because no one else will. Feel free to discuss. Griff Also, check out this thoughtful Blog Post dealing with the very same issue: dwelleroftheforbiddencity.blogspot.com/2020/03/image-by-michael-whelan-trust-and.html?m=1 e I went to bed. Then I thought maybe I am being to negative and sat on  Traditional Role PlayingUntil you've played in the traditional way, your're playing RPG's as glorified war games. By this I mean that many people play RPG's like a board game or even a paper video game. We've all seen the massive game set ups with miniatures depicting what is going on in the game. People enjoy knowing what is where and why, yet this tendency to depict the fantastical with the mundane detracts from the experience of an RPG. As David Wesely creator of Braunstein stated in a recent online discussion about newer editions of D&D:  David understands these games very well, since he can claim to have invented them. And he is saying something important as it is the Free Kriegspiel aspects of RPG's that make them what they are. That in fact, it is the unknown that sparks the imagination thus creating a fantastical and enchanting game experience no matter what setting you choose to depict. RPG's are a performed story that are designed to facilitate possibility. The less that players know about what the rules are the greater their investment in the experience. Thus detailed and complex rules which codify every action a player can choose and which players can purchase and learn reduce the scope of immersion. My gamer group is a mix of experienced hands and novices. Some of them have never read the rules, they just play their characters as themselves and make reasonable decisions based on what they've learned by playing. That is the beauty of Original Dungeons & Dragons, a person could sit down and be guided through character creation in about 15 minutes and quickly enter an imaginary world. I won't be the first to espouse this back to the origins attitude. Yet, I feel I can describe a game session I ran that will reveal the utility of no miniatures and hardly any rules.  Image from Cave Evil board gameI really like to use horror themes in my medieval fantasy game to scare the pants off my players. Horror movies have a basic structure that involves building tension. At first the evil thing is not understood and has no form which allows the viewer to imagine all kinds of things about it and scare themselves in the process. As the story progresses it manifests a clearer more substantial form and also becomes larger. A good example of this is the movie Jaws. In beginning scenes we don't see the shark and it seems to have supernatural and unknown power. By the end of the film it's just a dumb giant chomping water monster. Once it has a form it can be killed. I decided to create a supernatural creature for my game. Imagine a creature that is made up of many tiny parts like a bee colony. What it needs to survive, or feeds on, is the mental energy produced by people who are experiencing feelings of terror. What is more, it has the ability to gather its tiny components together to manifest as any kind of nightmare creature it desires. I will likely create some outrage by telling you that I have not even created stats for this collective being. I will just give it a name and decide how it affects the players. I call it a Tingle.  Bob Meyer's notebook during the annual Blackmoor gameA Special Monster Encounter the TingleThe Tingle: Tingles live in remote barren places both underground and in the wilds. They hide underground during the day taking the forms of beetles and centipedes. They prey upon the humanoid races. They are known to kidnap victims and keep them in underground lairs for extended periods while also exposing the victim to unimaginable nightmare experiences that eventually cause their victims to lose their minds and even become weak and perish. Sometimes they will release a victim and track him/her in the hopes that it will lead them to new prey. Other times they will even pose as a victim to lure players. The Primary Motive for a Tingle is to frighten the puny humans. They aren't actually out to kill anyone even if it can happen during an encounter. Of course, players will know nothing of this. As I said before a Tingle has no stats. The only thing they do is elicit fear through creating terrifying events for their victims. And the only way to explain how to run an encounter with a Tingle is by a demonstration of their powers of manipulation. And these powers are extremely flexible, being entirely at the whim of the referee. Some of you may be thinking, Griff's a cheating DM -- I am! Consider that I know my system and can fake any encounter and my players will never know, that is also the mystique of being a referee.  The To Hit charts from OD&D Volume 1, Men and MagicA Cheated Game SessionThis is what I recall of the first game session where I used a Tingle against my players. Most of this was impromptu and very much ad hoc during the session. My players were wandering through the wilderness. As night fall came they set up a camp, built a fire, and decided who would take what watch in pairs to avoid being surprised by wandering monsters. The referee grabs a piece of scratch paper and makes the players mark where they sleep in relation to the fire. Rule 1: Tingles always have surprise - they have rudimentary psychic powers. Then the referee begins with: All of you have settled in for the night. You've just eaten your dinner. Clouds have moved in to obscure the moon. A misty rain has begun to fall. I need everyone to give me roll on a d20. Who rolled equal, or under their intelligence score? ok, make a little check mark next to your intelligence score. Those of you who have succeeded in making the roll are now aware of a strange sensation. It's as if something is tickling the back of your mind. It's a tingling sensation in your brain. It comes and goes and then fades out. At this point those who understand the mechanics in the game will be aware that those with higher intelligence are being singled out for something and it's probably not a good thing either.  Image from Cave Evil board gameThe First Watch Referee: Everyone is tucked in to sleep except for those on watch, who are they? About a half an hour into your watch you hear a voice out in the woods. Someone is screaming in the darkness. It's coming closer. My players woke up the sleeping party members as they prepared for 'whatever it is' that was coming near. Referee: The sound has stopped and everything is very still. In fact, it's too still, even the wildlife isn't making a sound. Suddenly a figure appears out of the darkness and runs right into middle of the party next to the fire. He's human. His clothes are torn up and shredded to rags. He has scratches all over him. Most of all, he has a wild crazy look to his eyes. He turns toward all of you: They're following me! The referee pauses so players can ask a question, but the crazy man will ignore them and continue speaking. They eat your mind. Can't you feel it? They get in your head and they eat you from the inside. The man points to his head. Ok, I need everyone to make another d20 roll on intelligence. If you've already failed your roll add a +1 to your die roll. Anyone failing a roll mark your character sheet. Those of you who failed can sense a pronounced tingling in your head. It's a lot like when you have ringing in your ears, but it's in your brain. The man is peering out into the darkness that surrounds your camp. He points - Over there! He grabs the wizard by the shoulders: You've got to get them way from the fire. Run while you can! The crazy man begins to dissolve right before your eyes. Beginning at the top of his head, he falls apart as his body becomes a mass of beetles, centipedes, and other insects. All that is left is a pile of clothing on the ground that the insects quickly scurry out of as they disperse, many of them burrow right into the moist soil. Those of you who were experiencing tingling will notice that it has abruptly stopped. The forest is completely silent and still. The misty rain keeps falling. Everything is lit briefly by a lightning strike and a thunder clap. Note: An NPC can say things to the players that they could not yet know. In this case the NPC is telling them there is something coming that can eat your brain. He's also advising the players to do something very bad, which is to run off into the darkness. This information along with the actual Tingling in some of the players heads should also inform the players that the stakes have been raised and they are in for a lot of trouble.  Image from Cave Evil board gameThe Second Watch
Regardless of what the party has chosen to do things pick up again during the second night watch. Referee: I need everyone to make a roll vs. Intelligence. For every check mark against Intelligence you have to add +1 to your die roll. Try to roll under. By now any magic users will be fighting against terrible odds and failing rolls because every failed roll means another +1 to the saving throw. If someone rolls a natural 20, they begin to hyperventilate, then panic and start to run into the woods. Other players should be allowed to stop them IF they try. Otherwise, those who run into the woods will be on their own. You can do their encounter solo later on over the phone. Regardless, anyone who failed a roll will feel very uneasy as priests and wizards will have a hard time concentrating while casting spells. Give them a 50% fail chance on spells just for fun. Referee: The one person who rolled a natural 20. You are hyperventilating. As you look at everyone else in the party you can see by the fire light that all of them have bloody skulls for faces. The incessant tingling in your head has risen to a roar and you know the only safe place is somewhere away from here. Let the players deal with this situation, yet perhaps interrupt them if they go too long. This whole encounter is a psyche job and you want to keep the players uneasy and do not want them to understand what is happening. Interrupting them in the middle of solving a problem helps break their attention and muddle things. The referee rolls randomly, then points at player and says: You hear something rustling through the undergrowth. One of you notices a pair of eyes reflecting the fire light and then they close. Something just made a little barking sound off to the left, over there. It seems like there may be some kind of creature, or several creatures, right outside of the ring of fire light. The cloud cover and mist have made the night too dark to see very far beyond this ring of safety. Demanding details is how a referee makes players unsure. Most players know that details mean the referee may be about to do something to them, so I follow up with my next statement. Referee: I need everyone to mark where they are standing in relation to the fire on this sheet of paper. It was at this point my players threw everything flammable they could find in camp into the fire to make more light. They were already freaked out. If magic is used to create light, describe some kind of fur covered lanky animal slinking into the darkness, maybe it's big like a wolf but has a rat's tail. Depending on the size of your party the next stage is designed to create a chaotic situation. And I unnerve the players even more through the use of deflection and flanking. The Referee rolls a die and points at a player and says: Something that looks like a half rat half wolf comes leaping out of the darkness. The referee rolls for an attack with the player not being able to counter attack. Giving the Tingle surpise automatically also serves to make the players feel helpless. As the other players naturally gravitate toward the combat their attention has been deflected and the next rat-wolf can appear. The referee randomly chooses a character on the opposite side of the camp and says: A wolf like creature jumps out of the darkness from behind you knocking you to the ground. It's up to each referee to decide how tough the rat-wolves are and how many should appear. My personal feeling is that 2-3 is plenty. With OD&D, or AD&D I'd make them maybe 1-2 HD with an AC of 7. The combat should be played fast, as a referee you should demand quick responses from players about what they do. If someone thinks too hard start counting 5-4-3… If they still can't decide, just skip them and move to the next player. Narrate the action: The creature lunges out of the darkness and bites your shoulder for 3 points of damage. You are bleeding heavily, what do you do? Of course there are no bleednig rules in OD&D, but my players never know what I will pull on them; the introduction of the idea that they could bleed out is cause for alarm. Combat is fast and deadly. The reason for not using miniatures is because moving figures takes time. This is a life or death encounter and not a chess game. I start at my left, and go player by player around the table. I actually put them on the spot by pointing and saying: You, what are you doing? As each wolf is killed it crumbles and becomes a mass of insects, just as the old man did. The Third Watch By now the players know they are in for the long haul. This game is a defense scenario. They are trapped by the darkness and must stay near the fire and the enemy has all the mobility and decision making power. If this encounter in any way reminds you of the Ring Wraiths stalking the group of hobbits it is because these elements for creating tension come directly from horror literature, which is what Tolkien used in his own books. Once the players realize that they are not in control of things they begin to worry. This is the entire point of this kind of encounter. You want the players to experience fear of the unknown and you want them to feel out of control and helpless. It's time to pile on some more Referee Tricks. This is really an ideal time to demand some detailed information and a make the players do a fake die roll. Details: Where are you standing? What are you holding? Which way are you looking? Referee: Ok, I need everyone to show me where they are sitting and how they are facing on this piece of paper. Then you go player by player while looking at the diagram: Ok, you are facing this way, roll me a d20 and tell me what you got. This is a fake roll. Players will anticipate some kind of result. No matter what they roll just look at the map and say: You do not seem to notice anything. Also, is anyone making sure the fire does not burn down? Now the referee rolls a d6 to choose to what side of the fire the next creature appears from. Referee: Before any of you can realize what is happening the ground next to the fire bursts open and a giant six legged bear comes leaping out attacking the nearest player. Roll for the bear's attack. Let's make this a little tougher since we only have one, HD: 6 AC: 6. Before the players can counter attack make them roll vs. Intelligence again. Anyone failing their roll will fail to the ground paralyzed by the Tingling Sensation in their brain. It now feels like something is literally burrowing into their skull and all they can do is roll around on the ground in agony. The Fourth Watch Referee: Late into the fourth watch the tingling begins anew. Everyone roll vs. Intelligence. If you fail your roll you fall down in agony. The rest of you hear what sounds like thousands of crickets singing in the Darkness. As you peer outward from the fire, you can see great forms rising out of the ground. As they rise up they take on the shape of giant shambling creatures with three arms and four legs and one large eye. They must be about 20 feet tall. Let your players savor the fact that IT is now really big and dangerous and there are a lot of them. Hopefully they will be tryimg to come up with some kind of plan for dealing with this new level of abuse, and will likely have zero answers for how to get out alive. Referee: This is when you notice a different sound - birds chirping. You realize daylight is coming as the sky lightens. The giant figures begin crumble and fall apart. The Tingles have feasted on our player's fear, and hopefully no one will have died during the night's events. The players who took Mental Damage in the form of tick marks by their intelligence will recover their actual level by the end of the day and all will return to normal. The rules I used for this encounter were completely made up by me, OD&D does not have stat based saving throws, in fact unless there is a combat there are very few die rolls and play proceeds very quickly. As referee, I could make things up on the fly. In fact, I really didn't need rules for this entire event as it was all driven by narrative, but I find that having just a few die rolls with consequences sometimes adds to the tension of a situation. I think my players really enjoyed this set of encounters with something unexplained. I had fun keeping them on the edge of their seats. Because we played in the traditional style I was free to do what a good referee does, which is: Be An Entertainer. Nothing I was doing is revolutionary. A lot of people ran encounters like this in the old days. What I do hope is that those of you who are new to RPG's will consider trying one of the older gamers to see exactly how traditional play is a unique immersive experience as the play style is markedly different from newer editions. If it's not your cup of tea that's fine, yet having played in both the modern style and the traditional manner you can now claim to be a well rounded gamer. Consider getting a PDF of the Holmes Blue Book, Basic Edition, and seeing just how different the rules are too. The book is tiny with only 48 pages, yet it contains an entire RPG! Griff  Yes, I know, I often come off as a real snob about RPG's. It's a combination of being older and also having played with really sophisticated gamers. In order to illustrate why I am a game snob, I once again am climbing onto my High Hobby Horse of Gamer Wisdom to talk about a campaign I took part in beginning around 1978-1979, or so. A bit of snobbery about AD&D. By 1979 my group had outgrown D&D. I had all the AD&D books. Yet these newer D&D rules had all the same problems as OD&D. Our group wanted a deeper concept and better rules.  In those days Deep Concept meant one thing - Empire of the Petal Throne. My good friend Tracy Harms and I both had copies of the game and we agreed that this was the ultimate setting and that we needed to play it. Yet it too is merely an OD&D game system, thus it is limited by the same kludgy mechanics as OD&D and AD&D. Perhaps a month later Tracy showed up at my house and along with another friend, Curtiss a.k.a. Dirty Curt, we played an RPG set in Tekumel for the first time as we explored the ruins of an ancient palace. For the record, the game we played was incredibly deadly and trashed all of our characters. Curt got a bit brave and got his character killed while I was able to find some loot and escape with my lives. Tracy had done what most of us did in those days and devised his own rules by using someone else's game. In this case it was The Fantasy Trip: Melee and Wizard. He grafted these two simple pocket sized games onto his own rules for adventuring. He also began communicating and sharing his ideas with Steve Jackson the author of those games. Thus our group became a kind of play test group.  We played this adapted E.P.T. game in the Tekumel setting for about a year. When the rules for Melee and Wizard as an RPG came out we were somewhat awed to see that Tracy's name was the top credit in the list of play testers. I even underlined his name in my own copy of In the Labyrinth.  With the newly published TFT: ITL rules in hand Tracy moved our campaign to the ITL world setting, a ring world called Cidri. Yet our campaign became an amalgamation of both E.P.T. and ITL. The big -What If?- of the new campaign was simple. What if a group of humans from Tekumel went to Cidri and created an enclave that blended traditional RPG fantasy, some weird science stuff, and Tekumel?  Thus in 1980 our semi by the book E.P.T. campaign ended and the Chasmflow Campaign began. Tracy now had the freedom to create his own variant on E.P.T. that was just as complex as the original. We players received our own players handbook for the campaign which outlined all the background and political intrigue, a setting map, and a lot of new rules he had devised that do not appear in the published versions of either E.P.T. or ITL.  Many thanks to Tracy for his creation as we finally had the kind of game we really desired. As citizens in a complex society much of what we did is best described as Spy Work, or even Commando Operations. We would be approached by a mysterious person who was seeking to do something. We were the hired swords, mages, and priests who would perform tasks for our patrons. Along the way we discovered more of the rich history of this place we now lived in. We also developed an appreciation for the machiavellian complexity of local politics, as we had to pay fee's to cross between the borders of the various protectorates and depending on who we were working for, also had to watch out for agents from other competing factions.  To this day, the Chasmflow campaign has remained in my memory as a paragon in RPG gaming. When I speak with younger, or new gamers, and they tell me me how until the present day people did not truly Role Play, and that our games were not very well developed back in those early days, I tend to get a bit miffed. Our forays into Tekumel began just 4-5 years after the 1st publication of D&D (1974). While our rules may have been minimal, our stories were not. Even then we were pushing the envelope on depth of story and complexity of culture that does not exist in off-the-shelf products today. We did it by drawing on the finest games we could find and also by self publishing our own campaigns for our friends to play in.  It is also a wonder to me that I have managed to save this collection of play notes that Tracy created for all this time, as it has been nearly 40 years since we played this game. These images are just a selection of pages as I feel this variant belongs to Tracy and it includes several adaptations and variants for use with ITL that are his own inventions. Yet I felt I could show the lore and the culture as an example of how we played and argue that: no we weren't a bunch of bozos back in the day. We actually may have been playing in a much more refined manner even then.  This is a nice trip back to The Fantasy Trip for me.
These pages were a launching point for at least a year's more gaming, if not longer. The campaign was a long evolution of ideas and rules that must have lasted a total of 4 years. As the explorers of this fascinating yet dangerous place we worked hard to uncover old lore and secrets. With Tracy as Referee there were no free rolls to gain anything, it all had to be played out and negotiated via our own wits. We literally fought and died for the knowledge we attained. We also forged a highly team based style of play that was tactical & cooperative. We planned strategy before simply attacking the monsters, which I would say is unlike the typical smash and grab I encounter these days. Thanks for reading, Griff  Original Greyhawk Map for use in Medieval War Game Campaign D&D is not a Living WorldIt's been some time since I began this series. Movie work and level 20 Slacker Class Power on my part has kept me away from continuing this series. Although I wanted to discuss how Wizards get the the short end of the stick in later iterations of D&D, and how we get there, some essential ideas need to be considered before I continue on with game mechanics. As always, I like to be a bit provocative. I am just going to say it now: D&D does not create a living world and is merely a shadow of what Dave Arneson showed is possible.  Original Blackmoor Map Colorized to Show Details REGURGITATIONS ON EARLY RPG PLAY What many historians overlook when they examine old documents is that without the actual designer, or players there to contextualize the game it is very easy to misunderstand what any game is for. This is especially problematic when examining ANY game that utilizes RPG play. Most of us who played D&D early on were primarily playing in dungeons. Although a world setting Greyhawk was focused more on going into dungeons than anything else. I glean this from what is being reproduced of the old dungeons today. I do not hear of epic military invasions in Greyhawk, perhaps I haven't dug deep enough yet?  Blackmoor War Game Campaign Outline for Players Blackmoor was different - It was a living world. As such it operated on several scales that were all interwoven. These scales follow war game concepts of Strategic, Tactical, and even smaller tactical Braunstein scale games of one person is playing one person. It's important to remember that the concept of one person being one person already resides within each of these scales. The strategic game has each player acting as a ruling noble or powerful wizard in charge of their castle and domain. The tactical game has one player acting as a general leading an army into battle. The Braunstein scale game is one player as one person who is free to exist in real time. The grand scale strategic game was a diplomatic socio economic simulation. Arneson had some players who would play this high level game as leaders of small countries and some were playing the bad guys. Their activities drove the Over Arching Plot Elements in the World of Blackmoor. Just as in the Lord of the Rings there was a shadowy evil enemy. The Egg of Coot was just north west of Blackmoor across the sea. No one played the Egg of Coot as far as is known. The Egg always acted through lesser creatures that were played by some of the players themselves. It was the scheming by actual players that drove the Plot Events that would result in battles, or the tactical level game. Thus the tactical battle game was an extension of the strategic game. John Snider describes how his first Blackmoor game was as one of the bad guys attacking the town of Blackmoor, as a minion of the Egg of Coot. These battles came to be known as the Annual Invasions in the campaign and Arneson writes about them in his Blackmoor Rumor Monger and Gazette.  Excerpt from Blackmoor Rumor Monger and Gazette The Braunstein scale game began as a player vs. player story game within the town of Blackmoor. It is important to understand that Braunstein is different from how D&D is played. David Megarry describes his first Blackmoor town game as being much different in how the game is being referee'd. His personal impression is that it was already using the methods for play one finds in D&D right from the start. He cites the semantic element used by Arneson "What do you want to do?" as defining play for this game. Over time the players would expand their exploration of this new world to the nearby wilderness areas as well as straight down into the dungeon and even the sewers of Blackmoor which appear in early David Megarry dungeon maps. Something to Consider: To this day, it's likely that Arneson is the only game designer to use each facet of the RPG methodology in one game world setting. I have heard of other games that some would claim are RPG's, yet since most historians hoard and hide their sources, I have no reference that would lead me to support what they say about these other games. Without access to complete documents their assertions seem like overly strong claims. None of those games lead to the invention of the Adventure RPG Game as Blackmoor did.  Blackmoor Town Map D&D AS A PRODUCT Between 1971 when Blackmoor comes into existence as more than a war game, what I call True Blackmoor, and 1974 when D&D is published, the focus of the game will change. Yet this change in what will later become a product happened early on within Blackmoor. Arneson's desire, based on his writings, is that his campaign would remain a real world setting. He even made efforts to railroad his players out into the wilderness by banning them to Lock Gloomen. And again he would occasionally force them to play out big battles in the defense of Blackmoor town. The problem is that he created something much too appealing. His Dungeon invention was just too fascinating; most of his players just wanted to play the 10' - 20' - 30' with stairs leading down game and were less interested in his war game ideas. As a side note: There are some historians who try to minimize Arneson's genius by claiming his loss of interest in his own campaign around 1972 is somehow an indication of his failings as a game designer. As the only referee of an RPG on the entire planet he was under constant demand. He was meeting with groups twice a week and getting phone calls and visits the rest of the time. His players simply burned him out. He was also still running what is likely the largest multi player paper based world scale war game in history; what Arneson called his Nappy Campaign Game - which stood for napoleonics. Even though the published version of D&D does cover the living world setting concept of having domains and having armies and also adventuring, it suggests players wait until they are higher level to do so. Most of the design elements for campaigning in the wilderness come directly from Arneson's Blackmoor, yet in abbreviated from. Even the D&D economy, think to yourself Equipment Price List, can be traced to Arneson's military miniature campaign days likely beginning around 1967. As consumers, we all read about going into the wilderness and perhaps building castles, armies, and navies, yet the majority of players are only playing dungeons. And what is more significant is how consumers do it. Players do not expand the scale of their games. Everything is being played on the Braunstein scale combined with Arneson's "What do you want to do?" play method. What ends up in D&D is merely a fraction of what was originally envisioned by Arneson.  Dave Arneson Letter to Dan Nicholson Discussing Goings on in the Nappy Game SNAPPING OFF PIECES OF BLACKMOOR We are no longer in a living world. We are in a world that comes to life when the players interact with it. It is a static world. A referee can tell stories about there having been a battle and its implications, but the battle is the result of a fabrication unlike the living world concept where all the players gather to resolve big conflicts and the result is a real result. D&D simply took one aspect of Arneson's vision and snapped it off. It's still Arneson's vision of game play, but it is only a fraction of the entire design and experience. Without the constraints of Arneson's living world concept the rules are up for grabs as players demand even more freedom and power. This is how the game will lose its concepts of play balance and will hence forth become an ever expanding world of NERF; where the design is not predicated on simulation and balance, but rather on the fulfillment of User Experience. NERF'ing comes from the harm free NERF balls sold to kids, and implies a game where the players are getting closer and closer to a game they can never lose.  Original printing Dungeons & Dragons books - Originally Owned by Fred Funk Many of you are likely saying: But we love our game and we don't want limitations.
I agree, the game should be what is most appealing to most gamers... *IF ALL YOU WANT IS A GREATER VOLUME IN SALES TO A GREATER MARKET OF CONSUMERS* Yet my interest is firmly locked into exploring and understanding why OD&D was created as it was originally, and also how it began to morph into what it has become now. In closing, I want to point you to the oft used term of play balance and where that came from. The place it has greatest utility is within a war game, thus with the removal of the head to head aspects of Arneon's Living world concept, it is no longer needed. And where one see's the presence of play balance within D&D's design is in the Player vs. Monster conflict, as well as Class vs. Class conflict for the players. With these ideas firmly in mind, now we can move onto discussing more on how Play is Nerf'ed in both OD&D and Greyhawk Supplement.  Rob Kuntz has published a book that describes what Dave Arneson's invention is.
 "For the great day of their wrath has come - Who is able to stand? Who can escape the cage of time? Who will unlock the chamber of dreams?" (Ancient Dwarven Script Found on a Stairwell Wall in Tonisborg Dungeon.)  I had promised to run my variation on Tonisborg at a local gamer gathering on Tuesdays at Denver Distillery Although i knew some of the gamers from last week, I ended up with a bunch of unexpected people jumping in too. Some were even playing for their very first time -- I love new gamers and really enjoy transporting them into the magical land Gary and Dave created for us. One guy was hanging out at the bar. When I mentioned D&D, his eyes lit up and he abandoned his own group of friends to come play with us! Someone made a phone call and another player showed up. What I thought was a really sad turnout of about 4 gamers suddenly became 8 - GAME ON!  I run Tonisborg with a lot of hand-outs full of lore. It's my home brew addition to Tonisborg. When I run it, you get a weird mix of Greg Svenson as a young man in 1973, and Griff as a middle aged gamer in 2019.
I will have to post some of my story ideas to the Blackmoor hidden forum for Tonisborg DM's. https://blackmoor.mystara.net/forums/index.php I often hear about gamers who can't find a group. You need friends to play these games. They are easy to find. Ask your library for some free space to run a club out of. As Drinks and Dragons: Philadelphia has shown, you can also find a local bar to run games at on an off night. By the end of your first session you can't be strangers anymore. How can you be strangers after you worked together to escape from that Balrog that was looking for some guy named, Berlini the Great? At the end of the night we were all shaking hands and clapping each other on the back. Thank's to everyone who was at my Ref'ing session. All of you, Jaimie, Venessa, Roberto, Nate, Jess, Erik, Louis, are now my good friends - Griff Please take a minute to show your friends our posts on Facebook and Twitter by Sharing and Retweeting, or point them to our Movie Rental page: movie.secretsofblackmoor.com -We're relying on gamers like you to help promote the movie- |
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October 2020
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