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Luke Crane sul "vecchio" D&D
Patrick:
Segnalo un post di luke crane che sta girando in queste ore, in cui parla della sua recente esperienza con il "vecchio" dnd (non mi addentro ulteriormente nel discorso perchè non sono sufficientemente informato)
https://plus.google.com/u/0/111266966448135449970/posts/Q8qRhCw7az5
(oltre al post, c'è anche un lungo commento di Crane che approfondisce ulteriormente il suo discorso)
--- Citazione ---We've been playing D&D at BWHQ for the past four months. Our group consists of me plus six players: two ladies, four gentlemen. The players have a range of experience with D&D: from none at all to grognardia to having worked on the brand.
We're using the Moldvay Basic and Cook Expert books. Only myself and one other had played this particular edition previously. And I'd only played Cook Expert when I was a lad. I still have that book. Very sturdy, though it has suffered from much abuse at my hands.
The game began as an experiment with +Thor Olavsrud to understand how "original" D&D was played. Thus we set out to play as close to the rules as possible. While this edition is indeed old—published in 1981—it is a far cry from OD&D. It is, by my count, the fifth edition of D&D (editions being: OD&D, three Holmes editions, then Moldvay). I chose this edition over the Gygax/Arneson and Holmes editions because it contains a defined set of procedures that I could follow, not just for the subsystems, but for the entire structure of play: character creation, the adventure, parley, combat, advancement and recovery. I felt I could play this best as written and thus get closer to how it was intended to be played.
In order to ensure our experience was in line with what the original designers intended, I made sure we used their published adventures. Moldvay edition is the genesis of "Basic" D&D. Thus the B series of modules are ostensibly built for this version of D&D.
We started at the beginning: B1, In Search of the Unknown.
The set up is thin: monsters infest an abandoned secret fortress. I think we all, players and me as GM, found the geographic design of this dungeon arbitrary. It was a collection of rooms on a sheet of paper, not the secret fortress as advertised. I'll admit that I was finding my feet with the game and thus did a poor job running this module. But it lacked a compelling narrative or internal logic. The players duly raided away, but after the third wave of character deaths, they had a dawning realization that this endeavor was pointless. They quit Quasqueton after exploring 80% of the dungeon in three sessions, at the cost of about six deaths: They vowed never to go back.
And then I discovered that B1 was designed for the Holmes Edition of D&D and so perhaps that's why it lacked a little of the cohesion of the later Moldvay edition.
Next we played B2, Keep on the Borderlands. This is a curious module. It skirts the conceit of Basic D&D— only dungeons, no wilderness, no town—by giving a map of the keep/town and small wilderness area. And like B1, this is because B2 was designed for the Holmes edition, and predates Moldvay's publication by a year.
In B2, the characters sortie out from the eponymous Keep to the Caves of Chaos. I want to be careful not to spoil this adventure, so I won't give specifics. Suffice to say, at the Caves they must root out a deeply entrenched, and rather extensive, infestation of monsters and servants of Chaos. I think this module's design is genius. It evokes exactly what this era of D&D is about: exploration and puzzle-solving. The puzzles are geographical, social, magical and physical in nature—on a variety of scales, from tiny objects, to map-wide. Exploration serves to reveal information that serves in solving the puzzles. The design is simple in execution, but surprisingly subtle. One solution opens one possibility and closes the others. When we played, it was easy to make the Caves feel alive. It feels as if Gygax designed this module and then Moldvay reedited D&D to evoke the experience of playing Keep on the Borderlands.
Why is this era of D&D about puzzle-solving and exploration? Because your characters are fragile and treasure compromises 4/5s of the experience you earn, whereas fighting monsters earns only 1/5. Thus if there's a big monster guarding a valuable piece of treasure, the incentive is to figure out a way to get the treasure without fighting the monster. Fight only as a last resort; explore first so you can better solve. This shift in emphasis away from fighting was frustrating at first, but then profoundly refreshing once we sussed out the logic.
Having learned this lesson at the cost of another seven deaths, the group completed B2 in grand style: Their plans were so effective, their exploration so thorough, that the victorious player characters suffered not a point of damage in the final confrontation. And I opposed them with mind-boggling array of villainy!
After their rousing conquest of the Caves of Chaos, we moved on to B3, Palace of the Silver Princess. I chose this module for their next adventure out of many possibilities because: 1) it seemed like something they could tackle without getting shredded 2) it is short 3) it has narrative motivation/cause 4) they're locked in the dungeon 5) Tom Moldvay shares an author credit. I thought those were a good set of features, different from the part-time-day-worker mercenary feel of Keep on the Borderlands.
However, after the gold-standard of Keep, I was sorely disappointed in this scenario. The logic is thin. The puzzles are poorly conceived. The traps are simply cruel and don't make too much sense in the larger ecology of the castle. The map of the castle is pure nonsense as well. If it is a palace, it's rather dank and claustrophobic. If you have to get downstairs, you have to go through the Court Magician's lab. He must love that.
I know some of you will disagree with me on this assessment. And I know this module has a troubled and storied history, but I hoped in vain that Moldvay would elevate it the way he elevated the Basic edition. Alas, he did not.
Regardless of the dungeon's quality, my crack team of adventurers busted the scenario open with a Charm Person spell in session 2. Much to their credit, and my frustration, while they had the solution of the adventure in their power, they continued to explore. Unfortunately, the adventure didn't measure up to their expectations and their exploration only lead them to worse traps and more hideous monsters, without granting a better understanding of the problem they faced.
At one point, they tried to rest upstairs, but were rudely interrupted multiple times. Their desired eight hour rest period turned into a 14 hour bout of exhaustion and flight. That broke them. After that, they went for the goal, and true to form, bashed through the final encounter with nary a hit point lost.
Despite my feelings about B3, I decided to use it as a platform to build their world on. Their characters advanced to level 4 and so it was time to leave the red book and head for the blue: Expert set. After careful research, I discovered the most excellent module, B10 Night's Dark Terror. I modified that scenario slightly, placing Haven (from B3) at the center of its action. I let the group stay at the Palace to learn new spells and weapon mastery (from the black Master book). I let them bank their gold there. And I set up Princess Argenta and Ellis as their patrons. In this newly built world, constructed of a few patchworks of wilderness, towns and dungeon locations, they had done good, word had spread, and now their services were in demand. In fact, I let them choose between B10 and combined campaign of X1 Isle of Dread and X6 Quagmire. They boldly took up the Princess's cause in the form of B10, with only the vaguest promise of reward. I'm proud of them. They did it because they had a lust for adventure, not for empty promises of reward.
I'm nervous about the transition to the wilderness style of adventure, since the beautiful economy of Moldvay's basic rules are rapidly undermined by the poorly implemented ideas of the Expert set. However, this module is so beautiful and detailed, I think all will be well. We already had our first river journey and fight on the deck of a ship. I think I was more excited about the change of venue than the players were.
After more than 16 sessions of play, I think this is a magnificent game. The previous editions have seeds of the hobby, seeds of greatness in them, but this edition is not only a game with digestible procedures, but it is a fully realized vision. A new vision. A vision of a monster-filled world, riddled with dungeons, ready to be plumbed by desperate heroes. It created a perilous world with death lurking around every corner in the form of this dangerous, unforgiving game.
During some of the darker moments of the game, when curses flew and lives ended, my players turned to me and said, "Don't worry; don't feel badly. It's not you. It's the game."
What a tremendous thing to say.
I realized at that moment that this group had done something all too rare in my experiences with roleplaying games. Rather than bending the game to our predilections, we bent our collective will to the game. We learned it, and it taught us. It taught us how to play it, but it also taught us lessons. And though it can be cruel, there is a savage logic operating underneath it's Erol-Otus-drawn skin. Something that we could grasp, even if it hurts a little. Once we divested our modern notions of fantasy—of Dungeons and Dragons, even—and subjected ourselves to its will, we leveled up. Suddenly, we were sharing a hobby; we had discovered something new and our motley crew was better friends for it.
This slim red volume emerged before us as a brilliant piece of game design that not only changed our world with it's own bright light, but looking from the vantage of 1981, I can see that this game changed THE world. This world of dark dungeons and savage encounters slowly crept out into ours, from hobby shops to basements, to computer labs and movie screens. And we're all better off for having adventured in it, even if the game isn't played quite the same anymore.
--- Termina citazione ---
--- Citazione ---+Matt Snyder What have I learned? The core lesson is as I stated: Make no assumptions. Put aside your biases and play the game.
I also feel qualified to talk about D&D for the first time in my life. I have gone deep into this monster. I've read all of the early editions: Gygax/Arneson, Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer and Gygax AD&D.
I'm still processing what's happening in the group. The group is often engaged, but not at the level I'm accustomed to with Burning Wheel. Interactions with the system are simple and brief. Either a die roll or two, or the selection of an expendable resource. The engagement via the caller and mapper is also very high. There's a little character play, but nothing as intense as what I'm used to. But the decisions are so fraught with peril, I have nightmares later that night (as does another one of the players). We call it PTSD&D.
I've learned that it's a hard game to run. Not because of prep or rules mastery, but because of the role of the GM as impartial conveyer of really bad news. Since the exploration side of the game is cross between Telephone and Pictionary, I must sit impassive as the players make bad decisions. I want them to win. I want them to solve the puzzles, but if I interfere, I render the whole exercise pointless.
I've a deeper understanding why fudging dice is the worst rule ever proposed. The rules indicate fudging with a wink and a nudge, "Don't let a bad die roll ruin a good game." Seems like good advice, but to them I say, "Don't put bad die rolls in your game."
To expand on the point: The players' sense of accomplishment is enormous. They went through hell and death to survive long enough to level. They have their own stories about how certain scenarios played out. They developed their own clever strategems to solve the puzzles and defeat the opposition. If I fudge a die, I take that all away. Every bit of it. Suddenly, the game becomes my story about what I want to happen. The players, rather than being smart and determined and lucky, are pandering to my sense of drama—to what I think the story should be.
So this wink and nudge that encourages GMs to fudge is the greatest flaw of the text. It's easily ignored, but power corrupts and all that. The game is fantastic, but it is not perfect. I didn't talk about its lumps in my Ode, but it has plenty.
As for design specifically…the game seems easily hackable. And it is, in the same way a hotrod is customizable. You can tune the engine, try different tires and even change the chrome, but you can't take it off-road. This game is a hotrod. It is built to explore dungeons. As soon it moves away from puzzle-solving and exploration, the experience starts to fray. There are precious few levers for the players to pull once their out of their element. Heaven forfend we get into an in-character argument at the table, the game is utterly silent on that resolution. Might as well knife fight.
The hacking is endorsed by the game. There's a rule in the DM section at the back of the book. It tells you how to make a call on the fly, then after the session, come up with a rule and propose it to the players.
House Ruling is thus enshrined. I'm fascinated by this. The core game is rock solid, but there are little niches you can modify while maintaining the experience. We modified how firebombs work, for example. I'm sure most people make much heavier modifications more rapidly—because they think they know better than the game. I want to read all of those house rules. In fact, I think WotC should embrace House Rule culture. I think they should publish that slim volume and then create a central repository for everyone's house rules. I'd page through it for hours.
I could ramble on about this game for hours. This post is a paean to the game, but I have more designer thoughts running around my head: Charisma as über stat, functional alignment, encumbrance is awesome, the caller is the best rule I used to hate, mapping is a metagame, bored players, the poor fighter, and why this game is so fucking addicting.
Also, changed the ending. Split the last paragraph into two and rewrote a couple of sentences. My last two points were muddled. Hopefully they're clearer now.
One thing I confirmed (that I've always previously suspected): FUCK NOSTALGIA. FUCK IT UNTIL IT IS DEAD. For me, I need to experience games so i can internalize them. As soon as I feel that haze of nostalgia drifting through me, I know my critical faculties have failed me. Getting the chance to pierce the veil of nostalgia and look at this game with fresh eyes has been a poignant reminder not to pretend nostalgia is knowledge.
Counter to that sentiment is an equally dangerous one. Now that I have undertaken this experiment, I have that terrible urge to claim to know the true D&D.
D&D has mutated into quite a beast in its lifetime. Everyone who plays it claims to know the truth. The best way to play. I think it's one of the strengths of the game.
So now that we've gone back and played 1981 D&D we are better D&Ders than 1982 and onward! Right? Maybe. But probably not.
D&D isn't one thing anymore. It's a broad canopy covering a lot of lesser flora and fauna. This old tree that we've climbed is just one part of it. Getting a feel for how the game was played in 1981 certainly helps me see the current iterations more clearly. And it helps me identify design decisions made in this edition and others. I can see how those decisions have ramified through play, through the culture, through multiple editions.
But, as much as I'd like to lay claim to it, I have not found the one true way. It's a great game, and I encourage you all to play, but it is merely one game out of many.
--- Termina citazione ---
Arioch:
Cool, avevo visto i suoi tweet a riguard ma questo mi era sfuggito!
Mattia Bulgarelli:
--- Citazione da: Patrick - 2012-06-08 11:09:44 ---ps: è il caso che copio-incollo direttamente quì il contenuto?
--- Termina citazione ---
Magari prima chiedigli il permesso. Sì, è un post "pubblico", però io mi farei lo scrupolo lo stesso.
Moreno Roncucci:
Non vi fermate all'articolo, leggete pure i commenti che sono anche più interessanti (ed equilibrati)
Noto in alcuni commenti di italiani (a giudicare dal cognome) la solita confusione che abbiamo qui fra la Basic-Expert di Moldway-Cook e la BECMI di Mentzer. Sono giochi diversi. L'edizione che ha giocato Luke da noi in Italia non è mai stata tradotta, quella tradotta dall'Editrice Giochi è la BECMI di Mentzer. (vedere QUI se vi confondete fra le edizioni).
Credo comunque che certe riscoperte di quanto i primi D&D non facessero schifo come i successivi siano esagerate: non tanto quella di Luke citata qui che invece è molto equilibrata e non nega i difetti (nei commenti) quanto il trend generale. E anche Luke per tirar fuori la lode alla parte del gioco che gli interessa e che ha scoperto "giocandola come è scritta", ha... "dimenticato" (anche se poi la cita nei commenti) il fatto che nel manuale è pure scritto di ignorare il risultato dei tiri di dado "se rovinano la storia"
Questo non è "giocare il gioco come è scritto", è "giocare il gioco come è scritto, alla luce dell'esperienza di decenni di consigli farlocchi come quello, tanto che ora sappiamo che bisogna ignorarlo". Il GM che leggeva il libro a quei tempi avrebbe considerato come sua precisa responsabilità l'ignorare tiri che "rovinavano la storia". Io ho giocato e visto giocare versioni di D&D coetanee o precedenti anche se non proprio quella (AD&D) e all'epoca un GM che non cambiava i risultati dietro lo schermo era un "cattivo GM".
Mattia Bulgarelli:
La parte più interessante penso sia l'enfasi sull'esplorazione della mappa e degli enigmi più che sul combattimento... nella mia testa, questo rimette in prospettiva storica i Ladri di AD&D che facevano schifo e pena. Probabilmente per "eredità" di un gioco in cui picchiare non era così fondamentale era secondario!
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