diff -r 3164c82ac16e -r bdef1afd1170 draft/a_hard_look_at_dongeons_and_dragons.txt --- /dev/null Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 1970 +0000 +++ b/draft/a_hard_look_at_dongeons_and_dragons.txt Wed Aug 30 21:32:44 2006 -0400 @@ -0,0 +1,365 @@ + The Internet Home for Independent Role-Playing Games + [1]The [2]About the Forge | [3]Support The Forge | [4]Articles | + Forge [5]Reviews | [6]Resource Library | [7]Forums + + + A Hard Look at Dungeons and Dragons + by [8]Ron Edwards + + It's time to set aside long-established habits of thought regarding the + various versions or even conceivably separate games that go by this + name. In the culture of gaming, it's quite the thing to diss D&D, or to + toss it backhanded praise like, "Well, it was first, but ...", in order + to establish some sort of personal cachet as a real grown-up gamer. + Enough, already. What the hell was it, anyway? + + The following ideas were mainly worked out, for me anyway, on two + threads on the Forge: [9]Dungeons & Dragons history - help wanted and + [10]Precursors to AD&D2. I am especially indebted to Christopher Pramas, + M. J. Young, Julie Stauffer, Paul Czege, and Maurice Forrester, as well + as to readers Clinton R. Nixon, Rob MacDougall, Grant Gigee, and Peter + Adkison. + + This essay is limited to the period from the early 1970s to the early + 1980s. Two later periods deserve analysis and essays of their own: the + first, from the mid-1980s to the late-1990s, might best be described as + "The corporate bear-trap," and the second, about 1999 to the present, as + "Frankenstein's lightning-bolt." Most of these discussions concern + economics of the role-playing hobby and are best left until my essay + about role-playing business and marketing is available. + + Textual history + The following is much less detailed or explanatory than many accounts of + these developments available on the internet. My goal is not to provide + the Real & Complete Official History, but rather to make a specific + point about the origins of role-playing as a hobby. The point is that + modern references to earlier "editions" or "Basic/Advanced" versions of + Dungeons & Dragons are extremely misleading. There was no "first + edition." There is no single "old D&D." + + Texts do not equal play, and the origins of role-playing and the origins + of D&D are two separate things. No one seems to be able to discuss the + history in modulated tones, but I know what I think - that Dave Arneson + and a variety of other wargame hobbyists around the country had found + that people liked playing characters in the wargaming-worlds, and they + even enjoyed the development of those characters through adventures. + Chainmail (1971, by Gary Gygax & Jeff Perren) was not a role-playing + game. In my view, Arneson (and as I say, he was not unique in the + activity) found a system to conduct this new imaginative activity, and + Chainmail just happened to be it. His experiences are summarized to some + extent in The First Fantasy Campaign (see also the [11]Castle Blackmoor + website and associated links). + + Chainmail's second and third editions contained supplemental + fantasy-setting rules, as well as alternate rules that show similarities + to later D&D rules. However, the most memorable published result of the + Arneson-Gygax hobby crossover appeared at GenCon, 1974, in a + thousand-copy print run, as Dungeons & Dragons, 1974, by Gary Gygax and + Dave Arneson. It consisted of three roughly digest-sized brown pamphlets + in a deepish brown box with white labels. (People are often confused + because a very-nearly identical product, marked with "Original + Collector's Edition," was released in 1978 in a white cardboard box, + hence the mistaken name "white box D&D" to refer to the 1974 product.) + + Word about this "new game" spread mainly through hobby store culture and + the usual mysterious pop-culture grapevine that seems to require no + medium but aether. A larger culture began to develop as well, within + certain societal strictures. Wargaming was already a favored hobby among + American enlisted men, and many Army bases developed long-running D&D + games. Also, APAs (a kind of fanzine that operated like a modern + internet forum) began to appear, such as Alarums & Excursions and The + Wild Hunt. People were meeting, talking, comparing, and theorizing about + play. + + One unifying or at least visible factor was tournament play; this new + (or new-ish) activity was called "fantasy wargaming," after all, and had + first been released and understood as a modification of wargaming. So + tournaments were held, and people ran characters in squads against + referee-directed dangers. Imagine, if you will, fifty tables of eight + players apiece, each one presided over by a single referee. At the end + of the set time period, who had survived? Which group had collected the + most treasure? Which had killed the most opponents, and how tough were + those opponents? If this all sounds odd to the modern role-player, + you'll have to put up with knowing, patronizing looks from us old guys. + Where do you think Experience Points came from, anyway? + + As the culture spread and developed, secondary texts began to appear. + Many, many rules and play ideas proliferated in TSR's magazine The + Dragon, renamed from its precursor The Strategic Review. A company + called the Judges Guild, associated mainly with the tournament scene, + published a slew of adventure modules and other support material largely + taken from tournaments. The RPGA became active, including their magazine + Polyhedron. Dave Hargrave published the first of a nine-volume series of + supplements beginning with the Arduin Grimoire, introducing such things + as barbarians and critical hits. I cannot over-stress the impact of + these publications on the text-hungry culture. These became the texts of + play, far more so than any "rules-set" that anyone could actually pick + up and read. Soon, they operated as constraints (and some say, as raw + material) for the eventual rules that would follow. + + Dungeons & Dragons, 1977 (listed copyright in the text included 1974 + and, in later printings, 1979), by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, edited + by Eric Holmes - a full-sized saddle-stitched blue-cover booklet, + contained in a box with a color cover, including chits to be used in + place of dice. Significantly, "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" was already + in development by Gygax, and this product was written by Holmes mainly + as an intentional introduction and commercial intermediary to the + forthcoming text. + + Speaking of an actual rulebook, as all of this was occurring like + wildfire, Gary Gygax's own version of the Dungeons & Dragons book was + under way, now referred to as "Advanced." About the sources for this + writing, I can (but will not) speculate, but its eventual content + clearly deviates from Arneson's play as observed from his + later-published The First Fantasy Campaign. Not to put too fine a point + on it, Gygax's Simulationist priorities did not blend well with + Arneson's goals, which to my possibly biased eyes smack of Narrativism, + or with the parallel development of a lively, even fierce competitive + Gamist culture. Regarding this new text, Gygax had to deal with the + latter as a commercial constraint; the former, frankly, was drowned + nearly at birth. Dave Arneson, in the first of very many complex and + not-especially pleasant ownership conflicts with the property, was + significantly absent from the new version's authorship. + + The eventual release of the hardback Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in + three volumes (Monster Manual, Player's Handbook, and Dungeon Master's + Guide) was a very big deal in the hobby culture, not the least because + they were sold in places like Waldenbooks instead of Sid's Train Model + and Army Miniatures Hobby Shop. It provided a centralized textual + authority for play for the first time. However, nothing changed - the + local and widely varying standards and procedures for play were + established, more coherent competitor games (e.g. Tunnels & Trolls, + RuneQuest, DragonQuest, Traveller, The Fantasy Trip) had already + appeared, and these books, frankly, simply added to the raw material for + the existing role-players. To newcomers, indeed, things were different: + here are the books, hence here is the game, and now let's use the book + to play. But that came later. + + Oh, just to be clear about some textual issues: in 1983, a series of + boxed sets was released from TSR called "Basic Dungeons & Dragons," + which some people mistakenly believe to precede "Advanced Dungeons & + Dragons." It was re-released at least once more in later years. This + series was written mainly by Tom Moldvay and is best understood to be a + completely separate role-playing game. All references to "red-box" and + "blue-box" D&D, and similar, should be limited to this game alone. + + To repeat my point, the concept that Dungeons & Dragons "invented + role-playing" is patently false. Rather, D&D was the first publishing + epiphenomenon of role-playing as a hobby, intertwined with its + development but providing, itself, only raw material, not procedure. It + provided the first official role-playing texts, but those texts + themselves invented very little; rather they provided patchy stuff that + had to be shaped into role-playing at the local level. + + Following the appearance of further hard-back supplements, and + concordant yet further ownership disputes and editorial leadership, + further TSR products were mainly Simulationist in nature, most + especially Oriental Adventures, The Wilderness Survival Guide, and the + Dragonlance adventure modules, culminating in Advanced Dungeons & + Dragons Second Edition (AD&D2). The game, and its radically-changed + relationship of text to play, had changed so much that it passes out of + this essay. + + Early D&D as hobby culture + I think that the available discussions, interesting as they are, about + Arneson's and Gygax's relative contributions (a) to the hobby activity + and (b) to the actual publication of Dungeons & Dragons is overlooking a + crucial issue regarding late 1970s role-playing. Prior to AD&D2, the + available texts were reflective, not prescriptive, of actual play. Their + content was filtered through authors' priorities which were very + diverse. Furthermore, any particular area or group had only piecemeal + combinations of the texts. In 1978, one might find a group with + Chainmail, ten issues of Dragon, and a copy of the Monster Manual; as + well as a group with the 1977 boxed set and three or four volumes of + Arduin's Grimoire. No one, or very few people, had all of it, and as I + recall anyway, hardly anyone knew much about what books "went" when, or + made much distinction between TSR products and anything else. + + Rob MacDougall stated it best: we are talking about Cargo Cults. + Everyone knew about "this new great game." Everyone had on hand a + hodgepodge of several texts, which in retrospect seem to me to be almost + archeological in their fragmentary, semi-compatible but not-quite, + layered-in-time-of-publication nature. Also, although newly-available + texts obviously modified local oral traditions, they also arose from + them, generating a seething hotbed of how-to-play instructions in print + in other locations. Everyone had to shape, socially and procedurally, + just what the hell you did such that "role-playing" happened. How did + you know it worked? What did you do it for? All of it, from Social + Contract right down to Stance, had to be created in the faith that it + worked "out there" somewhere, and somehow, some way, it was supposed to + work here. + + So everyone just did it locally. I consider role-playing to have been + constructed independently in a vast number of instances across the + landscape, sometimes in parallel, sometimes very differently. Over time, + further unifications or contact-compromises occurred, whether through + tournament standards, military bases, conventions, or APAs, or simply by + people meeting when they converged on college campuses. Full unification + never occurred. There never existed a single, original D&D. + + During this time, what was established about role-playing per se? Even + if there was no actual, single D&D, the perception that some such thing + existed was widespread, and ultimately it became a (partly) + self-fulfilling perception. So what was it? + + * Players fell into categories of the team member, the rules-lawyer, + and the advancer/powergamer. + * Character creation was conceptually locked into the Column A, Column + B method of Class + Race, to the extent that different combinations + were playing by almost-completely different rules sets. + * Character behavior fell into two categories - (1) Strict + alignment-based parameters, taken essentially as Social Contract for + any and all play of characters; and (2) complete laissez-faire based + on metagame priorities of the moment, using alignment, if at all, + merely for Color. + * The process of long-term play focused on the Gamble to start, + evolving into Crunch-heavy play as character effectiveness and + survival-probabilities increased, and eventually into a Powergamer + phase. + * A certain degree of rules-customizing was forced to be standard, + particularly regarding magic systems and anything else pertaining to + fantastical elements. + + What happened to the subject matter, which is to say, the Explorative + content? + "D&D fantasy" became an actual genre of pop culture, later to be + reflected in actual bookstore-book fantasy. It's often characterized as + high fantasy, epic fantasy, or Tolkienesque fantasy, but it is, was, and + is only composed of D&D. My articles [12]Fantasy Heartbreakers and + [13]More Fantasy Heartbreakers address some of the resulting effects on + role-playing game design. + + One cannot properly say "D&D does this," or that a game "plays like + D&D," without specifying exactly which D&D one means. It's likely that + what's being referenced is far more based on local practices and + interpretations than on any actual game text. + An astounding diversity existed regarding role-playing goals and + practices all the way from the very beginning of the hobby. It's badly + mistaken to characterize early role-playing as Gamist, based on the + texts alone. + + What characterized specifically-Gamist role-player culture, arising from + this subcultural cauldron? + + * Arguing about "what happened" or "what would happen" became + entrenched into play, such that rules-agreements, rules-debriefing + or fairness-negotiating was part and parcel of characters moving + around in the imaginary space. + * Calvinball tactics were therefore entrenched as well, leading much + play straight into the Hard Core. + * Role-playing as a hobby became socially isolated, a venue for people + who were unsuccessful at socializing in other activities rather than + one of many activities. + + No wonder people either idealize or vilify their youthful experiences + playing D&D. On the one hand, it was you and your best-est friends, + working something out together and arriving at (quite possibly) your + first-ever Social Contract with other people, completely isolated from + adults-approved activities. In other words, you remember it fondly not + because the game itself was good, but because it wasn't - you remember + your repair of it at the Step On Up and Challenge levels, and the good + moments, however common or few they were, were all triumphs. + + On the other hand, it may have been a horrific degeneration into the + worst moments of social breakdown, on a par with any other form of + social abuse, and consequently it's reserved in the cellars of your mind + with being beaten up in locker rooms, confronted by older kids on the + way home from school, or humiliated by siblings. + + Hip to geek + The following is strictly a personal reflection from my own experiences + of late 1970s and early-1980s role-playing, as a hobby culture. I was + 13-14 years old in 1977-79 when I discovered the hobby, and through the + age of, roughly, sixteen, I battered my head against (A)D&D in a variety + of groups. They fell into the following categories: + + * Mainly older people with a sprinkling of teens who tried to do adult + things as much as possible. The adults were usually Army guys, with + some hip types who ran kids' groups or community-course programs. + The latter ran some damn good games, as I recall. + * Fellow teens - these get-togethers were often the least satisfying, + on the one hand due to individuals who owned "special" rules that no + one else did (brrrr ... what one guy armed with an Arduin Grimoire + can do to a Social Contract ...), and on the other because of the + perfectly reasonable assessment by many that the textual game itself + wasn't particularly fun. + * I also knew of several college groups during this time, up through + the early 1980s, mainly playing RuneQuest. I burned with jealousy + and desperately wanted to be in college and to play with folks like + that. + + Significantly, many groups, even the teen ones, included women in their + late twenties who were interested in role-playing and not at all + concerned about the propriety of hanging out with boys ten years + younger. This was the late 1970s, after all. I remember quite a few such + individuals. + + By 1983, things had changed drastically; in some ways, it mirrored a + general subcultural shift across the entire country (see the film Boogie + Nights if you didn't live through it). I'd realized that D&D had become + a "pube" activity, meaning 10-13-year-olds exclusively, most of whom + played once and then walked. + + The content resembled video games of the time: lives, levels, and + skyrocketing success scores, with no real loss at all. It was utterly + divorced from fantasy or mythic literature, and the comics and fantasy + authors of the day disavowed the hobby en masse. Successful play became + more and more a matter of who could break the game fastest, and the + social gamer became more and more consistently the social-outcast gamer. + Gaming communities weren't an edifying bunch, actually; they'd been + transformed socially and procedurally by the Cargo Cult context into a + rabidly-abusive, nitpicky bunch, in which the Social Contract actually + included making others upset. + + It had lost its cool factor entirely, just in time for me to go to + college in the fall of that year. The aforementioned Willing Female + Factor had vanished like smoke, and, my priorities firmly in place, I + swore off the hobby. The oath didn't last long, of course. I did find a + lot of people to role-play with, including women my own age, but always + on the basis that we "weren't like those gamers." Conversations about + role-playing ceased instantly if anyone nearby evinced interest in D&D. + We played Champions and Stormbringer, and looked forward to the buzz of + GURPS. + + Conclusion + The honeymoon was over long ago. Even in terms of this first phase of + D&D history alone, I suggest that we all would do well to recognize that + role-playing as an activity did not stem from a single game text, or + most importantly, from a single most-common mode or priority of play. + Judgments aren't the issue; whether all this was a good or bad thing is + completely beside the point. What matters are the consequences of this + recognition, including: + + * No one role-playing technique may be cited as "the original" way. + * No single combination of rules and presentation formats may be + considered archetypal. + * "D&D" as a term cannot be taken to indicate any particular form of + play, especially in reference to the origins of the hobby. + + I don't know whether I'll ever get to further discussion of the history + of D&D; in many ways, it's out of my sphere of interest except in + strictly marketing and industry terms, and I don't have much personal + history either as player or professional to draw upon. + The Forge created and administrated by [14]Clinton R. Nixon and [15]Ron + Edwards. + All articles, reviews, and posts on this site are copyright their + designated author. + +References + + Visible links + 1. file:/// + 2. file:///about/ + 3. file:///donate.php + 4. file:///articles/ + 5. file:///reviews/ + 6. file:///resources/ + 7. file:/// + 8. mailto:sorcerer@sorcerer-rpg.com + 9. http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4983 + 10. http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=4991 + 11. http://www.blackmoor.com/ + 12. http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/9/ + 13. http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/10/ + 14. mailto:webmaster@indie-rpgs.com + 15. mailto:sorcerer@sorcerer-rpg.com