What is D&D, Anyway?

Jeff Rients of Jeff’s Gameblog, who ordinarily has interesting things to say, recently decided to instead rant about 4th edition in a couple of posts, starting with positing an unbridgeable gap between old-school and new-school.  All of this was founded, mind you, on a misinterpretation of a single post by Trask of Living Dice.  (Later he added a second post based on an editorial by someone at Wizards of the Coast.)  Buried in the comments, though, he said something that’s actually thought-provoking and worth responding to:

3d6 chargen. Wandering monsters. Save or die. Rust monsters eatng my sword. Level draining. Random treasure (possibly no treasure). Dave the Game may be right and what I’m talking about is a ‘playstyle’ issue, but the playstyle that I learned from D&D is no longer one supported by D&D.

I find this interesting because it is, for the most part, a list of those things that I found most senseless and annoying as both a player and a GM in past editions.  If this is how the “old school” contingent (and we really need a better name for them — too many of them, judging from other comments on Jeff’s post, are too ignorant or too vested in the One True Way of Gaming to allow them to co-opt “old school”) defines D&D, then I think it’s no surprise that the game no longer feels like D&D to them.

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I Watch the Watchmen

Watched, rather.  And it was good.  Some spoilers below, though I’m not sure whether spoilers really apply to movies based on comics published more than two decades ago.

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RPG Blog Anthology: Kudos

A long-overdue nod to the Open Game Table RPG Blog Anthology, today.  Jonathan of The Core Mechanic has done yeoman work getting this thing together, and it’s nearly ready for print.  He’s got a cover design now, and it looks… well, it looks damn good.  It looks like a book I wouldn’t be surprised to find on a shelf sitting next to some other roleplaying game books.  Which is, of course, a big part of the point.

Recently Indie Press Revolution picked up the Anthology, meaning that distribution is a possibility.  Which means I might actually see the Anthology sitting on that shelf alongside those other books.

I have three articles in the Anthology (and thank you to my readers for nominating them, and to the judges for finding them worthy), including my version of the Monk for 4e.  Which will have changed at least a little by the time the Anthology goes to print, but it’ll still be gratifying to have it published.

But if you need other reasons to pick it up, I had a chance to preview a draft copy.  I didn’t read the entire thing in depth — I’m saving that pleasure for the physical copy, because there’s just something about a book — but I saw enough to know that the editors have chosen a variety of quality articles on a broad range of topics.  The articles I skimmed are fascinating, useful, or both.  And the artists have done an excellent job of illustrating them in a variety of styles.  It’s an amazing project, and the speed with which it came together, given its scope, deeply impresses me.

The best part?  That “Volume 1″ on the cover.  Given the increase in the RPGBN membership toward the end of last year, and the activity it’s seen this year so far, I can only imagine what a Volume 2 might end up looking like.  I’d love to see it.

The Anthology won’t be available for order for a little while yet, but I encourage all of you to pick up a copy.  To support the project, of course, but also because I firmly believe that the collected posts inside it are easily worth as much as a random rules supplement.  And if you’re like me, it’ll be even better to have it in the form of a physical book, neatly organized for your perusal.

I’ll be posting about it again, once I’ve got my hands on a hard copy.  Until then… thank you, Jonathan, for everything you’ve done to make it a reality.

Gygax

Gary Gygax at Gencon 2007. Photograph by Alan De Smet.

One year ago today, E. Gary Gygax passed on.

He was a lot of things.  Not all of them good, of course; he was as human as everybody, and on occasion, he could come off as a self-important blowhard, a man who at times fervently claimed that there was only one correct way of playing his game.

But then, haven’t we all?

More importantly, there’s the other side of him.  The man who was an inspiration to us all, who co-created (along with Arneson) Dungeons & Dragons, and who prized creativity and improvisation.  The impact he had is, frankly, awe-inspiring:

• Gencon.  He started it, in 1968.  (Or 1967, if you count the small gathering in the basement of his home as “Gencon 0.”)  There are other gaming conventions, perhaps even bigger gaming conventions, but 40 years later, Gencon is still a showcase for gaming.
• D&D.  35 years, numerous editions, various spinoffs (of various quality), and still going strong.  Still the most popular RPG, and it’s achieved pretty broad pop-culture recognition too.
• Tabletop RPGs.  D&D is pretty much the first modern RPG.  The explosion of games that have come out since all owe something to D&D, in a sense.  Some are similar, some define themselves by their differences, some try to ignore the existence of D&D altogether, but the impact is still there.  Might another of these games have emerged without D&D, and become the de facto standard itself?  Sure, it’s possible.  But D&D did it.
• Computer and console gaming.  Dnd, Moria, Rogue, Hack, and the many roguelike variants.  Western RPG series such as Ultima, Bard’s Tale, Might & Magic, and Wizardry.  Japanese RPG series such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.  All of them started out as attempts to electronically capture some of the essence of tabletop roleplaying, and so all of them owe a debt to D&D.  Later games like MMOs, which based themselves on these earlier games, do too.  It’s not that much of a stretch to lay some of the credit for cRPGs in general at Gygax’s feet.  The games would probably have developed regardless, but they wouldn’t look and act the way they do if not for the template of D&D.

And that’s just the directly-related stuff.  And not even mentioning the articles he wrote, the novels, the books.  The way he expanded my youthful vocabulary with words like dweomer and milieu.

He was no great writer, and, according to my tastes at least, not a terribly good gamemaster at times.  But he was definitely an inspiration, and I’m grateful for what he achieved.

Rest in peace, Gary.

Blink Dogs

As promised, some Blink Dog stats for 4e.

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