"Aleena can’t find Bargle, and is starting to look worried. Suddenly, the sound of a spell comes from a far corner of the room! The cleric turns and runs in that direction, waving her mace and shouting. the black-robed magic-user appears in the same corner as the spell noise, with a glowing arrow floating in the air beside him. He points at Aleena; the arrow shoots out, and hits her! She wails and falls with a sigh, collapsing in the middle of the room. The glowing arrow disappears."
Yes, I grasp that this is an "example of play." Yes, I understand the text above is super-imposed next to game rules. I get the "cleverness."
As someone who did not learn to play the game from someone's text example, but from direct contact with other players and a DM for many months before reading through any complete book, I have a very different perspective on the "importance" of Mentzer's flavour text. That is, it isn't important. In fact it's a wrongdoing.
No one, absolutely no one is going to accept this, especially if they read the above words at a young age. For most, the text makes D&D "come alive." It translates just what player characters feel, helping new players comprehend what the dice represent, awakening their imaginations. These are not just die rolls, they are moments of tremendous drama! Etcetera.
No one, absolutely no child, needs to be taught this. There are no examples of this kind in the rules for the Game of RISK, yet I'm quite sure every one of my readers has memories of soldiers freezing to death in Irkutsk or drowning between North Africa and Brazil. All of my readers, I'm sure, have made the sounds of soldiers dying as little pieces of wood or plastic (depending on how old you are) were killed off in large numbers. We have television, movies and books to teach us how drama works. I'll remind you that D&D came into existence because the inventors of Chain Mail could not keep themselves from anthropomorphising little chits of cardboard.
What Mentzer's little play does is tell you what to think specifically, in the prejudiced framework of Mentzer's imagination — and NOT YOURS. You were never given the chance to invent your own framework. Mentzer jumped in and did it for you. And today you think that's fine, because it's all nostalgia to you, and you've been programmed to think that's fine, you dumb, brainwashed prat.
Why should Aleena look worried? Because women look worried when they can't find someone? Why doesn't she get mad? Why does the sound of the spell come "suddenly"? Do spells get passed suddenly? Or ought they to take time, like the rules of an earlier version of the game, AD&D, says they do? Should the cleric run? Is that the best action? Did you even question that when you read it? NO, you didn't, because this is the format of how a book is written, and in a book, when the characters do something, you take it for granted.
Only, THIS ISN'T A BOOK! It's a game. And it's not supposed to be teaching you how other people would play, it's supposed to be teaching you the rules so that you can figure out, like a blank slate, how YOU would play. Would you "wail"? Would you "fall with a sigh"? Isn't that up to you, not Mentzer?
As an adult, you're completely convinced this has had no effect on your thinking process — except I can show you libraries full of psychology research that says yes, it does. As a child, you had no frame of reference for this. You couldn't decide if this was a legitimate way to teach this game or not; and as an adult, shoving this shit at your children, rather than just teaching them the rules without this shit, you think you're doing a good thing. But then, at least they have you as a frame of reference. In my day (and I'm a fucking ridiculous old man), we didn't have parents to give a frame of reference. We didn't have a voice to ask, "She wails? What gooey girlie sexist bullshit representation is this? Don't girls grunt too?"
It's hard, I know, to comprehend how cultural and socialized signatures get shoved through this kind of thing.
"You pass through one empty room, and then find the bodies of the cleric and the goblin in the next. But you see dark, quiet shapes in the darkness beyond: it's the ghouls! Quickly, you put the cleric's body over your shoulder and run for your life."
By the time you get to this narrative on page 7, the rules descriptions have evaporated. Mentzer is just writing fiction at this point, and bad fiction at that. In any case, the above doesn't describe any parties I've ever fucking played with. Run? From ghouls? Are you kidding me? And what about the freakin' rules about picking up a cleric? How much does the cleric weigh? How much shit is he carrying. Even at 16 someone playing would have asked this. Does Mentzer take the time, obstensibly with this book "teaching" children how to play? No. He's too busy getting his time in the sun, soaking up all of page 7 with his novelist fantasies.
But it's okay. He's telling you what to feel. What to think. What D&D is "all about" ... from the prejudiced point of view of one man who we don't fucking know from Adam in February 1983.
This is the sort of shit that makes me lose it. Particularly as I realize that this is a sacred cow, beyond reproach, that no one's allowed to disparage, ever, for any reason, A-fucking-men.
I'll remember to genuflect after I press publish.
*sigh*
ReplyDeleteI’m not a fan of Mentzer’s basic set. I own it, but only because I’m a completionist collector…picked it up circa 2005 or so…if I remember correctly. Maybe 2003. There’s a LOT of bullshit in it.
Yet it IS a sacred cow to many folks…it was their entry into the hobby. That stupid Choose Your Adventure Path intro. “You see a goblin: do you fight or run?” kind of crap. I count myself fortunate that I was a bright enough child to compel my parents to get the B/X set 1-2 years before Mentzer’s publication. Lucky! Because if my parents had said, “no wait till you’re 10 or 11” I would have been saddled with Mentzer’s version and the associated mental baggage.
It’s been tough enough just learning and re-learning (as an adult) how to play. The thought of digging myself out of the Mentzer mindset, too…brrrr!
One blogger, reading my recent posts humorously referred to them as a Counter-Reformation, citing my refusal of “OSR” standards. The CR is not a period of history with which I am particularly familiar. However, I may be willing to draw an analogy to the Reconquista of Spain…it’s not so much about changing hearts and minds as it is about retaking territory.
Just saying.
Just to be clear I didn't learn to play from the basic set. As I've mentioned before my dad would run games for me and my siblings growing up. He kept all his dnd stuff in box that was stored in the closet of his room upstairs, I didn't even attempt to read the Rulebooks until I was much older and had already started playing other rpgs(including 3e) with my older sisters and their friends from high school.
ReplyDeleteAnd The game I grew up with was never just the "basic" game, it was all of becmi together. And my dad preferred to use the moldvay/cook books for the basic and expert rules anyway(though the moldvay basic book was lost eventually and I had to buy a new one).
So no, I dont hold any nostalgia for aleena or bargle because by the time I read that "adventure" I had been playing the game for years. The artwork of the dm screens my dad used create more nostalgia for me than any specific book or rule. Which is one of the reasons I'm not one of those people who worship at the feet of mentzer.
The changing hearts and minds comes later, after the land has been retaken. Weather it's by Alexis deconstructing our sacred cows for their badness, or Ferdinand and Isabella expelling the Jews and Muslims from Spain, reformation will happen. I don't trust the reformers at WOTC to bring useful change. We need more who will bring the pie down from the sky. We need more grown-ups in the room, grown-ups who are not just businesspeople, not just artists, certainly not just "long-time gamers", but people who can think critically about why we play the game.
ReplyDeleteSorry to rope you into this, Lance. You were the inspiration. I'm sorry for my tone of disapproval; I did not mean it to apply to you.
ReplyDeleteOkay, Jomo, but to be VERY clear: expelling Jews and Muslims is a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteYes, Alexis, and sometimes I am not very clear. Jews and Muslims expelled from places is bad. Jews and Christians expelled from Arabia is bad. It's all bad. WOTC is a bad thing too, seems to inspire people to expel people like me from their gaming groups.
ReplyDelete