Monday, July 18, 2022

The Mess

Let's start with a rewrite of yesterday's post including the "Introduction" segment ... rushing things less and being a bit more forthright and clear with the statements being made:

This book is about learning to be a “dungeon master” – a mysterious title associated with the game “Dungeons & Dragons.” The dungeon master, or “DM,” accepts the responsibility to coordinate and take charge of the game. It is a difficult role to play, with many responsibilities and the need for many talents. If you, dear reader, want to learn how it’s done, you’ve bought the right book.

The first thing you must know about Dungeons & Dragons, or “D&D,” is that there is no single game. During its long and tortured history, D&D has been turned, twisted and tortured by many authors into dozens of shapes, some of which still bear the game’s official name, while others are re-imaginings of the game in different clothing. With each iteration since its inception, the various versions of the game have grown less compatible with earlier versions, so that D&D has become a hodgepodge of contradictory rules, ideas and forms of game play.

If you have already purchased a version of the game – and perhaps spending more money than you’d intended – I’m sorry to say that it’s possible you don’t have the best version ... or rather, the one that’s best for you. In the hands of someone else, your cherished copy may be exactly what they’re looking for; but in your hands, it could be a disaster. Learning this may come as a shock. It’s surely the last thing you expected to hear from a stranger telling you how to manage the game. But it’s the truth. You may not now have the game you dearly wanted. The best thing you can do about that is to go online, figure out which version you have, and take the time to find out what the other versions are. This, I’m afraid, is your responsibility. All I can offer is that, if you find you’ve made a mistake, you can try to trade for the version you want. Or you can make the best of what you have, until you learn enough to make a change. This is the climate of D&D as it stands. The game’s existence is a complete mess.

This book won’t take time to compare and review the different D&D versions that exist, because unravelling the mess is not this book’s goal. My goal is to teach you how to dungeon master a D&D game – any D&D game. Thankfully, the skills and methodology of “DMing” apply equally well regardless of the version of game play. DMing is about providing game details, making formal judgements about what’s happening and enabling opportunities for the other participants. It’s about being ready with a great deal of information. It’s about knowing the rules – whatever they are – very, very well.

To help you master the game, this book will provide discussion, knowledge and ethical advice. It will define many aspects of D&D that have existed since the beginning, providing clarification that you will find useful in answering questions and directing the game. To handle the other participants positively and effectively, you’ll need practical knowledge about how to speak, relay information, create moments of drama and prepare yourself for each game session. This book will provide it. Once you’ve finished reading this book, you should have a much stronger understanding of how the game works and your part in it.

However, just so you know, that won’t be enough to make you a DM. It takes a long, long time to learn all you need know to be a good DM – and the truth is, you’ll never stop learning. This book that’s brought you and me together is just the start. To go further, to reach your potential, you’ll need to employ good sense and a great deal of self-investigation.

It’s up to you to dig down and discover what you can do. It’s up to you to commit to the game; to stay up all night as you draw maps or design the next big thing; to show patience in the face of criticism; and to say “yes” when it’s warranted and “no” when you’re prepared to stand your ground.

It’s up to you to believe in yourself, and trust your judgement. What I can do is help you understand the fundamental game, despite its trapping and confusions – and when we’re done, you’ll find you have the potential to be a better DM than you imagined.


Better.   Importantly, it buries two functional justifications I need to go forward: (a) I'm not responsible for the version you play; and (b) I'm free to define aspects of D&D that may not exist in the version you play, which only serves to argue that you're playing "the wrong version."  The upshot, however, is that I'm taking a risk here.  The text had better be solid, helpful and insightful going forward, or I end up looking like a self-righteous prick.  Which, of course I am, but it's best if I don't look like one.

This is the reason for softening the text above somewhat.  The truth is that D&D is a gawdawful mess; I don't want to pretend differently, and that would do no good for the reader anyway.  But if it's possible, I'd rather this was so because it is (and I think a visit around the internet supports that), and not because I said so.

There is a distinct difference between the "game" and the versions thereof.  D&D, whatever the specific rules, is functionally a game where the DM describes, the players react, the DM reacts to the players, the players react again to the DM and so on.  My desire is for the reader to grasp this, rather than the specific details of any specific game or version, because that structure is true of all role-playing games, not just D&D.

Managing this react-dynamic is the key to teaching DMing ... with a strong recognition that no simple format like "always say yes" is going to work at all well.  The game is too complex for that.  But let's leave this part on the shelf and return to Moldvay.

As before, we can see the text trying to do too many things at the same time, while adding details that don't remotely need to be discussed at this time.  With the first sentence, having been told to roll 3d6 on the previous page and apply it to the six character ability stats, the text on the right tries to jump straight to having the character pick a class ... and then realises, almost at once, oops, we forgot to explain what abilities actually are.  Nonetheless, we introduce the idea of a "prime requisite" — a term that offers the flimsiest value to the conversation, yet is there to confuse the reader — then shove pressure onto the character that "success" depends on having a high prime requisite score.

Now you and I understand this as a "duh" moment, since the scores are already rolled and the player's character is stuck with what's gotten ... but for the new DM, there's a sense of, "How can I get a higher ability score?" — which is exactly the kind of question I've fielded scores of times as a DM from new players, and those from other campaigns.

Language has a great deal of power.  Phrasing things in such a way that the player feels their whole success rests on the highness of their ability scores primes them in all sorts of horrible ways.  We see the same thing in advice like, "Any character with a strength score of 13 or above should consider one of the following four classes ..."  Pause a moment and consider.  Of course a character's class should depend on its higher ability scores ... but notice that nothing has been said about the underhand shuffle that's being forced here, where the abilities cannot be simply arranged as the player wishes, stated plainly in the earlier AD&D text regarding the rolling up of a character.

Why?   What does this fundamental change in character construction add to the game, except to build camps of people ready to battle stupidly over a rule choice that makes no fundamental difference to game play?  If the player wants to be a cleric, then why can't the 13 simply be put under wisdom?  Or put under strength if the player wants to be a fighter?  Why go through the complicated, apparently rational act of pumping the prime requisite argument with multiple sentences under each ability?  Because it's clever?  I'll be damned if I see how.  Or is it that we want to force players to play characters they don't actually want to play?  If so, that's a hell of a way to build the game as a support structure.

Can you not see that frivolous, essentially meaningless rule structures like this contributed long term to the impatience and indifference of would-be players, who found themselves stymied by arbitrary nonsense like the above?  Can you not see that resistance to this fanned the flames of a resistance to everything in the game?  Moldvay's version doesn't exist in a vacuum; there are plenty of copies of the DMG laying around, which Moldvay ignores, without a word of explanation about WHY he's chosen to ignore it.  Because there is no explanation.  He's gone with what he thinks is the "right" choice ... and fuck what anyone else thinks.

I remember clearly that this disagreement, and others, presented themselves in 1981-82.  Obviously, we couldn't see at the time how ludicrous these discrepancies would become — at the time they were a mere annoyance, largely perpetrated by an annoying kind of player and DM.

Writing a book that explains how to DM requires that every bit of advice we offer has to be absolutely defensible on some basis other than, "I feel like it should be that way."  Otherwise, we're wasting our time.  Or we don't really know what helps a DM to DM.  Which is evident in the sort of material that's written.

In the introduction above, the word "practical" stands out.  The advice we give has to have practical application, which means that it must adhere to actual doing and use, and NOT according to theory and ideas.  The reader must be able to read it, apply it and find that it succeeds with persons who are total strangers to the writer.

That is a damned high bar to clear ... but as can be seen with earlier attempts, writers like Moldvay and others didn't give a damn.  They felt so righteous in their beliefs that they saw no reason whatsoever to explain themselves.

Which is precisely how we got into this mess.

8 comments:

  1. *ahem* At the risk of getting chewed out, I'll offer the following regarding ability scores.

    With regard to AD&D...which was published PRIOR to Moldvay's Basic, and which (I assume) was meant to be the end game for players who had learned and mastered the basic game: the first method of generating ability scores given in the DMG ("Method I") does, of course, allow players to arrange ability scores in any order a player desires.

    But how can a player know what order they wish? How can a player know what type of character they wish to play?

    Having run B/X for a number of years, including as a method of TEACHING the game to new players, the 3d6 in order *does* provide something: it forces players to "play the cards they're dealt" and explore options they might not have otherwise pursued.

    I appreciate this, ESPECIALLY as an introductory game...one where, perhaps, a player has no idea what a "cleric" or "thief" might be/do until they've had the chance to play as one (as suggested by a high "prime requisite" score). For play with experienced players...well, even then it can *still* be an entertaining challenge to "play the hand you're dealt" (I once had a wonderful time running a fighter with a CON score of 3...for a one-off adventure). But generally the later guidelines given in the AD&D books (and, indeed, the Advanced game itself) is better suited for the long-term, campaign play.

    Folks have to learn to walk before running, right?

    People who take the 3d6 in order thing as holy writ are, of course, missing the point. But (for a basic game) it *does* offer a method of generating characters that shortcuts a new player's (possibility of) being overwhelmed by choices or operating under poorly conceived notions of how to play.

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  2. The argument you make, JB, is precisely the same as my being told on my first time playing that I would be a "fighter" ... then I was told where to put my stats, what weapons I had, what equipment I carried and everything except my name.

    It's a common argument, and it's applied to many things, not just D&D. But let me advance another.

    Everything that we learn that exists contrary to the actual way of doing things has to be UNLEARNED before the actual way can be learned. To save the hardest step, then, you force THREE steps on the student; and the end result, according to a great deal of study, leaves garbage in the machine that was never fully unlearned.

    I strongly disagree with your philosophy. D&D is not cards. New players, even young children, are remarkably capable of learning complex things, IF the effort to teach them is resolutely approached.

    Now, if you're saying that the "correct" way of playing D&D is to NEVER allot your scores where you please, then your position may have validity, for you and for others. But that doesn't seem to be what you're doing. You're arguing, "They're too dumb to learn at the outset, though that's in fact just our opinion, so let's treat them like they're dumb, so that when they're not dumb (again, according to when we think they're not), let's teach them the advanced approach."

    This is just stupid. It's a pollutant that's been around since the 1890s, with the start of general education, and it persists.

    I don't see anything difficult about saying to a person, "If you want to be a fighter, put your highest score next to strength. If you want to be a cleric, put your highest score next to wisdom. If you want to be a fighter but you don't want to put your highest score next to strength, keep in mind that as a fighter, you won't get the most out of your character's ability if you put your second or third highest score there."

    That seems pretty damn simple. And I used less words than Moldvay.

    Oh, and RE: learning to walk before you run. BOTH are skills we don't have to teach children. My grandson learned to walk because he's HUMAN, and he's able. He runs because he automatically wants to get from one end of the house FASTER than walking. The idiom is a bad one; always has been. Let's use idioms that actually apply to education, hm?

    So.

    Feel chewed out? I tried not to disappoint. Course, I could have gently corrected you and then, as an "introductory" exercise, and once you'd gotten experienced with gentle correction, we could move to advanced chewing.

    Got one more point to make.

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  3. RE: exploring options they might not have pursued otherwise.

    This is not the DM's role. Absolutely not. I am not training players to play the game, or dictating to them what sort of characters they should run. If a player wants to play nothing but fighters for the next fifty years in my campaign, I'm absolutely fine with that.

    In bridge, we play the cards we're dealt because that's the game. But we also play the cards of any given hand for about five minutes. Here, with D&D, we're talking about forcing a player to suck up a character they don't want for multiple hours, potentially weeks and months of play, if the goal is to play a campaign.

    IT IS NOT THE SAME FUCKING THING.

    That should be obvious.

    If I want every player to get the most from my game, then a very large part of my role is to ensure the players individually, according to their personalities, obtain the very most the game can offer, ALL THE TIME. When something like the order of die rolls at the outset can be modified to help achieve that, I'll jump at it. Consider: I'm a tyrant where it comes to players taking a RISK and then having to live by the die rolls. But where is the risk in rolling a player character? Should this be a risk? I don't think it should. That's one of the reasons I insist there's a certain minimum in the character's ability scores - because I've played too many games where players were forced to "play the cards" and the result was such a level of resentment that it ruined the game for everyone.

    I won't give you all 18s, or anything close to it. But I do think that where a few simple choices can make a player happy - run the class you want, run the race you want, run the gender you want - I'm ready to comply.

    Now, if you want to disparage me because I won't automatically provide the numbers that make it possible for you to run a ranger, paladin or monk, that's a fair cop. Because I won't. Too many of certain classes makes a bad campaign. But I've found that any committed player will, given the opportunity to collect henchfolk, eventually get the paladin or monk they so dearly want.

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  4. To be clear I didn't say I *wanted* to be chewed out.
    ; )

    [but I certainly should've known better than to ask a rhetorical question based on a hackneyed idiom. That was DEFINITELY asking for a bite]

    I am going to quibble over your last point. You wrote:

    "This is not the DM's role. Absolutely not. I am not training players to play the game, or dictating to them what sort of characters they should run. If a player wants to play nothing but fighters for the next fifty years in my campaign, I'm absolutely fine with that."

    While I agree that it's not the DM's role to train players how to run play the game (it's not! Not at all!), it IS the job of a BASIC (i.e. "introductory") game to teach players how to play the game. And the Moldvay Basic set is doing that with the system that it has in place. When I run B/X for newbies, I play by the system, and the system teaches them...so that *I* don't have to.

    And I would add that characters in the B/X system, as written, take about as much time to create as dealing out a deck of cards, and (in straight B/X play) last only about 50 seconds because of the inherent lethality of that system. It would not be unusual for a player to roll up two or three characters in an evening's play, replacing dead characters.

    NOW I *do* realize this is not an ideal system for sustained, long-term play AT ALL. But it *does* teach the beginner the basics of the game.

    That being said: the goal SHOULD be sustained, long-term campaign play. And being "dealt" a character randomly isn't an effective way to meet that goal at all. And I can totally understand if you don't want to waste time doing that...or running one-off demo games, or con games, or teaching a kid you meet who lives in a different city from you and who will never have the opportunity to play in a campaign game that you run. I understand that. *I* don't want to do it either...not anymore. There was a time, when I thought that was the best way of proliferating the hobby.

    You run a campaign. When new players join the group, there is an expectation that it will be for the long haul. You provide tutelage in your system with this expectation in mind. You have veteran players to help the newbie learn the ropes. All good...I am in the fledgeling stages of my own campaign. And I, too, want to give the folks who sit at my table the opportunity to "obtain the most the game can offer, ALL THE TIME." It can be hard to do that with someone who hasn't had a basic crash course in the game.

    Perhaps, with adult players, such crash courses like what the Basic system offers is unnecessary. Sure, I can see that. But in my life, I've only ever had to teach four or five ADULT players coming to the D&D game for the first time. MOST of the players I've taught...from myself and the friends of my youth up to my own children and their friends...have been younger than 10 or 11. That's been more than a dozen players (at least sixteen or seventeen, counting off the top of my head). Many of them...later...moved on to Advanced play. But they all started out very Basic. And while I didn't make them all play fighters (far from it), I found that limiting their choices in the chargen process aided their learning process.

    That's why I see value in it.

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  5. I really can't see the value, but I'll minimise my response.

    I want the responsibility of teaching persons how to play directly; I don't want to rely on a system for that. Teaching people how to DM, I see a personal, friendly, supportive hands-on approach.

    It sounds to me that what the Basic system teaches is how to die.

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  6. Ha! Yeah, I'd agree that it does THAT...in spades.
    ; )

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  7. Since I don't consider dying to be the point of the game ... and given your brightened response just now ... I find that to be an inherent problem.

    The goal of Monopoly is not to go broke before houses are built. Chess is not about being unable to move pieces. I'm the first to say that yes, characters must be in danger of dying, but the game is still about empowerment. Choosing where to put your stats, and play characters you know how to play, are critical elements of good design.

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    Replies
    1. Alexis, I agree that “learning to die” is not desirable. I was laughing because I agree with you…and hadn’t really considered before…and found it absurd. After all, one of the (many) reasons I’ve switched to the AD&D system is the greater survivability of PCs, which lends itself to longer term play.

      No, I don’t consider it a positive…though it’s better than the opposite alternative of learning PCs are nigh un-killable, plot immune heroes.

      Regardless, there are definitely more important lessons to learn.

      Delete

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