Monday, July 11, 2022

Thistles

"This is not something that someone just casually goes off and sets up a 1970s-style campaign, ex nihilo.  That just doesn't happen, and like, and when you're not the BROSR, and you haven't gotten two or three years of work into figuring this out and playing with this, it's like, you know, if someone actually has done all this, I guess it would be obvious.  But when you done know what you don't know, there's a lot of big process there to find out what matters and what doesn't.  And there's a lot of things that are going to like not necessarily work out."

 — Jeffro Johnson, BROSR


Okay, so why am I taking pieces from this podcast and deconstructing them?  I assure you, it's not to humiliate or disparage the "bros" — which, I confess, they make more attractive by mispronouncing Latin and statements that begin, "If you're not us ..."  But this is not my goal.  Rather, it's that much of what the bros say is based upon absurd bits and pieces of information, based upon what appears to be gut instinct than real knowledge.  That needs to be addressed, since they're plainly reflecting the messages they've heard and drinking that kool-aid.

Which gets in the way of a message that IS a good one, that needs adoption.

Agreed, obviously, D&D is a mountain to climb.  Any one can see one doesn't need to be "the BROSR" and that, in fact, it doesn't take two or three years of work to figure this out.  I and my friends, all 15 years old, began running our games during the winter of 1979-80; we had older people around us whom we could go to for advice, from whom we could get good advice.  By the summer of 1980 we were all fairly confident about DMing.  Going in rotation, playing twice a week — Friday after school in the cafeteria between 2:30 and 6:00, then Saturday between 7:00 and 10:30, by the end of 1980 we had some 300-350 hours of play under our belts.  Three quarters of that was play and about a quarter was DMing.  All this was after I had finished with football, which was only that fall in 1979.  I didn't go out for football again with grade 11.  And this doesn't count the time I spent playing in other campaigns, Empire of the Petal Throne and Chivalry & Sorcery.

By the summer of 1981, between grades 11 and 12, we had sorted out which of us wanted to DM and which didn't.  Because we were older, facing our last year before graduation, most of us were freer to play later hours before we had to go home.  I ran about 60-70% of our games because I was better prepared than John, and our time had shifted from 7 hours a week to 9.  So, 18 months after starting the game, I had about 225 hours of DMing to my credit.  By then I was also running Traveller on Sunday afternoons and occasionally switching D&D up for Top Secret.  Gamma World, Paranoia, Tunnels & Trolls and straight wargames, like Car Wars, got shoved in here and there ... the two months that summer gave all kinds of opportunities to play.

By winter of 81-82, two years after my DMing began, I was the only DM left in our group.  I was not a bro and I could already see there were huge problems with AD&D, none of which are the problems that any modern-day blogger bitches about.  Alignment was weak, but not because it didn't make sense or because it couldn't be perfectly defined, but because it got in the way of the players seeking higher expressions of their character.  Any literate person knows that human beings are NEVER of a single mind; they never commit to one behaviour in every circumstance.  We are a hodgepodge of badly thought out decisions and actions that are both cruel and noble ... and the alignment system, with it's stodgy "tell you what to do" approach was simply kindergartenish and unnecessarily restraining.

The weapons vs. armour class adjustment isn't hard to run and it does make sense ... but any capable, wargame strategist — which we all were — could figure out in a few runnings that certain weapons were plainly better than others ... which drastically compelled wise players to choose the more obviously superior weapons.  We agreed after playing with it a year that the constraint was limiting the spirit of the game, while liberating no special value of any kind, so we ditched it.  If you want an end to power gaming, eliminate any system that arbitrarily specialises a weapon beyond it's functional limitations.

A battle axe needs two hands, and a sword does not, permitting the use of a shield.  They both do 1-8 damage ... so it appears that the sword is superior.  Why would anyone use a battle axe?  Well, you can't cut through a door with a sword.  When a sword breaks, the whole weapon is useless, but a battle axe always breaks at the weakest point, the handle ... which is cheap and easy to replace.  The weapon is made that way.  In the long run, the battle axe is more reliable.  Like a car with a spare tire.  You can carry the extra handle with you, or pirate it from another weapon.  Meaning the sword and battle axe each have their strengths and their weaknesses.  There's no definite right or wrong choice.  This doesn't keep a simple-minded player thinking that one or the other IS superior ... but the game includes elements to make them change their mind.  On the other hand, if you make the sword clearly superior by creating arbitrary weapon-vs.-armour rules, then every player would be stupid to lessen their chance of survival by choosing an axe.  That's not power gaming.  That's sensible.

The larger point is that, no, it doesn't take two years to get a handle on this game.  Those DMs who stepped down after trying it were fine as DMs, if a bit overwhelmed.  I can still easily get overwhelmed while playing.  A DM is a particular personality that likes being overwhelmed, who sees it as a good thing, because it's exciting and a high.  He or she looks forward to the next time the opportunity to DM comes ... whereas others view the next running with anxiety.  There's only so many times one can be possessed by that anxiety before one quits running.

Understand, however, this isn't a sign of the game being comprised of bad rules, or of the prospective DM not knowing what needs to be done.  We can know perfectly how to run, and still fail at it because it's really not for us.

The bros make the pitch hard that by playing AD&D by the rules exactly, it's a much better game.  And they repeat over and over that it's "the AD&D rules" — and apparently, only those rules, that affords this better game.  This is nonsense.  The problem with 5th isn't that it has different rules.  It's that the rules aren't "rules" at all.  They're suggestions at best, easily compromised, badly defined and overall a ghastly mess for organising a campaign.  AD&D is superior to 5th not because it's a better rule system, but because it IS one.  Any consistent, structured, limiting rule system is vastly superior to 5th for that reason.

It's a good idea for an unsupported DM, without practical experience with wargames (which are all about hardcore exact adherence to rules), without access to good advice (which throws out everything on the internet), to adopt AD&D rules-as-written as a starting point.  I encourage that, whole heartedly.  Not because I think AD&D is a good system as written, but because, as a matter of fact, that's exactly how I started. 

Nor do I think AD&D's rules represent "how Gygax envisioned the game," which is a load of dingo's kidneys.  In any case, who gives a rat's boil what Gygax intended?  He's dead, we're still here, and humanity moves on from what inventors invent.  We don't make cars the way Henry Ford did, and guess why.

Most would-be DMs out there have had ALL their opportunities to learn viciously co-opted by morons and exploiters.  These poor DMs desperately need to stop viewing D&D as a set of guidelines and instead as a set of hard, strict boundaries, which have the capacity to change and discipline these DMs into new people with new perspectives.  Playing AD&D rules-as-written might do that.

5th is not about disciplining players.  And while I hate to sound like a christian website urging you to beat your children, "discipline" in the academic sense is necessary for building the strong, sustainable apparati that will keep a game campaign going, year after year.  Us old school guys who played 1812, El Alamein and Tractics had our mental spines broken over the backs of rule systems that permitted zero flexibility.  That's what we wanted.  It forced us to solve the problem using the games rules, and not solve the rule problems with our flippant imaginations.  And hell, regarding what Gygax "thought," he contributed to the design of the last one linked ... 'course, that was years before he lost his shit with TSR.

Every player faced those same rule constraints; and as it played out, it became clear that some could see how to move units in a way that would win a battle and some did not.  For those who did well at this, and for those who did okay and occasionally succeeded, this was a triumph of game design.  But for those who could not think like a commander, who could not make sense of strategy and tactics, these games were horrible.  Those people did not enjoy these games.  Yet no one ever spoke of changing the rules to suit their shortcomings.  Simulation, Avalon Hill and other publishers didn't pump out "basic" game versions for these games, designed to make sure "everyone had fun."  Fuck everyone.  "Everyone" could go to the fucking beach if they wanted fun.  We were playing games that challenged our intellect and our limitations.  We screamed at each other, we fought viciously over half an inch of movement, we tore the skin on our fingernails and on our knees moving units over carpet with the fastidiousness of a surgeon.  We did not speak of having "fun."

The crucifixion-cross of "FUN" for everyone has ruined D&D past the point where most players introduced to the game have any chance of experiencing the sort of game we played 40 years ago.  If it takes them two or three years to learn D&D, it's because they didn't learn the importance of rules at a young age, or because they were taught that "fun" was the only defensible hill upon which anyone would play a game.  If the bros above feel the need to self-aggrandise themselves as "the ones" — go Neos — who have seen the blessed light of AD&D rules-as-written, all power to them.  At least they're on the right path, even if they've decided to start on it 43 years later.  At least they're a tiny percentage of the community that's finally realised that Mentzer, Holmes and the string of fucked-up weak-player enablers who followed in their wake, were taking the game on a crooked, EASY road to Hell.  At least someone woke the Chriscakes up.

So, yeah, I'm annoyed by their ignorance and terse arrogance — but unlike a lot of people, I see the bed from which it's grown.  From soil that's done little but grow mould these last forty years, along comes these two thistles.  And they're pushing out a couple of flowers.  I'll take that over what I've had.

Still.

I can't resist deconstructing the donkey piss of misinformation they're dribbling out, so there are going to be a few more of these posts.  I hope my readers are wise enough to see the good in this process.

4 comments:

  1. As you said, “the gift that keeps on giving.” This is another great post.

    And yet…

    D&D *is* fun, not just “intellectually challenging.” I mean, I assume my kids are playing the game because it’s fun…they usually whine and bitch about anything perceived as in-fun (okay, maybe not “usually,” but often enough). Today, my kids had an outing with another family (who’s eldest son, Mace, has played D&D a couple-three times with us), and the younger brother asked me…with mom standing by to lend support…if I would teach him “how to play D&D too.” Because his brother’s having so much fun, apparently.

    [previously, it was assumed by others…including Mace and his parents…that Winston would not be interested in D&D, as he doesn’t like “games” except for sports and video games]

    Someone must be having fun, right? Does “fun” have to be a dirty word with those of us trying take the game seriously?

    Anecdote: my son just taught me two new card games over the weekend (“99” and “Crazy 8s”) while I taught him and the fam Pinochle (an easy version). Last night the family was watching Oceans 11 (the remake) and my kids were just GUFFAWING at the scene with the (young) adult movie stars who don’t know how to play poker…they thought it was the funniest thing ever. “How can they be so terrible?!” After all, cards are a lot easier than D&D.

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  2. I hope you read this comment, JB, and it isn't lost to you.

    Because the establishment has used "fun" as the be-all and end-all of game play, to which every other aspect of the game must be sacrificed for the greater good -

    "The Greater Good"

    - then YES, we are forced to be vigilant against any attitude towards the game that puts fun front-and-center. No matter what a thing is, or what it stands for, when it's presence is a crucifixion of EVERYTHING that isn't fun, then fuck fun.

    We've watched this process for decades. Encumbrance isn't fun - put it on the cross. Imbalance isn't fun - put that on the cross. Mages casting only one time a day isn't fun; too little healing isn't fun; too few classes isn't fun; too few races isn't fun; rules aren't fun; limitations aren't fun. PUT THEM ON THE CROSS. CRUCIFY THEM. Pound the nails over and over. THIS GAME WILL BE FUN, FUN, FUN. EVERYONE MUST HAVE A GOOD TIME. EVERY SINGLE PERSON. BANG. BANG. BANG.

    At some point, we have to recognise that the word "fun" ... not the actual concept, not the emotion, but the fucking WORD ... is being used as a general excuse to butcher everything that gets between the company and it's profit, which must have more players, more players, more players. At some point, as we go on having fun, as we go on enjoying ourselves, we must recognise that those who wear "fun" as a badge have an entirely different agenda from what the word means ... and that agenda is to kill everything that is fine and good in the world.

    These people who have weaponised the word LOVE that you defend the concept and emotion of the word, and fail to see the weapon. You ask me a silly question, like "someone must be having fun," which is obviously yes, and doesn't need asking, and the word-users grin and laugh about how you defend them ... when they don't give a shit about your fun. They'll sacrifice your fun cheerfully if it means 10 more blind, ignorant fools will rush out and buy their impossible-to-run game. They'll back your play, arguing, "Yes, Yes! Tell them how much fun D&D is," as they gut your game and let its entrails slop over the bloody ground of their profits.

    We're not talking about people "having" fun, dear JB. We're talking about Righteous Priests putting "FUN" on a FLAG they can wave over the ovens that burn the games that people might play without the company's sickening intervention.

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  3. I dig it, man…and I agree: the word has certainly been compromised.

    Very well, I shall put aside the “f” word and focus on those beneficial aspects of the game that give it meaning for me (the sum total of which adds up to the unmentionable concept). That is probably the wiser (and more specific, exacting) course going forward.

    For the Greater Good. Absolutely.

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  4. Just a counterpoint here. I do expect d&d to be fun, but I don't find any game fun if it's not an intellectual challenge. There's a reason I only play strategy pc games these days, and not crpgs. The crpgs aren't fun because I don't need to think. So many board games and card games, especially of the "party" variety are so boring for me exactly because there is no thought involved. If my brain isn't focused completely on the activity, it's no fun and I'd rather be doing something that I do find fun. So yeah fun is extremely important, but its not fun without engagement of my brain. Maybe that's why I find it so hard to be a player and not a DM, especially when they're running another boring module.

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