The incredible austerity of D&D in 1980

Oh uhh yikes. It seemed to me that tlg’s obscenity comment was not meant as anything more than voicing an opinion. No one itt is against anyone having fun with whatever games they want, I mean right? Even though pbkr doesn’t get the appeal of old rules sets no one is accusing him of harassment or shit stirring or whatever.

Games are cool, let’s all just enjoy what we want? While still reserving the right to voice whatever opinion we may have about any game or rules set; otoh nu-ilx is weird and I do not understand y’all resllt

Shit is pbkr even a him I’m sorry for assuming

he is, I personally mailed him a Michael Hurley LP!

I had to try to explain call of Cthulhu to my therapist this past week. Cuz our group got back together after a long break and I mentioned his nice it was. She did not know about RPGs

lol

the heated debate re: mechanics is a little baffling to me tbh, there's always been a spectrum from simple to complex

I get how all the weird fucked up archaic elements of the old school need revision but it seems like a separate issue from arguing abt whether to do under or over rolls

My problems w modern d&d aren’t really with the mechanics. It’s a pretty easy to learn and teach game and it’s fun to play. But.. I don’t like the implied setting much, the tone is just not really what I would want as a default for my game. With the cat people and the dragon people, pervasive magic etc. I have a strong preference for magic being mysterious and relatively rare.

... cat people? weird.

once I got into Rolemaster/MERP that was all I played until my recent revival, so I have been out of the loop

I took a huge break from ages like 15-35.

Yikes, that escalated.

I am not a Brooklyn hipster, maybe a Long Island hipster but prob too old/not hip.

My cheeky osr comments/humor came from me being on some Brooklyn OSR discords where ppl seem a little younger than me (these ppl are great) and then ppl on the Dolmenwood discord reacting to the announcement this week like race + class instead of race is class is end times. You can take my THAC0 from my cold, dead hands (whatever). It's a little much, especially coming from people who often didn't play those games the first time around.

I actually played D&D (OSE, basically B/X) for the first time since 1992 maybe two weeks ago. We played Winter's Daughter (great Dolmenwood adventure) and we got through the entire adventure with zero combat and almost no rolls and it was atmospheric and pretty good. I get the attraction. Maybe I just have a short attention span and like trying different games. Also, acting like the first rpg is the best and to just ignore any innovation in design seems really weird to me.

Narrative games imo are all about thinking meta and like a director instead of like an actor. It's fun, like exercising another muscle.

Games are cool, let’s all just enjoy what we want?

^^^
This, my comments were basically tongue-in-cheek.

PS. ian, GURPS is in my top 3 most played rpgs (Rolemaster and TSR Marvel Superheroes are the others) and I still have a big box of supplements in my garage. Unfortunately, it's the polar opposite of what I want to play now which is stuff that is rules lite. Don't play GURPS if you want to avoid players just deciding what they want to do based on stuff written on their sheet instead of imagining themselves in the situation.

Yeah, I don’t think Gurps is a system I’d want to run, but would like to play sometime. But realistically that will never happen so i just enjoy reading the sourcebooks - I mean… there’s a Book of the New Sun supplement! And the historical ones I’ve read have just been weirdly satisfying to read. It’s like getting a high school-level refresher course on Norman England, or the Roman Empire or whatever.

As far as innovations in game design… I’ll admit my tastes lean traditional. I play games other than old school d&d; and I wouldn’t say it’s the best game for all situations. It’s the best d&d for me to evoke the specific feeling I had reading and playing the game as a kid. Worth maybe noting that we use ascending armor class because it’s just easier. I’m not beholden to old mechanisms for their own sake, but because they delivers an experience that is extremely nostalgic for me.

But I also love call of Cthulhu and play the most current edition — admittedly mostly the same game it’s always been but with a few updates that gives players more control over certain outcomes.

I hadn't heard of a new D&D norm with 'cat people' everywhere.

I played RPGs long, long ago, and I can state a long-standing view that 'elaborate rules' are generally produced for their own sake, ie: because people like writing and reading about elaborate additional rules, and buying and looking at the attractive extra books that contain them (I have THE WILDERNESS SURVIVAL GUIDE in a cupboard here - loved the idea of the book, but never 'played' it in any way), rather than because they are necessary for any actual gameplay.

I wouldn’t say it’s the best game for all situations

I'm coming around to the view that such a game doesn't exist. Different games try to do different things or model different game experiences. The 12 yo game designer in me still can't help devouring new rules sets.

To bring things back to "The incredible austerity of D&D in 1980", to me the selling point is not the rules per se, which are inelegant and clunky at best, but the minimalism and the style of gming it can produce. "Rulings not rules", as you mentioned before. Which is why resisting things like ascending armor class is just weird, especially if you never played with descending armor class back in the day!

I've read way more CoC than I've played, but I have so much respect for that game and Chaosium for just doing their thing all this time. Sanity is possibly the greatest rpg mechanic of all time.

Just be clear, the "you" is not anyone here.

p-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hadn't heard of a new D&D norm with 'cat people' everywhere.

I certainly overstate for effect - they're not literally everywhere. But the expected setting for modern D&D, as far as I can tell, is much more saturated with magic and fantastical elements than the game I played when I was younger.

I can state a long-standing view that 'elaborate rules' are generally produced for their own sake, ie: because people like writing and reading about elaborate additional rules

I think that's only one of several reasons people write 'elaborate rules' - sometimes they are written with a specifically simulationist intent, attempting to model reality in some aspect or another; sometimes they are written to provide the players with specific tools and options for specific situations.

My preferences tend towards rules that are somewhere in the middle, perhaps leaning toward the light side. Things like HarnMaster and GURPs have too many situational rules for me to realllllly want to learn them. Because not only do I have to learn them, then I have to teach them to my players.

The 12 yo game designer in me still can't help devouring new rules sets.

Same, yes. My list of games to play (or play more of) is at, well... Cyberpunk Red, Delta Green, more Troika, Into The Odd, Over The Edge, Tales From The Loop, DCC/MCC, Mage: The Ascension, Ars Magica, various Gumshoe-system games. I'm trying to stop buying as many RPG products until I have a chance to catch up on what I have, but that's my addicted-to-collecting shit nature.

p-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OTM.

"narrativist meta-game"

would you ppl consider dungeonworld a narrativist metagame? it def offloads a lot onto the players not all of whom are probably going to uh, have the facilities for that, but i have to admit i like the rules-lightness of it. that said i am a total dilettante

... cat people? weird.

― obsidian crocogolem (sleeve), Friday, February 17, 2023 7:32 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

My daughter got into D&D over the pandemic and played as Tabaxis in her first two campaigns. A new campaign will be starting soon and she's building a character of a different race, although I can't remember what it was. Something else that's newer/nonstandard, I think.

Did anyone see Dungeons & Dragons Honor Among Thieves over the weekend? I had a great time, although I'm not a deep D&D head.

Seeing it today!

It's getting very good hype. An enjoyable franchise blockbuster in 2023, what were the odds.

This is pretty wild:
https://obie.medium.com/my-kids-and-i-just-played-d-d-with-chatgpt4-as-the-dm-43258e72b2c6

I wonder how many modules the AI raided and filched bits from to patchwork this together.

:O

There's been some discussion of AI gms using GPT3 on rpg discords I'm on. Even that version you can train it to adjudicate rules and make stuff up, but it starts off "forgetting" things from time to time. It's an area where AI should excel - completely language based with very strong conventions.

Fuck a AI DM; gimme the AI players.

Way more players around than GMs.

Yeah but good luck getting your players to try the dozen different rpg systems on your shelf

The film is great, albeit with potatoes making up more of a regular plot device than I expected.

mixed feelings about any ideas of a sequel, kinda think it exists as a prefect one and done like Dredd.

would eat up some DVD extra that highlights in real time all the Easter eggs like the detective vision mode in Detective Pikachu.

the 80s D&D Cartoon reference was ChefsKiss.gif

Gotta say I'm pleasantly surprised by the general reception and I hope to see it soon. I'm glad it is succeeding despite the trailers making it look like it was going to be absolute garbage.

They sure do

It was delightful, the perfect movie to see in a theater (as the cast make sure to tell you in a promo spot before the movie starts) and I wouldn't mind if they cranked out another 2-3 of them using the same writers and directors. Wouldn't even need to bring back this cast, although they were all great.

yeah I have heard good things

Yeah the trailers go heavily for that Guardians of the Galaxy quippiness which to be sure the film does feature a healthy amount of but it's limited to the characters where it makes sense and there's just a very strong emotional arc, plus great setpieces and humour that isn't that, so it doesn't grate.

The film is great, albeit with potatoes making up more of a regular plot device than I expected.

I had forgotten about the potatoes until you mentioned them. Looking it up just now, it looks like there was some Lay's crossover advertising.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPF07lbRCZA

Took my son (who is into D&D at school) to see this at the weekend. It was pretty good, enjoyed the severe toning down of the usual wink-to-the-audience poochie bullshit.

This was a fun movie and modestly rich text! Bascially it did all the things Marvel movies are supposed to do (comedy, action, effects, emo bits) but better than Marvel have done it for a long time.

The actions scenes were good, too - lacking in suspense, as is sadly customary for blockbusters these days, but more inventive and well-directed than usual - for once it didn't look like it was directed in a parking lot against a green screen. I thought the final boss battle was gonna be some endless CGI shitfest - and the effects weren't great - but it was brisk and (suprisingly!) emotional.

If anything, a better comparison than Marvel might be Toy Story (achetypes band together and achieve semi-sentience, plus a sad bit). Plus I imagine it's quite rewatchable.

Tend to agree with Chuck Tatum: it's like a Marvel film, but better.

Haven't seen this but are the potatoes a Dragonlance reference

Some people, sure they stop the d&d-ing but still maybe never really get in touch with the other stuff.

― The Lubitsch Touchscreen (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, April 29, 2023

Do you have commentary or are we just gonna .....

*rolls for initiative*

pinefox, take your clueless shtick elsewhere plz

The "D&D" movie was shockingly well made. Funny, witty, entertaining, engaging, etc., with a couple of really clever action sequences and novel special effects. Of course it basically flopped. I could imagine it making the rounds as a beloved cult film.

Thread needs more gelatinous cube content

(Tbh I could never quite get into RPGs or games generally - I just lack the attention span. But I do find it anthropologically interesting that in 1980, the nerd-adjacent codes and signifiers and stereotypes had not quite been established yet.

So, like, yr middle-aged suburban mom could bring home a D&D box set thinking it was something like Scrabble or Monopoly. It had yet to acquire cultural baggage.)

I'll see your gelatinous cube and raise you a green slime, an ochre jelly, and a black pudding!

I just watched the movie with my son and it was pretty good! Gelatinous cubes for the whole family! Our attempts at doing tabletop RPGs at home have been thwarted by his older brother who can't sit still for them, but even our minimal experience was enough to notice plenty of little moments that felt as though they could have been rolled for

Loved the film.

Having a zoom call with a group of fellow beginners as a preliminary to our first ever session. We have a friend with a little DMing experience who has kindly volunteered to do the thing. Other than that, I really don't know what I'm in for

30-second encounters that take hours to play out

I never played much of the game, but I am pretty familiar with it (as a kid I used to read the arcana books a lot): in-jokes and little winks aside, was there anything about the movie that was particularly unique to D&D? I always thought a lot of the appeal of the game was that every campaign is different - personalized characters, unique stories, different enemies and encounters and obstacles - with the only constant being the gameplay, more or less: rolling dice, dungeon masters, maps, namely the things this movie totally (by necessity) lacked. I wonder if it would have done better if it was just called, like, "Heroes and Villains" or something more generic, and they played it up as a self-aware fantasy satire of sorts (which is kind of was) rather than an adaptation of something that is not, by design, adaptable.