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From: Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: What difficultly level do you play one?
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2024 13:24:59 -0700
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On 7/14/2024 11:15 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> On Sun, 14 Jul 2024 10:15:18 +0100, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>>
>> That's the problem I have, if that really was what they thought then
>> you'd think when they introduced the game someone would have said, this
>> style of gameplay is going to be entirely alien to many people so we
>> need to provide guidance on how to get the most out of it. That's
>> especially true when you consider how many players are only going to get
>> the information from TSR products. So you mention Dragon magazine, that
>> was available in the UK (I bought a few copies) but only in specialised
>> stores. The one you could get in the local newsagents was White Dwarf
>> and that had already moved to being focused on GW products.
> 
> 
> No, no; I get it and we're in agreement on that. They SHOULD have been
> clearer on that. But it was a blindness on their part; they didn't
> think they NEEDED to say that, anymore than they needed to explain,
> "when we say roll the dice, we mean cup those plastic polyhedron in
> your hand, rattle them about a bit, then drop them onto a hard surface
> so they roll a bit." It was such a /basic/ thing to them that they
> didn't think they /had/ to say it. It was just assumed.
> 
> Remember, this was the same TSR that originally couldn't even conceive
> that their customers might want pre-written adventures or settings
> (they practically laughed Bob Bledsaw out of their office when he
> suggested it, telling him that if he really wanted to he could sell
> modules with their blessing and fully expecting him to go bankrupt in
> the process). TSR /never/ was fully cognizant of what their users
> needed or wanted.
> 
> It probably didn't help that for the longest time the game was only
> played by TSR-insiders amongst other TSR-insiders, thus limiting their
> view on how 'real world players' were experiencing the game.
> Especially since many of those insiders were adult-age and more
> interested in the role-playing, puzzling and politics of the game over
> boisterous combat.
> 
> And there was also the belief that players should be allowed to play
> 'their way', which is why I think the original rules are so light on
> actual DM advice. Sure, the expectation was that the DM would try to
> create a more realistic, reactive world... but if all you just wanted
> to bash your stat-blocks (heroes) against the DM's stat-blocks
> (monsters), well that was fine too. Just don't get mad if the game
> isn't as interesting as everyone says.
> 
> (In fact, whenever Gygax suggested there was a very specific way to
> play the game and everything else 'wasn't really D&D', there was
> usually uproar at the idea).
> 
> Gygax's own dense writing style wasn't all that helpful either. Or the
> game's own newness (people were still trying to figure out what
> table-top roleplaying was all about, and how it was different from
> miniature game). Or -as DT mentioned in an earlier post- the fact that
> game itself grew out of the fairly slim "Chainmail" rules.
> 
> But everything I've read (about the history of the game, of
> conversations of the people involved, in the rule-books themselves,
> and even some of my own experiences) indicates that the assumption was
> that everyone would play -indeed, would WANT to play and invariably
> gravitate towards- more sophisticated adventures and campaigns. It was
> an such unspoken belief that it took a long time before TSR realized
> that not everybody understood that, and it had to be enunciated more
> clearly.
> 
> No, early D&D didn't encourage role-playing/re-active worlds in their
> games, and this lack led to a lot of people playing fairly mindless
> dungeon-crawls (to the point where you'd have dragons stuck in rooms
> with entrances to small for them to get through. If you were a young
> gamer of that era, you almost certainly encountered something akin to
> that! ;-). But I think that was more a problem of communication on
> TSRs part than an actual belief that was all the game should be. After
> all, the game itself developed from 'Braunstein' games which were
> anything but mindless. But a lack of clear communication on this
> matter led players to take the rules as the end-all/be-all and a lot
> of campaigns ended up being fairly lifeless. Leading D&D's competitors
> to swoop in and offer a more exciting alternative.
> 
> Now...
> 
> How do we loop this all back to video games? Which, you know, is the
> whole point of this newsgroup? ;-P
> 
Gold box D&D games.

There.

-- 
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky 
dirty old man.