What's good about Moldvay D&D (part IV)

So what about completeness?

I think of Moldvay D&D as a ‘complete game’ in the sense that if you follow the instructions in the book (granted they may be a bit out of order), and provided you already have the basic idea of how to play an RPG, you can actually play the game using the bits in the box.  

This was important at the time.  It could not be said about AD&D (which appeared over the preceding few years) unless by ‘can play’ you mean ‘could, in theory play’.  I know.  I got a copy of the Player’s Handbook (soon followed by the other two books when I worked out the PH was not enough to play the game) before I ever saw Moldvay D&D.  But it sat unused for years, until we’d learned enough playing other games to be able to face the incoherent complexity of AD&D.

So what do I mean when I say Moldvay D&D is ‘complete at several different scales’?

Well ‘scale’ here refers to both the scale of the game world (space measured as dungeon, surroundings, world; time measured as hours, days, weeks, years; diversity measured in characters, monsters, spells, magic items) and the scale of the game play (time measured in hours, weeks, months, years; complexity measured in... whatever - number of pages of rules used?).  


Maybe ‘scale’ is not the perfect word for the concept.  For obvious reasons I prefer to avoid the word ‘level’.


What I mean is that there are games within games here.  If you have an ‘adventure module’ (which you DO, because it came in the box), then you can play an adventure (which in Moldvay D&D is defined as a single session of play).  That is a perfectly playable game in its own right.  But you can easily extend this into a campaign by playing a series of consecutive adventures, with each taking up where the last left off.  And this is a complete game on a different scale.  


Even a very efficient team of dungeon crawlers will find several sessions of play in the Keep on the Borderlands, without anybody actually having to make up anything new.  And I can’t help thinking we were not very efficient.

But campaign play brings experience, which leads to characters gaining levels.  And this also introduces a new dimension of play: it makes that experience, the getting and the losing of it matter.  Even though Basic D&D covers only character levels one through three, this allows quite a bit of scope.  You can play ‘campaigns’ of ten-or-so sessions - that’s an eternity to a thirteen year-old - without even changing characters.  


Any time you like, you can expand into a larger game laterally (and conceptually) by using the rules given to make up dungeons of your own.  If you want, you can build your dungeons into Keep on the Borderlands - there’s even a special spot on the map for you to do exactly that - or you can start with a clean slate.  Once you are able to do this, you can play an infinite variety of campaigns without, for example, adding a single new rule, monster, spell or magic item.  

This is partly because the rule book contains a generous amount of ‘spare’ detail.  There are seven character classes, with eighteen spells (more if you count a handful of higher level spells described for the DM’s use), fifty four magic items and one hundred and two monsters.  On the player side, seven character classes gives plenty of replay value.  Once you’ve played a Fighter up through the levels, you can try your hand at a Magic User, Thief, Cleric or (good luck) Elf.  On the DM side there are plenty of treasures and monsters in the rule book that do not appear in Keep on the Borderlands.  So there’s plenty of fresh content you can mix and match to create new experiences for your players.

Now this may not sound like a big deal today.  Young people are used to computer games like World of Warcraft with dozens of race-by-class combinations, scores of levels, hundreds of skills, thousands of items.  But back in the early eighties, the game experiences you were comparing with were classic boardgames like chess or backgammon, classic card games, family board games like Monopoly and very early arcade games.  For the record, chess has the grand total of six types of pieces.

Finally there is a much wider game surrounding the ongoing campaign that we didn’t explore very much at that age.  Page 60, under the heading, ‘The DM is the Boss’ contains the immortal statement ‘The DM decides how these rules will be used in the game’.  A close reading of the text (i.e. closer than we ever gave it) shows several other places (e.g. rolling for monster morale) where the DM receives explicit permission to choose an outcome or disregard a rule.


Many people (myself included) tend to interpret this as granting DM's  authority to alter, ignore or replace the written rules - either case-by-case or more generally by establishing ‘house rules’.

The Old School Renaissance (OSR - for one view of what that is, try this) has promoted this principle with energy and enthusiasm.  But the OSR and its adherents are not alone.  I’d guess that many, many role-players work with some form of ‘The DM makes the rules’ assumption.  Certainly I have been playing games this way for a long time.  That one rule is, in fact, almost a game in itself.  Once you start applying it, the other rules stop mattering in quite the same way.  How widely teenage gamers used it in 1981, I don’t know: but it was there if you wanted it.

The point is that the game could be played at all of these different 'scales' of commitment and complexity.  This made it easy to learn, and meant that young players could easily and naturally expand their range of play as skill, patience and understanding increased.

Next: On the then-value of Fantasy Images

What's good about Moldvay D&D (part III)

Last time I promised to talk about how Moldvay D&D is robust and complete.  But after thinking about it further, I am going to postpone my discussion of 'completeness' for a post of its own.  That means that this post is about what I think of as Moldvay D&D's robustness.

So what am I talking about?

When I talk about about a game being robust, I mean that you can make mistakes in applying quite a few of the rules without the game falling apart.  It degrades gracefully into something not quite what the author envisaged, but still fun and still playable.  That is not at all the same, notice, as being able to play the game badly and still have a good time.

Traditional-style RPGs are often quite robust (for reasons I'll explore another time), and Moldvay D&D is no exception.  We made heaps of mistakes in reading and applying the rules.  But the game still worked and it was still enjoyable.

What kind of mistakes did we make?  

Well, off the top of my head I am pretty sure we never really followed a uniform sequence of play for the combat round - it varied from encounter to encounter and session to session.  I'm absolutely certain we didn't follow the strict sequence given at page B24 of the rulebook (I still question whether the rules as written are quite coherent, but that’s a subject for another post).  There was recurring confusion about how and when Magic Users can learn new spells.  Nor were we ever very clear on the meaning or implications of 'character alignments' or ‘alignment languages’.  We hardly ever kept track of time outside combat.  And we never noticed that ‘Any character has a 1 in 6 chance of finding a trap when searching for one in the right area’.  There were probably other mistakes, too.  But this gives you an idea of the kinds of ‘errors’ we perpetrated.  

We also played pretty fast and loose with some rules.  As I recall, any player character thief was pretty much guaranteed one ‘backstab’ attack at the start of each combat on any monster its player chose.  It was a bit like being invisible, because after that one attack, the thief usually got hammered.

You could look at this and think if the game still worked, then those rules were simply unnecessary from the outset.  This is true, so far as it goes.  You need very few rules of any kind to play a coherent RPG.  But it is also true that if we had followed the rules as written, the game would have been different, arguably subtler and possibly more fun.  We didn’t, and as a result, the game was changed, but not badly damaged.  That’s what I mean by robust.

Next: Completeness...

What's good about Moldvay D&D (part II)

In the first Moldvay post I gave a list of characteristics that made Moldvay D&D a good product for me and my friends, back in the early eighties: 


 - It’s simple, compared with a lot of RPGs 
 - It’s easy to read and well organised (compared with AD&D) 
 - It covers the stuff you’re likely to need as a teenage boy  
 - It’s robust: you can miss a lot of rules, and it still basically works 
 - It’s a complete game, at several different scales 
 - It gives you both clear boundaries and plenty of room to grow 
 - It’s got useful artwork 
 - It’s fairly random, in a lot of places 
 - It comes with a ready-to-play adventure 


Pause to think about a bunch of thirteen year-olds trying to follow written rules to play a very complex game and some of these should be self explanatory.  But in the next few posts I’d like to talk about some of the others, because I think they can help us understand in general what makes for a good role playing game. 


For starters, the ‘stuff you’re likely to need as a teenage boy’. This refers to the way the game spells out exactly the kind of details we wanted to include in our games, without assuming much prior knowledge.  One of the obstacles for young people playing an RPG about grown-up lives in a foreign society is that they are probably missing quite a lot of necessary knowledge.   For example, a thirteen-year old is unlikely to know very much about how various aspects of weaponry, government, education and economy should (or could) work in such a world.  While teenage boys might be very interested in playing a game about hand to hand combat in a pseudo-medieval setting, it might be very difficult for them to know how to go about it.


Moldvay D&D ties down the basics about the setting with specific rules covering races, equipment, weapons, armour, combat, magic and prices that enable inexperienced players to use the game in a setting that attracts them.  But there is nothing about political systems, for example.  How likely are teenage boys to look up that kind of information and use it?


Now a very wide range of settings might cater to players who want to deal with man-to-man combat.  But for me and my peers, an undoubted part of the attraction of D&D was its promise of games that somehow resembled the adventures portrayed in Tolkien’s (then extremely) popular works.  We wanted to play games about elves, dwarves, ‘halflings’, orcs, trolls, giant spiders and dragons; good versus evil; secret panels; mysterious maps and mysterious wizards who cast spells; and magic swords and being invisible.  While Basic D&D can be used in many types of settings, and  though it may be far from ideal for recreating Middle Earth, it definitely had many ingredients that stood out as Tolkien-fuel.  


Now for grown-ups who have studied history, archaeology and economics; who have lived through decades of adult life; and read hundreds of novels across many genres, these aspects of Moldvay D&D are less valuable.  It is not that they are entirely useless or uninteresting.  But my friends no longer need anybody to tell them about practical differences between plate armour and ‘chain mail’, or to define exactly how much damage a ‘short sword’ should do, or how long it takes to load a crossbow, or how expensive (or flammable) ‘oil’ should be.  Nowadays we are confident to make something up.  And some of us have strong opinions that may clash with what is printed in any set of rules.  


Likewise, we have wider tastes in fiction.  We have read more and we have thought more about what makes fiction and fantasy interesting.  Most of us still admire Tolkien, but we are better equipped to construct original worlds and situations of our own.  We want to explore a wider range of settings and genres.  And we see more clearly the shortcomings of Moldvay D&D for dealing with Middle Earth as a setting. 


Part of what any group needs for a great game is the knowledge to support a coherent world.


Next: Robust and complete...

Who cares about the world?

We care.

A few years ago, the shards of my old play group were forged anew.  Three of us - Luggish, Crunch and James - are the core; others drop in and out.  We tend to take turns GMing.  At first, we played a string of diverse games in various settings old and new, but nothing systematically.  After a while, I felt ready for something more serious.

In the past I have run pretty much exactly the game that I wanted at that particular moment.  I tend to experiment quite a lot, and don’t consult beforehand.  But this time (maybe I’m getting old) I decided to ask what the others wanted.

So we’re lounging around sipping instant coffee after a short session of something.  The debrief has run its course and conversation has slowed right down.  I know we will soon drift into talk about family and friends.

‘Next time, I’d like to start something new’, I say.

‘Sure’, says Luggish, ‘ in a new world you mean?’  Interesting, I think.

‘No no.  I’d be using a world you’ve played in a couple of times already.’  Crunch has taught me how to run several unconnected games in the same world without others really noticing.

‘Which one?’ everyone looks at me.  They want to know quite a lot about how the action in this game will relate to what we’ve already played.  They seem interested.  After a bit, we get around to the things I want to know.

‘So how do you want it to be?  What do you want the game to focus on?  What are you interested in?’  They are very slow to answer.  Maybe they think I am looking for feedback; and maybe I am.  Luggish lifts his head and stares out the window, like he can see something we can’t.

‘The world is the most important thing’, he says.  Crunch nods, thoughtfully.

‘So help me understand that.  What do you mean by world?’  I’m trying to get specifics, but they’re not responding.  ‘So we’re talking about setting: the places, people, background where the action happens?’

‘Yeah, that’s right’.

‘Its gotta be unique, different from what you’ve seen before?’ A shrug.  Crunch is very still, listening.  He looks at the floor.

‘It’s about how everything fits together,’ offers Luggish.

‘Internally consistent?’  Vigorous nods.

‘Plausible connections between events?’  More nods.

‘Everything connected to everything else?’  I hardly need to ask.

‘And’, says Luggish, ‘its about finding out things and learning about the world.’

‘You want it to be subtle,’ says Crunch, quite loud.  ‘Some things are in plain sight, some are hidden.  It depends on how good you are at seeing.  You can get people [i.e. NPCs] to do things, if you have the right touch, if you can see how they work.  Some things are easy and some things are beyond your power!’

‘And’, adds Luggish, ‘the best part is if you can see your character grow in power and understanding so that they really affect the world on a large scale’ nods and thoughtful looks.

No mention of game mechanics (unless you read the last remark as referring to character development rules).  Nothing about ‘overcoming evil’ or ‘helping the oppressed’.  Nothing about humour, horror, action, technology, money, gold, dragons, serial killers, sex, combat, commerce, tragedy, ethical dilemmas, philosophy, religion, anthropology or social issues.  Nothing really about ‘exciting story-lines’ or ‘plot twists’ or ‘special effects’ or ‘method-acting tortured souls in the fire of youth’ or ‘expressing something profound about human nature’ or ‘Art’.

So is this my group?  Did I ask the wrong questions?  What should I learn from this?

Next: Weekly Moldvay post

Soon: Ways to Layer History

How to Host a Dungeon = Layering

How to Host a Dungeon by Tony Dowler is an interesting example of a tool you can use for something I call layering.  

Whatever you choose to call it, layering is a powerful way to make your setting interesting, dynamic and unique.  

For those of you who haven’t seen it HtHaD is a ‘solo game’ using dice, pencils and paper that you use to (semi-) randomly generate the layout, contents and history of a D&D-style mega-dungeon.  Each time you ‘play’, you build up a unique dungeon through a series of epochs, starting with a map showing ‘virgin’ bedrock and ending with a large-scale section view of a complex mega-dungeon.  

But the game also leaves you with an extensive history of many communities, monsters and resources that existed in the mega-dungeon at different times.  Most will be long gone by the time you finish building the mega-dungeon.  But in your records you can see, for example, that there was a dragon, long ago.  You know when the dragon arrived, where it laired, who it ate, how it died and what has happened to its treasure.  In each part of the dungeon you know what kinds of folk (or natural forces) made or occupied it, and when.  It's like having a detailed archaeology of the place.  So if D&D-style dungeons are your thing, go check it out; there’s a free download available.

Playing HtHaD is a bit of fun in itself, if you have any feeling for D&D.  Tony Dowler has put quite a bit of thought into how the game elements interact to create fun, variety and interest.  He’s a clever guy. 

But the idea that really excites me is how you can use the resulting history in your role playing games.  Each spot on the map comes readymade with a complex, unique storyline that forms part of the larger whole.  While only a handful of communities are likely to survive in the ‘present day’, history will record dozens of monsters, communities and heroes that came and went.  

Each of these will have left traces of some kind - objects, treasures, stains, pets, technologies, languages, stories, genes, graves, artworks, cultural influences.  And that makes it much easier to come up with ideas for small-scale dungeons that mesh to form a diverse but integrated whole.  Equally important, it makes it easy to invent consistent and interesting content on the fly.   

Now How to Host a Dungeon is a niche tool for a niche interest.  But the layering principle is useful in many, many role playing games.  For example, its pretty hard to create a good murder mystery without layering the history.  Think about it.

Of course, you can layer lots of things besides history: plots, relationships, meaning, existence, ground scale, timescale and probably others.

What these different kinds of layers have in common is that they increase the cohesion of the setting by establishing hidden order.  This can help your game in many ways: stimulating creativity, easing GM judgements, improving co-ordination among players and influencing play in novel and unexpected ways.  Those kinds of goals are especially important if you’re interested in the world, as I am

Next: Who cares about the world?

Soon: Ways to layer history

What was so good about Moldvay D&D?

Over the next few weeks I am going to talk quite a bit about Moldvay D&D, published in 1981.

This is partly a nod toward the Old School, and partly nostalgia for me.  My school friends and I played it a bit, around the age of fourteen.  Later my brother got a copy.  Both of us at different times also played a bit using the Expert Set.  But I will focus on Moldvay D&D in these posts.

That product - the red box with its rulebook, dice and copy of Keep on the Borderlands - was a good product for us.   It gave us access to some high quality role play.  When I think about what made it good for us, the things that occur to me are:

• It’s simple, compared with a lot of rpgs
• It’s easy to read and well organised (compared with AD&D)
• It covers the stuff you’re likely to need as a teenage boy in the early ‘80s
• It’s robust: you can miss a lot of rules, and it still basically works
• It’s a complete game, at several different scales
• It gives you both clear boundaries and plenty of room to grow
• It’s got useful artwork
• It’s fairly random, in a lot of places
• It comes with a ready-to-play adventure

In retrospect, what really stands out is how well the product was pitched at its audience.  It’s probably not a great product for middle aged professionals.  And maybe it wouldn’t work quite so well for today’s teens as it did for us.  But it was pretty good for young teen males in the eighties.

Did you play Moldvay D&D?  Do you play it now?  (Or do you play Labyrinth Lord, instead?) What would you add to my list of 'things that made it good'?

But what I really want to understand is not what makes this particular product good, but what makes for high quality role playing in general.  

In this series of weekly posts, I'll use Moldvay D&D as a source of examples, to start building up some ideas about what creates a great role playing game (moment, session, campaign) in general.  I guess I will also spend some time talking about aspects of Moldvay D&D that were probably not so great, even at the time.  
  
Next: Stuff you're likely to need...

What really makes an rpg sing? (version 1)

Well that must be some kind of record.  Post No. 2 and I’ve already painted myself into a corner...  

If I could already tell you what really makes an rpg sing, then I wouldn’t need this blog at all. It's one of those questions that is easy to answer once, but impossible to answer once and for all. 

Luckily, I’m a restless sort: ‘answer once’ _does_not_work_ for me. Especially not with role playing. It’s a lifetime passion. I don’t want to find some single fixed answer, no matter how perfect it seems to be. Because that would mean leaving the passion behind. Instead, I want to explore as many dimensions of as many possible answers as I can. That’s what this blog is for, I think.

What I’m trying to find out is: what needs to happen for us to be able to say ‘we are having a great game right now’ or ‘that was a great session’, or ‘this campaign has been fantastic’?  (Actually: what I really want is to be able to make those things happen for myself, my friends and fellow gamers - but a blog is for talking and thinking, not doing).

My very first try at grabbing the smoke-monster goes like this.

What you need is:

 - players who are in-synch about what they want
 - a way of playing that fits with what the various players want
 - a way of playing that fits with the human context
 - players with the skills and knowledge to play their parts
 - game-playing resources that support the way you play
 - to put all of those things together in the right time(s) and place(s)

You may also need some patience, or a bit of luck.

‘But this is all vanilla!’, you say?

  

Well of course it looks like boring old vanilla from way up here.  We’re so high up right now we’re almost in orbit!  But when we get a bit closer to the ground, I’m hopeful we’ll start to make out some of the chocolatey chunks (maybe even a few of the nuttier bits).

Part of what I’m saying: what you do matters more than what’s in the rules.

Next: Chocolate chip?