The OSR is spoiled rotten!

Just wanted to give you all a little heads-up regarding Roger's recent observations over at "Roles, Rules, and Rolls." Definitely some of the most pertinent reflections on the utter embarrassment of riches that the current classic D&D gaming renaissance has been blessed with...and how people can take absolutely anything for granted.

"The sight of the recently released 300 room Barrowmaze being docked points on Grognardia for not being big enough to be a true megadungeon - I guess that makes it more of a what? Macrodungeon? Kilodungeon? - reminds me that we didn't even know what the hell a megadungeon was in 1982...Really, what we're doing under the banner of the Old School Renaissance is much cooler than 99% of our actual old school experiences with D&D."

Amen! I was reminded of this principal yet again when I stumbled across a recent message board thread where a poster lamented that Michael Curtis' superb Stonehell dungeon is, as yet, "unfinished." There's only what, 700 or so rooms detailed so far? Geez.

D&D Next and "not getting it"

"For example, it would be difficult to imagine that THAC0 would make a comeback. Armor Class values going down to represent them getting better. System shock rolls. Racial level limits. Gender-based ability score maximums. Lots of bonus types. And so on."

Guh.

I'll admit, this one paragraph I'm quoting from did a lot to make me feel discouraged at the future of this project, because it points, yet again, to the idea that WotC's design teams in general and Cook especially just don't understand what made the older editions tick.

More importantly, they don't understand that the rules shape a very specific sort of (A)D&D game world. This is where racial level limits and system shock rolls come into play.

a) Racial level limits establish the racial power balance of an archetypal game world. Using AD&D as an example, the best magic-users, fighters, and clerics in a given game world will always be humans, due entirely to the fact that only humans have unlimited level advancement in these three classes (and most of their subclasses). On the other hand, the world of thievery favors the demi-humans due to their combination of unlimited thief class advancement and special racial abilities like infravision. It's highly likely that this archetypal world's most legendary pilferer is a halfling or an elf. Further, half-orcs can rival humans as assassins and half-elves can be among the most powerful druids. Rules like this that set a strong baseline for how a D&D world works lead to shared assumptions among players, shared expectations, and a picture of D&D as something other than a "generic fantasy game" (which it's never been any good at all at being, anyway).

b) System shock rolls enforce the idea that magic is a double-edged sword that can sometimes be as dangerous to its wielders as to its targets, thus simulating a grittier sort of fantasy where magic is frightfully powerful but not fully reliable and understood. It also helps to put the brakes on consequence-free gameplay via unlimited, foolproof resurrection without eliminating all tolerance for the occasional failure. Dropping this aspect simply because "Dude, my spell didn't work like I wanted! Bummer! That, like, totally should never happen." is the perfect example of ignorantly throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I'll cut this one short before I start in about how Fireballs that always fill a specified square footage and reflecting Lightning Bolts fulfill a similar function and make for less casual, "dumb" magic use....

In addition, I worry that the D&D Next team doesn't sufficiently understand how distinctive mechanics can be just flat-out cool.

Take descending AC, for example. I remember in the classic Nintendo 64 FPS game "GoldenEye 007", the player who took the least hits during the course of a multiplayer deathmatching session would often be gifted with the "AC -10" award. And you know what? That sounds so much cooler than the "AC 30" accolade! Why? Damned if I know, but it just does! And it's exactly the same sort of cool as a 6th level fighter being dubbed a Myrmidon or describing a thing as a "dweomer" when you could have just gone with "spell." The quirky mechanics and baroque nomenclature of classic D&D are a totally fucking awesome part of the hobby's heritage and worth preserving completely for their own sake alone.

So, yeah, I'm worried. It takes a real effort on my part to muster any kind of belief in the notion that people who fail to apprehend the game's greatness on such simple, fundamental levels can produce a product worthy of the D&D name and any classic D&D lover's money and time. Reserve final judgement I will, until there are actual products to review, but the outlook is grim indeed.

"D&D Next" officially fails.

$400 Castle Zagyg!?

That seems to be what they're going for on eBay, anyway. Is this really a thing?

I've never owned any rare/collectable RPG products before, so this is all new to me. I'm definitely going to be holding on to my copy!

Hard to believe that the price could inflate so much in so short a period. You can get a boxed copy of the OD&D LBBs for less than that!

"Viva Passion?" or "The War on the 'Edition Warriors'"

When it comes to games, passion is good. Really, really good. The best.

In fact, I'd venture to say that if you're not really passionate about the game you're playing, no matter what game or what type of game it is, you'd be doing yourself, the game, and the world a favor by setting it aside the moment you realize this and heading off to find one that makes your blood boil and your heart sing.

Passion makes the gaming world go round.

At least that's how I used to feel. But if you believe some authorities, such as the venerable Steve Winter (and you should!) passion is the enemy.

Enter the gaming boogeyman de jour, the Edition Warriors! This legion of soulless, twisted monstrosities has the nerve, the sheer gall, to believe that Dungeons & Dragons is one of the great games of all time. Not only that, but that the storied D&D name itself actually means something and has some sort of precious but somehow non-monetary value (an obvious contradiction in terms!) and that products bearing the name can betray, subvert, or otherwise fail to be worthy of it. But what's worst of all, what really keeps these guys up at night, is that these Edition Warriors are also known for their aberrant belief that they should be wholly unashamed to admit this in public. The most unholy among them even feel they have a very real personal obligation to do so!

Clearly, Armageddon is at hand, for the Edition Warriors are not content with merely causing WotC's brilliant D&D 4E reinvention to fail through no fault of the company's own and despite being a peerless design copied directly from the pages of Leonardo da Vinci's fabled Lost Codex. Oh, no. They've already set their sights on WotC's next big project: "D&D Next." Yes, these heartless savages plan to nip this one in the bud, not caring one whit that the millions spent collaborating with Pepsi's ad agency on a name will then go completely to waste.

For the love of God, you degenerate monsters: Can't you just stop saying how you feel for once!? Can't you see that you're ruining everything with your stupid caring and self-expression!? Just sit down, shut up, open your wallet to WizBro and keep it open and everything will be fine. Gaming without passion isn't so bad. You'll see. After all, many of the "pros" have apparently been doing it for years and they must know better than you. I mean, they're pros!

Can't we all just not give a fuck get along?

Beware! I live!

One thing I truly hate is when videogames call themselves "RPGs." I love a good Dragon Quest or whatever, but just because you stole a couple mechanics from D&D like hit points that doesn't make your game anymore of a "roleplaying game" than Super Mario Bros., which nobody describes as roleplaying as a jumping Dago plumber for a reason.

New term needed. Badly. Any ideas?

I need my magic, dammit!

Dan from Sword and Board's recent "Spellcasters as NPC only..." post got me pondering this, although I have seen the notion of fantasy games with no PC magic advocated before.

Frankly, I couldn't do it. I need magic. No matter what, my character has to have some superhuman power that doesn't exist in the real world or I just won't bother. It can be some flavor of actual magic, pseudoscience psionics, even being a virtual reality "decker" in a cyberpunk game, but it's gotta be there.

Sometimes the character is just a dabbler; a swordsman or thief or gunslinger or whatever who doesn't rely on the supernatural all the time. But again, the magic's gotta be there if I'm gonna be.

I can think of literally no example from the past twenty years of gaming of me making an exception to this rule or even considering doing so.

Of course, I didn't want to be seen as crapping up Dan's comment section with my naysaying, so I posted this here instead.

I wonder what this says about me? And how about you?