Gary Gygax would not have approved of our Dungeon Master, or of the way in which we played his game back in 1983.
But then, we were about 12 years old and didn’t really bother with many of the finer points of the rules.
Over the last week, arising largely from curiosity, I have been reading first of all OSRIC and (eventually) Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, 1e.
What I’ve re-discovered is that the game which I played as a teenager, and had forgotten all about, has much more going for it than I perhaps believed. This has, in turn, stirred a desire to play it again… but that’s another story.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D)
When I first got my 1980 edition of AD&D, I didn’t really understand the relationship between it and the Basic D&D we’d been playing before. We took the name of the game at face value: it was the same game, just more advanced.
We played AD&D, putting aside the Basic and Expert sets and (in our heads) upgrading to Advanced. From that day until the dawn of the retro-clone, I never played Basic / Expert D&D again.
Back then, I think I was a Player and not a Dungeon Master… at least, I was until the Dragonlance modules which probably hit our gaming around 1985. It took a considerable period of time for me to pluck up the courage to run a game of AD&D, however, and it was short-lived: we played the first three modules of the series.
The weird thing is that I didn’t read the rules. Not from cover-to-cover, as I would nowadays, no. We learned through play and then, eventually, I emulated the Dungeon Master who came before me. The books were for reference only.
That seems strange to me now, looking back, but it was completely “normal” within the context of the playing group of which I was a part. Over time, as AD&D was edged out by Rolemaster, I reverted to being a Player and didn’t really assume the mantle of Dungeon Master again until well after my University years. Oddly, as it turned out, roleplaying games were not as common at campus as would have been the case in most American universities.
I didn’t play AD&D 2e until 1998, when I met another Dungeon Master shortly after arriving in Nottingham… and even then, I was a Player once again. As it turned out, I never really Dungeon Mastered D&D until Third Edition.
Missed Learning
Looking at these rules again, I realise that I missed out on a lot of the learning about being a Dungeon Master in a fantasy roleplaying game. While we could debate the value of those experiences in a gaming world that has moved on from the Gygaxian worldview, I really feel a sense of loss as this realisation dawns. And it’s more than nostalgia, for I never was the Dungeon Master of my own realm using AD&D.
What did I miss?
It’s hard to pin down but, reading the first few pages respectively of the Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide, I was first struck by the “aha” feeling of finally understanding why some things were as they are written.
For example, we didn’t like and largely ignored the class level restrictions placed upon demi-human races – such as the Dwarf not being allowed to be a Cleric and only being allowed to attain 9th level as a Fighter (and only then if their Strength was 18). Because our Dungeon Master didn’t like this rule, he ignored it… and, thus, as Players we took this to be the rule in all our games. Consequently, Human characters seemed limited and boring; our parties of characters became filled with Dwarfs, Elves, and Halflings… because our Dungeon Master didn’t like that rule.
Gygax would have disapproved:
“It is important to keep in mind that, after all is said and done, ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a game. Because it is a game, certain things which seem “unrealistic” or simply unnecessary are integral to the system… Races are given advantages or limits mainly because the whole character of the game would be drastically altered if it were otherwise.” (AD&D Players Handbook, page 6)
He made it really clear why those limitations were in place. Having ignored them, we lost interest in Humans as characters. That, in turn, led us to wonder how Humans had ever become dominant over the much more capable Dwarfs and Elves… silly, really.
We could have read the book.
Different Approach
Don’t get me wrong, I really am enjoying playing the Fifth Edition of D&D. Yet, and this is important, there is a really VERY different approach to roleplaying evident in even my cursory reading of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
Small things illustrate this: at 9th level, a Fighter can “opt to establish a freehold”;
“This is done by building some type of castle and clearing the area in a radius of 20 to 50 miles around the stronghold, making it free from all sorts of hostile creatures.” (Players Handbook, p. 22)
Once this freehold is created, the Fighter even gains “a body of men-at-arms” and collects a “monthly revenue of 7 silver pieces” for each inhabitant of the area.
We never really played that, perhaps because we never played long-enough to attain 9th level… but mostly because we didn’t see the point of the rule. Looking at it now, however, I see enormous potential for implementing that rule in my settings. In Whitegrave, for example, it would make an excellent opportunity for 9th level characters to range out into the wild lands around the city and claim for themselves a freehold. What an immense opportunity for roleplaying the claiming and pacification of an area!
But that’s my point: we don’t play like that anymore. The advantages of 9th level as a Fighter in 5e are all focused on combat abilities, not in creating a freehold. Something fundamental has changed… not necessarily for the worse, just changed.
Reflecting…
As a Dungeon Master, I’d really like to play this old gem. What was never truly my vocation in the 1980s deserves an airing now.
Given that my regular players would probably just roll their eyes if I suggested playing AD&D at our regular table (because I have until recently been the very definition of a butterfly gamer), I’ll probably need to find another route to play. Yet… I feel there would be a lot of good experience to be had in running some games using those Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules one more time.
Entering the “Old School” through the front door and playing the old game offers a return to what seems now like a refreshing take on fantasy roleplaying. This game is not “realistic” but fantastic; it is unashamed about having fun within the construct of the dungeoneering genre of the hobby.
It seems like there is much to learn from the progenitor’s first stab at unifying the Dungeons & Dragons experience, as expressed in these first three books, and I’d like to take the opportunity to absorb it. It seems like doing so will also inform my play of the latest edition of the game to great benefit.
Here’s to re-reading and re-experiencing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. And may God bless dear ol’ Gary Gygax in the hereafter.
Game on!
