Reflections From The Old Days

When I began gaming, way back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, things were different. Looking back at how we played, both as teenagers and as relatively early-adopters, gaming was in many ways simpler.

What is intriguing to me now is that, for all the experience accumulated over the years, the so-called innovations in gaming have left me more confused than anything.

The Way Things Started

Back at the beginning, rules were imperfect and much shorter. There wasn’t much sense of “setting” in the modern sense of the word. Games were not about “the story”, they were about playing a game.

I started with RuneQuest II, then D&D Basic (Moldvay) and Traveller (now referred to as “Classic”). We moved on to Star Frontiers and other games, like Rolemaster, from there. Oddly, though, my inspirational memories are eclectic and very much about places: adventures in Glorantha, and a trek through Moria for a 24-hour charity game. My eternal character is Goriel Swiftfoot, the Halfling Thief. He has had many incarnations… and Rolemaster allowed him to kill the Balrog with a shortsword. Truth be told, we probably played Rolemaster “wrong”.

To all intents and purposes, though, here’s how we played:

• Roll up a character, usually rolling stats but then assigning them to the places that allowed us to play the “class” or “profession” we fancied.
• Dive into an adventure, either of GM’s own design or (more commonly) a published module.
• Enjoy the game without overly worrying about the rules – we left out things we didn’t understand and we winged things a lot.

Character death was frequent at the start. This wasn’t a problem with D&D or Traveller because it was quick to roll up a replacement. Of course, character “power” was limited with those games. That was a big part of the point with playing: these games were “hard” to survive, with characters largely expected to die. The reason why I remember Goriel is mostly that he didn’t die.

The Things That Changed Over Time

There was a growing interest in new games, the most influential of which for my group being Rolemaster. The desire at the time was for more detailed rules.

The “problem” with D&D, as we saw it, was that the simplicity was fine but that it didn’t feel quite detailed enough. Hit Points were a bit abstract and the Classes were a bit limiting. When Rolemaster hit the table, the interest was all around three elements: the expanded range of stats; the massive choice of skills; the critical hit system in combat. Please note: at this time, we weren’t too worried about “setting”.

Here, in the early ’80s, is where I lost interest in the classic 6 stats of D&D (and there equivalent in Traveller). From this point onwards, six attributes always felt restrictive and over-simplistic. Skills, although a part of Traveller, really entered the consciousness of the group too; again, this has a large impact on my playing style. Lots of skills remain a key attraction to games like GURPS.

The downside, however, was that gaming increased in complexity. At the time, we liked this because it appealed to our teenage egos: at that time, being intelligent and literate was a badge we were proud to wear and, along with computing, our comprehension of gaming was evidence of superior intellect. Nowadays I feel slightly embarrassed to admit it but the truth is that knowing I was smarter than the bullies kept me feeling good about myself.

Complexity led to some problems at the gaming table. Rules look-ups ate time and frustrated more than one of us. Honestly, I was the rules lawyer at the table and remain forever ashamed to admit it. It’s why I limit rules look-ups today.

Complexity also led to longer character generation time. This in turn led to a resistance to character death; ironically, in a system like Rolemaster where criticals can kill you very easily, we began to hate that characters died easily. We loved the detail and “gore” of the game… but we increasingly wanted to avoid 2 hour character creation.

When Did Setting Arrive?

Honestly, I don’t remember caring much about setting until White Wolf published the “World of Darkness” and I first heard of “storytelling games”. Certainly, we played games in Greyhawk and Middle-earth… but we weren’t too conscious of the concept of “setting”. It was all an interesting backdrop to the game. Until 1991.

I can remember reading “World of Darkness” stuff. I didn’t play, though, until around 1998. For me, the concept of “storytelling” was interesting. In practice, however, I have never “pulled it off”.

The tension in gaming that arose in this period was between the primacy of the setting and the way in which the game gets played. This is most strongly demonstrated in the HeroQuest II system (much later) that Robin D. Laws published: here, the game is totally subject to the rhythms of the story. I have never been able to resolve this tension.

That aside, setting has radically altered our approach taken in gaming. Back at the beginning, setting and story arose out of the playing of the game: the story was the tale of what happened through play; setting was the colourful backdrop to the action. Nowadays, I have players who tell me that they can’t really enjoy a game unless there is a strong and established sense of setting, and the play has to conform to (or “emulate”) the appropriate style for the chosen background. That has led me to a position where I feel I can’t run certain game systems in specific settings.

Where Does That Leave Our Gaming?

Confused. Divided. Frustrated.

Recently, I’ve been returning to the “old days”: I’ve been running fantasy games in the “Old School” mould. Yet, I’ve also run up against the resistance to the things that felt limiting in the past, like 6 stats and the desire for a bit more crunch. I’ve ended up frustrated with myself.

I want to believe that there is a middle-way between the “Old School” rejection of all innovation and the storyteller’s rejection of the game over the roleplaying. As a GM who finds detailed prep to be a barrier (back in the day, we didn’t need to prep much), storytelling feels too much like literature and movies; as a GM who likes game rules and details, “Old School” feels too basic and limiting.

Maybe this tension is the root of my interest in the forthcoming D&D 5e, much against my initial expectation. That said, it’ll still have those old 6 stats.

What I do know is that I want to keep playing these games. I’m not giving up. No way.

Let me know if you have any suggestions.