Alarums and Excursions

[hengest]

I've just gotten the first five Alarums and Excursions from Lee Gold and am wowed by the contents.  Not so much specific items (though many are cool, see below) as the flavor of the whole endeavor.  For someone (me) who was NOT there at the beginning of this hobby or even the second wave, the window these 'zines give into the DIY / share everything nature of at least some campaigns and DMs is more than worth it.  

I have no intention of "reviewing" the issues, which are available here, but I want to note a couple items:

Mark Swanson: I have scattered Kryptonite through my dungeon. It only affects super characters [whose Prime Requisite and last three characteristics average 13+]. (A&E 1, "An APA-L Miscellany of Comment from various L-ers")

Imagine a Pathfinder party running into this, or even AD&D.  I love the idea, no matter if you just had kryptonite itself in a gonzo setting or found some setting-appropriate reskinning of it.  Kryptonite among the gems, hallways cut from kryptonite, skeletons with kryptonite eyes...wish the writeup had more about their chargen methods.  Only a rare 3d6 character would be affected.  Of course, you could turn down the "super" number...

From what I have read in A&E, APA L, and in TSR's publications, our group apparently handles spells differently from just about everyone. We have always played in such a way that a Magic-User could throw as many spells as he was allowed for his level as many times a day as he wished. The original rules were not terribly clear on this point, and by the time we'd heard differently we'd already gotten used to playing that way, as well as finding out that going it our way seemed to work out quite well for us. (A&E 3, Dale Doane's "Osgood's Tower #2")

I take this to mean that...if you have one first-level spell for the day, you can cast that same spell over and over all day.  If you have 2, you get two spells (two different named spells) and can do whatever you want with them, all day.  And so on.  Has anyone played this?  Such a huge powering-up of MUs as compared to the standard interpretation, but I can just about imagine it working.  Keeps them magical throughout the day, but still limited, and if they get involved in combat they're going to be shredded, as usual.

Also an interesting class called "The Normal" that looks like it could even be playable (reminds me of the "Loser" class I've thought about -- gets worse through experience, ha ha -- someone must have done this, right?)

May edit this post or make another later to note some other things.  But for now...the whole atmosphere in these pages amazes me.  You can see the DIY and gonzo streams right in there with the desire to codify and standardize.  

[robkuntz]

Yeh. Standardization is a left over from the rock-soild-rules mentality of wargamers. But Arneson blew that hull open and sunk it with ongoing systemization. That's what amazed us in the LGTSA and which I make mention of in my interview through Grognard Games (YouTube). The membership went hog wild with this open ended granularity which made wide-eyed jumps to here or there, and not just in the playtests of D&D. Hardly. I have many, many other examples from those days of what we were doing with the concept.

[hengest]

I still don't have a super clear sense of this term "ongoing systemization", but I know I've seen it before in your posts:

[...] in a play world of infinite possibilities one can take a subset and modify it based upon newly introduced information. This was one of Arneson's leaps, which I refer to "Ongoing Systemization," and which is why Arneson abhorred rules strictness.
(robkuntz )

So the distinction is between the strict wargaming view, where there is a rule to cover everything that can be done within the game, and the notion that you can keep expanding the areas of what can be done through rules and rulings?  Is that the idea?

[robkuntz]

May 11, 2016 15:45:21 GMT -5 hengest said:

I still don't have a super clear sense of this term "ongoing systemization", but I know I've seen it before in your posts:

[...] in a play world of infinite possibilities one can take a subset and modify it based upon newly introduced information. This was one of Arneson's leaps, which I refer to "Ongoing Systemization," and which is why Arneson abhorred rules strictness.
(robkuntz )

So the distinction is between the strict wargaming view, where there is a rule to cover everything that can be done within the game, and the notion that you can keep expanding through rules and rulings?  Is that the idea?

I discuss this a great length in the BOOK but, yes, what you note is the gist of it.  We all do this as a matter of course in the game when we find that a rule or law does not cover a given situation.  We devise an instant system for resolving whatever that situation is.  Mode + Inputs (interaction DM <---> Player) = Output.  That is a simple, and generalized, system model.

[Deleted]

Agreed, but I'd like to point out that wargames very much do not have the view of "there is a rule to cover everything that can be done." Most minituares rules admit they cover only the most common cases... like, for instance, 2 years ago at Gary Con's "Battle on the Ice" the Teutonic knights broke through the ice in 5' of water.... and the Russian knights charged into the water to melee them! There is no rule in CHAINMAIL about how fighting on horseback in 5' of water impedes you, so I had to make something up.

I have noticed the "EVERYTHING MUST HAVE A RULE" far, far, FAR more in RPGs than wargames. Pretty much any experienced wargamer knows how chaotic and unpredictable war is. Boardgames a la Avalon Hill try to cover all situations more than miniatures rules, which is why the rulebooks for one specific battle must be nearly as long as a set of miniatures rules for an entire historical period.

[robkuntz]

Actually, I will partly disagree here, my old friend. It's all about scale and form on which I base the argument, JFYI. Warrgames are scenario driven and have to be particularized, especially boardgames. The odd miniatures rule has always been there whether realized or not and as a "variant". These even occur in boardgames. But for the most part these are 100% rules complete from the beginning because they have to be; most, if not all, of their contingent situations have been deduced, and reduced to rules, up front. What I refer to by this mindset is for everything to be ruled "Up Front"; that's what I was referring to, the mindset which derives from Wargames and then extends by way of RPGs through "ruling everything" (REDUCTIONISM).

Now, let'e enter the infinite realm of Fantasy. There's an infinite number of variations that could occur in such a conceptual space and under no specific mechanical guidelines. So we have infinity vs. 100% rules. The reasons wargamers do not find more rules is because they are already ruled up-front. Trying to rule Fantasy's infinite realms "up front" would be like trying to drink the Atlantic Ocean in one gulp. It's impossible but yet people, as you note, try to do so all the same. But in reality it's a fool's errand. Try as one might infinity cannot be reduced. Thus my argument stands upon that point. But I do agree that there are a great number of rules-mongers in RPGs. Seems like a lot when compared to wargamers but it really isn't when you consider the infinite and contracted scopes each one works through as a comparison.

[Von]

May 11, 2016 14:12:40 GMT -5 hengest said:

From what I have read in A&E, APA L, and in TSR's publications, our group apparently handles spells differently from just about everyone. We have always played in such a way that a Magic-User could throw as many spells as he was allowed for his level as many times a day as he wished. The original rules were not terribly clear on this point, and by the time we'd heard differently we'd already gotten used to playing that way, as well as finding out that going it our way seemed to work out quite well for us. (A&E 3, Dale Doane's "Osgood's Tower #2")

I take this to mean that...if you have one first-level spell for the day, you can cast that same spell over and over all day.  If you have 2, you get two spells (two different named spells) and can do whatever you want with them, all day.  And so on.  Has anyone played this?  Such a huge powering-up of MUs as compared to the standard interpretation, but I can just about imagine it working.  Keeps them magical throughout the day, but still limited, and if they get involved in combat they're going to be shredded, as usual.

I don't hate this. As ever, I have issues with the usual Vancian system (mostly at-table issues arising from how my players think magic should work) and I'm always looking for ways to modify it so that it's more compatible with their expectations while still feeling like D&D and confined enough for me to referee it with a tired mind. This helps.