Sham’s Grog ‘n Blog - Why OD&D? an older four part series (2008)

[Yaleric]

Why OD&D? part 1

Why OD&D? part 2

Why OD&D? part 3

Why OD&D? part 4

I would like to discuss the various points that he makes in these articles and am very interested in what some of our old timers have to say, but if you are not an old timer, I am still interested so don't let that dissuade you from commenting.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

I will have to read that and go through it all.

[JMiskimen]

Hmm.

Rules are the procedures we use to accomplish aspects of the game.

Supplemental rules are optional guidelines.

Too much emphasis on 'rules are just guidelines' is a large part as to why modern-day D&D (and the O$R, whatever that is) sucks right now.

... I suppose that could also be extended to a lot of 'modern-day' anti-cultural ideas too, but mayhaps I digress.

[hengest]

Oct 14, 2022 21:47:19 GMT -5 Yaleric said:

Why OD&D? part 1

Why OD&D? part 2

Why OD&D? part 3

Why OD&D? part 4

I would like to discuss the various points that he makes in these articles and am very interested in what some of our old timers have to say, but if you are not an old timer, I am still interested so don't let that dissuade you from commenting.

I enjoyed reading through these posts. I wish the author had given some examples from actual play. But still worthwhile.

[The Semi-Retired Gamer]

I have some reading to do...

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Oct 15, 2022 13:09:56 GMT -5 JMiskimen said:

Hmm.

Rules are the procedures we use to accomplish aspects of the game.

Supplemental rules are optional guidelines.

Too much emphasis on 'rules are just guidelines' is a large part as to why modern-day D&D (and the O$R, whatever that is) sucks right now.

... I suppose that could also be extended to a lot of 'modern-day' anti-cultural ideas too, but mayhaps I digress.

I would have to disagree with you on this IMO, the thing that is wrong with so-called *modern D&D is the complete loss of the concept that rules are just guidelines AND an over reliance on trying to define and codify everything, along with changing rules just for the sake of changing rules without any benefit to doing so. OD&D when house ruled generally has playability relevant to a specific campaign world as the reason for the house rule. 

*The way I define modern D&D is specifically everything from 2nd Ed AD&D through 5E and most certainly 6E aka One D&D. Also to a certain extent I define modern D&D as 1st Ed AD&D and everything from B/X through the RC. And a good chunk of the OSR, probably at least 50%, if not more, is modern D&D and absence any serious compatibility with old school D&D.

Disclaimer: Note that I did not say that there are no OSR games that I like, in fact, there are OSR games that are well done, old school compatible with old school sensibilities that I am rather fond of.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

I would add that in my case, I am fond of house rules that lend themselves to making combat run faster. That has several benefits, one is that it keeps all the players engaged, it prevents the glacial pace of combat common to a lot of games and it also makes the players react more naturally to events because they do not have any time to spend discussing what they are going to do in minute detail and even worse second guessing each other and trying to micro manage fellow players action. Combat is better the faster you are able to run it.

[rob008]

I like this series, this is how I play. The lack of rules and the emphasis on creativity and imagination is why I play OD&D, or my version at least. I love that it lets you do it your way not someone else's way. Maybe it's the rebel in me but the more they say this is the way the game is played the less I want to play it that way. 

[The Perilous Dreamer]

I pretty much agree with everything in Sham’s first post and with this statement:

This is why I love OD&D. It’s a concept with no limits.

I would add that, IMO, all that every roleplaying game written after OD&D and every version of D&D written after OD&D, has only added limits and then more limits to the concept. Contrary to claims that "look at all the options the players have now," in truth they players have fewer options with every rule that is added.

I also agree with him that OD&D is D&D and every version after requires a qualifier as to what it is, instead of the way it is now where with have to add "O" or "Original" to clarify what we are talking about. I know that will never change, but it is still the way it should be AND the way it would have been if TSR had not screwed up.

As an example, I love Paladins. But we don't need Greyhawk to have Paladins. An old school OD&D referee and an old school OD&D player can work that out themselves without Greyhawk or any later version of the rules. One is that you could just play a Cleric as Lawful alignment and make him good in character and as all Clerics should be - also with a high degree of faith and religious fervor. This immediately eliminates all the Clerics that are played like they belong to the Inquisition. Or you could play a Fighting Man as a Lawful Knight that is of good character and also has a high degree of faith and religious fervor.

I will add that the way most Cleric are played they should be doing penance all the time, because they continually break their vows, instead of being the Holy Warrior the class is designed to be IMO.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Oct 16, 2022 15:02:50 GMT -5 rob008 said:

I like this series, this is how I play. The lack of rules and the emphasis on creativity and imagination is why I play OD&D, or my version at least. I love that it lets you do it your way not someone else's way. Maybe it's the rebel in me but the more they say this is the way the game is played the less I want to play it that way. 

The original vision was that every table would be different and be running their own unique version of D&D. TSR lost that vision fairly quickly.

[rob008]

Oct 16, 2022 15:14:52 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

Oct 16, 2022 15:02:50 GMT -5 rob008 said:

I like this series, this is how I play. The lack of rules and the emphasis on creativity and imagination is why I play OD&D, or my version at least. I love that it lets you do it your way not someone else's way. Maybe it's the rebel in me but the more they say this is the way the game is played the less I want to play it that way. 

The original vision was that every table would be different and be running their own unique version of D&D. TSR lost that vision fairly quickly.

Gary Gygax in Alarums and Excursions 2, July 1975 says just that

"If the time ever comes when all aspects of fantasy are covered and the vast majority of its players agree on how the game should be played, D&D will have become staid and boring indeed. Sorry, but I don’t believe that there is anything desirable in having various campaigns playing similarly to one another. D&D is supposed to offer a challenge to the imagination and to do so in many ways. Perhaps the most important is in regard to what the probabilities of a given situation are. If players know what all of the monster parameters are, what can be expected in a given situation, exactly what will happen to them if they perform thus and so, most of the charm of the game is gone.

My answer is, and has always been, if you don’t like the way I do it, change the bloody rules to suit yourself and your players. D&D enthusiasts are far too individualistic an imaginative a bunch to be in agreement, and I certainly refuse to play god for them — except as a referee in my own campaign where they jolly well better toe the mark.

I desire variance in interpretation and, as long as I am editor of the TSR line and it's magazine I will do my utmost to see that there is as little trend towards standardization as possible. Each campaign should be a "variant", and there is no "official interpretation" from me, or anyone else. If a game of "Dungeons and Beavers" suits a group, all say is to them, for every fine referee runs his own variant of D&D anyway."

But we knew this view would change very soon to if you don't play our way you're not playing it right. But why should there be a right way? I say role playing not rule playing.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Oct 16, 2022 15:24:21 GMT -5 rob008 said:

Oct 16, 2022 15:14:52 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

The original vision was that every table would be different and be running their own unique version of D&D. TSR lost that vision fairly quickly.

Gary Gygax in Alarums and Excursions 2, July 1975 says just that

"If the time ever comes when all aspects of fantasy are covered and the vast majority of its players agree on how the game should be played, D&D will have become staid and boring indeed. Sorry, but I don’t believe that there is anything desirable in having various campaigns playing similarly to one another. D&D is supposed to offer a challenge to the imagination and to do so in many ways. Perhaps the most important is in regard to what the probabilities of a given situation are. If players know what all of the monster parameters are, what can be expected in a given situation, exactly what will happen to them if they perform thus and so, most of the charm of the game is gone.

My answer is, and has always been, if you don’t like the way I do it, change the bloody rules to suit yourself and your players. D&D enthusiasts are far too individualistic an imaginative a bunch to be in agreement, and I certainly refuse to play god for them — except as a referee in my own campaign where they jolly well better toe the mark.

I desire variance in interpretation and, as long as I am editor of the TSR line and it's magazine I will do my utmost to see that there is as little trend towards standardization as possible. Each campaign should be a "variant", and there is no "official interpretation" from me, or anyone else. If a game of "Dungeons and Beavers" suits a group, all say is to them, for every fine referee runs his own variant of D&D anyway."

But we knew this view would change very soon to if you don't play our way you're not playing it right. But why should there be a right way? I say role playing not rule playing.

IMO the shocking part is that Gygax repudiated this entire statement, such a short time later.

[JMiskimen]

Thank you, TPD, for a well defined response. In retrospect,, my post may have seemed brash and provocative, but that was not my intention. Actually, our opinions aren't as different as they might seem, TPD. Some of our definitions might be, and that's why I'm posting this - that and I respect your experience and opinions.

I think we all have basic understandings of what D&D is, considering we've all(?) here at Ruins of Murkhill been playing the game since the mid 70s-early 80s. Granted, we all had different gateways to the game - which is unfortunate because of the slight variations those early editions have had on our lenses of perspective so many years later.

Nonetheless, this understanding is painted with a fairly broad brush and there are things about the hobby some like while others don't - and that's pretty normal with anything.

I fell into OD&D much later than you did, and I'm pretty sure you already knew that. My first boxed set wasn't the one I wanted. I wanted the purple boxed set in the Sears catalog, but as a child of a pretty poor family, that never happened. I saved quarters for milk money for a while and ended up getting the Red boxed set at a bookstore in a small shopping mall. It wasn't AD&D like all the cool kids were playing, but it was at last mine. I just wanted to play the game and didn't even know or care about prior editions.

I soon discovered the differences between my Red box and AD&D ... those cool kids called it kiddie D&D, but while I played in any game I had the opportunity to, I still hung on to my beloved Red box and eventually bought the Blue box, and then the Green one, and so forth. I never actually owned an AD&D book until my old DM bought me one well into the 90s.

Fast forward about 20 years or so; the internet starts telling me about this old school revival, which caught my attention as I was pretty disenfranchised by that weird 3e D&D switcheroo. There were guys talking about the 1974 edition of D&D, which I'd never heard about. That same feeling I had as a kid longing for that purple box set kicked in, only now I was resourceful enough to get a copy ...

(It's not my intention to write a book here or tell you my life story, sad as it may be, but I think this is where our lenses differ.)

... problem was, this wasn't the same gateway for me that guys like you had. There were a lot of assumptions and just plain bad advice for some of us rediscovering the game. We wanted to be there, back in the day and perhaps tried a little too hard to snag that lightning. It worked for a few, while others couldn't understand.

80s TSR, and especially WotC, made it pretty clear to we players and fans that their RULES carried a sense of authority that created consistency, no matter what campaign you were a part of. This was very intentional. Sure, Dragon Magazine printed custom options, but they were the Mouth of Sauron, so to speak. This codification was just accepted at most tables I'd played at. Oftentimes, DM-created house rules were sneered at, and at worst, accused of not being real D&D. Even homebrewed critical hits tables were suspect.

This attitude fostered by TSR/WotC really did a lot of collateral damage I'm not sure they anticipated. Or maybe they did ... not that they really cared. They sold books and wanted to stay in business.

Anyways ...

I've since then gotten beyond a lot of those bad habits, and through Greyhawk and Blackmoor, I learned about supplemental rules, or as you've always known them as individual campaign House Rules.

Perhaps it's just semantics between our understandings. Maybe it's the screw job my thinking has suffered due to corporate sponsored mind control. Even though the words of Gygax proclaimed the rules as guidelines in the pages of the 3LBBs, I still read them as the default rules - to be supplemented with careful consideration by the Referee as applicable to his campaign. Once a Supplemental/House Rule is made, it remains as consistent as possible during the campaign, unless through play it has proven to be a bad idea.

Traveller's 3LBBs, which were greatly influenced by OD&D, share the same form and function as the original Dungeons & Dragons - A well designed Toolkit to build the campaign you, the referee, want to build. There are proven and consistant procedures to imaginings within, and by no means is there to be implied that by those procedures should a referee be limited. Rules? Guidelines? Semantics? I don't know. Maybe I'm very wrong about it all.

I feel the Revival mentioned earlier died about the time 5e was released. WotC pretty much co-oped the so-called community by at first pretending to embrace the freedom OD&D promised, and then publishing more and more RULES that would twist the game (and, IMO, its players/fans) into the abomination it is today. And from the ashes of the Revival formed the O$R with more bad advice and crap disguised as bold, revolutionary, and original ideas; though some smoldering amber eeks on in places few and far between.

I like to think this place is somewhere far and between.

I apologize for being so wordy. I probably could have made this a lot shorter, but this has been a weird kind of a contemplative stream of consciousness type of post. I'm still learning how to play this darned game, and probably always will be. Thanks for bearing with me if you made it this far.



JM

[The Perilous Dreamer]

JMiskimen , yeah, we did all get here by different routes and you make a lot of great points. My parents both grew up under the old oral transmission of history, story and such in the Depression (dad born in the 1920s, mom a little younger). I think Dad was around the early teens before the family had a radio and back in the mountains, you only got a station on the air now and then. So I just missed being there first hand, because they moved to Ohio when I was three.

I was also 19 when I came to OD&D in the fall of '75 and in college. When I read:

To quote a bit, this is from the Introduction in Vol. I:

…they are guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign. … your time and imagination are the only limiting factors…

and

From the Afterward in Vol. II:

We have attempted to furnish an ample framework, and building should be both easy and fun. In this light, we urge you to refrain from writing for rule interpretations or the like unless you are absolutely at a loss, for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way! On the other hand, we are not loath to answer your questions, but why have us do any more of your imagining for you?

I took them to mean exactly what they said, no more and no less. And when the supplements came out and we finally got our hands on them, even though there was not a statement at the front of each volume specifically saying, "everything here presented is 100% optional, use or don't use what you want." I nevertheless took them that way and never thought they were anything but optional. Just as when we got our hands on the Arduin Grimoire, we took, "cool a lot of optional ideas."

A lot of that comes from growing up in the family I grew up in and also that it was on a rural farm. Options were a daily part of life, because every day there were things that had to be dealt with and you had to figure out the best way to deal with them. That is what farm life is.

As for consistency, I view it like "balance," I never let myself get too hung up on it.

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

I watched a youtube video the other day and the guy was ranting about the importance of balance in D&D and I just sighed and shook my head. I thought to myself, you poor guy, you've never played old school D&D.

though some smoldering ember eeks on in places few and far between.

That is quite right.

That is, I think, one of the frustrations for Rob Kuntz, that he has despaired of finding enough smoldering embers to rekindle a fire.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

OD&D, of all of the various versions within it’s family, provides the maximum potential for imagination, role-playing, logic and critical thinking. How? Simply by providing a very basic framework. Referees cannot rely on published material or rules for every situation. Players cannot rely on character skills or dice to resolve every situation. This approach demands the most from it’s participants. It’s a style of play which offers the most potential for all of these various aspects. Aspects which generate the purest forms of the genre, and maximize the fun for all involved.

I would agree that OD&D demands more from it's participants than any other game or version of D&D. It does that just as he says by demanding that you stretch your imagination and creativity to their limits (that you thought you had) and going beyond them. OD&D (at least the way I play it) is not about roll-playing, but really about role-playing, but does it without being story gaming (without any pre-written script or plots to follow). In OD&D, in the sandbox, hooks are not plot hooks that have been planned out, hooks are adventure hooks, where depending on what the player do, they might take you anywhere. It creates a game where everyone can be surprised, both the players and the referee. The referee in using improvisation throughout the game is blending a unique mix of imagination, creativity, role-playing, logic, intuition, critical thinking and a bit of whimsy. The referees own immersion in the game draws the players in after him, they model what they are seeing and experiencing. A good referee totally commits to his vision and to his flights of imagination, without any artificially imposed limits to curb where it will go.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

In his second post in this series, he links to another essay he did and he links to it - The Empty Room Principle. I could not agree with this more. He does say that OD&D is not for everyone and that many, even MOST, players and referees may prefer a heavier more defined rule set. In fact, I would say, as a referee if empty rooms scare you, then you are not ready for OD&D. But when you get more comfortable with improvisation, then come on back and give OD&D a try and you may find it is a very good fit. 

I learned to referee by sitting down and starting with a blank slate and bringing it to life in moments for 16 players. When I create a dungeon on the fly, I can describe room after room with all the trappings, monsters, perhaps some treasure on the fly. I find it hard to work with things defined before hand and I am incapable of using a module. The empty room to me is my canvas and I find the empty room inspiring and exhilarating. I have said before, that if there are 10 doors leading to 10 different worlds, in the time it takes for me to say that, I can see 10 worlds rotating in space, all different in a multitude of ways and in an instant I grok all of them. When the players pick a door, my focus shifts to that world and the others are reserved for another day.

He says:

Here is my Empty Room Principle of D&D:

D&D is a vehicle for creative input. Logically, therefore, D&D is hindered when the potential for creativity is reduced.

Why the Empty Room? The Empty Room is a metaphor, it represents the potential space provided by the designer or author of a game, to be used by the players of that game to exercise some form of personal creative input.

It’s an invitation for creativity. It’s the best analogy I can think of for OD&D’s open ended potential for creativity, limited only by one’s own imagination. OD&D’s gaps should always be taken as creative possibilities, much like empty rooms, not as a detriment. As Gary said in the OD&D afterward “…why have us do any more of your imagining for you?”.

Thus, the Empty Room Principle, that D&D is a vehicle for creative input. Any version which limits this creativity is in fact moving away from the Empty Room Principle, and therefore moving away from the purest form of D&D.

To extrapolate upon this Empty Room Principle:

1. Rules are what you make of them, and the limits of D&D are defined absolutely by one’s own imagination.

2. D&D is best when engaged, both by player and referee, with critical thought and creativity.

3. If everything is defined, D&D becomes a session of rote memorization of the rules, with success or failure boiling down to random numbers generated on dice. A situation which can be mimicked by a computer.

4. OD&D trumps all other versions. It is a vehicle for creative input in ways that modern versions are not. How? By keeping things simple (Thank you William of Occam).

[The Perilous Dreamer]

As promised, I do want to state, specifically and without theorizing quite as much, what I like about the OD&D rules, and not simply the game.

1. OD&D uses a class model based on the three pronged crown of Fighting-Man, Magic User and Cleric. In other words, no Thief. I like this because it allows any player to engage obstacles with critical thinking and logic. The players are interacting with the game world, and not simply reaching for the dice.

I agree with this and it is why I do not like to have a thief in my game, the thief is the first character class introduced that IMO crossed the line between roleplaying and roll-playing. A thief is clearly an archetype; however, it is not IMO an archetype that lends itself to simplicity the way the original three classes do. While the Cleric is not an archetype in the way that Fighting-Men and Magic-Users are IMO it is perfectly designed for OD&D and for roleplaying.

Regarding critical thinking and logic, OD&D is well-suited to teaching and training young people in using those abilities, both in and out of the game.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

2. OD&D employs a rather abstract combat model. It’s the perfect basis for keeping it as is, or expanding and detailing the act of conducting melee. The abstract approach keeps combat moving quickly.

As I have noted many times, combat in OD&D can be run at a breakneck pace where all action is virtually in real time and you get really pure play when players embrace that and make rapid choices one after the other in quick succession. When you run through a single melee round of combat with 16 players and a like number of monsters in four minutes or less, where it is all action with no debate or long conversations about what to do, well you can get very deeply immersed into that .

I once ran a combat, as an example for someone who had never played D&D. with no paper of any kind and no dice. It was 100% theater of the mind and they would tell me who they were attacking and I told them if they hit or not. Not one complaint about whether or not I was being fair. I have seen people argue that, something like that is awful and I could not be consistent and it was not fair and.. and.. and.... My reply to that person is that they are not old school enough to game in that environment. It requires trust to do that running both ways and if you can't handle, then come back when you grow up.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

3. OD&D employs a minimal amount of ability based bonuses. The only benefit for having an exceptional score in a prime requisite is a percent increase to experience gain. This approach allows for perfectly viable characters with less than average ability scores.

It allows the players complete freedom to define their character with the most possible options, instead of scores of tables and thousands of words of text defining each possible player in detail with all the limits and restrictions that implies, the player only needs imagination and a referee with imagination. The only players complaining that all Fighting-Men or all Magic-Users or all Clerics are identical are those that lack imagination and have not yet been able to embrace the concept of infinite options. The point has been made many times about "too" many choices leading to decision paralysis, but quite frankly I cannot identify with that situation. In a dungeon if I am a player and I walk into a room with 100 doors and I am asked what I want to do, I am ready with my first response the moment I am asked and I also know what I intend to do for the next 10 choices/decisions after that subject to changes resulting from each previous choice.

When I roll up a character, I immediately know a lot about him and I am perfectly fine with learning more about him during play.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

4. OD&D does not assume that characters begin as heroes. That potential is there, but it’s a status which must be earned through overcoming the challenges set forth by the referee. Anyone can become a hero. Such potential is not limited by ability scores.

This cannot be emphasized enough IMO. It seems these days that everyone wants to start at first level with all the things they would have earned through eight levels of play. All that stuff you want or that you think your character should have? Earn it! I know that is a foreign concept to most people in this instant gratification world we live in, but seriously, give it a try, you enjoy things you earn way more than things you are given, but if that part of your personal character is stunted, having not been allowed to develop, then give it a try and learn.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

5. The Charisma ability, as it relates to the other five abilities, is just as important in OD&D as it’s character defining brethren. The de-emphasis of the other scores serves to accentuate the usefulness of this often underappreciated ability. Hirelings and monster reaction are two aspects of D&D often lost in later versions. Being proficient with a sword will only get you so far in OD&D.

If you as the referee, devalue Charisma(i.e. devalue roleplaying) in your game, you are IMO shortchanging your players.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

6. For lack of a better way to explain my next reason, I will borrow some terms bandied about in role-playing. OD&D is the antithesis of min-maxing, power gaming and bonus inflation. Therefore, even the most basic magic items do not lose their allure. Players need not fret about poor character ability scores, nor do players spend time engaging in meta-gaming thought patterns. The focus of the game is in the play itself. To quote Philotomy: increases of all sorts (including increases in PC level) have greater significance in OD&D, relative to later editions of the game.

Worth saying again, min-maxing, power gaming and especially the munchkin abomination have no place in old gaming or in a real OD&D game. That is why the game was setup to roll 3d6 in order for your stats. It eliminates min-maxing and power gaming by design. It also eliminates the munchkin which is the ultra abuse of min-maxing and power gaming, combined with outright cheating and a total disregard of the other players.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

7. Originally, the d6 was used for all monster hit dice. All attacks deal a base 1d6. There is synergy here. With this model, a stab from a dagger can indeed slay normal men. Furthermore, later editions of D&D have managed to weaken two of the signature Magic User spells. Fireball and Lightning Bolt are much more effective when monsters have not been subjected to hit point increases. By all rights, those two spells should have increased in potency along with character and monster hit dice. I prefer this original synergy.

I very much agree with this and when I do alter the hit dice, I alter the spells too.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

8. The simple alignment system of OD&D accentuates the fact that alignment should not determine some moral code for how a player controls his character. Just play the game. The referee will keep track of who is on what team, and use this simple system as it relates to character-monster reactions and role-playing.

Yeah, people try to overthink alignment and use it as a straitjacket to beat players over the head, it is much more simple than that and was never intended for the typical shark jumping way people off use it or think about it.

[hengest]

Exalt to The Perilous Dreamer for this excellent set of posts.

[hengest]

Oct 22, 2022 0:31:27 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

But it is easy to understand this thinking if you start from "character advancement is the only thing of interest and the only useful method of advancing is combat." If all the character is is stats and abilities, well, then there is not that much variation, true. Of course, I don't really want to play in that game, but some do.

[hengest]

Oct 22, 2022 0:35:29 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

4. OD&D does not assume that characters begin as heroes. That potential is there, but it’s a status which must be earned through overcoming the challenges set forth by the referee. Anyone can become a hero. Such potential is not limited by ability scores.

This cannot be emphasized enough IMO. It seems these days that everyone wants to start at first level with all the things they would have earned through eight levels of play. All that stuff you want or that you think your character should have? Earn it! I know that is a foreign concept to most people in this instant gratification world we live in, but seriously, give it a try, you enjoy things you earn way more than things you are given, but if that part of your personal character is stunted, having not been allowed to develop, then give it a try and learn.

This is never me, but not for any virtue of mine. I think I have fairly low interest in "myself" and my "abilities" and correspondingly low interest in my character's abilities. I mostly want to interact with and "see" the game world, so a bunch of magic items are just a bunch of noise to me. 

This doesn't mean I think cool items are bad or not fun, but I do have trouble engaging with them.

[hengest]

By the way, this Sham guy is great, does anyone here know him?

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Oct 22, 2022 21:11:35 GMT -5 hengest said:

By the way, this Sham guy is great, does anyone here know him?

No, I don't but I feel like he is one of us.

[hengest]

Oct 22, 2022 21:15:32 GMT -5 The Perilous Dreamer said:

Oct 22, 2022 21:11:35 GMT -5 hengest said:

By the way, this Sham guy is great, does anyone here know him?

No, I don't but I feel like he is one of us.

The last post is ten years old. Hm. Maybe ome of us can reach out. He might still be around but not blogging.