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Post by increment on May 3, 2017 19:43:34 GMT -5
Did Gary actually succeed in closing AD&D? I submit that he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in converting to a closed system. If you're talking about commercial success of things like modules, that part I won't dispute. But if you're saying that Gary's insistence that AD&D was immutable prevented people from innovating and doing modules for themselves, let me point you to things like this: plagmada.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=3222&g2_GALLERYSID=dfd47ce9dbdf7b128344638ced3b03a9You can't crush the spirit of innovation. Some cool kids did a whole book of these modules that I wrote an introduction for a couple years ago. |
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Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 19:54:07 GMT -5
100 % of all content bitd was created by 100& of all DMs, which numbered in the thousands. I estimate that less than 10%, maybe even less than that, among a much greater pool of RPGers today even create their own worlds or campaigns. If we are measuring progress of creative innovation by those statistics alone I would say that we have slipped wayyy backwards and not forward. And I describe the reason for that creative decline in minute detail in DATG.
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Post by increment on May 3, 2017 20:30:23 GMT -5
So not to just hit rewind, but is the quote from "Chainmail Additions" about the rules just being guidelines part of the "game of Chainmail" or not? And who gets to decide if it is? This is really a question about whether or not "the published design" is actually something so easy to isolate. You're getting hung up on calling them the same thing. They are two different sets of rules: 1)Chainmail 1st edition from March 1971, and 2)Chainmail 1st edition from March 1971 incorporating the additional rules found in the IW "Chainmail Additions" article from January 1972. Either one of them can be compared separately to OD&D using Kuntz's method. Sorry, I'm not trying to be needlessly pedantic here. I think this matters because option 2 contains text that looks a whole lot like the open-ended text of OD&D, and option 1 doesn't. If you're deciding the inputs to an algorithm that will tell you whether or not "Chainmail", whatever that is, is a key precursor to OD&D, then suddenly it's really important which of those two options Chainmail "really" is. My question was, who gets to decide that? Again sorry, no, I'm saying that a campaign can incorporate published rules and later discard them or hack them or whatever and still remain the same campaign, so all kinds of phenomena along those lines could happen under the umbrella of a campaign called "Blackmoor." I do think the tactical wargames in Blackmoor (again, in the "interesting" era) were governed by largely Chainmail rules, with some hacks. But I'm not advancing some kind of essentialist position that this forces us to call those sessions "a game of Chainmail" - though I'm not sure I would have grounds to object if someone happened to call them that. The first of those three options above is the least appealing to me, because Braunstein doesn't have any rules text to it, unlike Chainmail or OS. I mean, Strategos (the Totten one) informed how Braunsteins played out, but Braunstein is a classic example of a session that is off the radar of design. So... I don't think that's an implausible explanation. But I think advertising the event as a "medieval Braunstein" was moreover a way to signal certain attributes of what was going to happen that day to people who were familiar with previous Braunsteins: like, there was going to be a town, people were going to take roles in that town that included non-combatants, and that there would be hijinx and shenanigans. I think shenanigans were a pretty important expectation that people brought to Blackmoor from the previous Braunsteins. I don't snip your list here to imply that the mechanics you list above have preordained resolution mechanisms in the Chainmail rulebook, quite the contrary. But again... I think your assessment of this depends on what you think the rules of "Chainmail" are. If the rules of Chainmail incorporate the idea that, if a player says "I want my horse to kick the dragon!" it is then up to the referee to improvise on the spot how to resolve this - the option 2 way up at the top of this post - then in what sense do you think Chainmail doesn't provide for this? More fundamentally, to my broader point about the difference between a design and campaign: in the context of any session in real time, a referee is free to choose to improvise rules as needed regardless of whether or not the rules happen to grant them permission to improvise. Bluntly, no one cares if the written rules condescend to bestow such permissions or not. Nor is this sentiment anything specific to Chainmail, or Blackmoor, or any design or campaign. Gary did not come down from a tete-a-tete with the burning bush in the mountains to deliver the text that appeared in his "Chainmail Additions" about rules just being guidelines, this idea was commonplace in the miniature wargames community at the time. The contention that this is somehow unique or original to Blackmoor, in my view of the evidence, contradicts a number of clear historical precedents. |
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Post by increment on May 3, 2017 20:31:19 GMT -5
I estimate that less than 10%, maybe even less than that, among a much greater pool of RPGers today even create their own worlds or campaigns. I can't say I know what the figures are today, but I wouldn't be surprised if you were right. And I agree that is a lamentable situation. |
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Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 21:29:55 GMT -5
And this is partly why I decided that a scientific study of the game system qualities used AS-IS must be adopted; otherwise one then jumps from games as platforms to games as unending possibility streams without proofs. That dismisses the entire corpus of design, design procedure and sets back Game Theory to the stone age. It is speculation of the "it could have been" kind and ignores that the vast majority of game/mini rules for campaigns were used as is, just as they are today. Minor variants would occur and were usually kept aside as a note or notes to sculpt into the next session, but rarely, if ever did you see this happening in real time. This real tine departure arises en masse in Blackmoor due to his conceptual realm component which is part of Arneson's system structure and that actively began promoting the concept of elasticity (both of degree and kind), or as David Megarry said, everything changed when Arneson described things via the imaginative interface and then asked, “What do you want to do?"
The vast majority of wargames preceding this departure were based upon what constraints (rules and formats and closed environs such as a bounded map, bounded resources, etc.) allowed you to do. Again, this is a transfer of systems for the finite game to an omniscient and infinite system: the players and the "Judge," and this is where true openness occurs as a wide throttle in real time and is not backward compatible to minor instances that may have occurred as adjustments or tweaks or minor variations. AS-IS works in many ways, thus degree has to measured as well. So this systems openness in Blackmoor and then for D&D could not only be diametrically throttled by degree but it was embedded in the game itself as a LAW to effect creating, eliminating, demoting or promoting rules.
Guidelines suggests that you could change things. Stating that rules can be dsicarded and/or altered in D&D is a given LAW and it is a result of Arneson’s ever evolving system’s interface wherein a Fantasy world cannot be ruled or thus described in whole and up front; and so that Law was a given and encouraged many times in print with the idea that its use would create thousands upon thousands of variables and thus each game would become a variant, just as Gary’s and Dave’s were in relation to each other. We are no longer in simulations; we are now fully immersed in a conceptual realm game; and that is exactly what Gary and I and Terry and Ernie experienced--no miniatures, no maps, not even an apparent set of rules. Just the imagination minus constraint.
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Post by Admin Pete on May 3, 2017 21:54:29 GMT -5
This extract is from the preface to my unpublished Castle El Raja Key and describes events between Gary and myself very early the very next day after our adventure into Blackmoor Castle NOV 1972. Note that Gary was so excited by the new concept that he thought to use it as a way of creating stories. The two maps that I drew while judging him (that's right, I was ostensibly the first "DM" before Greyhawk Castle was ever rendered and drew the first RPG maps in LG) were auctioned years ago but scans of them were included on the ERK Archive. I don't know how to post them here. PD has my permission to do so along with the accompanying text on the DVD, but they should include the watermark "Copyright Robert J. Kuntz/TLS 1972-2017" across each when and if posted. Text copyright Robert J. Kuntz 2008. Is that "The Unnameable Tower" that you are referring to? |
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Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 22:02:54 GMT -5
This extract is from the preface to my unpublished Castle El Raja Key and describes events between Gary and myself very early the very next day after our adventure into Blackmoor Castle NOV 1972. Note that Gary was so excited by the new concept that he thought to use it as a way of creating stories. The two maps that I drew while judging him (that's right, I was ostensibly the first "DM" before Greyhawk Castle was ever rendered and drew the first RPG maps in LG) were auctioned years ago but scans of them were included on the ERK Archive. I don't know how to post them here. PD has my permission to do so along with the accompanying text on the DVD, but they should include the watermark "Copyright Robert J. Kuntz/TLS 1972-2017" across each when and if posted. Text copyright Robert J. Kuntz 2008. Is that "The Unnameable Tower" that you are referring to? Yes it is. It should be one or two images, though Kevin may have combined the two from the original scans of the one-sheet. Thanks! |
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Post by Admin Pete on May 3, 2017 22:48:54 GMT -5
I submit that he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in converting to a closed system. If you're talking about commercial success of things like modules, that part I won't dispute. But if you're saying that Gary's insistence that AD&D was immutable prevented people from innovating and doing modules for themselves, let me point you to things like this: plagmada.org/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=3222&g2_GALLERYSID=dfd47ce9dbdf7b128344638ced3b03a9You can't crush the spirit of innovation. Some cool kids did a whole book of these modules that I wrote an introduction for a couple years ago. I was not really talking about the commercial success of modules other than they are evidence that Gary's insistence that AD&D was immutable discouraged, not prevented - discouraged people from innovating and doing modules for themselves and as a result only a few did innovate, most went with what Gary preached. This 14 year old was a kid having fun and likely did not know that Gary was preaching that it was not cool to do what he did. You can crush the spirit of innovation in the majority, but there will always be a few that are either don't know that shouldn't do something or the marvericks that don't care what you say not to do and they ignore it, refusing to be crushed. Some people you can kill, but you can never crush them. |
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Post by Admin Pete on May 3, 2017 22:52:15 GMT -5
Is that "The Unnameable Tower" that you are referring to? Yes it is. It should be one or two images, though Kevin may have combined the two from the original scans of the one-sheet. Thanks! It is too late today for me to work on that image, I am not sure how to watermark it except that I can reduce the image size, and create a pdf and watermark it with Adobe. But I don't have anyway to watermark an image file. If you can, just email it to me and I will post it. That will probably be quicker, but if not then I will work on it and post it. |
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Post by grodog on May 3, 2017 23:51:06 GMT -5
I estimate that less than 10%, maybe even less than that, among a much greater pool of RPGers today even create their own worlds or campaigns. I can't say I know what the figures are today, but I wouldn't be surprised if you were right. And I agree that is a lamentable situation. If the figures have fallen to 10% or less DMs designing and running their own campaigns, then that is a significant decline from just 20 years ago. In 1999 WotC commissioned a professional marketing survey company to survey the general public about RPGs; I participated in the survey as one of the selected 20,000 surveyed households, through random luck of the draw at the time, and I saved the original survey, and later the results that Ryan Dancey published about the survey prior to 3.0's release. The full survey results were also published widely at the time, and are still readable @ www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html (but not the original survey Qs, which I'll have to dig up again sometime, I suppose). When Dancey shared this data at the GAMA Trade Show in 1999, as part of the unveiling of the d20/OGL license, he also spoke to ~50% of DMs being homebrewers. I don't see that directly listed in the survey results beyond this question: What I recall was Dancey talking about 50% of campaigns being homebrewed campaign settings, but that seems to be contracted by line 2: Create Own Campaign Material: 29% normally / 17% rarely. Perhaps I'm not remembering the details right, or perhaps I'm thinking of the first line for Create Own Adventures. Regardless, it's still a significant fall down to 10% if the 1999 survey results were pegged at 29% (a 19% decline), and an even greater fall at 42% (32% decline) or 50% (40% decline). Allan. |
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Post by robkuntz on May 4, 2017 4:46:27 GMT -5
I can't say I know what the figures are today, but I wouldn't be surprised if you were right. And I agree that is a lamentable situation. If the figures have fallen to 10% or less DMs designing and running their own campaigns, then that is a significant decline from just 20 years ago. In 1999 WotC commissioned a professional marketing survey company to survey the general public about RPGs; I participated in the survey as one of the selected 20,000 surveyed households, through random luck of the draw at the time, and I saved the original survey, and later the results that Ryan Dancey published about the survey prior to 3.0's release. The full survey results were also published widely at the time, and are still readable @ www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html (but not the original survey Qs, which I'll have to dig up again sometime, I suppose). When Dancey shared this data at the GAMA Trade Show in 1999, as part of the unveiling of the d20/OGL license, he also spoke to ~50% of DMs being homebrewers. I don't see that directly listed in the survey results beyond this question: What I recall was Dancey talking about 50% of campaigns being homebrewed campaign settings, but that seems to be contracted by line 2: Create Own Campaign Material: 29% normally / 17% rarely. Perhaps I'm not remembering the details right, or perhaps I'm thinking of the first line for Create Own Adventures. Regardless, it's still a significant fall down to 10% if the 1999 survey results were pegged at 29% (a 19% decline), and an even greater fall at 42% (32% decline) or 50% (40% decline). Allan. Not a significant decline at all. MIY adventures/worlds declined in direct proportion to the more complicated system, 3E that arose to replace the former systems that were still very easy to manipulate on paper. Thus you are using skewed number from a sampling that was for OD&D-2E. Furthermore, we do not have the significant Paizo factor added in with their PF adv and the effects of LULU POD which allowed for adventures to start rolling off the presses as well. |
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Post by robkuntz on May 4, 2017 4:49:03 GMT -5
Yes it is. It should be one or two images, though Kevin may have combined the two from the original scans of the one-sheet. Thanks! It is took late today for me to work on that image, I am not sure how to watermark it except that I can reduce the image size, and create a pdf and watermark it with Adobe. But I don't have anyway to watermark an image file. If you can, just email it to me and I will post it. That will probably be quicker, but if not then I will work on it and post it. Righto, will do so, and thanks! |
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 8:26:35 GMT -5
I can't say I know what the figures are today, but I wouldn't be surprised if you were right. And I agree that is a lamentable situation. If the figures have fallen to 10% or less DMs designing and running their own campaigns, then that is a significant decline from just 20 years ago. In 1999 WotC commissioned a professional marketing survey company to survey the general public about RPGs; I participated in the survey as one of the selected 20,000 surveyed households, through random luck of the draw at the time, and I saved the original survey, and later the results that Ryan Dancey published about the survey prior to 3.0's release. The full survey results were also published widely at the time, and are still readable @ www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html (but not the original survey Qs, which I'll have to dig up again sometime, I suppose). When Dancey shared this data at the GAMA Trade Show in 1999, as part of the unveiling of the d20/OGL license, he also spoke to ~50% of DMs being homebrewers. I don't see that directly listed in the survey results beyond this question: What I recall was Dancey talking about 50% of campaigns being homebrewed campaign settings, but that seems to be contracted by line 2: Create Own Campaign Material: 29% normally / 17% rarely. Perhaps I'm not remembering the details right, or perhaps I'm thinking of the first line for Create Own Adventures. Regardless, it's still a significant fall down to 10% if the 1999 survey results were pegged at 29% (a 19% decline), and an even greater fall at 42% (32% decline) or 50% (40% decline). Allan. Were these numbers specifically from "D&D households", or "RPG households" generally? I ask because at the time that poll went out, the concept of what a campaign 'setting' was in the general community was quite different to what we have now or did back in the 80s. Games that weren't explicitly 'universal' typically came with settings built in—Rifts, L5R, World of Darkness, Earthdawn, Shadowrun, Star Wars—but we still felt as though we were exercising our worldbuilding muscles by creating campaign 'settings' within the established world of the game. When we played in 'our version' of these settings, or if we created a new location or fleshed out a location that didn't have any detail on it, we most certainly called that 'homebrew' rather than 'I'm using a published setting and picking what I want from it.' |
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Post by Admin Pete on May 4, 2017 9:40:30 GMT -5
The last question implies that it went out to D&D households, but there is no way to know if that is true.
A better questionnaire would have asked what RPG do you play?
list of choices including other fill in the blank
Do you play D&D?
Which version - list of choices
How often do you play D&D, range of options
Do you create your entire Campaign World (aka setting) from scratch, including your own adventures and other campaign materials?
Then additional questions with variations all the way down to
Do you only use published Campaign Worlds (aka settings) and published Adventures, and published campaign materials?
Do you play D&D BtB/RAW?
Variations in between.
Do you house rule your D&D game and make rulings to adjudicate variable situations?
There are many other questions that could and should be asked, such as,
Are you aware that anyone can create their own Campaign World (aka setting) from scratch?
Are you interested in learning how to do this?
Then you can offer things ranging from different techniques on how to draw maps (now that are tons of youtube videos on how to do this, but those are a recent thing and certainly did not exist back in the 1970's) all the way to design classes like Rob has taught from time to time.
My guess would be that way less than 1% of all D&D refs/DMs of all versions have ever truly made it themselves over the last 40 plus years. I base this on that fact the virtually never does anyone post in a thread that they do not use modules, those people that don't use modules and pre-built campaign worlds to at least some extent are rare.
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Post by robkuntz on May 4, 2017 11:03:19 GMT -5
Cedgewick said up thread "So, I think Dave calling his new Blackmoor game a "medieval Braunstein" in an April 1971 newsletter to his players, who were familiar with the concept of a Braunstein, was really the best name he could give it to approximately describe what it was to prospective players, given terms such as "RPG" didn't exist." For clarity, he wrote in the announcement: "Brown Stien-type". See my book-ad-thread on this board where that part of the newsletter is reproduced. ruinsofmurkhill.proboards.com/thread/1170/dave-arneson-true-genius-findNow Arneson was no doubt using it casually, but there is a hint in "-type" that appears to foreshadow what follows, as play ends up very different than other Braunsteins with Arneson going full throttle with the conceptual interface and rules creation in real time. Aside: This is where D&D's interconnected play<>design philosophy begins and marks the advent of the never-ending game. |
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Post by robertsconley on May 4, 2017 11:37:07 GMT -5
100 % of all content bitd was created by 100& of all DMs, which numbered in the thousands. I estimate that less than 10%, maybe even less than that, among a much greater pool of RPGers today even create their own worlds or campaigns. If we are measuring progress of creative innovation by those statistics alone I would say that we have slipped wayyy backwards and not forward. And I describe the reason for that creative decline in minute detail in DATG. In my involvement with gamers across eastern Ohio, western Pa, and western NY, that 1/4 create just about everything they use in a campaign, 1/2 have hybrid campaigns where it is a mix of homebrew and published materials, and a 1/4 that game primarily with published materials. My experience from four decades of running conventions, gaming clubs, Live Action Roleplaying events, game store events, as well my home campaigns, is that biggest factor in how much time one has to devote to the hobby. With all other factors equal the more time a hobbyist has to play the more apt he or she likely to write their own material. But temperament, interest, and skill are also big factors. Neither of our opinions is backed by the kind of data that between the 1999 Wizards survey. However you use google, facebooks and archive.org to see that I been active in a leadership role with contacts with hundreds of gamers for a very long time. Nor do I presume that my experience in OH, PA, and NY is representative of the situation across the country. But I have travelled on business on numerous occasion as a software developer and had the chance in the evening to visit game stores and meet with gamers all across the nation. I get the sense while the exact percentages vary that the ratio holds throughout the United States. I will go as far to say that when it comes to a campaign run in one's home that the default is to kitbash. There a focus on a core system like D&D 5th edition, Pathfinder, OD&D, etc. But around that core the referee will add his own stuff and other published material from everywhere. Some will use the Harn Price List, some will use the mass combat rules from Warhammer, some have a merchant trade system of their own they tinkered with for years so forth and so on. I find the 10% figure ludicrous and not supported even by anecdotal evidence. I also find it a lazy estimate because clearly to arrive at that one has to be looking only at the very loud and very visible parts of the hobby, conventions, and other forms of organized play. Where home campaigns are largely run out of sight and out of mind. The only reason I feel comfortable in taking at a guess at my estimate is that I had ongoing personal contacts with numerous gamers over decades. I listen to the stories of their exploits and what they like and dislike. How was this 10% figure arrived at? |
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Post by robkuntz on May 4, 2017 11:57:16 GMT -5
RC Quoth: How was this 10% figure arrived at?
How? By questioning consumers, publishers, fans and friends for 20 years and by running my own 3 companies; additionally by noting the narrative at hundreds of online forums and conventions and by noting what publishers want which is a reflection of what the market is demanding.
For one extracted example of the data I've personally accumulated: When PPP published adventures we sold through them easily; when I did Dungeon Sets with a DIY slant they bombed, and not for price or quality, it's just that the same market, if it were truly mixed, would have shown stronger returns. The metric with that was about 15% on what we were doing with the adventures which remained stable. NOTE: This is in the very sphere where DIY was created so I estimate the greater pool, outside this sphere, as being even less.
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Post by Admin Pete on May 4, 2017 12:13:01 GMT -5
In my involvement with gamers across eastern Ohio, western Pa, and western NY, that 1/4 create just about everything they use in a campaign, 1/2 have hybrid campaigns where it is a mix of homebrew and published materials, and a 1/4 that game primarily with published materials. My experience from four decades of running conventions, gaming clubs, Live Action Roleplaying events, game store events, as well my home campaigns, is that biggest factor in how much time one has to devote to the hobby. With all other factors equal the more time a hobbyist has to play the more apt he or she likely to write their own material. But temperament, interest, and skill are also big factors.
I completely agree with the part that I placed in bold above and also appreciate the additional information that you have from your personal involvement and contacts. The approximately 25% that "create just about everything" is what I think really deserves more attention. IMO which is just based on forum posts and blogs, I think only a tiny fraction "create everything" and customize the rules for their campaign and do not model their campaign directly after any published campaign. I would love to see more data and research and I would love to be definitely proven wrong. Which I may very well be, since only a tiny fraction of the DMs are represented on the forums and blogs(which IMO is a shame).
I think using bits and pieces of other published stuff, and ideas from all over fits within what I called the 1%. "Some will use the Harn Price List, some will use the mass combat rules from Warhammer, some have a merchant trade system of their own they tinkered with for years so forth and so on" is what I include in the one percent, I think the rest are probably more derivative and less fully an original take on things. Again I admit that I could be very wrong about this.
Where home campaigns are largely run out of sight and out of mind. The only reason I feel comfortable in taking at a guess at my estimate is that I had ongoing personal contacts with numerous gamers over decades. I listen to the stories of their exploits and what they like and dislike.
I think this is excellent information and it informs us as to how arrived at your take on things. That is always of value. I would point out that Rob with his contacts at cons and other events and his travels, not just within the USA, that he has also had many ongoing personal contacts with numerous gamers over decades. So how you and he define who belongs into each percentage is of vital importance and as with other things, we may all be defining things differently and seeing different pieces of the puzzle.
I have a more limited view, based on all the people I have gamed with and the forums and blogs, which is a limited and biased group compared to the whole.
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I am having a lot of fun reading this thread and learning a lot from all of you. Thank you to everyone who has and is participating in this thread. I will be mining it for months. |
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Post by robertsconley on May 4, 2017 13:01:34 GMT -5
The approximately 25% that "create just about everything" is what I think really deserves more attention. IMO which is just based on forum posts and blogs, I think only a tiny fraction "create everything" and customize the rules for their campaign and do not model their campaign directly after any published campaign. I would love to see more data and research and I would love to be definitely proven wrong. Which I may very well be, since only a tiny fraction of the DMs are represented on the forums and blogs(which IMO is a shame). Actually it pretty mundane, most people I encountered in this category are accurately described as "The people who don't buy Shoot." In general they bought the core books to a edition and that pretty much it. And they run campaigns from the collective discussion the picture that emerges is that they pretty much do everything else themselves. And i Have to stress that they are not "into it" in the way that people are about designing one's own material. They either happy with the core books they bought or don't see the point of buying anything else. Either way they are running campaign and focus on making up Shoot they think is fun. Out that group a quarter of them (so 1/4 x 1/4 = 1/16) are into truly into making everything up from scratch and have no use for anything published. But again that has to be compared to the people I labeled as hybrids. There are a significant number of gamers that operate like do who are really into developing their campaigns but will kitbash anything they think that is useful or when they are pressed for time. This is the category I fit into. If I had to come up with a number I would say a 1/4 of them do this. So 1/2 x 1/4 = 1/8. So about a 3/16th of hobbyist are making significant amounts of their own material. 2/3rds of them incorporate published material that the 1/3 very little if anything of published material. The thing to remember that the default is to kitbash. The whole DiY discussion here revolves around the idea of sitting down with a blank piece of paper and coming up with your own ideas. If that your standard then the percentage will be low. But the reality is that hobbyists will glom onto everything anything they think is useful. Except what useful is not the same for everybody. So you get this confused picture of how things actually are. I think using bits and pieces of other published stuff, and ideas from all over fits within what I called the 1%. "Some will use the Harn Price List, some will use the mass combat rules from Warhammer, some have a merchant trade system of their own they tinkered with for years so forth and so on" is what I include in the one percent, I think the rest are probably more derivative and less fully an original take on things. Again I admit that I could be very wrong about this. Remember all levels of creativity are present. That they had run successful tabletop campaigns at one point or another. They had run bad ones and one that fell apart too. The most frequents are the ones in the middle. A little bit of kitbash, a little bit of original work, a little bit of published works. It is rare to find somebody that is just one thing and one thing only. Unless there are other circumstances. One of which is tabletop roleplaying in rural areas. The opportunity to acquire additional material including over the internet gets drastically lowered so it skews towards core books and DiY for everything else. I cannot speak for anyone else, but I am having a lot of fun reading this thread and learning a lot from all of you. Thank you to everyone who has and is participating in this thread. I will be mining it for months. [/font][/font] [/quote] I am learning as lot as well and enjoying the exchange of ideas as well. One can never emphasize the points you made above too much. |
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Post by Cedgewick on May 4, 2017 13:17:07 GMT -5
Cedgewick said up thread "So, I think Dave calling his new Blackmoor game a "medieval Braunstein" in an April 1971 newsletter to his players, who were familiar with the concept of a Braunstein, was really the best name he could give it to approximately describe what it was to prospective players, given terms such as "RPG" didn't exist." For clarity, he wrote in the announcement: "Brown Stien-type". See my book-ad-thread on this board where that part of the newsletter is reproduced. ruinsofmurkhill.proboards.com/thread/1170/dave-arneson-true-genius-findNow Arneson was no doubt using it casually, but there is a hint in "-type" that appears to foreshadow what follows, as play ends up very different than other Braunsteins with Arneson going full throttle with the conceptual interface and rules creation in real time. Aside: This is where D&D's interconnected play<>design philosophy begins and marks the advent of the never-ending game. Excellent catch Rob! If someone called Pictionary "a charades-type game," you know it's like Charades, but you also know it differs in some meaningful way from Charades as well. He is advertising his game to his own circle of potential players who are already familiar with Braunsteins. If he had been advertising a Braunstein he would have just said it's a Braunstein- there would be absolutely no reason for Dave to confuse things by adding "-type" to it. This is strong evidence that even back then in April 1971 they were playing some early version of Blackmoor, as in the game they showed Gary and you and the others in November 1972, not a Braunstein. |
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Post by robertsconley on May 4, 2017 13:35:16 GMT -5
I think this is excellent information and it informs us as to how arrived at your take on things. That is always of value. I would point out that Rob with his contacts at cons and other events and his travels, not just within the USA, that he has also had many ongoing personal contacts with numerous gamers over decades. So how you and he define who belongs into each percentage is of vital importance and as with other things, we may all be defining things differently and seeing different pieces of the puzzle. I think comparing notes on how the hobby operates and its actual composition is interesting and can be informative. However one has to keep in mind that when it comes to the day when you at a table across some players it useless. The only technique that works consistently is talk one on one with the player to understand what interest them. You may get that .1% slice of hobbyist in your campaign, or you may get the 50% slice. But you won't know unless you talk to them. The same thing with the stuff I say when I talk about tabletop roleplaying in general, what Gygax says, or RJK says. It may be that the next group you referee, enjoys the most is a "closed" system as RJK defines it. Or any number of other things that one thinks is "bad" about the modern hobby. The problem that when it comes to theory versus how human beings are the people win every time. And to compound the issue, people change over time. And people have multiple interests and it may appear random which is dominant. It enough to drive me crazy, but I keep in mind what Gronan says that the point is to make up Shoot that is fun. And something what fun for an individual are a published work. Heck I know people who enjoy the hell out of a railroaded campaign. Granted that was only one of out of a dozen examples I remember but it worked for that group. |
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Post by increment on May 4, 2017 13:47:34 GMT -5
This is strong evidence that even back then in April 1971 they were playing some early version of Blackmoor, as in the game they showed Gary and you and the others in November 1972, not a Braunstein. A Braunstein was an informal name for a style of session, not a published work like Chainmail, so again, it is just a "type" with some loose attributes. And as I've said a couple of times now, some sessions in Blackmoor were based on that Braunstein model, some on a dungeon adventure model, some on a tabletop slugfest model, and sometimes things would drift from one style of session into the other. Saying that the May session was "some early version of Blackmoor" again falls into this trap of suggesting that Blackmoor was something other than just a campaign, a collection of such sessions. It was an early session of Blackmoor that was intended anyway to be like prior Braunsteins, but Blackmoor is not a published design like Chainmail which had a 1971 version and then a 1972 version.* * (Well, again, during the "interesting" period. Actually Arneson would say that the Blackmoor campaign did indeed break down into "ages" over the long term, in those are kind of what it would mean for a campaign to have versions.) |
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 13:57:46 GMT -5
There is also a hidden factor that is hugely influential in all of these observations (edit: about demographics and sales in the posts above, not Braunstein), that of age & experience.
For example (I have absolutely no proof of this, and so I won't argue for it as an absolute truth), my gut tells me that most RPG consumers at any given time have only been playing for fewer than 5 years, or who go through a cycle every few years where they get back into the hobby and play 3-4 times before fizzling out again. In that sense, the RPG market as a whole is very much like the Warhammer market, where customer retention is very rare and sales are driven largely by new consumers who will only be in the hobby for a sale or two—or perhaps they will become dedicated consumers for a year or two before moving on—but where the cultural integrity of the 'brand' is driven by a very tiny core of loyal consumers.
In my own negligible experience there has always been a big difference between the buying and playing habits of the sort of players who are likely to go to conventions, and the vast majority who fit this above profile.
We probably have something close to 60 people at my college who actively play RPGs. I've met and/or played with the majority of them at one time or another, and I'm the only one I know who has ever played something other than 5e, except for maybe 2-3 people who've played 4e once or twice, and one guy who ran a Rogue Trader campaign (but that was the only game he's ever played, because he's a loyal Warhammer consumer). It's also worth noting that out of this group, mine is the campaign I know of that isn't being run straight out of a 5e adventure hardback. After multiple conversations, I've come to the realization that I'm also the only one I know who regularly house rules (apparently that's my 'quirk').
Anyway, I realize this is just a tiny slice of the pie, in a college setting in urban England. Still, I can't imagine that's completely off-kilter.
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Post by robkuntz on May 4, 2017 13:58:26 GMT -5
Games are described through Game Theory; play is described through Play Theory, both of which are a growing and surmountable base of information. The promulgation of both information sets is what enlightens theorists and designers and that can only be a win-win for players and designers, especially for those who wish to change and progress their design and play attitudes. These every antecedents--game and play theory information bases--allowed for hundreds of game systems to be brought front and center for Arneson, Gygax and myself to study and learn from. Without their advent D&D would have never occurred and we would not be here. So, people benefit from theory as do designers who wield it, either actively, passively, or both. Theory is the cornerstone of games as brought forward from the past and as now presently understood. This is not an either or proposition; it is a matter of how, when and under what circumstances new progressions in games are made, such as D&D. Without all of that base that preceded it, and as I've noted, there would be a paucity of thought and call to action on design and not the opposite; and truly every area of game design would ultimately suffer.
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Post by Cedgewick on May 4, 2017 14:14:21 GMT -5
A Braunstein was an informal name for a style of session, not a published work like Chainmail, so again, it is just a "type" with some loose attributes. How did you arrive at the idea that Braunstein was "a style of session" and not a game? In your book, you write: You call it a game. You describe something that sounds like a game. How did it suddenly morph into a "style of session?" |
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 14:23:40 GMT -5
A Braunstein was an informal name for a style of session, not a published work like Chainmail, so again, it is just a "type" with some loose attributes. How did you arrive at the idea that Braunstein was "a style of session" and not a game? In your book, you write: You call it a game. You describe something that sounds like a game. How did it suddenly morph into a "style of session?" I'll probably regret dragging myself into this. I don't read him saying anything about Braunstein being 'not a game'. And at any rate, the word has a million meanings, one of which can be described as 'a style of playing make-believe'. Cops and Robbers is an extreme example of a game that is designed exclusively around the way you play, at the moment of playing it; or, the 'style of session'. I'm pretty sure he's saying something more or less along those lines, although obviously more moderately and with nuance, since both Braunstein and Blackmoor were much more complex than Cops and Robbers. |
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Post by robkuntz on May 4, 2017 14:38:01 GMT -5
This is strong evidence that even back then in April 1971 they were playing some early version of Blackmoor, as in the game they showed Gary and you and the others in November 1972, not a Braunstein. A Braunstein was an informal name for a style of session, not a published work like Chainmail, so again, it is just a "type" with some loose attributes. And as I've said a couple of times now, some sessions in Blackmoor were based on that Braunstein model, some on a dungeon adventure model, some on a tabletop slugfest model, and sometimes things would drift from one style of session into the other. Saying that the May session was "some early version of Blackmoor" again falls into this trap of suggesting that Blackmoor was something other than just a campaign, a collection of such sessions. It was an early session of Blackmoor that was intended anyway to be like prior Braunsteins, but Blackmoor is not a published design like Chainmail which had a 1971 version and then a 1972 version.* * (Well, again, during the "interesting" period. Actually Arneson would say that the Blackmoor campaign did indeed break down into "ages" over the long term, in those are kind of what it would mean for a campaign to have versions.) No one is arguing that it was or wan't a campaign. What is being stated is that part of that campaign contained the architecture for D&D which is called Blackmoor. And that's when the dungeon adventures with rules creation in tow and conceptual interfaces en masse started to occur. Dave Megarry's, "What do you want to do?" moment occurs at the beginning of those sessions. Arneson's conceptual interface is obviously working then, as you know what? That is about what Arneson described to us in the conceptual surround in 1972 while luring us into the Comeback Inn; we saw this Inn with the sign on it and he shrugged like, well, what do you do? This "whether it was part of a mixture of this or that" is really unimportant when you understand that that portion of play was strikingly different from its other parts; and that is made clearer by my deconstructing his system and proving it is transcendent, that its whole is greater than its parts, influences, campaigns guidelines, whatever. The latter are inferences and guesses and possible clues. What is paramount are the actual testimonies of the players, Arneson's FFC, his interviews, and the hand-off of the architecture to Gygax (which remained unchanged even if Gary changed the sub-sytems to HIS liking, which I can attest to as I experienced both Blackmoor. then Greyhawk weeks afterwards, and there is no change in the systems base architecture but only to the mechanical sub-sytems). What is also important are Gary's quotes regarding the whole matter and these should not be cherry-picked to provide access to some and not all of the information now available, such as: “Now tell the fellows to pick on Dave Arneson awhile — after all he had as much to do with the whole mess as I did!”19 — E. Gary Gygax, Alarums & Excursions #2, 1975. What is being stated here and in Gary referring to Arneson's Blackmoor "campaign" as the prototype for D&D and which is "something better" than Chainmail?? It is pretty obvious. The two Daves come down to us excited by their creations; the LGTSA suspends all activities to playtest the game and we all are wide-eyed and excited. This game takes off in spades. We are bowled over, awestruck and unleashed. Everyone starts either instantly embracing or condemning it (much like they are doing with my book I might add). Is this a typical reaction to a game which can be simply labeled as a variant of Chainmail or Braunstein? Nope. And I explain why in my book by comparing his architecture and system qualities to the games that came before, like Chainmail. This is a new game type. Someone created its architecture and it wasn't Gary. It was Dave who did so in the backwash of his own Blackmoor games. For without that architecture we'd all still be playing Chainmail and none of us would be gathered here. |
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Post by Cedgewick on May 4, 2017 14:38:50 GMT -5
I don't read him saying anything about Braunstein being 'not a game'. I pondered your statement and Increments statements some more. Let me restate positively what I think Increment considers Blackmoor: "Blackmoor was a campaign, meaning that it was a series of gaming sessions, each session involving one or more existing games. The predominant game played during these sessions was Chainmail. Earlier sessions used the game of Braunstein. Sessions in which outdoor travel was involved used the game of Outdoor Survival. Dave may have house-ruled each of these games, but their fundamental concepts were unchanged." Increment, how did I do? Is this how you view Blackmoor? |
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2017 14:52:51 GMT -5
I don't read him saying anything about Braunstein being 'not a game'. I pondered your statement and Increments statements some more. Let me restate positively what I think Increment considers Blackmoor: "Blackmoor was a campaign, meaning that it was a series of gaming sessions, each session involving one or more existing games. The predominant game played during these sessions was Chainmail. Earlier sessions used the game of Braunstein. Sessions in which outdoor travel was involved used the game of Outdoor Survival. Dave may have house-ruled each of these games, but their fundamental concepts were unchanged." Increment, how did I do? Is this how you view Blackmoor? (relevant part in bold). As an off-topic aside (or maybe not; either way it can be siphoned off to another thread if need be): what exactly makes a Braunstein a Braunstein? It's been quite awhile since I read up on the game, but my impression has been that it didn't actually have traditional 'rules' per se, or at least there were no discrete rules that someone could point to and say, 'this is used in Braunstein'. My impression was that it was much more like Paddy Griffith's Sea Lion game, only the results and actions were adjudicated by a single judge rather than as group decisions. Any single iteration of Braunstein, or a Braunstein-type, may or may not include any prior rules used in any other iteration of Braunstein, or indeed any rules at all other than player judgement. Am I way off on this? |
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Post by increment on May 4, 2017 17:17:26 GMT -5
I pondered your statement and Increments statements some more. Let me restate positively what I think Increment considers Blackmoor: "Blackmoor was a campaign, meaning that it was a series of gaming sessions, each session involving one or more existing games. The predominant game played during these sessions was Chainmail. Earlier sessions used the game of Braunstein. Sessions in which outdoor travel was involved used the game of Outdoor Survival. Dave may have house-ruled each of these games, but their fundamental concepts were unchanged." Increment, how did I do? Is this how you view Blackmoor? Um, pretty well, yeah. I mean I compulsively edit things, so of course I'd have edits. Rather than saying that each session involved one or more existing games, I'd say that rules from existing published designs were used to decide events in those sessions, with the group's modifications. I don't think I'd say "used the game of Braunstein," I'd say cloned the format of previous Braunstein games, or something like that. Again, the first Braunstein, from what we know of it, was a particular one-off game session that used Totten's rules, as abridged and adapted by Wesely, but most importantly Totten's maxim that "anything can be attempted." That spirit of Strategos, which Totten inherited from the free Kriegsspiel movement of the 1870s, was crucial to how the "shenanigans," as I called them, of Braunstein got started, and people brought that spirit to Blackmoor from the Braunstein sessions. Rather than say that Chainmail was predominant, I would say that Arneson steered the campaign into tactical wargames when it strayed too far into dungeon adventures or what have you, and that those tactical wargames were, for him anyway, the intended focus of the campaign rather than the other parts. And yes, those tactical wargames were governed by Chainmail plus his hacks - and Chainmail plus his hacks decided how combat in the dungeon happened, too. Okay, maybe you're right, maybe I do mean Chainmail was predominant. I know I never got an answer to my repeated question of who gets to decide what the game of Chainmail "really" is for the purposes of comparing it to D&D, but I was driving at that point really to be able to do one thing, to pull this quote from the first edition of Chainmail: Although the rules have been playtested for many months, it is likely that you will eventually find some part that seems ambiguous, unanswered, or unsatisfactory. When a situation arises settle it among yourselves, record the decision in the rules book, and abide by it from them on. These rules may be treated as guide lines around which you form a game that suits you.
If I may borrow Rob's words for a moment, let that last bit sink in. The system in Chainmail is there to let you form a game around it that suits you. "When a situation arises," meaning during the course of playing at a session, where the rules don't answer how to resolve something ("I want my horse to kick the dragon!"), you are told to settle rules for it in real time and abide by the results henceforth. Oh, and to record the decision in the rules book. When I look at the text in the introduction to D&D, where it says that the rules are "guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign" and a "framework around which you will build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity," I see the shadow of that text in first edition Chainmail looming over it. Even to the point where it tells you to record the results of the decision in the rulebook, though D&D wisely suggests you only do so in pencil. So, what if that text were what someone seized upon when they picked up Chainmail, the way Wesely seized on how "anything can be attempted" in Totten? In so far as we believe that this flexibility towards rules was the most important feature of how they played Blackmoor, and Chainmail seems to be a place somebody wrote that down that people involved knew, maybe Chainmail was predominant. Let me say one more thing about that, which is that I am not, really not, suggesting that this flexibility was original or unique to Gygax or Chainmail. It wasn't, it was just in the air then. That's why the beginning of that sentence in the Intro to D&D reads, "As with any other set of miniatures rules they are guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign." As with any other set of miniatures rules. This is just how people used miniatures rules. |
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