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Post by secretsofblackmoor on Aug 24, 2018 11:59:27 GMT -5
We began our blog a while back because we realized that all of our facebook posts were getting long, and really, social media is about being clipped, to the point, and shallow. Everyone wants you to visit their blog and read about their latest idea, but we think our blog is different because we actually analyze real documents and make connections between disparate concepts. Perhaps because as kid I liked that PBS show called something like connections. In that the Narrator would trace the path of inventions through history and tie it all together. The connections approach to linking things is actually very dangerous because sometimes people make huge leaps that cannot be traced, or an obvious connection is just plain wrong. Of course with D&D research everyone is looking for that holy grail unification theory artifact that will explain everything! This is our blog post about Greg Svenson's Tonisborg Dungeon and how it relates to many other things. It is a 3 part post because it really just got that long. And it is a bit wonky and not what most gamers would get into. I made those playful posts about map making and dungeon stocking and those are getting much more traction. So who knows, maybe I will quit making historical observations and just stick to Fluff for a while, but the older posts are full of old artifacts and their possible implications. www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/danger-danger-greg-svensonwww.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/danger-danger-greg-svenson-part-2www.secretsofblackmoor.com/blog/danger-danger-greg-svenson-part-3I am lazy, I may plonk this on other forums as well. |
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Aug 24, 2018 12:35:13 GMT -5
I'll check these out later when i have a bit more time.
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Post by El Borak on Aug 24, 2018 20:33:06 GMT -5
Those are great articles. A few points, a lot of us will disagree with your statement regarding computer games and OD&D. The computer games (for those that played them, I didn't) were hard to learn. OD&D on the other hand was not hard to learn. IMO if you played one 8 hour game with a good referee, you knew enough to go run your own game. We know that after one game with Arneson that Gygax immediately started his own game. At least that is what we have been told.
Many of us had lots of TPKs back in the day. IIRC our founder stated that he died five times in his first game. Many of us had Hargrave/Arduin levels of death in our campaigns. These days we are all softies because we have short infrequent games with young people who can't handle the full blown thing. Well some can, but they are hard to find.
My dungeons rarely have a dead end, there is a lot of looping.
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Post by secretsofblackmoor on Aug 25, 2018 2:09:33 GMT -5
Those are great articles. A few points, a lot of us will disagree with your statement regarding computer games and OD&D. The computer games (for those that played them, I didn't) were hard to learn. OD&D on the other hand was not hard to learn. IMO if you played one 8 hour game with a good referee, you knew enough to go run your own game. We know that after one game with Arneson that Gygax immediately started his own game. At least that is what we have been told. Many of us had lots of TPKs back in the day. IIRC our founder stated that he died five times in his first game. Many of us had Hargrave/Arduin levels of death in our campaigns. These days we are all softies because we have short infrequent games with young people who can't handle the full blown thing. Well some can, but they are hard to find. My dungeons rarely have a dead end, there is a lot of looping. That is a good point. I should rephrase that. Edit edit...  Need to reread what I wrote. |
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Post by Crimhthan The Great on Aug 25, 2018 10:15:09 GMT -5
Death is a good thing in the game. Most people these days, including almost all of those who "claim" to be old school, can't believe that anyone would play in a game for years where there is a high death rate. Of course those people were not in their mid to late 30's when OD&D was published and they have no conception of how deadly war was before guns, before modern medicine and they are IMO cowards who would shrink back from putting their lives on the line for any cause so of course the death of a first level character is to them this overwhelming tragedy that is unbearable.
At this point I have had at least 10,000 characters die IMC or roughly 2.5 characters die per game session on average, but they tend to cluster so we might go through 20-30 characters in a single game session. We have had about 500 TPK's or about 1 every 8 game sessions, though they are not spread out like that, they tend to come in clusters too. The bulk of the deaths came in the first 30 years of the campaign and there are less now the last 14+ years, I am getting soft in my old age.
But I have never considered myself a Killer DM. But we do have a stack of pre-rolled character sheets, and when you die you grab one, slap a name on it, pick a character class, add the equipment and you are ready to be worked back in the game, since we mostly have not used Greyhawk stats there are few bonuses to worry about. Using the KISS principle keeps the game fast moving. Our ratio is about 10 game years per real world year. I've been retired since 1999, so I have done a lot of gaming since I retired and I can game just about the whole week long if I want to and I want to.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2018 11:06:08 GMT -5
Most people these days, including almost all of those who "claim" to be old school, can't believe that anyone would play in a game for years where there is a high death rate.
I'm skeptical of this claim. I've never noted this trend here or any board that supports pre-1983 style play.
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Post by Crimhthan The Great on Aug 25, 2018 12:44:30 GMT -5
Most people these days, including almost all of those who "claim" to be old school, can't believe that anyone would play in a game for years where there is a high death rate.
I'm skeptical of this claim. I've never noted this trend here or any board that supports pre-1983 style play.
This was specifically stated repeatedly in a thread at the RPGsite by posters that are prominent at two other old school boards. Of course these people also tend to disagree violently with anything I say, so maybe that was it. This goes along with the fact that AD&D folks are often BtB cultists. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2018 14:02:14 GMT -5
I'm skeptical of this claim. I've never noted this trend here or any board that supports pre-1983 style play.
This was specifically stated repeatedly in a thread at the RPGsite by posters that are prominent at two other old school boards. Of course these people also tend to disagree violently with anything I say, so maybe that was it. This goes along with the fact that AD&D folks are often BtB cultists.
Ah! Sorry about that, it sailed right over my head. Carry on, nothing to see here!  |
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Post by ripx187 on Aug 25, 2018 14:03:22 GMT -5
Is death common? I know when I first started playing it was, but once you learn the game and become good at it it should be less common. If I were to die that often I would start re-thinking my game stratagy. There are risks, and your job is minimizing those risks.
Today you hear all of these guys complaining that BITD Player Characters were incompetent, I stand by my statement that it wasn't the characters, it was the players. A first level PC isn't a hero, but he can die one. If your PC has 2 hit points, you really have to learn how to pick your battles!
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Post by El Borak on Aug 25, 2018 14:21:46 GMT -5
Is death common? I know when I first started playing it was, but once you learn the game and become good at it it should be less common. If I were to die that often I would start re-thinking my game stratagy. There are risks, and your job is minimizing those risks. Today you hear all of these guys complaining that BITD Player Characters were incompetent, I stand by my statement that it wasn't the characters, it was the players. A first level PC isn't a hero, but he can die one. If your PC has 2 hit points, you really have to learn how to pick your battles! I would disagree that BITD PCs or the Players either one were incompetent. I could take a party of 3E players through a BITD dungeon and they would die in droves, I would even let them start at 6th level and they would die in droves on the first two levels. That would be after I thoroughly warned them before we started. |
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Post by ripx187 on Aug 26, 2018 12:07:17 GMT -5
Is death common? I know when I first started playing it was, but once you learn the game and become good at it it should be less common. If I were to die that often I would start re-thinking my game stratagy. There are risks, and your job is minimizing those risks. Today you hear all of these guys complaining that BITD Player Characters were incompetent, I stand by my statement that it wasn't the characters, it was the players. A first level PC isn't a hero, but he can die one. If your PC has 2 hit points, you really have to learn how to pick your battles! I would disagree that BITD PCs or the Players either one were incompetent. I could take a party of 3E players through a BITD dungeon and they would die in droves, I would even let them start at 6th level and they would die in droves on the first two levels. That would be after I thoroughly warned them before we started. One of the biggest problems with modern gaming IMO is that it takes so long to generate player characters. In my 2e game we got it down to 15-30 min. but that is still a long time. Now, granted, that time spent was fun, but it also gave players this idea that they could pick the wrong things and you always had that guy at the table who just didn't realize that he was always playing the same character. This is why death is rarer, I spent 2 hours building this guy just for you to sting me with a poison arrow that I didn't see coming? It is feels insulting, and it does cost players. In OD&D, generation is faster so you can get away with more, but I still am in the habit of designing games of skill. Pointless deaths still happen, but it is usually because the player made the mistake and got careless. |
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Post by mao on Aug 26, 2018 12:14:52 GMT -5
I actually got complaints that I hadn't killed anyone in a while, started playing an old fashioned dungeon w old fashioned death and there were complaints......
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Post by mao on Aug 26, 2018 12:43:14 GMT -5
I would disagree that BITD PCs or the Players either one were incompetent. I could take a party of 3E players through a BITD dungeon and they would die in droves, I would even let them start at 6th level and they would die in droves on the first two levels. That would be after I thoroughly warned them before we started. One of the biggest problems with modern gaming IMO is that it takes so long to generate player characters. In my 2e game we got it down to 15-30 min. but that is still a long time. Now, granted, that time spent was fun, but it also gave players this idea that they could pick the wrong things and you always had that guy at the table who just didn't realize that he was always playing the same character. This is why death is rarer, I spent 2 hours building this guy just for you to sting me with a poison arrow that I didn't see coming? It is feels insulting, and it does cost players. In OD&D, generation is faster so you can get away with more, but I still am in the habit of designing games of skill. Pointless deaths still happen, but it is usually because the player made the mistake and got careless. Prob the whole reason I keep inching toward a little tan box.... (Oh and have an Exalt!) |
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Post by George Smith on Aug 27, 2018 13:56:55 GMT -5
You can really simplify it, you can hand the player a 3x5 card that has the class and the equipment (and spells if there are any) but no stats, and tell them here is your character lets play. We took and hour once and the whol group just generated a big stack of 3x5 cards, shuffled them and we played with just that stack for a long time.
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Post by El Borak on Aug 27, 2018 22:26:54 GMT -5
I actually got complaints that I hadn't killed anyone in a while, started playing an old fashioned dungeon w old fashioned death and there were complaints...... Player: Hey ref you're getting wimpy you haven't killed anyone in a long time. Ref: OK, I'll tighten it up a little. Next game: Two characters die including the complainer. Player (indignant): Hey ref, I didn't mean MY character! |
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Post by Crimhthan The Great on Aug 29, 2018 7:09:51 GMT -5
Is death common? I know when I first started playing it was, but once you learn the game and become good at it it should be less common. If I were to die that often I would start re-thinking my game stratagy. There are risks, and your job is minimizing those risks. Today you hear all of these guys complaining that BITD Player Characters were incompetent, I stand by my statement that it wasn't the characters, it was the players. A first level PC isn't a hero, but he can die one. If your PC has 2 hit points, you really have to learn how to pick your battles! Not as common as it used to be, but still common, at least in my campaign it is. You go outside the civilized areas at your own risk. Large parties are highly advised. Most monsters won't pick a fight with a group of 25-30. But 2 or 3 by themselves, that is called snack time. |
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Post by Crimhthan The Great on Aug 29, 2018 7:17:16 GMT -5
I would disagree that BITD PCs or the Players either one were incompetent. I could take a party of 3E players through a BITD dungeon and they would die in droves, I would even let them start at 6th level and they would die in droves on the first two levels. That would be after I thoroughly warned them before we started. One of the biggest problems with modern gaming IMO is that it takes so long to generate player characters. In my 2e game we got it down to 15-30 min. but that is still a long time. Now, granted, that time spent was fun, but it also gave players this idea that they could pick the wrong things and you always had that guy at the table who just didn't realize that he was always playing the same character. This is why death is rarer, I spent 2 hours building this guy just for you to sting me with a poison arrow that I didn't see coming? It is feels insulting, and it does cost players. In OD&D, generation is faster so you can get away with more, but I still am in the habit of designing games of skill. Pointless deaths still happen, but it is usually because the player made the mistake and got careless. As I noted we have a stack of pre-generated characters, you die, your grab a sheet and spend a couple of minutes tweaking it and you are ready to go. No to both of those things. There are no pointless deaths, there are we bit off more than we could chew deaths or we tried to go longer in the dungeon or deeper in the dungeon than we should have or I should not have been cheeky with the dragon deaths, or lots of things. |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 30, 2018 13:43:24 GMT -5
I am reading your old (earlier this year) posts and I am splitting this off into a second thread.
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