Player vs PC knowledge in the early game.

[jeff]

Rob,

I've read several accounts of early play and there's something I've been meaning to ask those who played with Gary in the pre-AD&D days.

It seems to me that there was virtually no distinction between player knowledge and PC knowledge. So if player knew that it took fire or acid to kill a troll, then the PC knew it also, regardless of level or anything. Was it really like that? If your PC died (because you were playing stupid), and you rolled up a new one, did you just carry the knowledge forward?

If that's the case, how significant were the INT and WIS stats other than for XP adjustments?

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

[robkuntz]

Oct 31, 2016 8:06:09 GMT -5 jeff said:

Rob,

I've read several accounts of early play and there's something I've been meaning to ask those who played with Gary in the pre-AD&D days.

It seems to me that there was virtually no distinction between player knowledge and PC knowledge. So if player knew that it took fire or acid to kill a troll, then the PC knew it also, regardless of level or anything. Was it really like that? If your PC died (because you were playing stupid), and you rolled up a new one, did you just carry the knowledge forward?

If that's the case, how significant were the INT and WIS stats other than for XP adjustments?

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

Well, as to the first, it's kinda hard to separate the two, no?  A DM would have to be in control of all information streams relative to each player, i.e., what does he or she know and the opposite and then attempt to account for the ever growing relations (don't get me wrong, we had a lot of players and had at some times to ask/reaffirm/confirm, "Where did you get that [information] from?").  Gary and I weren't accountants when it came to general knowledge, so in your example of the troll we would assume that legend and folk tales would have pre-filled in for that; and it's only when very specific things of note (i.e., personal or secret knowledge) was attempting to be transferred (and in some cases what he and I often referred to as "walkie-talkied" information amongst other players as well) that we drew the line between the real and the abstract.

To the second, I used, and so did he sometimes, what might be considered a house rule (though it was not a steadfast one and was more contingent upon the game circumstances that had lead to the need for an immediate methodology) by utilizing primary stats such as these as checks against the physical or mental surround.  It is not my intent to describe in detail that particular system as it will be fully fleshed out in an upcoming work.

BTW:  Welcome to the Ruins of Murkhill and thanks for the question!

[jeff]

Thank you Rob, for the quick reply, and for the welcome. I've not been very active on this forum after joining it awhile back, and I am much more active over on Dragonsfoot (though, I've been admittedly feeling very disenchanted with that place of late).

Allan Grohe recently linked me to Joe Bloch's Greyhawk Lore project, in the which there are several accounts and information that you've given about your time playing with Gary and also Co-DMing early Grehawk. I'm not the type of person who wants to be a Greyhawk sage, but I did find the the information very interesting. Most of it appears to come from various forum posts that you made over on the Pied Piper forums around the 2009/2010 timeframe. Thank you for all that.

It got me thinking along the lines of player vs. PC knowledge and the usage of the INT stat. Given that Robilar's INT was 11 (not sure if his INT score in OJ 7 is right, I assume it is), the thought crossed my mind that there must not have been much of a distinction between player and PC, as you played him very intelligently. Some might argue that it was common sense to play him the way you did . . . but having DM'd and played with a lot of different players, I don't necessarily see it that way (lots of smart players doing dumb things).



I was bouncing around the idea of encouraging, almost evangelizing, that player knowledge and PC knowledge must and should be intrinsically tied.

With the exception of character secrets (and maybe, to a lesser extent, party level secrets), I see immense value for both the DM and player in "carrying forward" that knowledge. The DM is challenged to modify/adjust things based on what he knows that the player knows, which thus creates the sense of learning and wonder that should (IMO) fill RPGs.

[robkuntz]

Oct 31, 2016 11:17:12 GMT -5 jeff said:

Thank you Rob, for the quick reply, and for the welcome. I've not been very active on this forum after joining it awhile back, and I am much more active over on Dragonsfoot (though, I've been admittedly feeling very disenchanted with that place of late).

Allan Grohe recently linked me to Joe Bloch's Greyhawk Lore project, in the which there are several accounts and information that you've given about your time playing with Gary and also Co-DMing early Grehawk. I'm not the type of person who wants to be a Greyhawk sage, but I did find the the information very interesting. Most of it appears to come from various forum posts that you made over on the Pied Piper forums around the 2009/2010 timeframe. Thank you for all that.

It got me thinking along the lines of player vs. PC knowledge and the usage of the INT stat. Given that Robilar's INT was 11 (not sure if his INT score in OJ 7 is right, I assume it is), the thought crossed my mind that there must not have been much of a distinction between player and PC, as you played him very intelligently. Some might argue that it was common sense to play him the way you did . . . but having DM'd and played with a lot of different players, I don't necessarily see it that way (lots of smart players doing dumb things).



I was bouncing around the idea of encouraging, almost evangelizing, that player knowledge and PC knowledge must and should be intrinsically tied.

With the exception of character secrets (and maybe, to a lesser extent, party level secrets), I see immense value for both the DM and player in "carrying forward" that knowledge. The DM is challenged to modify/adjust things based on what he knows that the player knows, which thus creates the sense of learning and wonder that should (IMO) fill RPGs.

Thanks for the compliments; and yes those PPP posts were collected much earlier than 2009 or '10, more likely from 2002 through to 2009 when I stopped posting and shifted emphasis to Lord of the Green Dragons blog.

Well INT was never expressed as real intelligence, i.e.., the ability to ascertain conceptual relationships and thereby form conclusions therefrom and in a time frame that is also predicated upon shortness or length thereof, thus acuity and speed (or comprehension and response).  There are so many variations to real intelligence that could never be fathomed -- deliberate thinkers for one who may well be geniuses but are not known for their speedy responses/conclusions, so how would you account for that at first in a bell-curve system and then as promoted and demoted thereafter? And then, by extension, on the growing of intelligence, that would have to factored in as well, making the whole concept ability (the stat) a game in itself and not so much an abstract ability for game purposes.  This really only came into play when we had really bad scores.  For instance, in Brian Blume's game I rolled a dwarf with a 4 INT.  I immediately named him DORF and played him as a 4 INT, with many laughs forthcoming from the party.  But, on the other hand, we could also place constraints in the conceptual surround (i.e., requires a 16 INT to solve or to even study, etc.) due to what would be considered something outside deducible spheres (this happened quite a lot in my alternate plane stuff and HPL knock off campaign threads, etc.).  So alien thought (thoughts outside the parameter of mathematical/logic paths) skewed the INT parameter as well in the real sense.  So there was enough counterbalance, or righting, of the abstraction to keep it fresh and not residual, but it just was not built into the stat for the reasons that I've stated above. If all of this appears contingently abstract then I have done my job!

[jeff]

Oct 31, 2016 12:05:30 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

Well INT was never expressed as real intelligence, i.e.., the ability to ascertain conceptual relationships and thereby form conclusions therefrom and in a time frame that is also predicated upon shortness or length thereof, thus acuity and speed (or comprehension and response).  There are so many variations to real intelligence that could never be fathomed -- deliberate thinkers for one who may well be geniuses but are not known for their speedy responses/conclusions, so how would you account for that at first in a bell-curve system and then as promoted and demoted thereafter? And then, by extension, on the growing of intelligence, that would have to factored in as well, making the whole concept ability (the stat) a game in itself and not so much an abstract ability for game purposes.  This really only came into play when we had really bad scores.  For instance, in Brian Blume's game I rolled a dwarf with a 4 INT.  I immediately named him DORF and played him as a 4 INT, with many laughs forthcoming from the party.  But, on the other hand, we could also place constraints in the conceptual surround (i.e., requires a 16 INT to solve or to even study, etc.) due to what would be considered something outside deducible spheres (this happened quite a lot in my alternate plane stuff and HPL knock off campaign threads, etc.).  So alien thought (thoughts outside the parameter of mathematical/logic paths) skewed the INT parameter as well in the real sense.  So there was enough counterbalance, or righting, of the abstraction to keep it fresh and not residual, but it just was not built into the stat for the reasons that I've stated above. If all of this appears contingently abstract then I have done my job!

I cannot help but feel that RPGs, even from AD&D onward, try to fit as many variations of intelligence into that single INT stat as possible. I suppose it's my fault for not looking past it until now. Good thing that the creativity of others, even in forum posts and recounting of their own adventures have, in the least,  opened my mind up and allowed me to understand (in rudimentary form) that maybe, just maybe, INT was never meant to be a whole rounding of the intelligence of the PC. Does that make the recountings and posts literature? In the least, I can say they are artful, since they cause one to question pre-conceived notions and ideas and question they way they interpret/see things.

Aside from whetting my appetite to know more about your HPL campaign, I think you've been abstract enough. There's a blurry line between playing the INT score for what it is without giving up creativity as a player and each PC (and thus, player) needs to find that line and then see how clear they can make it, in their own mind, at least.

I suppose, also, that would indicate that the DM too has to do the same for each player in his game . . . figuring out how to let the player define that blurry line and giving plenty of leniency to make it fun. Thanks again!

[robkuntz]

Oct 31, 2016 13:34:29 GMT -5 jeff said:

Oct 31, 2016 12:05:30 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

Well INT was never expressed as real intelligence, i.e.., the ability to ascertain conceptual relationships and thereby form conclusions therefrom and in a time frame that is also predicated upon shortness or length thereof, thus acuity and speed (or comprehension and response).  There are so many variations to real intelligence that could never be fathomed -- deliberate thinkers for one who may well be geniuses but are not known for their speedy responses/conclusions, so how would you account for that at first in a bell-curve system and then as promoted and demoted thereafter? And then, by extension, on the growing of intelligence, that would have to factored in as well, making the whole concept ability (the stat) a game in itself and not so much an abstract ability for game purposes.  This really only came into play when we had really bad scores.  For instance, in Brian Blume's game I rolled a dwarf with a 4 INT.  I immediately named him DORF and played him as a 4 INT, with many laughs forthcoming from the party.  But, on the other hand, we could also place constraints in the conceptual surround (i.e., requires a 16 INT to solve or to even study, etc.) due to what would be considered something outside deducible spheres (this happened quite a lot in my alternate plane stuff and HPL knock off campaign threads, etc.).  So alien thought (thoughts outside the parameter of mathematical/logic paths) skewed the INT parameter as well in the real sense.  So there was enough counterbalance, or righting, of the abstraction to keep it fresh and not residual, but it just was not built into the stat for the reasons that I've stated above. If all of this appears contingently abstract then I have done my job!

Does that make the recountings and posts literature? In the least, I can say they are artful, since they cause one to question pre-conceived notions and ideas and question they way they interpret/see things.

As Gary noted:  “New details can be added and old “Laws” altered so as to provide continually new and different situations.” -- E. Gary Gygax, Introduction to Dungeons & Dragons, 1974.

He also noted:  “They [the rules] provide a framework around which you build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity…” -- E. Gary Gygax. Introduction to Dungeons & Dragons, 1974.

But complex is not the same as complicated as I note in one of my commentaries extracted from "A New Ethos in Game Design":  C63: Designers should distinguish between the two opposed ideas--complex and complicated--when judging their design’s behavior patterns. Complexity creates rich behavior desirable in design, whereas complication is more often an indicator of poor design implementation and/or intent. The sine qua non of complexity can be noted in games that utilize simple rules yet achieve surprisingly rich and expanding play experiences. Notable examples of this have been Monopoly, Diplomacy and, since 1974, Classic Dungeons & Dragons.
©2014-2016 Robert Kuntz.  All Rights Reserved.

To wit:  The Initiative System in D&D 3E.  A total of 9 pages of description interspersed over PHB & DMG.  It took bleeding eyeballs and inverted brains of both myself and another to finally conclude that all of this complicated matter could have been reduced to two very long paragraphs.  There are those who think in design and then there are those who do not.  Game Design Rules (procedures) are supposed to get out of the way of the play they engender, not the opposite.  Simple but rich will always be better especially along the long paths of an open-ended RPG.

[jeff]

Nov 1, 2016 3:37:47 GMT -5 robkuntz said:

As Gary noted:  “New details can be added and old “Laws” altered so as to provide continually new and different situations.” -- E. Gary Gygax, Introduction to Dungeons & Dragons, 1974.

He also noted:  “They [the rules] provide a framework around which you build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity…” -- E. Gary Gygax. Introduction to Dungeons & Dragons, 1974.

But complex is not the same as complicated as I note in one of my commentaries extracted from "A New Ethos in Game Design":  C63: Designers should distinguish between the two opposed ideas--complex and complicated--when judging their design’s behavior patterns. Complexity creates rich behavior desirable in design, whereas complication is more often an indicator of poor design implementation and/or intent. The sine qua non of complexity can be noted in games that utilize simple rules yet achieve surprisingly rich and expanding play experiences. Notable examples of this have been Monopoly, Diplomacy and, since 1974, Classic Dungeons & Dragons.
©2014-2016 Robert Kuntz.  All Rights Reserved.

To wit:  The Initiative System in D&D 3E.  A total of 9 pages of description interspersed over PHB & DMG.  It took bleeding eyeballs and inverted brains of both myself and another to finally conclude that all of this complicated matter could have been reduced to two very long paragraphs.  There are those who think in design and then there are those who do not.  Game Design Rules (procedures) are supposed to get out of the way of the play they engender, not the opposite.  Simple but rich will always be better especially along the long paths of an open-ended RPG.

I encounter the same in software development regularly. There are incredibly complex systems that are not overly complicated (from the perspective of code and organization). We like to call them "maintainable" and there are several metrics built into our development environment tools to gauge the "maintainability" of code. On the other hand, we have simple applications that are so convoluted in their design that I spend more time trying to figure out the code than I do in modifying it.

I've been bouncing around the idea of my own customizations for D&D, using OD&D (and to an extent B/X) as the system of origin, for quite some time. What I've come up with is unorthodox compared to the various clones. What I've designed (and I really use that word loosely) so far is not complex, it's  really simple but should allow for both DMs and players to express creativity in character generation (which takes about 3 minutes, unless you get really stuck picking equipment) and also during play without much class based restrictions. I guess it's sort of painting with broad strokes but allowing players and DMs the ability to create finite complexity as they see fit for their own game. This is all implicit in the original game, and even in every iteration thereafter, but I've written it to be explicit.

What I wasn't sure about was how much I wanted focus on ability scores and how much explicit information I wanted to give about relationships between roleplaying the scores vs. just roleplaying (as a player). I think I know which direction I'd like to go now.

[Deleted]

Also consider this; that when Gary first started running "Greyhawk," within a matter of weeks several of us were ALSO running our own games. AND playing in one another's game. LONG before the first edition of the rules was printed we all had a stable of PCs for a variety of worlds.

Who in the HELL could keep track of which PC has encountered what monster in whose campaign?

So, yeah, unless it was something really specific like "the Wizard of the Gnarly Woods wears pink ladies' underwear under his robe," character knowledge was what the player knew.

[robkuntz]

Urieal quoth: "Aside from whetting my appetite to know more about your HPL campaign, I think you've been abstract enough."

For now I can only recommend the following article I wrote for AFS Magazine #2 – "Advent of the Elder Ones: Mythos vs. Man in the Lake Geneva Original Campaign, 1973-1976" by Robert J Kuntz.

Here's the link to order the issue with the article: hallsoftizunthane.blogspot.fr/2012/12/afs-issue-2-is-released.html

If he is OOP I will instead consider placing it online at our website in the near future.

[jeff]

Nov 1, 2016 23:47:15 GMT -5 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Also consider this; that when Gary first started running "Greyhawk," within a matter of weeks several of us were ALSO running our own games. AND playing in one another's game. LONG before the first edition of the rules was printed we all had a stable of PCs for a variety of worlds.

Who in the HELL could keep track of which PC has encountered what monster in whose campaign?

So, yeah, unless it was something really specific like "the Wizard of the Gnarly Woods wears pink ladies' underwear under his robe," character knowledge was what the player knew.

Thanks for commenting here too Mike! I had posted the same question over on the ODD74 boards before I knew you were hanging out here too (probably should have assumed), but I appreciate your answer there and here.