For all its faults, Men & Magic is a truly important document in Dungeons & Dragons history. Almost every aspect of the game still in use today appears here, at its genesis, in raw, primal form.
Post originally by Elicia Davenport at 2004-04-20 07:17:25
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Does this book discuss role playing? The description that you give makes it sound like a pure war game. Everything seems to relate to a character's abilities as a playing piece only. When did the idea of role playing enter OD&D?
Post originally by The Old Geezer at 2004-04-20 08:05:15
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We added it on our own. There were no rules about it because nobody thought they were needed; the rules were just for the "nuts and bolts" mechanicals.
The night Ernie (Gygax) talked the chimera out of attacking us, it depended on how well Ernie talked, not any rules. The night my 3rd level Balrog pretended to be a photographer for "Balrog Times" magazine, our success depended on how well we amused the referee.
The rules were written with an "Everything not forbidden is permitted" attitude.
Post originally by Rules-Lite at 2004-04-20 10:47:10
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That's interesting: the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons was "rules-lite" in the role-playing sense. But was Greyhawk the "implicit setting" then, implying a set of cultural standards for characters, "ways to act"?
Or was it fairly fast and loose, like today's Nethack or Munchkin (or anything really, though those typify the idea best), where you're representing Characters in a Dungeon, Somewhere?
Post originally by The Old Geezer at 2004-04-20 10:53:05
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Well...
D&D grew out of (mostly) miniatures gaming groups in Minneapolis (Blackmoor)and Lake Geneva (Greyhawk).
We'd all read the same books (pretty much off Gary's shelves). So, even when we did our own world, they shared a lot of unstated assumptions with Greyhawk just because we'd all read the same books.
Though there were lots of Tolkien's critters, the 'cultural norms' were mostly influenced by Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, and Poul Anderson (with an unhealthy dose of Lovecraft thrown in).
Dunno how else to answer. We weren't "defining cultural norms", we were just playing a game. It was very loose and casual back then. (hak kaf wheeze {tm})
Post originally by Jeb Boyt at 2004-04-20 14:25:46
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This is the first that I have heard of D&D as a supplement or add/on for Outdoor Survival. Although they are a bit of an odd mix, I can see how Outdoor Survival could be used for overland travel.
Post originally by Scottenkainen at 2004-04-20 14:46:28
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The OD&D rules fostered role-playing by way of what the rules didn't cover. As Old Geezer delights in telling me, all wargames have morale rules that affect your units, randomizing the success of any command decisions one makes. D&D, having grown out of wargames, could have had that too. One of the genius strokes of D&D was in NOT making morale apply to Player Characters. Indeed, there were no rules that controlled any feelings or thoughts of the PCs, leaving the player free to "play" that "role." People may take this aspect of the game for granted these days. Indeed, it was such a paradigm shift in gaming that few role-playing games since have including game mechanics that overrule a player's command decisions (though Chaosium's sanity rules for Call of Cthulu and personality traits for Pendragon do come to mind).
Post originally by Mister Thompson at 2004-04-20 16:53:56
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-incredibly puzzled look-
I'm having a moment, here. It's like talking to an old guy in a pub about a war in Germany, figuring he's reliving his WWII days, until he mentions how relieved they were when Germanicus got called back and Tiberius took over.
All the respect in the world for you, but, well, -puts on his Inigo Montoya mask and Castillan accent- who are you?
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