Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;848787Also, I am explicitly NOT part of any "Old School Renaissance."  I'm just playing the silly ass game pretty much the same way I always have.

This; I'm in the same boat as you are. I've been told by several OSR types that I am not part of the OSR, which is cool; I think it's my unmodifed use of ancient rules sets like "Chainmail" or DGUTS that does it. Which is why I coined the term 'pre-school gaming' for what I do, a while back; I don't worry much about game mechanics or rules sets, and like Dave Wesely, just roll the dice and make decisions as needed both as a player and a referee/GM.

Fascinating, really; being at Con of the North and Gary Con was a real eye-opener.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;848790This; I'm in the same boat as you are. I've been told by several OSR types that I am not part of the OSR, which is cool;

It is definitely a symptom that we're dealing with a social category rather than a historical category when you get people trying to exclude people.  It is fine though as those who have embraced that practice have largely lost the plot.  For them it seems to have stopped being about games and started being about identity.

QuoteFascinating, really; being at Con of the North and Gary Con was a real eye-opener.

Could you expand on this?

Nathan, I disagree. You could  be right, in that the message may be that you have to be plugged into the right social groups, or you have to be au courant with certain peripheral signs of membership (wear the right clothes, listen to the right bands; or in this case, gush about the right designers or publications).

But it's also as I thought you said above a matter of core practice and ideology (separate from history). The "OSR" is inchoate but there are certainly trends in the types of gaming and design that are popular and what are not. There does seem to be reinforcement of these trends in a more narrow manner than people who are just "old gamers" now or "gamers" back in the day.

For me I don't feel a strong attachment to the OSR label and the ideas are a bit out of sync with my tastes--I'm less attached to D&D, and I'm not into the gonzo weirdness which forms a major strain.

However that's irrelevant to the usefulness of the community to me. The OSR has sparked my interest in modding D&D both for simplicity and accessibility to existing gamers. And there are games that hit my sweet spot thematically, such as Other Dust, Spears of the Dawn, and Arrows of Indra.

Quote from: Arminius;848822Nathan, I disagree.

I think I may have either over or understated something then, because when I read the rest of your post I find nothing to disagree with.

QuoteBut it's also as I thought you said above a matter of core practice and ideology (separate from history). The "OSR" is inchoate but there are certainly trends in the types of gaming and design that are popular and what are not. There does seem to be reinforcement of these trends in a more narrow manner than people who are just "old gamers" now or "gamers" back in the day.

What I was getting at in my response to Chirine is that any creative endeavor that involves people can stop being about the thing itself and become about identity.

QuoteFor me I don't feel a strong attachment to the OSR label and the ideas are a bit out of sync with my tastes--I'm less attached to D&D, and I'm not into the gonzo weirdness which forms a major strain.

My only "attachment" to the OSR label (or the term "old school" as it relates to RPGs) is that it is useful in terms of identifying content.  

I am becoming more and more interested in the weirder elements and have been enjoying the gonzo strain.

Let me clarify...

We've got OSR as a possible historical movement--literally inclusion (and exclusion) of practices based on their existence/popularity/functionality at some specific time in the past. For the sake of argument, we discard this.

Then we have OSR as adhering to the label in various ways but whose gaming practices aren't necessarily distinct from non-OSR. This would be a pure social identity.

Finally we have OSR as constellation of gaming practices/attitudes. This isn't just social, it's ideological.

The third is a useful category even if one doesn't believe in the first. (If the second was all there was to OSR, then OSR would be pretty vacuous--just a social clique.)

So if you forget the historical thing and just look at conceptual/ideological trends, you can see that broadly OSR is:

D&D-based, especially working from a foundation of 0e/1e/Basic
Sandbox-focused
Against preplotted adventures, planned dramatic events, and balanced set-piece combats
Uninterested in dissociated mechanics or narrative control--though obviously not rigidly so--if someone says HP are dissociated, or fortune points are narrative control, but they work from a pragmatic perspective, you shrug and move on.
Relatively accepting of PC death
Surprisingly interested in exploring themes outside of bog-standard Elf-Dwarf-Orc fantasy
Rather excited by gonzo, weird, metal themes

Maybe a few I've missed from earlier in this thead.

It's not all of these items together or any single one. (Although if it isn't some kind of D&D, that would be tough, and some editions need more modification than others in order to meet several criteria). It's more of a fuzzy logic or cloud/constellation, but if you look at games and the discussion as a whole, you can see some coherence or gravitational pull that distinguishes the OSR from the wider hobby.

Quote from: NathanIW;848815It is definitely a symptom that we're dealing with a social category rather than a historical category when you get people trying to exclude people.  It is fine though as those who have embraced that practice have largely lost the plot.  For them it seems to have stopped being about games and started being about identity.

(on recent conventions)

Could you expand on this?

That's the feeling that I got in my on-line conversations over the past five years. There seems to be a very distinct dichotomy between OSR people in forums and in blogs, and how they look at and approach the modern style of gaming. What I found strange was the 'mythology' that has grown up around how Gary, Dave, and Phil are supposed to have played, and how they ran their game sessions. There almost seems to be a sort of 'revealed wisdom of the prophets' about how they did things, and I didn't get a very positive reaction when I mentioned what I had seen in my time with them. I felt like the little boy who said "but the Emperor has no clothes!", which is why I started to back off the Internet to a great degree; I have no wish to be the one contradicting what almost seems like a question of faith.

Going out to our local Con of the North and Lake Geneva's Gary Con was fascinating; getting 'out into the field' and seeing some 'ground truth' was a real eye-opener, as I got to see and talk to a lot of people about what they did in their gaming. Much to my surprise, my observations and comments on 'Ye Olden Dayes" struck a very positive note with them.

I ran an EPT RPG at Gary Con - just EPT, no modifications, no nothing; just straight 'Phil', the way we used to play around his ping-pong table - and to my surprise the game was well over-booked for players. I had the usual Gary Con no-shows - this is because there is so much to do at the convention - but it made no difference; I took all of them into the game, and off we went. I did the game the exact same way I do all my games, and they seemed to like it. The game play was superb; these guys had thirty years of game play to draw on, the they 'got it' instantly. I had, I am delighted to say, one of the very best games I ever had with them; it was, speaking as a referee / GM, the fight of my career.

One of the things that they all commented on was the play style I use; I was doing things just like we did back then, and they really enjoyed it - they told me that they had never seen anything like it. I got a standing ovation form them, which I really treasure.

Quote from: Arminius;848835We've got OSR as a possible historical movement--literally inclusion (and exclusion) of practices based on their existence/popularity/functionality at some specific time in the past. For the sake of argument, we discard this.

When I discard the historical category, this is not what I'm discarding.  I'm discarding the use of old school as a term for categorization of play that occurred in the 70s.  I'm saying it is about a group of people today (and the last few years trailing back to the publication of 3e) who play, create and publish as a current extension of a subset of play that reflects (sometimes in a murky fashion) how a portion of people played in the mid 70s.

QuoteThe third is a useful category even if one doesn't believe in the first.

I do not discard the first.  I discard the notion that old school is a historical category for all games and approaches from the 70s.

QuoteD&D-based, especially working from a foundation of 0e/1e/Basic
Sandbox-focused
Against preplotted adventures, planned dramatic events, and balanced set-piece combats
Uninterested in dissociated mechanics or narrative control--though obviously not rigidly so--if someone says HP are dissociated, or fortune points are narrative control, but they work from a pragmatic perspective, you shrug and move on.
Relatively accepting of PC death
Surprisingly interested in exploring themes outside of bog-standard Elf-Dwarf-Orc fantasy
Rather excited by gonzo, weird, metal themes

Good list.

QuoteIt's not all of these items together or any single one. (Although if it isn't some kind of D&D, that would be tough, and some editions need more modification than others in order to meet several criteria). It's more of a fuzzy logic or cloud/constellation, but if you look at games and the discussion as a whole, you can see some coherence or gravitational pull that distinguishes the OSR from the wider hobby.

Absolutely.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;848837What I found strange was the 'mythology' that has grown up around how Gary, Dave, and Phil are supposed to have played, and how they ran their game sessions. There almost seems to be a sort of 'revealed wisdom of the prophets' about how they did things, and I didn't get a very positive reaction when I mentioned what I had seen in my time with them. I felt like the little boy who said "but the Emperor has no clothes!", which is why I started to back off the Internet to a great degree; I have no wish to be the one contradicting what almost seems like a question of faith.

I've noticed the same thing.  Like when I read through the Q&A with Gary on dragonsfoot and he keeps getting people asking him for a word from on high about the right way to do something in AD&D and he keeps telling them that whatever works for them is the right answer.

QuoteGoing out to our local Con of the North and Lake Geneva's Gary Con was fascinating; getting 'out into the field' and seeing some 'ground truth' was a real eye-opener, as I got to see and talk to a lot of people about what they did in their gaming. Much to my surprise, my observations and comments on 'Ye Olden Dayes" struck a very positive note with them.

They're there to play games and have fun rather than have an internet identity.

QuoteI did the game the exact same way I do all my games, and they seemed to like it. The game play was superb; these guys had thirty years of game play to draw on, the they 'got it' instantly. I had, I am delighted to say, one of the very best games I ever had with them; it was, speaking as a referee / GM, the fight of my career.

One of the things that they all commented on was the play style I use; I was doing things just like we did back then, and they really enjoyed it - they told me that they had never seen anything like it. I got a standing ovation form them, which I really treasure.

I'm going to join in on your questioning thread to ask more about this in general, but more specific to this thread I do have one question:

What do you think was at the heart of what they had never seen before?  What do you consider to be the most important part of your approach?  Getting a standing ovation at a game con table is a super rare thing (don't know if I've heard of it before) so I'd be remiss if I didn't ask more about your approach.

Quote from: chirine ba kal;848837That's the feeling that I got in my on-line conversations over the past five years. There seems to be a very distinct dichotomy between OSR people in forums and in blogs, and how they look at and approach the modern style of gaming. What I found strange was the 'mythology' that has grown up around how Gary, Dave, and Phil are supposed to have played, and how they ran their game sessions. There almost seems to be a sort of 'revealed wisdom of the prophets' about how they did things, and I didn't get a very positive reaction when I mentioned what I had seen in my time with them. I felt like the little boy who said "but the Emperor has no clothes!", which is why I started to back off the Internet to a great degree; I have no wish to be the one contradicting what almost seems like a question of faith.

Going out to our local Con of the North and Lake Geneva's Gary Con was fascinating; getting 'out into the field' and seeing some 'ground truth' was a real eye-opener, as I got to see and talk to a lot of people about what they did in their gaming. Much to my surprise, my observations and comments on 'Ye Olden Dayes" struck a very positive note with them.

I ran an EPT RPG at Gary Con - just EPT, no modifications, no nothing; just straight 'Phil', the way we used to play around his ping-pong table - and to my surprise the game was well over-booked for players. I had the usual Gary Con no-shows - this is because there is so much to do at the convention - but it made no difference; I took all of them into the game, and off we went. I did the game the exact same way I do all my games, and they seemed to like it. The game play was superb; these guys had thirty years of game play to draw on, the they 'got it' instantly. I had, I am delighted to say, one of the very best games I ever had with them; it was, speaking as a referee / GM, the fight of my career.

One of the things that they all commented on was the play style I use; I was doing things just like we did back then, and they really enjoyed it - they told me that they had never seen anything like it. I got a standing ovation form them, which I really treasure.

Chirine, I would be very interested in hearing your take on this.

For example, from the points that where listed on the beginning of this thread, would you said some were absent or downplayed in "the old days"?

For example, see the points that were mentioned above (just the first few posts):

1) Rulings, not Rules. You don't need many rules, the GM can come up with something.
2) Player Skill, not Character Skill. You don't roll find or disarm traps, you describe it.
3) Hero, not Superhero. Characters become power but not too powerful (whatever this means).
4) No such thing as "game balance". Challenges aren't tailor-suited to the characters - if they go wandering to Forest of Death or whatever, they are risking their necks.
5) Starting characters aren't special. They don't have elaborate backgrounds or many special abilities.
6) Resource management is important. You shouldn't be handwaving money, encumbrance, torches etc.
7) There is no "story" being created on purpose. The focus is survival and profit, not catharsis. There is no start-beggining-end, there are things that happen, and that's it. You can tell your exploits after the fact, but you aren't thinking of "what would make for a good ending" when you're fighting the ogre.
The main area of exploration is multi-level dungeons. Secondarily, wilderness hex crawls.
9) The game has clear built in danger signals, that warn the players when the PCs are out of their depth. These appear in two main forms: Dungeon levels (level 2 is harder than level 1), and monsters (orcs are harder than goblins are harder than kobolds). The latter means no orc mooks and orc slaughterkilldeathmachines -- except for NPC parties, meeting an orc means you're facing a monster with 1 HD (there are leader types, but they're part of the lair structure).
10) Wandering monsters make it dangerous to stay in one place. Since they lack the treasure of stay-at-home monsters, it forces the PCs to aggressively seek out lairs/hoards.
11) A sense of humor. Survival horror is leavened by jokes, most of which break the fourth wall.
A) Combat is fast and fairly abstract. While combat happens a lot in most old school games, it is not time-consuming nor is it intended to be the most interesting part of the session. Minis/pieces and battlemats can be used if the GM wants but they are never required.
B) System mastery is not required. Players do not need to know the rules to play (and play well). They can simply describe what their character is doing in plain language (not gamespeak) and the GM will tell them the results of their action or what they need to roll.
C) The rules are merely guidelines for the GM. The rules are not intended or designed to protect players from a "bad" GM. Players can and should, of course, not play with a GM they consider bad.
D) The system mechanics are not purposely designed to be interesting for players to manipulate but to get out of the way so the stuff going on in the campaign is the center of attention. It's not about what mechanical features a character gets as the campaign progresses but about what the character does in the campaign.

Which ones fit your playstyle and which don't?

For one thing, I know that Gygax eventually started characters at level 3, thus making them more heroic and with less chance of accidental death.

Quote from: Arminius;848592If NathanIW's gloss on "old school as community of practice, not history" will put a stop to complaints about Taliban, I'm all for it. After all, Mullah Omar is dead.

I think this is how the OSR views old-school now.  It's not about sticking to some precise ur-D&D that's allegedly "how it was done back then". It's about playing and designing within a certain framework of rules and ideas that could fit the original style of D&D while still innovating wildly within that framework.

Well said.

I just got back from my M74/S&W game and while it lines up with all 15 points in Eric Diaz's latest post it also drastically departs from D&D in that it doesnt use classes, has spell points (and now also no separation between wizardly magic, druid magic and cleric magic), every magic item is cursed in some way* and has some things I've bolted on from other games.  I've also really embraced some weird fiction sensibilities so it's definitely in that gonzo metal strain.

*in a way that would make sense for its crafter.  Like a vampric blade that when you cut something with it you are fully rested and nourished and don't age for 24 hours but you can no longer get sustainance from eating food.  It was made by a chaos priest with many beastman thralls she could feed off of as a means of becoming immortal.  The player who has it is having some trouble whenever the party wants to stay in town for more than a day and is trying to figure out how to be able to cut people every day.  He's also super worried about losing it as it will mean starving to death.

Quote from: NathanIW;848851I've noticed the same thing.  Like when I read through the Q&A with Gary on dragonsfoot and he keeps getting people asking him for a word from on high about the right way to do something in AD&D and he keeps telling them that whatever works for them is the right answer.



They're there to play games and have fun rather than have an internet identity.



I'm going to join in on your questioning thread to ask more about this in general, but more specific to this thread I do have one question:

What do you think was at the heart of what they had never seen before?  What do you consider to be the most important part of your approach?  Getting a standing ovation at a game con table is a super rare thing (don't know if I've heard of it before) so I'd be remiss if I didn't ask more about your approach.

Taking it from the top...

Arneson and Barker had the same questions put to them - over and over and over and over. And they gave the same answer as Gary did, which always seemed to disappoint the questioner. There is no 'right way'; it's what works for your game group and your play style. It was all about having a bunch of your friends in for an afternoon or evening of fun and laughs. Yes, we were serious about our research and our painting, if we were doing miniatures, but the games themselves were much more of a 'social occasion'.

Players at Gary Con: I'd agree with that.

I'll try to answer this - you may want to have a look at my YouTube videos of a game session we ran. It was a true three-dimensional game, and I ran it like I run everything. Please have a look; it might explain what I do better then I can...

I learned four things from four guys.

Barker - Know your world-setting inside and out. Be able to reach back into your researches and readings to be able to deal with whatever comes up in the course of the game.

Gygax - Know your game. Play a lot of it, as much as you can, so you have a good feel for how the game works in actual practice.

Arneson - Keep play fast and furious. If players are busy playing, they'll have more fun and you'll all have a better time.

Wesely - Be prepared. have everything ready for the game, and be prepared to fake it a needed; if you get too many players then you expected, have 'spares' / 'alternates' ready for them to use.

(Who's this 'Wesely' guy? Dave Wesly, the inventor of the Braunstein; I learned it from him. Why is this important? Because Braunstein begat Blackmoor, which begat Greyhawk, which begat You Know What. That's a lot of begatting, but that's the way it was. I got very, very lucky.)


I've been 'doing Tekumel' for almost forty years, so I know the setting pretty well. I've been playing games like EPT and "Chainmail" for about as long, so I know how the numbers crunch. I do the number-crunching 'off-stage', and I keep the pace fast and furious. I made sure that I'd gone through the Jakallan Underworld again, and then I made up packets for the players for their PCs.

I did not do what I think are called 'pre-gens'; I created a name and a little bit of a back-story for each, and then rolled up the basic stats; I left all the skills blank, and had the players do these - it 'customizes' the PC, and gives the player 'buy in' on the person that they are playing. I provided blank stats sheets and notepads for their use (and a special Gary Con VII miniature from my collection) in an envelope; all the players got to see at the beginning of the game was a face (I used artwork from my archives), a name, and an occupation; players chose from that - I brought 25 PC envelopes for a 12 player game, and had something like 16 players in total - and then found a badge with color artwork of their PC for them to wear so their party could tell who was who.

I also provided two 'Designated Experts', friends of mine who had been playing in Tekumel for as long as I had - longer, in Bill Hoyt's case; he'd introduced Prof. Barker to Gary Gygax, along with Gronan. Their job was to answer questions on the world and the game for the players, so that I could focus on the game play. It worked fine; I got asked a few questions, but all of them very smart and very clever.

I provided miniatures for everyone to use as 'markers' for the marching order and as a 'tactical display'; the custom of the house out at the Professor's was that I would make a miniature of everyone's PC, and I still have them all. These were what we used, backed up by the lovely 'cardboard heroes' for Tekumel done by Amanda Dee. There was no 'mapping', per se; I used my digital copy of Phil's maps as projections up on the wall, so that everyone knew where they were all the time; it made things play a lot faster, and everyone had good information.

I also added my Secret Weapon - I persuaded Gronan to play as the 'Designated Local Guide'. I recreated a PC he'd some out at Phil's back in the day as an experiment, and surprised him with it with his own personalized envelope. I got the expected reaction, too: "YOU BASTARD!", which was the usual refrain in reaction to games I've done like the Great Mos Eisley Spaceport Raid. I gave him a photocopy of the Jakalla Underworld map in all it's over-sized glory, and off we went. (I did not give anyone a copy of the map key - they were going to have to find that out the hard way...)

They dod a great job. They used the vintage figures just the way we did, back in the day; no rulers, no fussing, just "I'm right here." The march order ebbed and flowed like a well-practiced machine, and I got nothing from them that I could use. They stayed focused, they stayed in character, and they role-played. No fussing over game mechanics - I did provide a half-dozen copies of EPT from my archives - and we played like our PC lives depended on it. They were fast, they were clever, and they kept surprising me all through the game session.

It was wonderful.

I got two huge compliments at the end of the fast and furious session: one from the players, who gave me the standing ovation, and one from Gronan:


Have a look at the video; it may be a better way to explain what I do.

Anything with Armor Class in it is old-school.

Quote from: Eric Diaz;848873Chirine, I would be very interested in hearing your take on this.

For example, from the points that where listed on the beginning of this thread, would you said some were absent or downplayed in "the old days"?

For example, see the points that were mentioned above (just the first few posts):

1) Rulings, not Rules. You don't need many rules, the GM can come up with something.
2) Player Skill, not Character Skill. You don't roll find or disarm traps, you describe it.
3) Hero, not Superhero. Characters become power but not too powerful (whatever this means).
4) No such thing as "game balance". Challenges aren't tailor-suited to the characters - if they go wandering to Forest of Death or whatever, they are risking their necks.
5) Starting characters aren't special. They don't have elaborate backgrounds or many special abilities.
6) Resource management is important. You shouldn't be handwaving money, encumbrance, torches etc.
7) There is no "story" being created on purpose. The focus is survival and profit, not catharsis. There is no start-beggining-end, there are things that happen, and that's it. You can tell your exploits after the fact, but you aren't thinking of "what would make for a good ending" when you're fighting the ogre.
The main area of exploration is multi-level dungeons. Secondarily, wilderness hex crawls.
9) The game has clear built in danger signals, that warn the players when the PCs are out of their depth. These appear in two main forms: Dungeon levels (level 2 is harder than level 1), and monsters (orcs are harder than goblins are harder than kobolds). The latter means no orc mooks and orc slaughterkilldeathmachines -- except for NPC parties, meeting an orc means you're facing a monster with 1 HD (there are leader types, but they're part of the lair structure).
10) Wandering monsters make it dangerous to stay in one place. Since they lack the treasure of stay-at-home monsters, it forces the PCs to aggressively seek out lairs/hoards.
11) A sense of humor. Survival horror is leavened by jokes, most of which break the fourth wall.
A) Combat is fast and fairly abstract. While combat happens a lot in most old school games, it is not time-consuming nor is it intended to be the most interesting part of the session. Minis/pieces and battlemats can be used if the GM wants but they are never required.
B) System mastery is not required. Players do not need to know the rules to play (and play well). They can simply describe what their character is doing in plain language (not gamespeak) and the GM will tell them the results of their action or what they need to roll.
C) The rules are merely guidelines for the GM. The rules are not intended or designed to protect players from a "bad" GM. Players can and should, of course, not play with a GM they consider bad.
D) The system mechanics are not purposely designed to be interesting for players to manipulate but to get out of the way so the stuff going on in the campaign is the center of attention. It's not about what mechanical features a character gets as the campaign progresses but about what the character does in the campaign.

Which ones fit your playstyle and which don't?

For one thing, I know that Gygax eventually started characters at level 3, thus making them more heroic and with less chance of accidental death.

Right. Let me take your points in order, if I may:

1) Yes, very much so.
2) Yes, very much so; 'role-playing', not 'roll playing'.
3) Yes; players don;t have 'powers' that get them out of (and into) trouble, they have skill and experience.
4) Yes. It's you own damn fault you kicked that sleeping dragon.
5) No. All PCs are special, as they are people that we happen to be playing, like actors in a part. They might have some backstory, and they might have something special in their pouches, but nothing hugely 'special'.
6) Yes. If it isn't on your card (Phil's 3x5 index cards), you don't have it. Period.
7) No. The GM might - and usually did - have an over-arching story line for his world setting, but it was normally quite independent of what the players did. We did our 'bit parts', providing local color and laughs, but we usually were spectators on the fringe of the meta-game. There was none of what seems to be called 'story gaming'; none of that, in our games.
No. We had entire worlds to explore. We spent very little time doing either thing you mention.
9) No. You had to be alert all the time when on an adventure. There were no 'danger signs'; danger usually snuck up on us, and it was our look-out to meet and vanquish it. 'Ambushes' were quite common.
10) No. Never saw this in the game sessions I was in. Wandering monsters were always worth frisking, after we killed them.
11) Yes, very much so.
A) Yes, very much so. Also, battlemats hadn't been invented yet; we used brown wrapping paper, 'cause it was cheap and came in long rolls.
B) Depends. for GMs, no, they had to know the game; for players, yes, they didn't have to know the rules inside and out.
C) Yes.
D) Yes; role-playing, not roll-playing.

Phil did the same thing, after a while.

Does this help any?

Quote from: chirine ba kal;848837That's the feeling that I got in my on-line conversations over the past five years. There seems to be a very distinct dichotomy between OSR people in forums and in blogs, and how they look at and approach the modern style of gaming. What I found strange was the 'mythology' that has grown up around how Gary, Dave, and Phil are supposed to have played, and how they ran their game sessions. There almost seems to be a sort of 'revealed wisdom of the prophets' about how they did things, and I didn't get a very positive reaction when I mentioned what I had seen in my time with them. I felt like the little boy who said "but the Emperor has no clothes!", which is why I started to back off the Internet to a great degree; I have no wish to be the one contradicting what almost seems like a question of faith.

Crom's hairy nutsack, yes.

I frequently use the phrase "we made up some shit we thought would be fun."  I have received an amazing amount of snarls and growls at this, which has surprised me immensely.  I suppose I could say "It seemed like a good idea at the time," but that's just expressing the same thought in a less humorous way.

The simple fact is that a lot of this stuff DIDN'T have a lot of deep thought behind it; Dave W, then Dave A, then Gary, did a lot of "Oh, let's see, need a rule for this, okay the rule is X."  And if it wasn't horribly nonfunctional, the rule stayed.

For instance, I can almost guarantee how Baron Fant turning into Sir Fang went:

Dave A:  "Okay, the vampire has killed Baron Fant."

Dave F:  "Crap.  Hey, does that mean that Baron Fant is going to rise again as a Vampire?"

Dave A:  "Ummmmm, yeah."

Dave F:  "Can I play the vampire?"

Dave A:  * three second pause * "Uh... sure.  We'll worry about the rules later."

And I'll bet a week's pay that that's pretty much exactly how it went.