Quote from: Benoist;382854What I'm talking about is "the early game".

Are you really?  The Greg Svenson account posted earlier by Elliot Wilen (I was going to post it myself if he didn't -- there are also other accounts of games set in the first three campaign settings -- Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Kalibruhn -- out there) not only suggests  "that campaign-based roleplaying had preceded dungeoneering" but also describes an adventure scenario that assumes the PCs will assume specific roles and follow the introductory adventure hook (i.e., playing a specific scenario).  There is also something of a deus ex machina ending that allows the single PC to survive and exit the dungeon.  This  discussion of the early Greyhawk game includes the description of game events where the player felt Gary Gygax fudged what was going on ("Fudgin' Judgin'") to make the game go a certain way:

QuoteRobilar would have been proud of Fiffergrund's evilness, though the best I did, really, as far as evil acts was to kill the filthy elven-hirelings in my employ when I changed alignment, as EGG said "no way" they would also follow that change. Gary had one "escape" using a poly-other potion, which I wasn't even sure he owned. That one went back to the City of Greyhawk and starting sqawking to the "goodies" about my evil ways, so my attempt to carry off a silent integration failed (of course EGG was accused of Fudgin' Judgin', naturally!). Otherwise I played Robilar as a neutral (if you excuse the TOEE episode, which sh

• uld have redeemed me, as I WAS slaying _lots_ of evil things that day).[/i]

Maybe someone who was actually in those early games like Old Geezer would like to clarify, but I don't get the impression that there was one pure approach to play even then.

Quote from: John Morrow;382946Are you really?  The Greg Svenson account posted earlier by Elliot Wilen (I was going to post it myself if he didn't -- there are also other accounts of games set in the first three campaign settings -- Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Kalibruhn -- out there) not only suggests  "that campaign-based roleplaying had preceded dungeoneering" but also describes an adventure scenario that assumes the PCs will assume specific roles and follow the introductory adventure hook (i.e., playing a specific scenario).  There is also something of a deus ex machina ending that allows the single PC to survive and exit the dungeon.  This  discussion of the early Greyhawk game includes the description of game events where the player felt Gary Gygax fudged what was going on ("Fudgin' Judgin'") to make the game go a certain way:



Maybe someone who was actually in those early games like Old Geezer would like to clarify, but I don't get the impression that there was one pure approach to play even then.

well, yes to this. anyone who thinks there has been one right way is deluded, I would expect.  There are some way I think are more wrong than others, but I doubt I am in any position to point fingers.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;382929It's the sane middle ground between those insane extremes.



It's a co-operative thing. It's neither pure sandbox nor pure railroad. Either of those by themselves is stupid.

You all can shut the fuck up on this. As usual, Kyle Aaron got it in one.

In defense of the railroad somewhat, I have seen gaming groups where there was a distinct lack of initiative. A player driven sandbox falls apart when the players don't drive the game, and those sort of players tend to be perfectly satisfied following the rails of a railroaded game.

Quote from: John Morrow;382846So what you are talking about is the game as it was run by a very small number of people for a fairly brief period of time.

It wasn't that brief. Modules didn't come out in force until after 1980 even then level coverage was spotty so you were forced to come up with your own stuff. The most comprehensive was Judges Guild along with their Wilderlands products.  It wasn't until after around 1985 I started running into gamers that didn't have any wargame background whatsoever. And it wasn't until Vampire came out and attracted it's group of fans that I encountered them in large number.

I've never made a secret about the fact that my first D&D experience was puzzling my way through a (not present) ruleset and filling in the gaps that the pull out sheets in (the edited for Holmes Basic) B2 didn't cover - for a year or so B2 was my rulebook.

Like a lot of kids in the 80's I played D&D with some regularity for a couple years, then quit for a stretch, then started gaming again.  The group I played with played Champions/Hero System, Rolemaster, Call of Cthulhu, and a couple of short Mechwarrior (and later Mechwarrior 2) campaigns and a lot of wargaming in between.  But never D&D.  The group just didn't want to play it.

Thing is, in '98 or '99 when I went looking for a new game to play, I thought "Hey, why not AD&D?  I have this Players Handbook here..." Then I heard about the glorious, coming revolution of 3e.  I asked the occasional question and the responses tended to be "Don't bother - 3e is coming out soon, that'll fix everything" (of that ilk).  Well...I realized a couple of things.  One, I don't like being told what I will like and to "not bother" with what I think I might already like.  Two, when I bought a new set of AD&D hardbacks and really read them, approached them with the view of being a stand alone RPG, without conflating them with Basic D&D and did I need to play Basic D&D first and so on and et cetera (no, really, I was totally confused by that as a kid) I realized I'd missed an awesome game.

I'm not abashed to find I didn't play D&D "the way it should have been" back in the day - I had fun!  If anything I remember that first brush with D&D very fondly.  I didn't know I wasn't doing it right when I stumbled through using B2 as my rules.  Didn't know, didn't care!  I'm not playing AD&D now to try and erase some past sin or go "OH OH OH NO SEE I'M OLD SCHOOL AND THAT MAKES ME BAD ASS GRR!"

I find AD&D to be a great game, so I play it.

Period.

Quote from: estar;382957It wasn't that brief.

Benoist  said, "I'm talking of the original D&D game c. 1973-74," because I was trying to talk about the somewhat later period through 1980.  That's a very brief period in the hobby.

I had no wargaming background when I started role-playing around 1980, though I'd played plenty of board games (unless you want to count wargame like board games like the American Heritage Dogfight and Broadside or things like Stratego and Risk).  And since I learned from a the books rather than someone else, I interpreted the games to suit my own needs.  My earliest Traveller games had no GM and players playing groups of characters that result from merging role-playing game rules with what my friends and I had been doing with action figures and toy cars for years before that.  And my point is that I don't think that sort of Rorschach test experience where we did things our own way was all that uncommon once role-playing started spreading by people buying and reading the rules rather than being taught how to play by others.  What allowed that was a fairly sparse set of representative (rather than metagame) rules that didn't force people to play any particular way to get some use out of them.

Oh if you want to know what module came out when check out http://www.acaeum.com/ which covers both TSR and Judges Guild.

Quote from: John Morrow;382963Benoist  said, "I'm talking of the original D&D game c. 1973-74," because I was trying to talk about the somewhat later period through 1980.  That's a very brief period in the hobby.

I had no wargaming background when I started role-playing around 1980, though I'd played plenty of board games (unless you want to count wargame like board games like the American Heritage Dogfight and Broadside or things like Stratego and Risk).  And since I learned from a the books rather than someone else, I interpreted the games to suit my own needs.  My earliest Traveller games had no GM and players playing groups of characters that result from merging role-playing game rules with what my friends and I had been doing with action figures and toy cars for years before that.  And my point is that I don't think that sort of Rorschach test experience where we did things our own way was all that uncommon once role-playing started spreading by people buying and reading the rules rather than being taught how to play by others.

You missed my point is that there wasn't enough material printed to run a campaign solely based around adventures. before the early 1980s. Coverage was too spotty and at some point you had to make your own stuff up. I was referring the main topic about sandboxes.

As for your point, you are right in that there were many gamers that roleplayed without playing wargames first. Especially when roleplaying exploded in the late 70s. Which is why I said "in my experience" as part of my comment. Wargames hit their high point in 1980 selling millions of copies per year and declined after that. Although games like Battletech kept the spirit alive. In my area (rural Northwest PA) I knew several dozen gamers and nearly all of them had or played wargames in addition to RPGs.

And yes I ran into gamers that learned D&D cold. Included two of my best friends.

Quote from: estar;382965You missed my point is that there wasn't enough material printed to run a campaign solely based around adventures. before the early 1980s. Coverage was too spotty and at some point you had to make your own stuff up. I was referring the main topic about sandboxes.

What I'm not seeing is how this is an either-or choice.  My point is that lots of GMs who made their own stuff up also came up with their own interpretation of what their role was and how the stuff they made up should be used.  So you could have one GM writing sandboxes and another GM writing railroaded stories and yet another GM running a wargame and so on, even from the earliest days.  If you read the Bill Armintrout article, it's clear that when he got Metamorphosis Alpha and played it in college that he was simultaneously considering verisimilitude issues, campaign goals, player satisfaction about how the story was running, game balance, authority sharing with a co-GM and the players, and so on.  I don't see why D&D would be any different for him and others like him.  He wasn't doing a pure sandbox or a pure railroaded adventure or a pure wargame.  He was doing a bit of it all.

Quote from: estar;382965And yes I ran into gamers that learned D&D cold. Included two of my best friends.

And how did they approach the game?  What kinds of adventures did they expect or run?

Quote from: John Morrow;382946Are you really?

I am, really.

Quote from: John Morrow;382946The Greg Svenson account posted earlier by Elliot Wilen (I was going to post it myself if he didn't -- there are also other accounts of games set in the first three campaign settings -- Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Kalibruhn -- out there) not only suggests  "that campaign-based roleplaying had preceded dungeoneering" but also describes an adventure scenario that assumes the PCs will assume specific roles and follow the introductory adventure hook (i.e., playing a specific scenario).  There is also something of a deus ex machina ending that allows the single PC to survive and exit the dungeon.  This  discussion of the early Greyhawk game includes the description of game events where the player felt Gary Gygax fudged what was going on ("Fudgin' Judgin'") to make the game go a certain way:

I never suggested that campaign-based role playing didn't precede dungeoneering, first. Second, there certainly was variation and experimentation of game play going on. Third, the discussion about how Rob suspected EGG to have made up an escape route for an NPC via potion and so on actually shows that this wasn't thought of as a good thing: "of course EGG was accused of Fudgin' Judgin', naturally!" Naturally. Exclamation point. This was not fair, if that's what actually took place (since it was never confirmed wether EGG was making things up or not on this one).

Quote from: John Morrow;382946Maybe someone who was actually in those early games like Old Geezer would like to clarify, but I don't get the impression that there was one pure approach to play even then.

I never said there was "one pure approach". That's a strawman.

Quote from: John Morrow;382967What I'm not seeing is how this is an either-or choice.  My point is that lots of GMs who made their own stuff up also came up with their own interpretation of what their role was and how the stuff they made up should be used.  

My experience that in there were strong regional styles of D&D rules until the late 70s when D&D became a fad which made easier to find product, the BASIC set was release, and finally AD&D.  That many did weird things based on what they encountered first especially if all they had was a module. And that when they encountered the larger gaming community they learned the the D&D game as the locals defined it.

GMs that railroaded players were not well liked and were not common as they couldn't attract players. Now it may be my town of Meadville was unusual in having a dozen or so groups of my age within walking distance of each other. (3 mile radius or so). Plus several more groups of older gamers that we only knew vaguely of and referred to as the old hands. I think there were 3 or 4 of them. My own age group heyday was from 1980 to 1988 after which college and life split everybody up.

I started with the Holmes Blue Book edition so it was always fairly obvious to me how to play and referee D&D. If there was a default style it was the dungeon. Just about every DM I know of could grasp the idea of town, dungeon and a surrounding wilderness. A few had a signature dungeon.

Quote from: John Morrow;382967He wasn't doing a pure sandbox or a pure railroaded adventure or a pure wargame.  He was doing a bit of it all.

Having been on the ground floor of promoting the sandbox campaign (As one of the authors of the Wilderlands boxed set in 2003-2004) people really take the concept too literally. To run a sandbox you need to do it all. A sandbox is a framework to run the milieu in which the campaign is set.

Sometimes the players choices led them into a sequential series of adventures that looks little different than a railroad. They endure this because they want whatever the goal that lies at the conclusion of these adventure. They play wargames with mass combat as part of establishing a kingdom. They get missions because they choose to become part of the king's guard.

The problem is that people had little idea of how to effectively organize a setting to allow players to wander freely and make their own choices without the DM being overwhelmed. Most current setting products are of little help because they read like travelogues. While fun to read they require a lot of prep to use at the table.  With the Wilderlands style format it becomes a lot easier for a GM to manage his campaign while the players wander around.

However it just a different way to get the players to an adventure. The adventure are the same range of stuff run with other styles.

Back in the day, in my town, there were DMs that were known to explode six ways to sunday because somebody "screwed up" their beautiful campaign world. Others let their players run riot through their world. I was one of the latter.

When gaming companies found out that settings can develop a fanbase and sell the former DMs turned into fanboys of various settings. TSR and later Wizards pushed their house settings to the point where people had forgotten there was another way of doing settings. One that was used by the Wilderlands, X1 Isle of Dread, and B2 Keep on the Borderlands.

Quote from: John Morrow;382967And how did they approach the game?  What kinds of adventures did they expect or run?

All they had was the two adventures so they made up some d6 rules and ran each other through the dungeons. Then within months they figure out that there were rules books explaining the adventure and learned to play D&D. From school they learned about other groups which clarified the few areas they had questions on.

Quote from: Haffrung;382935See, this kind of thing annoys me.

The original poster asked, "why do we presume that this style of play was what the original D&D authors intended?"

I answered with research, backed up by sources. We don't have to "presume" anything; we know how the authors played and what they wrote in the original published rules.

As it turns out I prefer the "sandbox" end of the spectrum, although Sett and others are right when they say the current "old school" has a strain of purism that's a construction after-the-fact. "Sandbox" is a neologism; back in the early '90's on Usenet nobody used the term--"world-based" was close as a concept but not identical. In Glenn Blacow's four-part division of gaming styles, "story telling" is closest. (Bear in mind that "story" isn't a precise term today, even less so then. You have to read the text to see what Blacow was talking about--and if you do, you'll see that his idea is so broad that it includes campaign meta-plot, seen as anathema to modern "sandbox" gamers.)

I don't have a problem with isolated adventures although, when my friends and I played that way in the very very early days of learning the game, I probably gravitated toward a more "wilderness adventure" approach because there was a collective lack of skill in making really good megadungeons. Still, we're all entitled to own opinion, but not to our own facts.

For the record, while I like the kind of campaign gameplay shown in stuff like First Fantasy Campaign, I'm not interested in labeling it as a "pure way" or a "better way" or even "the old school way."  I just don't give a shit about even beginning to discuss all that crap.   I think it's "a cool way" and "a fun way" that's worth checking out.  That's about it.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;382972The original poster asked, "why do we presume that this style of play was what the original D&D authors intended?"

I answered with research, backed up by sources. We don't have to "presume" anything; we know how the authors played and what they wrote in the original published rules.

Yes you did.  Don't take my silence to mean I'm not listening or not satisfied with any of the answers here.  A man must sleep.  Coming back, this thread has been an excellent read.  Same goes to the rest of you that posted.