A few recent posts over at Grognardia have inspired me to coattail on the maestro that is the author of that well read blog.
First up is JRR Tolkien and the notion of influence or inspiration garnered by the authors of D&D from the titles The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.
I just want to take the time to echo my own theory on the D&D concept and how it might have been better served as a generic game concept by explicitly disassociating itself from any particular genre.
What should be the thrust of D&D is the notion of individuals overcoming obstacles and gaining experience in a world conceived by a referee; the same referee who creates and administers the milieu in which the characters find themselves. This is the concept of D&D, and is the gaming convention that we should all appreciate and celebrate.
It doesn’t matter whether that milieu is fantasy, sci-fi, horror or super-hero (or a combination thereof). The fact is, D&D was and will always be the notion of taking the make-believe into the realm of gaming and campaigns.
Screw JRR Tolkien and Robert E freekin’ Howard. Welcome to Role-Playing, brought to you by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Now roll some dice and have some fun.
~Sham, Quixotic Referee
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Warping Minds since Leap Day '08
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Warping Minds since Leap Day '08
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7 comments:
Screw JRR Tolkien and Robert E freekin’ Howard. Welcome to Role-Playing, brought to you by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Now roll some dice and have some fun.
*hoists dice high*
Amen, amen --
"It doesn’t matter whether that milieu is fantasy, sci-fi, horror or super-hero (or a combination thereof). The fact is, D&D was and will always be the notion of taking the make-believe into the realm of gaming and campaigns."
I agree that Gygax and Arneson invented the role-playing game, and that opening that can of worms was a tremendous gift for the rest of us. And I also agree that some of the Tolkien stuff could have been ditched in favor of more generic sword and sorcery, or sword and planet flavor. (I'm not particularly fond of the non-human races, for example.)
But if you took away all the references to fantasy and science fiction, and left out the magic and the swords, and made it absolutely generic, so that it could work for superheroes, or gumshoes, or cyborg commandoes, or tormented vampires...would it still be D&D?
And hey, a lot of the particular flavor of D&D is pretty great. The vancian magic system is a good example. Or take all the Lovecraft and gonzo pulp inspired stuff in Supplement II. Man is that good. The accumulation of all that sort of thing gives D&D its particular flavor. Which is pretty tasty in my opinion.
belst8: I agree, I do indeed love me some D&D. Clearly, as evidenced by this blog and three decades of rolling dice while playing the game, but part of me wishes that TSR had released the game as a stand-alone 'core rules' detailing the concept, and used D&D as the first example of how to implement those rules...that's what I'm getting at.
Got it.
It's true that what's in the LBB is pretty generic and that's a big part of the "imagine the hell out of it" appeal. It wouldn't take much to generalize it further, with e.g. the generic concept of class.
In a way some of the original Supplements implicitly treats D&D this way, with Kung-Fu fighting in Supplement II, and Psychic weirdness in Supplement III. But they don't exactly invite everyone else to do that too.
Yep, I agree that in places the supplements took on ideas which at the time must've seemed strange for D&D. TSR surely broke away from the fantasy genre with Boot Hill, Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World; games 'based' on the D&D concept. Perhaps if they had simply published a game called Role-Playing Campaigns, with D&D as the first example. Maybe I'm wrong, but the fact that TSR (Gygax and Arneson) essentially invented role-playing seems lost now.
James has some big coattails to ride on ;).
I think the fact that there are numerous game systems, computer games, novels, and blogs on the topic, shows the strength of the product that Gary & Dave created.
Now I need to get back to rolling some dice!
I think the fact that there are numerous game systems, computer games, novels, and blogs on the topic, shows the strength of the product that Gary & Dave created.
No argument here! Thanks for the comments.
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