Gygax Time Machine, Part 1: Why 1st Edition?

 “If the player characters are not of the same stamp as Conan, they also appreciate that they are in effect writing their own adventures and creating their own legends, not merely reliving those of someone else’s creation.” – E. Gary Gygax, Dungeon Master’s Guide p80

Why play 1^st Edition D&D? Aren’t there more editions because the 1^st wasn’t good enough? And hey, I’ve looked at the books – they’re sooo confusingly organised. And some of the rules are pointless – who would bother with Weapon Speed Factor?

Inspired by Anthony Huso (http://thebluebard.com), writer of various excellent modules, I’m running a 1^st Edition AD&D campaign by the book (BTB) during the Lockdown. I’m usually a fairly relaxed DM, rules-wise – happy to make rulings on the fly to ensure the world is more coherent. Rules are tools. And for D&D, I usually run 5^th Edition or some version of the classic Basic set. So why 1^st Edition? And why BTB?

Partly, it’s just Tony’s infectious enthusiasm, his quest to understand Gary Gygax’s vision of the first fantasy roleplaying game. What would happen if we just trusted the rules, and assumed there was some reason for them, and gave them the good old college try? If they are really so archaic or bad, it’s hard to understand how they coincided with the real glory years of D&D’s creativity and growth (say 1978-1985).

In part there’s a taste issue – what sort of RPG do you want to play? What sort of RPG is 1^st Edition?

1^st Edition has particular assumptions that begin to be rejected even before the end of its own decade in publication. 1^st Edition doesn’t encourage big structured narratives where the players participate in a pre-existing “legendary story”, rather aiming for such narratives to emerge through play; it assumes emergent gameplay, randomization, and a relatively serious adherence to rules and procedure will produce the best expression of the game; dice-rolling is actually, surprisingly, fairly circumscribed in its efficacy compared to pure player skill, with “Non-Weapon Proficiencies” (basically, dice-based skills to use outside of the dungeon environment) only appearing late in its run and in association with a setting that has a very different feel. These were all assumptions or models that were, in large part, undercut by the mid 80s. Narrative modules like the Dragonlance series became very popular; heavy scripting of environments and a diminution of emergence therefore becomes more prevalent; and dice-rolling, rather than player decision or skill, becomes more important.

So why am I saying 1^st Edition is to my taste? I’ve long enjoyed emergent gameplay via randomization and an emphasis on player skill, but some would argue these are as well if not better served by simpler descendants of D&D – essentially, spin-offs of Basic/Expert, not Advanced. To quote a very talented designer of one of these hacks in his latest book: “This is a game to be played, not a textbook to be studied. It’s designed for the game table, not the library. Rules are false idols, numbers are rarely the answer, and plain speech always beats specialist terminology.” How could one disagree? Especially paired with the inclusive view of the game table that immediately follows this – wanting to welcome those who “don’t want to learn complex rules” – how could one be so churlish as to say: (1) no, rules may be bad gods but they are good governments; (2) numbers are often the answer; and (3) specialist terminology has a great deal of utility. Isn’t that all very exclusive?

Well, I want everyone to enjoy the games they enjoy. I’m not interested in a Bad Wrong Fun War. But aside from the archaeological and artistic aspects of playing 1^st Edition, it is also the version of D&D best set up, in my judgement, to produce exactly the kind of epic-but-player-generated stories Gary envisioned the game as concerning. How do all the complex rules help this? Well, tellingly, the quote I opened with is from the section in the DMG on Saving Throws. It is by way of justifying Gary’s assertion that “because the player character is all-important, he or she must always – or nearly always – have a chance”, no matter how impossible the Saving Throw situation seems. The player characters are the subject of the story, not whatever the DM creates; the dense rules, from how to generate animal populations of an area to the lengthy tables of different types of gems, are all there to provide for that end. We’ll get back to that.

Another telling point is how often, explicitly or implicitly, the mechanics of the game are supposed to be hidden from the players. The combat tables and the rules for magic items are in the DMG, and players are told not to read that book. The game is significantly playable – as in some of the earliest D&D games – with the DM rolling virtually all of the dice, whilst the players simply make decisions. There is meant to be a vast substructure of rules beneath what the players need to learn from the Player’s Handbook – which, aside from character creation and spell rules, has really only an overview of the rules, plus some very good advice on how to play. Isn’t this strange? There are meant to be a great many rules to facilitate player-driven stories, but by default the players aren’t allowed to know most of them.

There is an interesting answer to our talented critic’s concern about rules and numbers here, isn’t there? To play 1^st Edition, players are *not* expected to know a great number of rules, especially if they are playing non-spellcasters. Once character creation is over (which is at times a dense process, I grant), Fighters only really need to know their Attacks Per Round and the advantages and disadvantages their weapons have vs different ACs and monster sizes. Thieves have a single list of percentage specialist skills, for which they do not roll the dice to check success. Of course, the good player will learn their character sheet inside out, and squeeze every advantage from their skillset – but that is not a requirement to begin play. 1^st Edition AD&D is an inductive game, where one learns by playing.

But why, then, is the DM expected to learn three rulebooks worth of material? Surely you could have the above situation of how many rules a player needs to know, and then add a couple more rules the DM needs to know, and that could be enough for a good game.

But what if I said – and I am not the first to say so – that 1^st Edition AD&D is not a game in the usual sense? What if I told you it was really a simulation of being a fantasy adventurer? Boardgame wargamers have the specialist term “consim” – conflict simulation. Those who delve into this most arcane and abstruse version of D&D need, perhaps, a term of their own. Fansim? Herosim? Dunsim?

There are assumptions in this Fansim that may jar with our own sense of “fantasy reality”. Gold = XP and Saving Throws in seemingly impossible situations are both rules Gary takes the time to justify because of this. However, they fit the paradigm of the simulation Gary is offering. The detailed information about stocking environments is so that the DM knows whether Conjure Animals works, and what are likely random encounters, and so forth. The lists of gems are important because gems weigh much less than gold pieces, and are much more valuable – and so having a variety helps both as monetary denominators (because Gold = XP AND is indispensable for building strongholds, paying hirelings, and affording training to level up), and for flavour. Why are there 12 Ornamental Stones, 13 Semi-Precious, 14 Fancy, and 14 Gem Stones? So that your players aren’t bored by the loot they accumulate. “Star Sapphire: transluscent sapphire with white ‘star’ center”.

All those tables enrich the world. They are DM-facing because of course they are – the DM’s job is to create a rich, absorbing world in which the players lose themselves as they create their legend. And all of the crunchy rules exist for the same purpose – often out of player sight, but like the complex code behind rich fantasy RPG video game, they enable it all to happen and feel real. The very granular To Hit and Saving Throw tables allow real variance in how situations unfold; the Potion Miscibility Table lets you check whether drinking all those powerful magical drugs together goes bad; the organizational charts for groups of hirelings and henchmen ensure that your employment decisions don’t challenge belief in the world; and the *17* Appendices in the DMG, covering everything from Traps to Herbs to Describing Magical Substances, and most famously Appendix N, on “Inspirational and Educational Reading”, all serve the make the world deep.

That’s why “By The Book” also matters – not that the Book won’t sometimes fail and need interpretation or correction, but that the Book is the World, and to inhabit the World offered by 1^st Edition, by Gary Gygax, means inhabiting the Book rather than (in this situation) writing your own.

Rules are the coding of a world. When executed faithfully in depth, they create a world of unsurpassed verisimilitude – because a world is engaging for players not because they have read the hefty background tomes sold at substantial cost by the RPG company, but because they have explored and inhabited and changed the world. Numbers are the fine details. When randomized, they prevent the DM from forcing a story upon his players.  Specialist terminology is necessary when describing a wide and deep array of rules; computer programmers don’t tend to call parts of their work “thingummies”.

Yes, it’s mathsy. Yes, it demands a lot of DM. Yes, it’s a hard ride for players who don’t want to learn. It’s not for everyone. It is for me.