I read it up to the point that "missing thieves" is a big deal. If someone stated up Leiber characters when only the three books existed, they'd be fighting-men. They were pretty adept with their swords (also, see the titles of their books... they aren't "Cloaks Against Wizardry" or "Daggers And Deviltry", et. al.). They'd still skulk and sneak and do whatever 'thieve-y' stuff is attributable to them. There's nothing missing in the game once you mix in creative play.
Sidebar: Was the Thief perhaps the first Class created to play directly to the nature of the game — the first 'power-gamer' Class, perhaps...?
In any case, if you can't get beyond that, you've lost me. Play your fighting-man like a "thief", if you need to, if there is no "formal" Class available to you. I'd absolutely let you at my table.
Yeah, I wasn't super impressed with this one. Saying variable HD, weapon damage, and thieves were "omissions" is kinda silly, when the concepts didn't exist, yet. The article also failed to identify that weapon variation was based on size and effectiveness vs armor, instead of damage. None of the "problems" mentioned are actually problems, their just differences from later versions.
Jon Wilson, the thief was a new class actually created by the California gaming crowd at that time - then adopted and further developed by Gary Gygax. A good summary of how that went down is on Jon Peterson's "Playing At The World" blog: http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2012/08/gygaxs-thief-addition-1974.html
I suspect its origin - aside from fantasy / swords & sorcery tropes like Cugel and the Grey Mouser - lay mainly in the desire to split up the brick / front line fighter from the sneaky scout role in adventuring. While you could play a Fighting Man as a sneaky scout type, the Thief class formalized it as a party role (correctly, I think though the implementation left some things to be desired as time went on). Straight thieves also seemed lacking a bit to me, but demi human thief/magic users have always been a favorite of mine.
Ah, so I can thank my fellow statesmen for the Thief.
Can I have mixed feelings about that...?
Everything after Fighting-Man and Wizard is a specialization/adaptation of those two, ain't it? ~overly broad statement with a kernel of truth, perhaps~
Jon Wilson Technically speaking, the cleric class was created to counter the overpowered Sir Fang, a vampire fighting man from the Twin Cities group who would drain levels from characters he killed. Fang was the first 'power gamer' character.
Posting this article here is not an endorsement on my part of the quality of EnWorld commentary. : ) More of an FYI that OD&D is getting some attention in an area that it doesn't usually.
Zach H I could never hold you responsible. My eyes strayed where they did, and the douchebaggery upon which they gazed is the fault of myself and the douchebags who posted it in the first place. EN World comments are the YouTube comments of the RPG-o-sphere; I just tend to forget that.
TLDR yet, but I saved the page so I can read it offline. I love to hear what people who know nothing about the game have to say about it. Its nearly as entertaining as the Jack Chick tract people who claimed D&D is teaching occult magic to players! ;)
Jon Wilson, no - Sir Fang was a PC (played by David Fant) who became a vampire and then ran with it. Good summary of that incident in Arneson's Blackmoor campaign and the subsequent creation by Mike Carr of the game's first "cleric" (Bishop Carr) partly as a countermeasure is here on Havard's blog: http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2011/01/bishop-carr-first-d-cleric.html
Arneson's campaign was very free form - "classes", in the later sense as hard coded character templates had not come about yet. The classes were more "roles" in that sense, and if players had a good idea Arneson would let them run with it (in that sense, Arneson may be the first example of using the "Rule of Cool" in RPGs). A good thread on whether Arneson's original Blackmoor could be considered "classless" is here: http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/697/arnesons-blackmoor-classless
As to whether Sir Fang was a Mary Sue, I'd say no. The Blackmoor campaign was set up with some players who played "good guys" and others who played "the bad guys", with Sir Fang on the bad side - so the vampire trope fit the campaign setup (as Mike Mornard notes in a quote from the Havard blog post, it being the early 70s Christopher Lee's vampires from Hammer films was on everyone's mind as the archetypal fantasy/horror bad guy). On a side note, it's also pretty amusing that Van Helsing from the old Hammer films was the major inspiration for the original cleric : )
Long story short.. tabletop miniature battles took place, but from a D&D point of view the Blackmoor campaign was more focused on a combination of dungeon crawling and the "domain game" as PCs founded fiefs and then warred against each other and NPCs. Greg Svenson, one of the original Blackmoor players, has provided probably the best look into actual play in the campaign: - http://blackmoor.mystara.net/svenny.html - http://shamsgrog.blogspot.com/2009/05/q-with-greg-svenson.html Greg Svenson used to have his own website up that had more good play narratives, but it seems to have been taken down.
I too was thinking in terms of a broader "us vs. them", more than skirmish battles.
I've been gaming since at least 1978, and have picked up a number of tidbits about the early days over the years, but must salute your extensive knowledge...
The first and most well known indie roleplaying game of all time!
ReplyDeleteWhy, oh why would I ever deign to read comments over at EN World?
ReplyDeleteI read it up to the point that "missing thieves" is a big deal. If someone stated up Leiber characters when only the three books existed, they'd be fighting-men. They were pretty adept with their swords (also, see the titles of their books... they aren't "Cloaks Against Wizardry" or "Daggers And Deviltry", et. al.). They'd still skulk and sneak and do whatever 'thieve-y' stuff is attributable to them. There's nothing missing in the game once you mix in creative play.
ReplyDeleteSidebar: Was the Thief perhaps the first Class created to play directly to the nature of the game — the first 'power-gamer' Class, perhaps...?
In any case, if you can't get beyond that, you've lost me. Play your fighting-man like a "thief", if you need to, if there is no "formal" Class available to you. I'd absolutely let you at my table.
Yeah, I wasn't super impressed with this one. Saying variable HD, weapon damage, and thieves were "omissions" is kinda silly, when the concepts didn't exist, yet. The article also failed to identify that weapon variation was based on size and effectiveness vs armor, instead of damage. None of the "problems" mentioned are actually problems, their just differences from later versions.
ReplyDeleteJon Wilson, the thief was a new class actually created by the California gaming crowd at that time - then adopted and further developed by Gary Gygax. A good summary of how that went down is on Jon Peterson's "Playing At The World" blog: http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2012/08/gygaxs-thief-addition-1974.html
ReplyDeleteI suspect its origin - aside from fantasy / swords & sorcery tropes like Cugel and the Grey Mouser - lay mainly in the desire to split up the brick / front line fighter from the sneaky scout role in adventuring. While you could play a Fighting Man as a sneaky scout type, the Thief class formalized it as a party role (correctly, I think though the implementation left some things to be desired as time went on). Straight thieves also seemed lacking a bit to me, but demi human thief/magic users have always been a favorite of mine.
Ah, so I can thank my fellow statesmen for the Thief.
ReplyDeleteCan I have mixed feelings about that...?
Everything after Fighting-Man and Wizard is a specialization/adaptation of those two, ain't it? ~overly broad statement with a kernel of truth, perhaps~
Jon Wilson Technically speaking, the cleric class was created to counter the overpowered Sir Fang, a vampire fighting man from the Twin Cities group who would drain levels from characters he killed. Fang was the first 'power gamer' character.
ReplyDeletePosting this article here is not an endorsement on my part of the quality of EnWorld commentary. : )
ReplyDeleteMore of an FYI that OD&D is getting some attention in an area that it doesn't usually.
Zach H I could never hold you responsible. My eyes strayed where they did, and the douchebaggery upon which they gazed is the fault of myself and the douchebags who posted it in the first place. EN World comments are the YouTube comments of the RPG-o-sphere; I just tend to forget that.
ReplyDeleteTim Jensen was Fang an NPC? Does that mean it's the first Mary Sue?
ReplyDeleteOr was the Cleric originally a "monster" that became a Class?
TLDR yet, but I saved the page so I can read it offline. I love to hear what people who know nothing about the game have to say about it. Its nearly as entertaining as the Jack Chick tract people who claimed D&D is teaching occult magic to players! ;)
ReplyDeleteJon Wilson, no - Sir Fang was a PC (played by David Fant) who became a vampire and then ran with it. Good summary of that incident in Arneson's Blackmoor campaign and the subsequent creation by Mike Carr of the game's first "cleric" (Bishop Carr) partly as a countermeasure is here on Havard's blog: http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2011/01/bishop-carr-first-d-cleric.html
ReplyDeleteArneson's campaign was very free form - "classes", in the later sense as hard coded character templates had not come about yet. The classes were more "roles" in that sense, and if players had a good idea Arneson would let them run with it (in that sense, Arneson may be the first example of using the "Rule of Cool" in RPGs). A good thread on whether Arneson's original Blackmoor could be considered "classless" is here: http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/697/arnesons-blackmoor-classless
As to whether Sir Fang was a Mary Sue, I'd say no. The Blackmoor campaign was set up with some players who played "good guys" and others who played "the bad guys", with Sir Fang on the bad side - so the vampire trope fit the campaign setup (as Mike Mornard notes in a quote from the Havard blog post, it being the early 70s Christopher Lee's vampires from Hammer films was on everyone's mind as the archetypal fantasy/horror bad guy). On a side note, it's also pretty amusing that Van Helsing from the old Hammer films was the major inspiration for the original cleric : )
The Van-Helsing-as-first-"cleric" I've heard, and can grok.
ReplyDeleteThat Arneson's campaign was still hewing close to a wargame (two sides with a judge) is news to me and pretty fascinating.
Jon Wilson, it had wargame elements yes - but I'd say more in the "domain game" sense than "campaign as just a series of battles" sense.
ReplyDeleteArneson's game arose out of / after his experiences with David Wesely's Braunstein games (probably best described as single-character immersive games with role playing elements"). Peterson's book "Playing At The World" covers it best, but some resources if you're not familiar with the Braunstein games:
- http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/2167/what-was-braunstein-and-why-was-it-important-to-the-beginning-of-the-hobby
- http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/104/braunstein-the-roots-of-roleplaying-games/
- https://muleabides.wordpress.com/tag/braunstein/
The Wikipedia article is pretty good as far as the original Blackmoor campaign (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmoor#Early_history), and the First Fantasy Campaign published by Judges Guild gives a good feel for the mechanics and implied setting involved (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/04/into-first-fantasy-campaign-part-1.html).
Long story short.. tabletop miniature battles took place, but from a D&D point of view the Blackmoor campaign was more focused on a combination of dungeon crawling and the "domain game" as PCs founded fiefs and then warred against each other and NPCs. Greg Svenson, one of the original Blackmoor players, has provided probably the best look into actual play in the campaign:
- http://blackmoor.mystara.net/svenny.html
- http://shamsgrog.blogspot.com/2009/05/q-with-greg-svenson.html
Greg Svenson used to have his own website up that had more good play narratives, but it seems to have been taken down.
I too was thinking in terms of a broader "us vs. them", more than skirmish battles.
ReplyDeleteI've been gaming since at least 1978, and have picked up a number of tidbits about the early days over the years, but must salute your extensive knowledge...