A Cornucopia of AD&D Goodness

It was my intent some weeks ago to go page by page through the AD&D books and comment on them as I go. Well, two things threw me off track. One was a real world matter--job promotion, lots of stuff going on there; the other was my growing commentary on almost each and every sentence of the DMG. I mean I hadn't gotten much past the table of contents and I was already stacking up my own pages of commentary. Exactly how was I ever to finish this if my thoughts ran on ad infinitum in response to each phrase Gary wrote down?

Well, the project deserves continuance, so I'm picking up the threads here. I'm not sure I'm gonna go about this like I have been or not. I don't know if brevity or expansiveness is best. So here I take a step back. I'll quote each area that struck me, and try and give a sentence or two of my thoughts in relation to these quotes from the original works. See, the real problem is that the words of the AD&D canon have so much to say, directly and implied to the current modern gaming world that we really should all go back and read the works for ourselves. I suppose I'm coming at it from the perspective of a lover of these works, and an avid aficionado of the AD&D game. Others, not so partial might not find the depth I inevitably uncover, but ah well--not everyone appreciates the Classics.

So without further ado, I present thoughts from the Table of Contents and the Preface to the Dungeon Masters Guide.

Table of Contents

• Note that the Table of Contents is laid out in exactly the same order as it is in the PHB. And that this order is intentional as a work of reference as mentioned before.
• Appendices and Tables are also clearly laid out and listed in the ToC as well
• The claim has been made that the organization of the material in these works could have been better, but actual use of the ToC shows how good this organization was for the first edition of a reference work.
• If you jump ahead to the preface he addresses this issue by saying he had done his best. He was breaking new ground with this work and extending it like it had never been done before.

Preface

• A rare view into the building of a game by the designer himself.
• Paragraph 2 makes the astounding claim that these works are the last and ultimate authority among a very creative and opinionated bunch ie gamers. 
• The need for uniformity in certain rules
• In class expression
• In abilities
• In problem solving approach
• That treasure and experience are held near a mean
• All in order to avoid Monty Haul or Killer Campaigns

• "With great risk comes great reward"
• "Intelligent play will give characters a fighting chance of survival"
• The DM is considered to come first, as he invests the time and retains mastery over the campaign
• Players, however, come in a close second and have a great responsibility for the success or failure of a campaign
•  The rules set down herein are "parameters" not strict rules
• What Gary is setting down and explaining in his preface is a rationale for the choices he's made for his rules. And that this is the most loosely stated structure he could make and still give just the level of complexity required to "conduct a campaign ... of the game 'world'".
• By the time he wrote this preface Gary and his fellow gamers had over 9 years of gaming experience. D&D had exploded onto the hobby scene and they had seen just about every manifestation of gaming problem occur and be resolved to one degree of success or another. In other words he had seen it all before, faced it and addressed it. It is folly and at the boldest hubris to think we are so much smarter than he and the early designers were. 
• He is essentially urging us to live with the level of unrealism and what some have called wonkiness because these are "essential to the system". Recall that he said AD&D "was a project which involved varying degrees of my thought, imagination, and actual working time over a period of more than a year and a half." And, I would add, much, much more play than that. Gary knows what needs to be in the system and doesn't make these choices arbitrarily.
• Two of the most common charges, attacks or complaints in fact are answered by Gary in this very Preface:
• Why class restrictions?
• "in order to give a varied and unique approach to each class when they play, as well as to play balance."

• Why race restrictions?
• "because the entire game would be drastically altered if it were otherwise."

• AD&D is carefully engineered to give a certain type of gaming experience. Screw with certain aspects of it and you change the whole game. The whole experience is different. And we wonder why so many old schoolers are dissatisfied with later iterations of the game.
• Everything "in the AD&D system has purpose."
• Either we believe him or we do not.
• Yet he also notes that a DM can bend just about everything in the game. And he urges us to "Read the work (or both works if you are a DM) through and assess for yourself what AD&D really is."
• The "true guidelines" as he calls them are the most minimal foundation for a "superior D&D campaign." Assuring us that all else has been left out as superfluous.
• Gary was always thanking the fans for their contact, support and questions. Gail his widow has also stated Gary loved it when fans would express thanks to him and D&D for inspiring them in their college studies, professions and life callings. His thanks at the close of his preface speak as much to that as anything.

Rest assured that Gary did not develop AD&D in isolation. It was his ultimate expression of the game. But as mentioned earlier he had faced all of the common problems known to gamers today. Alternate methods had been theorized, playtested, rule changes experimented with, different ways of doing things attempted. Gary knew what worked and what didn't work in order to achieve the Spirit of what AD&D is. Notice that Gary didn't say or imply that AD&D was different for whoever plays the game. Clearly there is AD&D and NOT AD&D. The rules he included by and large encompass that. This is something Gary returns to again and again in his work Roleplaying Mastery; that there is Spirit unique to AD&D and changes to the system must be undertaken carefully or else you will be playing something that is not AD&D.

It is within his preface, written once his trifecta was finally complete, that he urges us to read and play and discover the Spirit that is AD&D. My question for you is: Have you found it or have you lost it?

D&D 6e

I've written about this before, but I was reading an interview with Monte Cook that not only brought it to mind again but also confirmed some of my worst suspicions about editions of D&D under WoTC. The article was lamenting the early and in their opinion unnecessary release of 3.5.

What Monte says is that 3.5 was released way too early. He says 3.5 was scheduled to be released in 2005. And that is when it hit me. 2005?! That was only 5 years after D&D 3e! And they were already planning on releasing a new edition. The interview also says that the basic model follows a thought that once they release all of the core books and available splat books, it's time for a new edition. They didn't follow this model with 3e and they assume, it is because they didn't want to revise everything in the planned 3.5 release.

Now I know that some of this interview can be ascribed to bitterness on the part of Monte, that his edition wasn't given a fair shake. That the new edition was released too soon. But even so the official plans were a max run of 5 years! Which means right from the start there was a five year business model for producing D&D editions.

So check it out:

2000: D&D 3e
2003: D&D 3.5
2005: scheduled release of 3.5
2007: D&D 4e is announced
2008: D&D 4e (Note that this is 5 years after 3.5)
2010: D&D Essentials is released
2012: D&D Next is announced
2013: D&D Next due at at GenCon (5 years after 4e)

Which means that D&D 6e is due out in 2018. and if I want to be really prophetic I would say that some major modification to 5e is due out about 2015/2016.

Yeah, you know I really don't care what they are saying about this will be the edition to unite all editions either. When asked directly if this would spell an end to edition making Mike Mearls really refused to answer directly. 6e will be out by 2018. You can bet money on it. And if you are gonna play D&D you will be paying that money directly to WoTC.

You may ask why I'm choosing to bring this up. I mean I've written similar rants before and this is pretty much common knowledge. Well, let me tell you. 5e is just a little bit alluring to me. It looks, well, somewhat interesting. And I'm just gullible enough to buy some of the rhetoric involved in this new edition. But even if it is a decent new game, and it will be a new game regardless of the rhetoric, I don't relish the idea of buying into a game that is only planning on being supported for a max of five years. Sorry Wizards of the Coast, that business model just lost me.

Advanced Hackmaster Players Handbook

I finally laid down the greenbacks for this puppy. And man, even the PDF is a work of art. I can't wait to get my hardcopy. But reading this has even made my reperusals of the AD&D books take a back seat for awhile. I will take the time to do a play by play occasionally--I'm not really a very good review writer, but I'll do my best.

What I want to say right now is WOW! Holy freakin', wet my pants WOW!! This is the best rpg book I've read in I don't know when. No, this is the best freakin' BOOK I've read in I don't know when. Why don't I play this game again? What is wrong with me?

I've gotten through the race section and into classes and am realizing why I love Hackmaster so much, every time I read it. It reads almost exactly like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons but more fun to read, and more detailed than the 1e books were. It has the old school flavor of my gaming style down pat, and that familiar feel I am so much in love with.

Just a few highlights, beyond those I've mentioned in the past, which are well preserved here (the ethos, the tone, the zero to hero scope, etc):

I love the racial descriptions. The Grel stood out to me in particular as I was least familiar with them. I hadn't recalled them standing out so much for me in HM 4. But their description as a sort of warmongering-psycho-wild elf type was absolutely engrossing in the new book. The Grel purpose due to their background and history in relation to the other elven races truly came to life for me. I would love to game with this race in my world. If I have a player brave enough that is. I also love the HM take on Drow, which is much more apropos (imo) of the role they played in the elf wars. And if you think about it much more serial killer in mentality. The tortured, reclusive, misunderstood types that turn to the shadows, and torturing small animals to feel good about themselves. Much more drowlike in my opinion.

And I'm thrilled to see that Gnome Titans and Pixies made it into the core book (though pixies are in the appendix). These were two HM staples I didn't want to see left out. just strange enough, just over the top enough to suit my gaming style and carry that HM tone home.

I also love the idea of having Knights and Paladins specialized classes that can only be taken by higher level fighters after proving themselves worthy. This concept (I wonder) was borrowed from the 1e UA Cavalier types that had to stat at up to negative third level before they hit first. This made so much more sense to me--even though in the UA it was mainly tied to social class--than just giving a first level PC all that power. And it keeps these classes special. So few will get to these heights, that when and if they do it will really mean something. I mean by the time a PC is a Pally, he is some butt kicking kind of awesome. Though he might be a bit of a pain with all that massive honor, prestige, and strict code of conduct strapped on tighter than his armor. But this, I say was a brilliant move.

Lastly, and more generally, I have to say how much I truly feel at home with this book. I mean it has become very much its own game, Hackmaster. It did that really in the the original game, and in large part due to the flavor it took on through the pages of KODT. There always being an interchange of rules, inspiration and game development back and forth between the game and the magazine. And as pointed out in the history of the game, Advanced Hackmaster came about not only due to the expiry of the license, but also because the game had grown to need it's own expression of rules. The AD&D framework was just a bit unwieldy for what HM had become.

When I first read this, I'll admit to feeling a bit disappointed. I mean one of the reasons KODT and HM were always so awesome, was because they were based on AD&D. But even AD&D didn't quite capture the essence that was the HM world. HM had begun to symbolize and embody a certain style of play, certain assumptions about what was right and wrong with gaming, what was good and bad in the RPG world. And it made a bold stand and statement based on a view of old school principles. Hard hitting, no holds barred real life or death gaming. Balls to the wall, riding the edge, and laughing maniacally all the while. That was gaming in the HM multiverse. Now, admittedly it was not the only way to game. And AD&D could certainly be played in lots of other ways. And some might argue that AD&D wasn't the perfect tool for this expression anymore. Hence the rewrite of HM.

But you know what, HM feels like home to me. Feels like home almost more than AD&D does. HM has always captured a certain feel of gaming that I was always very much at home with. It was the way I gamed. So even though HM has broken some new ground in rule development, especially with their fast paced, gritty and realistic combat system (the biggest stumbling block for some people) it suits that style of gaming better than anything has yet done. And yet, it still is very true to its old AD&D roots, with the assumptions of the game built into the spirit of that game by the founders themselves.

It's just a damn good book. And it looks like a damn good game.

I've been bemoaning my fate lately of not having players to play with. And with a recent promotion possible at work it looks like I may not even have my school club anymore. It was time to take action. My gaming possibilities were slipping away from me. So just yesterday I started to gather some guys together outside of my school club to start playing a long term game in our neighborhood again. Some are teenagers, but two are adults (father and uncle of some of the teens). I'm very interested in playtesting HM, to get our feet wet, and see how the combat system really runs. It's the one thing that is newest about the game and so requires some getting used to.

Yeah, we could play AD&D or Castles and Crusades or even give 5e a whirl. But for how long now have I been ogling Hackmaster. Every time I read a HM book new or old, read my KODT issues, or get on the KCo site I'm wanting to play HM so bad I can taste it. So that is where we'll start.