17 March 2010

Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net

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“Buggems, no! Buggems, no!” A Modest Proposal

MAR 16, 2010 10:58P.M. MAR 16, 2010 04:26P.M.

Simply because it’s an awesome picture ... Here’s a thought: I’ll agree never to talk about how loathsome I find
ascending armor class if everyone else agrees never to complain about
demihuman level limits. Deal?

ROGUE FEED

Kiddie D&D;
MAR 16, 2010 02:34P.M.

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Gamma World Blog
MAR 16, 2010 04:37P.M.
Tim Hartin of Paratime Design, who’s hard at work on some excellent
maps of Dwimmermount, has started a new blog called Gamma Rites.
Dedicated to the 1st and 2nd edition versions of the game, the blog
already has a number of great entries. Being in the midst of some
Gamma World nostalgia myself, I’m glad to see a blog dedicated to the
game and I suspect I’m not alone in this.
One of the things one soon discovers if one is a parent is that guidelines
of “age appropriateness” aren’t the least bit reflective of the age range at
which a toy, game, book, movie, or TV show is really aimed. In my
decade of parenthood, I’ve discovered that my children, like most
children, are (generally) more interested in things that are supposedly
“above” their age category. That’s why, for example, all the books my 10
year-old daughter reads have teenaged or young adult protagonists
rather than those closer to her own age. Children have a very keen desire
to grow up, or at least be older than they actually are, and one socially
acceptable outlet for this desire is to take an interest in subjects or
activities that are deemed the province of those older than themselves.
By the same token, children also have a desire not to be viewed as
“babies,” “little kids,” and so on. And while the appropriate age listed on
toys and games may be a lie agreed upon by parents and manufacturers,
children in my experience often take it deadly seriously. If a toy is listed
as being ages 4 and up, many 6 year-olds will turn their noses up at it,
considering it beneath someone of their clear sophistication.

Which brings me to Dungeons & Dragons. When I entered the hobby, the
Basic Set I first acquired was the one edited by Dr. J. Eric Holmes, which
carried on its cover the following blurb: “The Original Adult Fantasy Role
Playing Game for 3 or More Players.” My 10 year-old self took inordinate
pride in this blurb, because, as it seemed to me, D&D was an adult game.
Aside from my friends, the main people I knew who played it were actual

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Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
adults and high school kids, which were close enough to adults to our
way of thinking. The guys down at the hobby store were of similar ages,
with a few other precocious kids like ourselves, but, by and large, the
hobby was made up of people older than ourselves.
That was, I imagine, a big part of the appeal: playing with the Big Boys.
That’s why I regularly use the word “initiation” when I discuss my entry
into the hobby in Fall of 1979, because that’s what it felt like. It was as if I
was being made a member of a secret, exclusive club and my friends and
I were among those rare few who somehow bucked the odds and met the
club’s difficult entry requirements despite our youth and inexperience.
That also probably explains why it was that we were so enthusiastic
about conforming to the gaming culture we saw around us — it was what
the older guys were into, so of course we had to get into it as well.
Flash forward a couple of years to 1981 when the Moldvay-edited Basic
Rulebook was released. It too was geared toward “adults” according to its
cover, but it added a clarification: “Adults, Age 10 and Up.” That struck
us as odd. Since when were 10-year olds considered adults? By this time
I was 12 and seeing a reference to 10 year-olds made me and my friends
worry that perhaps these new rules were somehow for “little kids” and
not “the real thing.” Still, we bought the boxed set and used some of its
rules, despite our initial misgivings, as they were admittedly clearer than
either the Holmes set we started with or the AD&D books we all owned
as well. And the Expert Rules, despite carrying the same recommended
ages was something we all agreed was very useful.
Flash forward again to 1983 when the Mentzer-edited Basic set came out.
They dropped all references to “adults,” instead opting for the phrase
“Ideal for 3 or more beginning to intermediate players, ages 10 and up.”
That small change in phrasing made a world of difference and, unlike
Moldvay, we simply shied away from the new boxed sets. We were
already deep into AD&D anyway — “real” Dungeons & Dragons — so we
had no need for another intro game and we ignored Mentzer entirely,
dubbing it “kiddie D&D,” a term that stuck because we saw many more
kids buying and playing it, most of whom were not only younger than we
were but younger than we were when we were initiated into the hobby.
(Interestingly, we either didn’t notice or ignored the fact that even our
beloved AD&D books were starting to include references to “ages 10 and
up” on their covers)
This perception of “basic D&D” — the boxed set descendants of the LBBs
— as a “game for kids” lingered for years. I avoided anything having to do
with the game line, as it was beneath me, especially once I was now one
of those high school kids who’d first impressed way back when. I realize
now that I missed out on a number of excellent products during this
period, but the perception I had was not mere prejudice; it was
reinforced by the way these later boxed sets were presented and sold and
by the ever-younger audience I saw buying them. This ties in somewhat
with the post I made over the weekend about the TSR Code of Ethics.
Clearly, TSR itself started to see D&D in all its forms as a game for
children and adapted themselves to that reality. The older market seems
to have become less important, which probably explains why, in the late
80s and throughout the 90s, most of the high school age and older
gamers I knew — the adults to whom the game had originally been
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17 March 2010
pitched — move on to other more “serious” games. I know I did.
All of the foregoing is a rambling way of saying that I think it was a
mistake to try and sell Dungeons & Dragons to kids by making it more
“friendly” to younger players, eliminating all the “adult” things that made
it so attractive to us in the first place. The reality is that a product’s real
market is almost always younger than the one you perceive it to be. Kids
have always wanted to be older than they are and they’re very quick to
see anything that’s “age appropriate” as being for kids younger than
themselves. D&D, in my view, came to be viewed as a child’s game once
TSR stopped explicitly pitching it as a game for adults. That view wasn’t
of course wholly correct but it didn’t have to be. The fact that even people
as well inclined toward D&D as myself saw the Mentzer sets as being for
kids was probably enough to keep us from buying these products and
precipitate further changes in the way the game was written, presented,
and marketed, thereby making the perception reality, at least in part,
and coloring the way many gamers would view the later history of the
hobby for decades to come.
ROGUE FEED
Dwimmermount, Sessions 33-
34
MAR 16, 2010 08:20A.M.
Owing to the travel of one of my players, there have only been two
sessions in the last three weeks. That does not, however, excuse my
having failed to post a separate entry for session 33 before now. I can
only say that I generally save writing up session reports for days when I
don’t have lots of other entries planned and since I’ve recently had plenty
of other material to write, I simply delayed — too long as it turns out —
which is why you’re getting a two-for-one entry today, even though there
are several other entries forthcoming.
The last two sessions have been heavily focused on the exploration and
mapping of two sections of a single level beneath Dwimmermount. The
first section was, as I’ve reported previously, seemingly used as a test bed
for experiments with the “azoth infusion” of living creatures, particularly
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
plants of various sorts. As the characters pressed on, they encountered
numerous strange plant creatures, many of them greatly changed as a
result of the azoth that now suffused them. This afforded me the
opportunity to introduce some mutant plants from Mutant Future into
the game and they worked seamlessly, both mechanically (of course!)
and thematically.
Having explored this section of the dungeon as thoroughly as their map
seemed to imply, they pressed on toward another section. That’s one of
the things I like about their use of maps: it makes it easier to keep track
of where they’ve been and it gives them a sense of where they still have to
explore. Megadungeon-delving without mapping isn’t something I can
really imagine, as it’d be far too easy to get lost and would likely lead to a
lot of frustration on the part of the players. I wonder if the decline in the
use of megadungeons (and, by extension, hexcrawls) is at least partly
attributable to the decline in mapping among players. In any event, I
think one of the keys to Dwimmermount’s success is the use of maps,
which make it simple to navigate the place and, perhaps more
importantly, to give a focus to each session: “We’ve completely explored
this area, but there are corridors extending here, here, and here. There’s
also a set of stairs going downward and a secret door here. Which way
shall we go today?”
Moving into another section, the characters encountered more gnolls,
leading them to believe that these humanoids have established a lair
somewhere on the level. They also encountered some more “kobolds-
but-not,” which they hadn’t seen this deep into the dungeon before.
These creatures are clearly kobolds but they show signs of having
changed in various ways — odd bony protrusions here and there,
discolored eyes, and so on. They also behave oddly, using various
implements to “repair” rooms in Dwimmermount. The ones they
encountered this time were drawing magical symbols onto the floors and
walls of a room and they seemed most aggrieved to be interrupted.
Later, the party entered a room filled with eerily well carved statues,
their faces contorted in expressions of surprise and horror. This
immediately worried them, as they expected it meant some type of
petrifying creature was likely abroad. Iriadessa in particular was worried
and decided to stay behind with some of the hireling when Brother
Candor and Dordagdonar pressed on to investigate. Using rings of
invisibility, they scouted ahead unseen. After springing a dart trap, they
came to a room that find traps indicated was also trapped and trapped in
such a thorough way as to be wholly a danger. The room’s only occupant
was hidden from view by a screen at the far end and soon reacted to the
duo’s presence — they may have been invisible but the opening door still
made a noise — by unleashing poison gas into the room. The characters
quickly fled into the corridor and used an iron spike to close the door
securely behind them.
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17 March 2010
At this point, Brother Candor decided to take advantage of his position
as “prophet of the Iron God” by returning to an earlier level and taking
control of two mechanical men and one mechanical dog that obeyed him
due to his possession of the staff of office of the high priest of the Iron
God. He took some hirelings with him and set off, leaving the other PCs
behind to guard the door to the poison gas room. While he did so, a most
amusing series of random rolls resulted in a gelatinous cube wandering
down the corridor, surprising the remaining characters and forcing them
to engage the creature in a very tight situation. Fortunately, they
prevailed and a sword (later determined to be magical) was found within
the cube’s remains.
Once Brother Candor returned, the characters entered the room ahead.
The poison gas had dissipated but there was no sign of its occupant,
which the party assumed had escaped through some hidden door. The
characters searched, finding in fact two doors out of the room, one of
which led to a chamber containing a magic-user and a pair of ogres.
Brother Candor quickly cast silence on the magic-user to prevent his use
of spells. Unfortunately, the magic-user possessed a wand, which he used
instead, as we’d previously established that wands function without the
need for speech. Nearly everyone in the party, with the exception of a
couple of hirelings and the mechanical constructs, failed their saving
throw and were feared as a result of the wand. The hirelings and the
constructs eventually carried the day, defeating the ogres and MU —
proof yet again of how useful hirelings and henchmen can be.
Two interesting things emerged from these sessions. First, I’m pretty
strongly committed to continuing the use of miniatures in the campaign.
They make combat more manageable and interesting and they add a lot
of visual appeal to the game. My seven year-old son, who otherwise
hasn’t yet expressed much interest in playing with us, nevertheless finds
the minis and dungeon blocks very intriguing. Second, the Advanced
Edition Companion is ever so slowly exerting its influence over the game.
I’ve admitted on numerous occasions that, deep down, AD&D will always
be the edition of Dungeons & Dragons for me. My choice of OD&D for
Dwimmermount’s ruleset is more about wanting to scale back
expectations and to keep complexity at a low level to start. However, as
the campaign has evolved over the last year, I’ve been slowly adding
rules and elements from the Supplements, bringing the game ever closer
to a kind of “proto-AD&D.” As it turns out, my players like this and
generally share my opinion of AD&D as the edition, so it seems likely
that, as the weeks wear on, we’ll see more “stuff” added to the game that
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 17 March 2010

brings it closer to 1e, albeit a piecemeal and greatly simplified 1e. Thank
goodness for the AEC; it’s one of the best purchases I’ve made in a long
time.

ROGUE FEED

In which we post some info on

Shadow, Sword & Spell
MAR 16, 2010 06:31A.M.

So, want to know about Shadow, Sword & Spell? Some info has been
posted. Check out the new pages.

More information and blogging about this game this week. Do not
mistake silence for lack of work, James and I are writing and finishing
this game now.