Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary of Blackmoor and of Role-Playing!
Today is Part 76 of my series on OD&D, with The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Vol. 3.
**For those coming in, in the middle of this series I am giving you my take on OD&D during my first exposure starting in Sept of 1975. For this first part it is just the first three books of the original woodgrain box set and prior to obtaining the Greyhawk, Blackmoor and later Supplements.**
Today we wrap up The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Vol. 3:
This is one of the very first things that I revised in the game. I ran it as you regain one hit point per full night of sleep, if you are sleeping in comfort (a well padded surface) then you will heal two hit points and for each 24 hours of bed rest you regain 3 hit points.
This makes sense if you are doing three things:
However, in my gaming I was running only one group all the time, so I had no need to sync up time between groups and between players. Everyone was on the same timeline by default. We gamed twice per week for four years.
Since I did not have to worry about syncing up time several thing changed. One is that actual time and game time were no longer tied to one another. In a eight to twelve hour game we might go through anywhere from a week to six or eight weeks of game time.
We would travel to a dungeon and then make descent after descent into the dungeon for days on end, until we were ready to return to civilization.
When we went on a Wilderness expedition, we might be gone for weeks or even months. On a couple of occasions we were gone over a year on an expedition.
So I just kept track of the passing days in game and never worried about the connection to IRL time. If I had been running multiple groups it would have been needed, but as it was it did not matter.
I think this paragraph is too little thought about. Read those first two sentences again. They knew what they did and did not put into these rules. There was thought put into what was and was not included. Hindsight is 2020 and criticisms are IMO misplaced. Take yourself back to 1973 and this going to be published in January of 1974. I think those that want to talk and act like, "Well, if it had been me, I would have done a better job of putting those rules together." Really if you were the first to write this game you would have done it better? That is IMO called hubris! Quite frankly, I do not believe that any of the people who criticize the writing and the organization of these three books, could have done as well, let alone have done it better had they been there back in the day.
They state that they "attempted to provide an ample framework." I say they succeeded brilliantly! They state that the "building should be both easy and fun." I say it was for me, both easy and fun!
They said, "the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way." I say I never once considered writing them and asking for rule interpretations, it would IMO have violated the whole premise and for me it would have interfered with the fun.
They said, "but why have us do any more of your imagining for you?" I say indeed why? Many seem to want the imagining done for them, but I think those of us who do not want others to do our imaging for us, I think we are the ones the original game was truly written for. We are those who are referees first and foremost, who love to create our own worlds and fill them with our own creations.
Do not get me wrong, I love all of the players I have had over the years and those in the years to come for as long as I live, but these rules were not written for the players, the rules were written for the referees. When I do my part and bring my world to life, my players do not need to know the rules, they just need to show up and immerse themselves in the exploration of my world and I will handle the rules behind the curtain. One of my jobs as the referee is to make sure that the rules do not get in the way of the players fun. Anytime the players need to think about the rules, that hinders their fun, the deeper they are immersed, the more they are there living and breathing and walking about in this imaginary world that has been brought to life so that it lives and breathes and moves!
Today is Part 76 of my series on OD&D, with The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Vol. 3.
**For those coming in, in the middle of this series I am giving you my take on OD&D during my first exposure starting in Sept of 1975. For this first part it is just the first three books of the original woodgrain box set and prior to obtaining the Greyhawk, Blackmoor and later Supplements.**
Today we wrap up The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Vol. 3:
This is one of the very first things that I revised in the game. I ran it as you regain one hit point per full night of sleep, if you are sleeping in comfort (a well padded surface) then you will heal two hit points and for each 24 hours of bed rest you regain 3 hit points.
This makes sense if you are doing three things:
One - you are gaming every day or nearly so.If all of those things are true then, it is important that everyone stays on the same time line as he indicates below.
Two - you are running multiple groups in the same area or same dungeon.
Three - at any given gaming session, any player could be in any group.
However, in my gaming I was running only one group all the time, so I had no need to sync up time between groups and between players. Everyone was on the same timeline by default. We gamed twice per week for four years.
Since I did not have to worry about syncing up time several thing changed. One is that actual time and game time were no longer tied to one another. In a eight to twelve hour game we might go through anywhere from a week to six or eight weeks of game time.
We would travel to a dungeon and then make descent after descent into the dungeon for days on end, until we were ready to return to civilization.
When we went on a Wilderness expedition, we might be gone for weeks or even months. On a couple of occasions we were gone over a year on an expedition.
So I just kept track of the passing days in game and never worried about the connection to IRL time. If I had been running multiple groups it would have been needed, but as it was it did not matter.
I think this paragraph is too little thought about. Read those first two sentences again. They knew what they did and did not put into these rules. There was thought put into what was and was not included. Hindsight is 2020 and criticisms are IMO misplaced. Take yourself back to 1973 and this going to be published in January of 1974. I think those that want to talk and act like, "Well, if it had been me, I would have done a better job of putting those rules together." Really if you were the first to write this game you would have done it better? That is IMO called hubris! Quite frankly, I do not believe that any of the people who criticize the writing and the organization of these three books, could have done as well, let alone have done it better had they been there back in the day.
They state that they "attempted to provide an ample framework." I say they succeeded brilliantly! They state that the "building should be both easy and fun." I say it was for me, both easy and fun!
They said, "the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way." I say I never once considered writing them and asking for rule interpretations, it would IMO have violated the whole premise and for me it would have interfered with the fun.
They said, "but why have us do any more of your imagining for you?" I say indeed why? Many seem to want the imagining done for them, but I think those of us who do not want others to do our imaging for us, I think we are the ones the original game was truly written for. We are those who are referees first and foremost, who love to create our own worlds and fill them with our own creations.
Do not get me wrong, I love all of the players I have had over the years and those in the years to come for as long as I live, but these rules were not written for the players, the rules were written for the referees. When I do my part and bring my world to life, my players do not need to know the rules, they just need to show up and immerse themselves in the exploration of my world and I will handle the rules behind the curtain. One of my jobs as the referee is to make sure that the rules do not get in the way of the players fun. Anytime the players need to think about the rules, that hinders their fun, the deeper they are immersed, the more they are there living and breathing and walking about in this imaginary world that has been brought to life so that it lives and breathes and moves!
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