D&D 1E AD&D- The DM Player

Reynard said:

Most of them are hard pressed to read their character sheets or spell lists, let alone the actual rules.

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True that. I often joke (although it's a true story) about the player who advanced his fighter to fifth level, and then one day asked the group, "What is this 'second wind' I have written on my character sheet?"

Then again, I am in a PbP right now, and when I was reviewing my character for some edits, I realized that I had gained uncanny dodge a little while back when I leveled and had forgotten about it. So ....

I've had this saved on my hard drive for years

Snarf Zagyg said:

So now we get into the more contentious area of skilled play; the issue of metagaming. If you look above to what James Ward wrote (and what others say), you will see that there is an evolution in play. Bob I might get killed by traps below him, so Bob II looks down, but gets killed by traps above him. Bob III looks above and below, but gets hit by traps to the side. By the time Bob IV is rolling through the dungeon, he's looking up, down, and all around.

But wait- why is Bob IV doing that? Because that's how Bob I-III died! And how does Bob IV know that? Because the player knows that. Sure, you can retcon some sort of reason ("And the news of the deaths of all adventurers shall be read out in the Ye Ancient and Hallowed Halls of Bob...."),

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There's no need to retcon anything (with one exception, see below) as it can all be explained in-game with trivial ease.

Bobs I-III were running with a party of other PCs (and maybe some NPCs as well), weren't they? And some of those other characters would have seen the deaths of the various Bobs and learned from said deaths what to do and not do; and could then pass that acquired knowledge on to their new recruit Bob IV.

The exception, of course, is a TPK where no knowledge remains to be passed along; but IME those are amazingly rare provided someone in the party is willing (and able) to flee.

Lanefan said:

There's no need to retcon anything (with one exception, see below) as it can all be explained in-game with trivial ease.

Bobs I-III were running with a party of other PCs (and maybe some NPCs as well), weren't they? And some of those other characters would have seen the deaths of the various Bobs and learned from said deaths what to do and not do; and could then pass that acquired knowledge on to their new recruit Bob IV.

The exception, of course, is a TPK where no knowledge remains to be passed along; but IME those are amazingly rare provided someone in the party is willing (and able) to flee.

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I was being facetious. I don't think that anyone ever cared about the reason. Skilled play assumes that players are playing a game, and that the players can use their own skill when controlling the character. See also riddles.

That said, I am thinking of adding Ye Ancient and Hallowed Halls of Bob to my next campaign.

I always felt that the admonition to frown on player knowledge could be taken too far. It would be for each DM to judge, but I think there would be a degree of folk knowledge about certain monster, spells, magic items etc. and it would be OK for players to display this.

Like, if I asked a person from Earth how to get rid of a vampire or werewolf or zombie or whatever, I wouldn't find it odd if they knew about stakes through the heart, silver bullets, shooting them in the head and so on. And many people might know even more ways to deal with creatures from folklore. And those monsters aren't even real.

I assume that people who live in a D&D world, where monsters are very real, might also possess common knowledge about a monster's weaknesses to a degree. I think it's something that could be explored in play with some fun results.

Mark Hope said:

I always felt that the admonition to frown on player knowledge could be taken too far. It would be for each DM to judge, but I think there would be a degree of folk knowledge about certain monster, spells, magic items etc. and it would be OK for players to display this.

Like, if I asked a person from Earth how to get rid of a vampire or werewolf or zombie or whatever, I wouldn't find it odd if they knew about stakes through the heart, silver bullets, shooting them in the head and so on. And many people might know even more ways to deal with creatures from folklore. And those monsters aren't even real.

I assume that people who live in a D&D world, where monsters are very real, might also possess common knowledge about a monster's weaknesses to a degree. I think it's something that could be explored in play with some fun results.

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Indeed. If I really want my players to be ignorant of a monster's weaknesses, I can re-skin it. Just give it a different appearance.

Trying to make players police their own knowledge when it comes to this sort of thing is for the birds.

James Gasik said:

In a lot of discussions about AD&D (1e, for you purists out there!), a repeated concept is the idea of "secret rules". Things players were not meant to know. Whether it's your precise chance to hit (at least before the publishing of the Player's Screen in '85), or not telling your Assassin that he can train to become a master of brewing poisons, there seems to be this clear line of demarcation between what players should know, and what DM's should know, as evidenced by Gary's comment (presumably in jest?) about any player reading the DMG is deserving of a less than noble death.

Not going to get into the philosophy of that here, but what I find myself asking is, were DM's never supposed to play the game?

Because the instant one learns how to be a DM, by reading the DMG and running adventures, they now know all this stuff. Was it just assumed that anyone who had this information would simply pretend not to, sort of a gentleman's agreement, or was it assumed that all DM's would be "forever DM's", and once you "graduated", that was that?

I highly doubt the latter would be the case, since Gary himself played the game!

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I took this as Gygax being extra ultra super duper bonus esspecially amazingly careful pristine as the newly fallen snow as a Christmas morning and clear as a pane of freshly Windexed glass that this was not meant for the people who would be PCs. I don't think he thought any further ahead to a time when people didn't want to be the DM anymore but play instead. He was more worried about people buying the book who weren't going to DM, thus setting into motion the age old problem of the game being played by people who mostly only needed one of the three core books.

Gygax had views on refereeing that were very finicky, at least in print.

I never fully understood Gygax's 1e DMG until I spent a summer running a weekly open table for up to 12 strangers at the local fantasy gaming store. Things made a lot more sense then compared to my experience of running for 4-6 close friends.

Also the way to understand Gygax's contradictions is almost always to assume that Gygax is admonishing to avoid two extremes. "Don't do this" but also "Don't do [the opposite]". So he'll say things like "Don't give the players an even break" and also "Be fair but firm", and so forth. And when he seems extreme it's because he thinks the middle way is much further in one direction than a novice GM might think.

Celebrim said:

I never fully understood Gygax's 1e DMG until I spent a summer running a weekly open table for up to 12 strangers at the local fantasy gaming store. Things made a lot more sense then compared to my experience of running for 4-6 close friends.

Also the way to understand Gygax's contradictions is almost always to assume that Gygax is admonishing to avoid two extremes. "Don't do this" but also "Don't do [the opposite]". So he'll say things like "Don't give the players an even break" and also "Be fair but firm", and so forth. And when he seems extreme it's because he thinks the middle way is much further in one direction than a novice GM might think.

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The book is also a bunch of cobbled-together notes and essays written over a couple of years, which he and Tim Kask assembled into a book without (as far as I can tell) any kind of outline or real plan. There are a lot of things in there that only make sense once you've read OD&D and seen the simpler concepts he was riffing and elaborating on.

James Gasik said:

Not going to get into the philosophy of that here, but what I find myself asking is, were DM's never supposed to play the game?

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It is a bit of a Soft Yes.

The Default: You get a typical group of people together to game, and everyone wants to be a player. No one wants to DM. There are always many players looking for a game.

And this has been always true.

A DM, in 1E, was a bit more separate from players. DMs were a few and proud group. Not everyone can do it, and more so many did not want to do it. For a lot of DMs, once you get DMing in your blood, your a Forever DM. You don't really feel the need to play the game as a player.

And sure about half of the players would always step up and want to DM. And half of them can do it....and the other half crash and burn.

Or, as a Ye Old Book once said:

Being a DM is a lot like magic. When people go and watch a magic show, they are amazed and filled with wonder. All the magic tricks look so real and believable. And even with people knowing that it is a trick, they are still amazed and shocked. And a big part of that is nearly all people can not figure out how the tricks are done. It's a mystery to most people. And for most people, they don't want to know how the magic tricks are done. Once a person knows the secrets of the trick, the magic is gone. Once you know how the trick is done, it's not a 'trick' anymore....it's just an action.

And being a DM is similar. Most players love to have a good game...to just sit back and relax and not think too much and have fun. But on the DM side, it takes more effort...even work. But players don't want to know that or see that. Again, knowing the DM did or did not do an action for a reason ruins the game. Nearly all players love that feel that the game "just happens" without anyone really doing anything.