jtanzer
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 01 Mar 2023
Posts: 132
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 Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2025 8:59 am Post subject: |
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I’m using both 1e and 2e REUP as my guides for my ‘crawl projects. During my readings, I cam across this statement on pg 28 of the 1st edition core rules.
| 1E Core Rules wrote: | | The first generation of roleplaying games didn’t provide any hints on how to gamemaster, and everyone managed to puzzle it out anyway. |
Contemporaneous RPGS, like O/AD&D and B/X, were incredibly good at teaching new GMs how to GM. This was, in fact, part of the reason D&D became the industry standard, and WEG SW didn’t. Consider the following procedure from pgs. 8-12, Underworld and Wilderness Adventures of OD&D:
| Arneson & Gygax wrote: | 1. You can move a distance based on your speed and encumbrance per turn.
2. Non-movement activities also take up a turn or some fraction of a turn. For example:
ESPing takes 1/4 turn.
Searching a 10′ section of wall takes 1 turn. (Secret passages found 2 in 6 by men, dwarves, or hobbits; 4 in 6 by elves.
3. 1 turn in 6 must be spent resting. If a flight/pursuit has taken place, you must rest for 2 turns.
4. Wandering Monsters: 1 in 6 chance each turn. (Tables provided.)
5. Monsters: When encountered, roll 2d6 to determine reaction (2-5 negative, 6-8 uncertain, 9-12 positive).
Sighted: 2d4 x 10 feet.
Surprise: 2 in 6 chance. 25% chance that character drops a held item. Sighted at 1d3 x 10 feet instead.
Avoiding: If lead of 90 feet established, monster will stop pursuing. If PCs turn a corner, 2 in 6 chance they keep pursuing. If PCs go through secret door, 1 in 6 chance they keep pursuing. Burning oil deters many monsters from pursuing. Dropping edible items has a chance of distracting intelligent (10%), semi-intelligent (50%), or non-intelligent (90%) monsters so they stop pursuing. Dropping treasure also has a chance of distracting intelligent pursuers (90%), semi-intelligent (50%), or non-intelligent (10%) monsters.
6. Other activities:
Doors must be forced open (2 in 6 chance; 1 in 6 for lighter characters). Up to three characters can force a door simultaneously, but forcing a door means you can’t immediately react to what’s on the other side. Doors automatically shut. You can wedge doors open with spikes, but there’s a 2 in 6 chance the wedge will slip while you’re gone.
Traps are sprung 2 in 6.
Listening at doors gives you a 1 in 6 (humans) or 2 in 6 (elves, dwarves, hobbits) of detecting sound. Undead do not make sound. |
I don’t know about you, but that is extremely specific about how to run a dungeon-crawl. Not only that, but you can also generalize this very procedure to run any other location as well. Justin Alexander notes this in his blog post “Game Structures – Addendum: Why System Matters”
| Justin Alexander wrote: | | “The other interesting thing here is that Arneson & Gygax pair this very specific procedure with very specific guidance on exactly what the DM is supposed to prep when creating a dungeon on pages 3 thru 8 of the same pamphlet. (These two things are conjoined: They can tell you exactly what to prep because they’re also telling you exactly how to use it.) Take these two things plus a combat system for dealing with hostile monster and, if you’re a first time GM, you can follow these instructions and run a successful game. It’s a simple, step-by-step guide.” |
He’s right, and WEG is very, very, wrong. Early RPGs did have some incredibly specific procedures about how to do very basic tasks, like ‘crawling. Justin then goes on to make this statement, which speaks to the heart of my gripes and issues with WEG SW.
| Justin Alexander wrote: | But the step-by-step instructions for how you’re actually supposed to use this material? It simply… stops. The designers clearly expect, almost certainly without actually consciously thinking about it, that how you run a dungeon is so obvious that even people who need to be explicitly told that they should read the boxed text out loud don’t need to be told how to run a dungeon.
And because they believe it’s obvious, they don’t include it in the game. And because they don’t include it in the game, new DMs don’t learn it. And, as a result, it stops being obvious.
(To be perfectly clear here: I’m not saying that you need the exact structure for dungeon crawling found in OD&D. That would be silly. But the core, fundamental structure of a location-crawl is not only an essential component for D&D; it’s really fundamental to virtually ALL roleplaying games.) (Alexander, 2019) |
WEG clearly believed that a) everyone already knew how to run location-crawls, and therefore saw no need to write down the exact procedures for doing so, and b)that GMs would be able to generate their own methods for doing so. Of course, this leads to it’s own set of problems.
| Justin Alexander wrote: | “Paradoxically, this blindspot not only strips structure from RPGs by removing those structures; it also strips structure from RPGs by blindly forcing structures.
It is very common for a table of RPG players to have a sort of preconceived concept of what functions an RPG is supposed to be fulfilling, and when they encounter a new system they frequently just default back to the sort of “meta-RPG” they never really stop playing. This is encouraged by the fact that the RPG hobby is permeated by the same meme that rules are disposable, with statements like:
• “You should just fudge the results!”
• “Ignore the rules if you need to!”
A widespread culture of kitbashing, of course, is not inherently problematic. It’s a rich and important tradition in the RPG hobby. But it does get a little weird when people start radically houseruling a system before they’ve even played it… often to make it look just like every other RPG they’ve played. (For example, I had a discussion with a guy who said he didn’t enjoy playing Numenera: Before play he’d decided he didn’t like the point spend mechanic for resolving skill checks; didn’t like XP spends for effect; and didn’t like GM intrusions so he didn’t use any of those mechanics. He also radically revamped how the central Effort mechanic works in the game. Nothing inherently wrong with doing any of that, but he never actually played Numenera.)
As a game designer, I actually find it incredibly difficult to get meaningful playtest feedback from RPG players because, by and large, none of them are actually playing the game.
And these memes get even weirder when you encounter them in game designers themselves: People who are ostensibly designing robust rules for other people to use, but in whom the response to “just fudge around it” has become so ingrained that they do it while playtesting their own games instead of recognizing mechanical failures and structural shortcomings and figuring out how to fix them.” (Alexander, 2019) |
This, to me, is the fundamental problem with the GMs here on the Pit. Most, if not all, have come from an O/AD&D or B/X background, and thus don’t realize what WEG SW is actually missing (and how much work they’re actually doing as a result). However, because they came from that particular background, and thus already know how to run common game structures, this is less of a problem for them, than it is for a new GM, like me.
My first game of 5e was a complete disaster – I had no idea of what I was doing, and it showed. I also quickly realized that I didn’t understand what I was doing, and started looking for answers. I wasn’t really finding them until I stumbled across The Alexandrian. Sadly, school and work have prevented me from getting back to RPGs, however, I do hope to get back to them someday.
This disparity in experience can sometimes lend itself to creating a “boy’s club” mentality, where those who already have those skills allowed in, which can result in those same people inadvertently withholding those same skills from newer GMs. This is because those older GMs believe that those skills are universal, in large part because the people they associate with also have those same skills. What they miss is that the newer GMs don’t have those skills, and therefore make ‘rookie’ mistakes, act out, and generally make ‘weird’ decisions largely out of ignorance of what is actually important to the skill of GMing.
So what does all of this have to do with each other? To put it quite simply, System Matters. The game system, is more than just a collection of rules to be overwritten or discarded as the GM sees fit, but rather it is a collection of rules that work together to provide a consistent framework for the GM. However, those same rules can also place undue burdens on the GM’s shoulders. This can be from their presence – as in the case for Justin’s first attempt at hexcrawling – or their absence – such as in the case of SW and every other modern RPG.
References
OD&D Dungeons & Dragons Original Edition (0e). DRIVETHRURPG. (n.d.). https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/28306/od-d-dungeons-dragons-original-edition-0e
Alexander, J. (2019, September 6). Game structures – addendum: System matters. The Alexandrian. https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/43568/roleplaying-games/game-structures-addendum-system-matters
Alexander, J. (2012, April 12). Game structures – part 8: The importance of Clean Structures. The Alexandrian. https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/15176/roleplaying-games/game-structures-part-8-the-importance-of-clean-structures
Alexander, J. (n.d.). The alexandrian. The Alexandrian. https://thealexandrian.net/
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The best villians are the ones the PCs create. |
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