I recently posted about my views on old school “Elmer Fudd” D&D. You know, poor stated dillhole characters and meanie, sadistic dungeon masters. OK, I wasn’t really ranting or anything. But that kind of pre-1st ed. retro OD&D play just seemed like it was caveman stuff as a gamer, and wasn’t something I really wanted to revisit in any major way. My D&D had long since gone from low fantasy to high fantasy (although as far as reading fiction I still preferred Lankhmar and Cimmeria over Middle Earth). Characters in my ongoing game world became more like champions hanging tough in the face of dangers and horrors, rather than the pathetic, bumbling Fudd’s they were when I started with the little brown books as a kid.
Sometime last fall I had signed up to do an OD&D session, the “White Box” plus Greyhawk, at a monthly game day thing. I don’t really know why I did, but maybe I just wanted to see who would show up for that at an event that more current Pathfinder type games were going on. And hell, I usually practically phone-in my 1st edition games for my ongoing group, so why not try a session of something really easy? Anyway, those plans fell through due to other obligations, and who knows if anybody would have shown interest anyway.
Well, some Southern California dudes in the online gamer community have been putting on a small yearly game day gathering in Anaheim that they are calling “Minicon,” and I threw my hat in the ring to do some OD&D next month. Why not my beloved 1st ed? Well, maybe mostly because I have house ruled the hell out of my AD&D, and I just have a fear of seasoned gamers not being down with my changes for one reason or another. These would be guys who know the game by the book much better than me, and I find that intimidating. I haven’t exactly made a lifelong study of the DM’s Guide or anything. Hell, I probably started most of my house rules long ago because I was too lazy to look some things up.
Anyhoo, my player list for that evening session in August filled up almost right away, so there is no real turning back now. But never fear, despite the irritating lack of any real cohesive combat/movement rules in the White box and Greyhawk, everything else about it is so easy peasy, so I can focus on making the dungeon crawl interesting. I’ll get three times as much actual gaming in with OD&D compared to a typical 1st edition session where so much character crap comes into it, some nights you barely get a combat in. More often than not I try to run it like some weird, greek psycho-drama.
I’m really starting to look forward to a barebones, truly old school session just to see how it turns out.
And I may even get a practice session in. Last night while waiting on Andy’s patio who was running a bit late, I talked to Paul and Terry about the White Box and Greyhaw that I happened to have on me at the time, and spoke on the differences between it and 1st ed. They didn’t know much about those brown books (Terry had some youthful experience with one of the basic box sets from the 80’s, and Paul is pretty new to tabletop altogether), and seemed enchanted by the idea of taking simple, hubris-free characters right into a dungeon grind with little set-up and fanfare. So, with a couple players possibly missing the next couple of weeks, next session may just have to be a quick dungeon delve using the notes I’ve prepared so far for the session next month.
And I’m going to approach it in a Fuddist fashion. OK, I’m not huge on deathtraps (and exploding cigars). That’s for Edgar Allen Poe stories and episodes of the old cheesy Batman TV series. But I’m going to make the characters be rolled with 3d6 in order (mostly), and I’m going to take an “odds are against them” attitude with the other stuff in the dungeon. I’m going to have a humiliating surprise or two in store at the lower levels. Who knows, maybe after decades of coddling the character who enter my world like precious little children, I’ll teach myself a lesson and become a jerk DM again like all of us old schoolers started out. As you may have gathered from some of my previous posts about my ongoing AD&D, I obviously need to give my players a serious bitch-smack. This may be the venue to get back on that road. “Be vewy vewy quite, I’m hunting pwayer characters. - hnn heh heh heh heh heh.”
