Early DnD was a open-world tabletop MMORPG

[@QuestingBeast]

Patreon: bit.ly/QBPatreon Old-School DnD newsletter: bit.ly/TheGlatisant FURTHER READING The Alexandrian on The Open Table: thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1223/roleplaying-games/opening-your-game-table Zzarchov Kowalksi on Running Multiple PCs: www.patreon.com/posts/everything-you-34162490 PAGE REFERENCES Large Numbers of Players OD&D - Men & Magic p. 3 Multiple Parties OD&D - The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures p. 35 AD&D - Dungeon Masters Guide p. 37-38 1-to-1 Time OD&D - The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures p. 36 AD&D - Dungeon Masters Guide p. 37 Multiple PCs AD&D - Dungeon Masters Guide p. 111

[@midshipman8654]

Great to hear about this again! Are you planing to continue your AD&D DMG reading videos? I enjoyed them.

[@garhent]

Something like that was possible though back in the day when the game was new, there was a severe limit of DM"s and a lot of players who wanted to play. Its gotten now where there are a bit more DM's than there was in the mid 70's. A good video to watch on the history of gaming in the mid 70's is Matthew Colville's channel and look up: interview a DM: Jim Murphy.

[@geoffreynelson6413]

Wow...the idea of strongholds being a way to keep out other players, not in your party....wow. The idea that they could show up at your castle and steal your stuff or burn it down or whatever.....I always thought of strongholds as kind of vanity license plates, sort of ego jewelry, but this makes so much more sense. My mind is completely blown.

[@Leivve]

If you ever wondered why Wizard players would try to put their towers in strange places like Limbo. This was also why. Don't want a rival group helping themselves to your stash of magic weapons.

[@ryhmorhaz]

@@Leivve And the Leomun'ds Secret Chest spell makes sense now

[@SymbioteMullet]

So many tables have a "generally no pvp" rule that it would never come up. Interesting that GG assumed always on PvP!

[@4saken404]

@@SymbioteMullet This is a little different though because it can be done without killing someone's cherished PC. Think how cool it would be to storm someone's castle while they are away! And think how cool it would be to design your own in order to prevent the same kind of thing. Also: this gives a meaningful purpose to all that gold that characters acquire. It not only has a use but the treasure itself is now a source of story arcs. Even "useless" things things like works of art found on treasure tables are now important. Imagine coming home and finding your place ransacked and then on top of that you're like "And those a**holes stole my favorite painting, too!?!" 😄

[@SymbioteMullet]

@@4saken404 the players make dungeons and are the dragons (with horde!)

[@isolationdisorder]

I’ve been playing Tabletop RPG’s for 41 years, and what you are talking about here has always seemed obvious to me. It’s interesting that this stuff has now been around so long that this type of information has been somehow “ lost” and is now being “ rediscovered “ by new players. The things that happened in my games 40 years ago are the lore of the world now. Many parts of my game world are of my own creation, but much of the worlds lore is made up of events from actual games where/ when the things happened. Just like real history.

[@GeryonM]

Its obvious because you understand the roots of 1E. Like you I started in the early 80s, 83 I think. I read everything I could about it and the roots of D&D were fascinating to young me. Every table was a different planet with similar mechanics.

[@Marshcreekmini]

It's because we're old. Watching younger players and DMs figure this stuff out is fun...

[@GeryonM]

@@Marshcreekmini true. I wonder if they've figured out that 5th edition means there are 4 very others? If I had to be stuck with one it would be second. But I would still like to sprinkle a bit of 1st into it. Everything afterward seems like Wizards were trying to capture some aspect of a computer game. Or card game in the case of 3rd edition.

[@luizurtiga]

I don't think it's "lost", besides the players fighting each other, pretty much everything he says is what happens in the official wotc adventures league (which is the complete opposite to the "osr philosophy"). For everyday played you get a week off, you probably play with a different table each week, you can create a new character whenever you want...It's just something that comes with playing with a lot of people

[@GeryonM]

@Nat Smythe I didn't play 4th because I already had a WoW account. Likewise I never played 3rd because I already played Magic The Gathering. As I read that players handbook everything I was reading in the spell section began to read like MtG cards. It was bizarre on my part until I had heard that Wizzards were trying to develop an RPG about the same time they bought TSR.

[@goyasolidar]

The Gygaxian definition of a campaign was essentially what we experienced in high school. We played in the afternoons in the school cafeteria after class where three DMs ran separate games for a pool of about 30 players. Different modules were being run concurrently, but they were all mutually set within Greyhawk, and characters could sometimes migrate between games being run by different DMs if circumstances and level allowed for it. To that end, everyone had a "main" character that was being leveled up and geared to the utmost, and it wouldn't be out of place to do a lot of horsetrading between games for magic items that someone else had acquired which they weren't too keen on using. To keep things straight, trades were actually tracked in a ledger indicating the item, where it had come from, and who currently had it (e.g., ring of regeneration, Vault of the Drow encounter key 12, Dave). This system broke down eventually as maintenance of the ledger slacked off, and as soon as that happened people started lying about where they had gotten their stuff. It all spiraled inevitably into Monty Haul territory, but fortunately that happened in the closing months before we graduated so the games were coming to an end anyway. It was a weird and wacky time, and I loved every second of it.

[@Syndicate_01]

We did some really similar stuff back in high school too, except we played in a conference room attached to the library.

[@paulll47]

Wish rpgs were that popular in my country growing up, man 30 people? we barely managed to put together 4 dudes and a gm to play Vampire revised.

[@AllisonIsLivid]

This sounds ideal.

[@tyler1673]

They discovered the ultimate magic item dupe glitch

[@SergioLeRoux]

Haha, no, that's just straight up savegame editing.

[@sumdude4281]

Update. This video saved my game. I've been running a character specific campaign for years and as people drop out due to time constraints etc. that campaign would fall apart b/c it was tied to backgrounds. I've now got Western Marches style campaign and started tracking time based on real time (Strict time kept). If I have time to DM people can show up and play if not then not. In between when players are not playing time doesn't stop and players need to spend cash on life style and give me an idea of what they've done with their DOWN TIME. JUST BRILLIANT. Doing this with Keep on Borderlands. Players had to adjust form 5e and it was tough but its worked out so well. They have multiple characters, and so if someone is injured they play the other characters. They've also learned to love classes they didn't think they'd like. Just wow.

[@jonathanreece4151]

As someone that played at that time: yes. Exactly. Often this was done in a club with many people, who would be in and out of play. Also, frequently you had multiple DMs, who would sometimes be players in a different party run by a different DM. And characters that would sometimes be run by one DM and sometimes by another DM -- all very common things. This was a part of why AD&D was becoming more formalized, so that you could have a bit more consistency between different DMs vs. the old "white box" experience in these massive campaigns. Oh... and where it changed? Dragonlance.

[@vincejester7558]

In Central Florida, in the mid 80s, I had the opportunity to play in the "Cess Pool", a genre and system spanning campaign that encompassed LOTR, Dr. Who. and Monty Python (Michael Ellis was a rogue Timelord). It was run by a guy who owned a used book store. Huge number of players. Almost always somebody playing 24/7.

[@jonathanreece4151]

@@vincejester7558 Yes, exactly the sort of thing you'd see in old school games. I recall someone that ended up with a small fleet of Battlestars.

[@vincejester7558]

@@jonathanreece4151 I had a paranoid space marine. I didn't get to play often, but my plan to seed planets with Stasis locked shock troops with Bolo tanks actually became a major turning point in the campaign. I heard from some of the players that an entire galactic invasion was headed off this way. So many players and so much actual lived lore really made playing in or hearing about that campaign something special.

[@priestesslucy]

How exactly did Dragonlance cause such a sweeping change in how people played?

[@grizzlyb9984]

@@priestesslucy i would imagine just like lotr, except dragonlance was tied to dnd. Dragonlance was probably extremly popular and when players saw that the characters are in kind-of-dnd they went "Can we do that?? Can we please do that??". Or mabey it was like CR. People saw them and then looked for dnd to do exactly that.

[@LordOz3]

A few years ago, I played in a campaign with two competing parties. The "bad guy" group was newer players, save for myself as kind of a mentor, while the "good guy" group consisted of characters from an existing campaign. The players assumed the clues and tales of the other group was a group of NPCs, until the campaign climax at a local convention - where the two parties faced off, fighting until they learned the big bad had been pitting them against each other. Then they teamed against the BB and his forces. I played in both parties - and no one had a clue until the GM addressed me by the other character name. In the newbies, I played a warg "barbarian" who made no decisions for the party, existing to fight and eat, while I provided the new players rules/mechanics advice. In the "good guys", I took a back seat and supported the majority on decisions while playing dumb. The looks of shock was proceless.

[@OliverLeaverSmith]

I've seen the "open table" concept living on in West Marches type campaigns. Some sort of Adventurer's Guild where whoever shows up to play is included.

[@4saken404]

Also it seems like the older I get the more important scheduling becomes as a priority. 😅

[@OliverLeaverSmith]

@@4saken404 100%, my kids have a more active social life than I do!

[@justinbell7309]

I was gonna make the same comment. West Marches campaigns are basically just this, though I haven't seen many that use the "game time is real time" rule he mentioned, which I think it pretty neat.

[@thorinpeterson6282]

The best D&D experience I ever had was at an open table run in the main library in my town. A guy was running an open B/X game, and the experience of being a newcomer to a mixed level party was eye opening and extremely impactful on me. I was a 1st level Magic-User in awe of the 5th level fighter and his flaming flail. I've been trying to recapture the sense of wonder that campaign evoked in me ever since.

[@priestesslucy]

Open Table?

[@peterjones1517]

@@priestesslucy I think an open table is like anyone can just walk in and play in any of the sessions, without having any pressure to show up next session

[@HereComeMrCee-Jay]

@@priestesslucy he describes it in video!

[@ldl1477]

This "shared world" also seems to help answer one of the big RPG questions: "What's the point of it all?" We've got a small group that's played on and off again since the 2nd half of the 90's. Early on it was all XP, and magic items, and levels. Then it turned to things like storylines and completing quests. Nowadays, it seems like the biggest motivator is poking at the other players. Things like hiring that NPC out from another player, or falsifying a marriage declaration between player #1 & player #2, all while pinning it on player #3. Yeah, levels and storylines matter, but the longer we play, the more satisfaction we all seem to gain from ribbing and spoofing the other players.

[@sertaki]

That's an interesting evolution of play dynamics xD

[@fishgun604]

One thing that's nice about needing to end the session in a safe place is that with the real world time pressure you put pressure on the players to speed up their decision making.

[@BrentARJ]

I feel like it would also light a fire under those players who otherwise just don't feel like getting off the couch on game night and flake out at the last minute. Hey, that's fine, but we're leaving Rando the Murder Hobo in the storage room and if he starves before the next session, that's on you, guy.

[@ProfBoggs]

@@BrentARJ Rando the Murder Hobo is a well-known PC.

[@catmungandr]

Is it just me or is this idea perfect for actual play groups? A great incentive to complete a whole dungeon in a session. Multiple parties competing each inevitably with their own fans. The world on real time... twitter updates detailing where the enemy army had reach and tragically sacked in the mean time, political responses to PC activities... it wouldn't even need to be huge. 2-3 parties would be more than enough to create an incredible sense of tension and live in world.

[@paavohirn3728]

This could be awesome!

[@colbyboucher6391]

Oh, 100%. A subset of this style of play is the "West Marches" campaign (look up the original blog posts, it's actually missing some of this information but very similar principles) where the world is uncharted and players actually need to map out the world, and something they discovered was that parties were running around essentially *competing* to figure out where the really good stuff was before anyone else found it, and after sessions people would start chatting online like "dude, there's some crazy stuff up in the mountains" or outright lie about what was at a location to throw other parties off of a trail. Wild stuff.

[@ILoveEvadingTax]

I just love the idea of getting some sweet loot and leaving a message or a trap for the next party to razz them about it, i'd be giggling about it for weeks

[@wg7297]

This would be so awesome

[@SymmetricalDocking]

Holy heck the social pressure this creates for players to not miss a session! "I know I'm not feeling well but Gandrax has been stuck out there for weeks!"

[@gcook725]

This also makes the concept of there being only a certain amount of high level characters for a specific class (such as for druids) make even more sense. The first player or players just have to seek out and usurp NPCs, but following playera have to seek out OTHER PCs to usurp the position of.

[@timchapman3484]

As someone who started with Holmes and played what ended up being a hybrid of Basic, Greyhawk/Blackmoor, and 1e (as the books came available), I think your analysis is sound, and sums up how we understood the game was to be played back then. For example, what we understood to be a "campaign" in those days would mean "world" to players now. We'd never imagine "ending a campaign" because it would have meant, to us then, ending the world in which the characters existed, and the DM having to come up with a whole new one. Your analysis here made me realize that when more modern players/commentators talk of ending a campaign, they mean something different, that one series of connected adventures should come to a logical conclusion, and a new one begun. Thank you.

[@williamlee7482]

Players these day consider a campaign a huge adventure with plots sub plot that all leas to an end fight with some boss monster . I've bern playing since 1978 and a campaign lie you said at that time was the world setting where the adventures took place not some grand long adventurer where the players are railroaded along the Dm's story line

[@priestesslucy]

@@williamlee7482 not necessarily. There are modern campaigns like that, but there are also modern campaigns that are linked merely by the party of adventurers who form bonds and work together for the duration (which I've recently discovered is another thing that wasn't much of a thing in Old School... Everyone involved in the OSR movement I talk to about it online makes it seem like the characters are moreso game pieces than people being roleplayed.

[@williamlee7482]

@@priestesslucy What they are talking about is playing with new groups of people because many old school osr players used to hop around game stores at times to get a feel of how others are playing the game and to learn new DM tricks . Some would stick to their original store and play in groups of up to 10 sometimes on the weekends . I would be playing in 2 diffrent stores and also playing at my local boys club at times but with personal friends we played together at home and our characters stuck together until we reached max level then retired them and made new ones and yes we role play our characters . When it comes osr players playing their characters as game peices that was in the very beginning of the hobby . Buy as time went on people started roleplay their characters and it was for the first few years (5-8 years) because in the 1980s is when the game got really popular and more rpg's were being created that more stores started poping up in many cities . Every store here in South Florida 90% of the players and Dm's play exactly like I've said and know nothing about sandbox/open world play at all because most Dm's try to be Matt Mercer . In Broward county alone there are dozens and dozens of stores and most if not all players stick to one store and play with one group yet they all play d&d the same way . Unlike in the 80s most Dm's lack the creativity to step outside the box and be original and only play from adventurer books and don't make their own adventures . At the store in coral springs Florida where I worked we had 5 groups of d&d players that only played the curse of Strad or the Forgoten Realms adventure ( it had to close a few years back due to the owner having to take care of his mother full time in New York ) and they all ran their games the same way by the book . A campaign isn't a module/adventure book it the setting where they take place that's how it was when we started playing and many times we made our own campaign settings but if a campaign setting caught our eye we would play in it . I've ran many homemade campaign settings and ran only 3 pre made settings , The World Of Greyhawk , The original 1st edition Forgotten Realms and Dark Sun which was my favorite . Nowadays it's very rare to see anyone with a homebrew campaign or who use house rules it's over 90% by the books that wizards keeps pumping out . And there are way to many classes, races , feats and optional rules that most players demand their DM use and they do yet there is no cohesion or logic as to why there are all those thing in the game so to it becomes a muddy mess of a game . Right now there are around 28 to 30 book in price from $35 to $50 mist of which besides the adventure book are basicly wizards house rules on races ,classes , feats and house rules all of which a creative DM could do themselves . I have 3 folders with my homebrew things ranging from created classes to classes and house rules . My race and class folder has campaign specific races and classes in it but some of them are generic in that I allow those certain races and classes in my game . What I'm really trying to say is that Dm's of today need to be a bit more creative in their games and no do much cookie cutter game play , take the rules and add what you want , remove what you don't like because at the end of the day it's your game

[@WikiSnapper]

This is almost exactly how I run my campaign. I had 36ish players before the pandemic. Not all of them have gotten to the point of comfortable gaming again but it will happen eventually.

[@googleuser9009]

The advantage of gm-ing for antivaxxers lol

[@WikiSnapper]

@@googleuser9009 My brother lives with us, and he has scaring in his lungs from a chlorine gas bomb his base got hit with in Iraq. So we have been seriously cautious about Covid from the beginning.

[@jettolo]

what is funny to me is that in my young age i played D&D exactly like that, becoming older i always thought was the wrong way to play, a "childish game" made of competition and low RP elements. Nowdays i felt guilty for remembering with joy those past times, but now that those lost rules come out, i'm very confused, but pleased

[@spacerx]

I still believe that the big sea change that happened in D&D in the late 70s and early 80s was the influx of fantasy fans into the game. D&D started off in a wargaming milieu, but when people started becoming interested in the game because they were fans of fantasy fiction and hadn't been involved in the wargaming scene at all. While there was certainly some element of people not understanding how Gygax meant the game to be played in some quarters, I think a much bigger factor wasn't lack of understanding, but rather deliberate rejection of that style of play because that's not what the players wanted. These fans of fantasy fiction always wanted the result of the game to more resemble the fiction that they were already fans of. The more the game resembled that, the happier they were. The less the game resembled that, the more they were turned off. This is why the Hickman Revolution had so much traction. That was what the player base had been demanding all along, and once designers came along who understood that, it really changed the nature of products because there was so much pent-up demand for something that WASN'T like the kind of game that you describe and more like the kind of game that we're all used to now.

[@0ptikGhost]

I started D&D in the early to mid 90's and was not exposed to OSR D&D (yeah, I do not consider 2e OSR) until much, much later. As a result I never fully experienced pre-Hickman D&D. I always felt there was something missing, off, or otherwise not quite clicking about the D&D games we played. Nearly all of the people in our RP group felt the same way. Whenever we placed too much emphasis on DM-led story nobody enjoyed the game. Games were much more fun whenever the DM simply provided world as backdrop and the player characters interacted with the backdrop. Nobody really knew what the story was nor were it was heading and that included the DM. The best DMs I played under either completely invented the world piecemeal as we played or pre-created their world in so much detail they could handle any situation that occurred naturally. For our group, the Hickman Revolution actively hurt how we wanted to play. The result was we eventually stopped playing. I'm not saying fantasy literature or other story mediums were not used as inspiration for our games. We played games inspired by The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars, Lovecraft, as well as Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft. We just very rarely used adventure modules as they constrained us much more than a DM with a solid understanding of their world and the ability to improvise and world build in real time. Sadly, I never acquired that gift so all the games where I was DM were very lack luster. In any case, perhaps a large portion of the possible gaming market demands Hickman-style story-based adventuring but I'd imagine they just have never played with a really talented DM yet. In my case, Hickman-style story-based adventuring didn't help me become a better DM.

[@spacerx]

@@0ptikGhost I started playing in the 70s and something always felt off until I started making massive changes to the system on my own, and more importantly, massive changes to the assumptions about what the game was about and what the PCs would actually be doing. D&D never made any sense to me as it was originally played, because I can't imagine how people have any fun playing that when there are such better alternatives. In any case, I agree with most of what you said in terms of my personal gaming except for the implicit assumption that "DM led stories" is what I'm talking about. Binary thinking is tough, I guess, but there are actually more than two playstyle options available, believe it or not. But what I'm talking about is the HUGE, HUGE, HUGE popularity of adventures and even adventure paths/campaign which suggests that that's what customers actually want from the game. Not sure why pointing out that you don't personally want that has any bearing on that observation. Solipsism can affect anyone, I suppose

[@justinbell7309]

I'd argue that this conflict would have never arisen had people actually paid attention to what Hickman was saying though. His "revolution" advocated for far more nuanced and minor changes to gameplay than what we eventually saw. I have always found it funny that in his manifesto he specified plots taking one to two sessions to resolve. Not 20+ over a year, just one or two. In his original vision, the plot and storytelling elements were never suppose to be too grand in scale, but kind of a quest by quest sort of ordeal. Started implementing this smaller scale story telling in my campaigns, and my players response has been positive. I give them bit sized stories they can invest in in the short run, and get to build on their actions to fuel others or to expand on the ones that resonant. Makes the game feel more responsive to their agency, without it feeling overwhelming to DM. Plus, bigger plots can get woven into the background without dominating most sessions.

[@sertaki]

There's players and fries for each playstyle. I had a lot of fun running games which were a series of quests and events that built upon each other as you describe (but definitely longer than two sessions, some subplots went on in the background for months). Buti also have fun running long pre-planned campaigns or even published adventures paths (especially for call of Cthulhu). And i had players who enjoyed both, but with different preferences. Basically, no playstyle is "the correct one", you just need to find what you enjoy.

[@claude-alexandretrudeau1830]

@Spacer X Makes sense. The place where you draw your audience from will shape the hobby. Fantasy fans reinvigorated sales, but demanded campaigns that resembled fantasy novels in exchange. And now, with a history of lumping video games, comic books and anime together at conventions, the shape of 5e doesn't surprise me at all.

[@JB0528]

After 3+ decades of off and on building a gameworld, I can say that this concept works really well. I do still keep my gameplay to the old school rulesets, although move freely between BX, 1E and 2E. I have had characters find an old corpse that the players came to realize was one of their previous characters who had to be abandoned where he fell. One of my own old characters is now an NPC who runs a shop in a major city. There are family names based off of the characters of old players who I lost touch with. I've been toying with 3 different primary timelines in my world - one which happens in the "current" times, one set about 20-40 years ago (in which most of the playing in this world actually happened) and events set thousands of years in the past in which many of the accepted practices in the modern world simply don't exist. Along the lines of some spells having never been developed. Far less organized churches and much more shamanistic style clerics. I have briefly considered a future timeline setting to introduce more modern concepts like the multitude of races and classes available in 5E, but mostly I enjoy running these worldbuilder style games and occasionally having a PC become a renowned legend, whether it be globally or regionally.

[@isawamoose]

Exactly what I aspire to bring to my table! The ending in safe zone is trouble concept for my players yet doing so would lend well with the bi weekly miss of a player.

[@kgoblin5084]

One other observation on having multiple PCs: it also solves the inevitable problem where game night ends with 1 party stuck in the middle of the dungeon... that party can still be there, & the 1 player who shows up for both nights can play an alternate. Of course, the real-time rule causes additional problems with mismatched dungeon length to game sessions.

[@mn0]

Very insightful and eye-opening. This stimulates the creative juices. It's like a massively multiplayer offline role-playing game.

[@benvoliothefirst]

I'd argue it's the first one!

[@richaellr]

Ah yes, the MMOFFRPG

[@kalisvarkrom9937]

I started playing AD&D in 1980. My players an me crated a complete world. I took an old globe and re-painted with new lands, from small islands to new continents. At first I used lands from TSR modules and some other roll playing games like Palladium RPGs. But as this world grew. We created new lands with are own names. I have played with many people through the years. More then I can count. Some my first players are still playing the game with me to this day. Sad to say, but some of my best players have passed away in just past few years. Yes we are old, but we love the game. There are some they just want short adventures, and move on. But many of my friends created Character that clamed their own lands to become Lords over them. Some even became Kings and Queens. I have six filing cabinets drawers full of paper work, my friends and me made. They list all the lands, cities, towns, etc. and the people who live there. I have copies of every character, each and every player made, that ever played AD&D within this world that my friends and me created. We call the planet, Delmonca. What I want to say is. AD&D is what you want to make of it. You want your player to to enjoy playing the game. When you are the DM, you need to watch your player close and learn what they like about the game and give it to them, yet at the same time make them work for it. You will find some play to find wealth, some will play for the battle, they want to win. it makes them feel tough. There are those that want to be most power wizard in the land. I have one player who loves the stories I create about the people who live on Delmonca. He keeps the best notes of all those who play. Some times I may forget something and forgot to write it down . Not him. I can looks at his notes to remind me. Through the years we have come up with our own rules for some parts of the game. The new D&D is ok and we have some of the rule books for it. But after over 40 some years of playing the game, we will stick to the rules we are accustom to. May you and others find D&D as much fun as we have.

[@iofish__]

This is a game changer. Honestly i feel like OSR makes so much more sense now. Multiple PCs per player is a convincing reason for me to believe that PC deaths would actually be fine in a campaign. Also i can see how having time pass between sessions really helps pacing - i can't believe i've never heard of this. Plus - in dungeons, if you only have one party of players, you can just agree to pause time until the next session.

[@colbyboucher6391]

Yeah, there's a reason the OSR focuses a lot on PCs being easy to just "roll up" rather than the modern thing where people have huge backstories n' stuff. A fun modern twist on the old way of doing things is Dungeon Crawl Classic's "funnel adventures" where everyone generates at least four level 0 characters, literally just an angry mob of peasants, and forces them through some incredibly cruel Indiana Jones nonsense to see who's lucky enough to become your "real characters".

[@commandercaptain4664]

It'd be interesting to pause a campaign, depending on player attendance, to run side oneshots in flashback format. Those who attend will still gain more XP during the one-shots, and when the campaign resumes, they have new abilities they didn't before the pause. Of course, there would be XP variance between PCs, but I don't care about that and neither did AD&D. Another alternative, as stated in the video, would have two sets of PCs, one for the campaign and another for oneshots, both depending on attendance.

[@maul42]

OSR rules may make for having multiple expendable PCs, and yet at the time it took so much time and care for a character to survive and level up that it still made for a virtual tragedy when a well-worn, higher level character died.

[@colbyboucher6391]

@@maul42 100%, but I think that it feels way more meaningful and less lame when it's a character you've become attached to through gameplay, rather than a character you're attached to because you just spent half an hour putting everything you need on the character sheet and *really* don't want to do it all over again.

[@brycemcewen6146]

@@colbyboucher6391 the main problems with dungeon crawl classics Is that eventually you get bored of making a new character even ,10 minutes even once you leave the level 0 tunnel

[@nifftbatuff676]

I love the persistence of the world in the old D&D. In modern video games, when you exit a dungeon and go back in, every monster and treasure have been respawn.

[@FortunaMajorACappella]

I tried replicating this a few years ago with my home table; each player had three or so PCs that they would flip through. Calendar keeping was ARDUOUS, but incredibly vital to the campaign's success.

[@The_Custos]

Double-entry book keeping? A huge calendar?

[@FortunaMajorACappella]

@@The_Custos Both! I had a big calendar spreadsheet for the broader stuff and kept more detailed timekeeping in my session prep notes. I'd check through to make sure everything was accounted for and the timelines matched.

[@Paddyhammer444]

Essentially dnd was not originally designed to be this weird story-telling, role-playing game that it has become. It was designed to be essentially a board game. You roll a random character, play for achievable objectives (money and experience), compete against your friends, you are dealt a hand and play competitively to win the chips. The ambitious part of the game was that the game was played across multiple tables and that the DM had to do so much work but even that was intentionally subverted by releasing adventures and dungeons and such. The game was essentially like those juicy Warhammer campaigns they would run in White Dwarf magazines in the 00s with the hex tiles and dozen odd players, all the stuff that made it into the Dawn of War games. Im glad that dnd has become what is has since I much prefer the "fantasy storytelling game" concept to the "competitive Conan simulator" but learning about this stuff really helps contextualise why dnd feels so much like an unweildy frankenstein sometimes and clearly describes why WotC cant seem to figure out what their own game is about. Most of us don't know what the game is actually about or what it was designed for, why should the company that acquired it?

[@user-jq1mg2mz7o]

I wonder if there's a way to square both the 'fantasy storytelling' and 'conan simulator' aspects more fully than the products released by wotc (i suspect many OSR titles have attempted this competently). it would probably require DMs and players to have a much more different mindset to what is the dominant thinking both then and now

[@biobasher]

​@@user-jq1mg2mz7o Probably something akin to most live service games currently, seasons

[@liamcage7208]

I started playing AD&D in 1980. To this day we always roll up 2 characters when starting a new campaign. We played AD&D largely the way you described it but to a smaller scale with 4 core players + DM and about 4-6 casual players rotating through each session. It was not uncommon to have 6 - 8 players + DM at the table at a given session. Player Deaths happened EVERY session (no such thing as death saves). Although we play a high bred OSR & Pathfinder 2e these days many elements of those old games are still part of our games today. Some of the original guys still play 40 years later but we have mostly young adults at the table these days who's first exposure to TTRPG's was D&D 5e. The new style of story driven play with more emphasis on role playing is good too. The game has evolved for the better over all but the old style of play is still a major influence for us. The old game style was nearly extinct but thanks to the popularity of OSR games like Dungeon Crawl Classics a semblance of the old days is kept alive. (OSR is simplified rules in a dungeon crawl setting, not quite the same as AD&D and the Gygaxian model but close).

[@charlemagne5445]

Holy shit. This is so mindblowing to me. Thank you for the video!

[@danielrowan4716]

Ben - I really appreciate your coverage of the Old School / 1e ADnD materials. The 1e original books are very dense and information is extremely poorly organized but you’ve hit the on the intent. Gygax’s vision was very far-ranging and I have always built my campaigns not simply as a series of set pieces for the party to run thru but as a living, breathing world where the PCs exist. I try to create a sense that they live in the campaign world and that it functions all beyond their activities. This approach has really worked for me and my group since the late 80’s. PS - I would love to see you complete the table read of the 1e DMG. It’s a true labor of love.

[@DungeonMasterpiece]

You know, I've always treated my game worlds as disposable so I have an excuse to make a new one every two years. I might dig one back out and polish it to do this. I'm glad you raised these points in this format. Something I always "knew" was there, but never really had it stated in this way to properly absorb it.

[@QuestingBeast]

Thanks Baron!

[@thac0twenty377]

Turn every world you made into a country and have them interact.

[@sertaki]

Maybe turn them into a multiverse seeing and set your next game as a planehopping adventure with a big planar hub?

[@nickhancock589]

We always used something of a hybrid of the two time-keeping styles. When everyone is tired and the session needs to stop in the middle of an adventure, even mid-combat, time simply stops. We generally do it that way until we finish the latest delve or journey. We do downtime at that point, and the DM has enough time to pass to suit the needs of the players and the campaign. The Company of Thunder is building a stronghold, then we spend a few months of calendar time taking care of the minutia off-screen, as it were, and once the grunt work is done, we go on another mission for the king. Multiple groups rarely run in the same world during the same period, and when it happens, they are in different regions, so the time problem isn't too big a deal. The usual outcome of multiple groups is that some people drop out, and the groups are merged into a solid group of regulars. The only time I've been part of this, I ended up with the same group that has gamed together for Almost thirty-five years. Our main DM has a world that he created back in the earliest days of D&D. Once, while traveling overland, we encountered a nest of giant wasps. Once we were victorious, we found a nice haul of items from the dried husks of previous victims. This was the outcome of a TPK that had happened almost fifteen years prior. This is campaign milieu style D&D at its finest and most rewarding.

[@thattrickydude]

This video was a masterpiece. I've been playing D&D for 25 years and this taught me so much. It's actually given me a ton more respect for original D&D and I already idolized it. Thanks for this great analysis and explanation.

[@Uatemysoul]

What's funny is that throughout the years our D&D group has just been building onto the same world without even really thinking about it. My first Rogue died to giant weasles, later when I ran the same mod for a different group of players they find his corpse, half chewed, his armor and weapons stripped. My second character an assassin, went on to become the leader of the assassin's guild in his home town and got a dimensional cube that let him start a fruit stand in Sigil. I've used him as a fixer, as well as both playing and using his kids as PCs and NPCs. The Dwarf that was in our first party went on to start a chain of taverns called paddledorf's and has become very successful and features in many of the games our group plays. My mage had a son with an elf woman and went off into a dungeon to never be heard from again, his son I played as a sorcerer, at the start of 5e, Is still looking for his lost father. In our game's cannon the Doomguides were all but destroyed. I played a paladin that reformed them, and then played his adopted son, passing the torch. Characters that our group played for upwards of 4 years are still being used, My GF needed a spellbook for an 8th lvl wizard, rather then make her come up with all the spells one of our other regular players DMing the current game was okay with me handing her my wizard's spellbook. Including a number of homebrew spells. We incorporated it into her backstory that she found it one day. So it begs the question is this a copy, or did my character lose it. The last campaign, I was running was a mix of the starter sets, I was using 5td and running the dragons, of the peak and vally. My group ran off into the forest to find a group of orcs hiding out in the keep up north. just cut cross country. We ended the session, but I thought if I ever started it up again I would prefer to do so with new characters hired by the town to find their lost town officials. From characters that just kinda faded into obscurity to ones that became prominent in their own way. Never really kings or queens that's not our style, but guild leaders, assassins, local mages, craftsmen, barkeeps. Our characters left a mark on our version of faerun. This stuff has all spanned over multiple groups, multiple DMs, never really 50 we live in a pretty rural area, but definitely upwards of 30, not exactly intentionally sometimes. Our resent Forays into OSRIC have really had us playing a tad differently. And I hope to continue and take those rules to heart.

[@The_Custos]

That's a way to do it.

[@MacDhomnuill]

+1 for use of Picaresque! This style of play is pretty much how I ran games (TMNT, Traveller, Fasa Trek, and Cpunk) in our high school gaming club 89-93. Players changed week to week and sessions needed to wrap up in a 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Focus was on the "world" and once in a blue moon two groups would team up for a big event. We had a couple GMs and about 15-20 players.

[@note4note804]

This is genuinely the first time I've heard any of this, and it makes the mean and unfair aspects of old school dnd way more palatable as a fun game experience.

[@thac0twenty377]

leveling was a lot more satisfying

[@archersfriend5900]

What was mean or unfair?

[@claude-alexandretrudeau1830]

@@archersfriend5900 Basically, the assumed rivalry between PCs and death at every corner.

[@archersfriend5900]

@@claude-alexandretrudeau1830 that's what makes it a game and not a story.

[@arphod]

​@@archersfriend5900 Well, save vs poison or die, for most poisons. Level drain from undead didn't allow a save. 3d6 for stats, in order, straight up. The list goes on. Much more hardcore game.

[@jatelitherius9842]

I’ve been running AD&D & only 1e for 10 years+ now, since high school, & these lessons seem so natural & normal to me, it’s funny to hear them from an outside perspective

[@kenmcnutt2]

That was a very good description of the mindset of early D&D. When I create a campaign, it's an open sandbox as much as possible. If the players don't know what they want to do, I can gently nudge them in one or more directions. A true railroad is when the party only has one choice. Always try to have more than one option open to your party at all times. I had one player that insisted he wanted to play an evil character. He created an assassin but didn't realize the contract he was filling was on one of this other characters until it was too late. I kept everything in the same world until the campaign was over. One campaign lasted for a year and a half in real life and the characters got to level 18.

[@adamjchafe]

This video blew my mind. I am 100% putting the time between sessions into my next game and will probably encourage a stable of characters as well. Absolutely fantastic.

[@Leivve]

Once a player has investment in a few characters you also open the door for higher lethality; since you don't need to justify *their* character not dying; cause they are already invested in another character who can take their place, either seeking revenge, or wanting to prove themselves the better; whatever. Having more then one character you're excited to play takes a bit of the sting out of a character dying.

[@Hemlock2323]

This is how I always Dm'd the games. You couldn't always expect the same players to be there when the game was on and it was up to me to fit the story to who did show up. It made the game world much more organic and the actions of one weeks gamers would affect the game for the next players who showed up at the next session. Definitely kept me on my creative toes.

[@RockyTorres43]

I was once asked to DM for a shop, once a week, regardless of which players had shown up. I implemented some ideas like those talked about in the video: The more consistent players had at least 2 PCs: the "main" PC, which they would' use when only them were present to move the plot foward, and a lower-leveled "alt" PC, which they would use when other (more irregular) players show up, mostly to perform side-quests that added flavor and background lore to the campaign. To make my life easier on the story front, all the PCs were members of the same guild of mercenaries and were sent on missions more or less designed to be finished in one session. I kept track of time and gave downtime in between missions. We had even planned to take turns DM-ing "story-arcs", all within the same world. I left that table due to personal issues some time after covid happened, but still remember that campaign fondly and hope to run or play in another campaign like that sometime in the future.

[@scottpankhurst9775]

Hey! You just described what we run here in Sydney, Australia! It's was exciting to see you explaining our exact concept that we have been running for nearly 3 years now. We run as Awakened Fables and we're on our way to releasing our first setting book later this year. We average around 45-60 players a week all playing in an interconnected loving world! I'd love to talk with you more about it if you'd be interested!

[@retrodmray]

This video really reminded me of how I did that back in the day too, and how I ran it with other DM'S in the 90's as well, in college, in 2nd Edition! Great look back, Ben... thnx 👍

[@SiriusMined]

That's how I've always played it. the group running through my Greyhawk campaign is living in a world that's been changed by the previous groups. Started in 1983.

[@KorumEmrys]

This is why players in my campaign have spent 43 of the past 47.5 years I've been DM'ing/Playing Creating 5 Characters when they enter into My/Our Campaign. They create 1 - 3rd level character, 2-2nd level characters, and 2-1st level characters. The Guidelines for these Characters are as follows: No More Than 2-TWO Characters Of The Same Race Or Class Or Alignment. None Of the Characters May Be Of Evil Alignment. Players must participate regularly in the group for a minimum of 12 months Real Time Before Being Allowed to Play an Evil character. Alignment is Fairly Strict in My/Our Campaign. This is to be sure they are capable role-players and are able to work with the group effectively and properly before an evil alignment may be considered for a new character.

[@Syndicate_01]

This is super fascinating to me, that this style of gaming is considered more rare/esoteric/what have you, because it's actually how I spent most of my time playing D&D. I'm not sure that I realized we were in such a minority this whole time. So I was the only DM in my high school class back in the early-mid 2000s (USA here, New England). In my school at that time, the metalhead and nerd "cliques" had huge overlap, and when I started a 3.5 campaign, about 12-15 people wanted to play. What ended up happening was I had two separate parties that focused on different things happening in that world at that time, (my campaign was about the Blood War spilling over onto the prime material plane, given the number of 40k players and metalheads I hung out with, they specifically wanted something almost Grimdark). About 6 months into the game, another one of my friends wanted to run a game in this world, and so a 3rd game started, and we kept playing until the summer after we graduated. That summer, I joined up with another gaming group at my new university, and long story short, from 2006 until around 2013 (when the main DM moved across the country to get a degree in game design), we had 4 DM's running games within one persistent world. Before a new campaign within this world kicked off, the DM's would get together and collaborate to ensure that their stories didn't contradict existing canon, and so on. Games took place at different points within the timeline of the world, but the main DM was the only person who was permitted to "advance" the timeline. The Main DM also had veto power for major plot points of other games, ("No, you can't explain the origin of that Ancient Great Wyrm, I'm covering that in my current game in a few months.") Our main DM is still running games in this world to this day on the other end of the country, and references events that occurred in games that ran all those years ago. A fighter I played in 2006-2007 is now some pseudo-mythological figure with a military academy named after him, etc. We had probably over 40-50 different people who have played well over 100 different PC's in that persistent world. I think one of the main reasons that the games worked out like this was because probably 2/3 of our player base were big into One World By Night LARPs, including several storytellers, and so tracking multiple existing stories within a shared universe was something that they were all pretty used to.

[@shayulghul]

The current WotC paradigm is to market a module or product as a "campaign." I never feel connected to my character or the game when I'm playing one of these preset WotC modules because I know I'm just playing through a set story. I was lucky in that I started playing D&D in the 80s, so I've been maintaining a Greyhawk campaign for years. Time passes in my campaign at the same pace as the real world so we can play holiday-themed games during the appropriate seasons (Brewfest in October, Needfest in December).

[@vincejester7558]

The sourcebooks are DLC. Yer not expected to do yer own campaign world. WotC wants a browser game.

[@carrotsongRPG]

We did this in our Star Trek Adventures game.... in which each of my players made 2-3 characters. This allowed us to put different characters together in interesting combinations (much like the TV shows) and let them go. It worked out rather well. This allowed me to just present scenarios to the players, allow them to pick what characters they wanted to use on this particular away mission. This led to great surprises and enjoyment from me, the Gamemaster, especially when ill-suited characters fell into situations that they weren't ideal for. Hahaha. Good times!

[@marhawkman303]

oooh... and in STA having them all as crew of the same ship just kinda makes the "where was X" question unneeded.

[@arjunchoong8012]

I ran a Five Torches Deep Barrowmaze campaign last year using such a system. I had seven players, most of whom had 2 characters. Game night was every Monday, and if three or more players could make it, we played. In a given game you can choose to use either of your characters. There was a temptation to just use one character and level up quickly with him, but since death was a real possibility, it was a good strategy to invest in both characters. This is actually different from the West Marches style of play. In West Marches the players form a party, fixed a date, and asked the game master for a game. In this system (which I call East Marches, but really is already called Open Table), the GM decides when to open his table, and whoever could make it that night formed the party for the session. In a way it is a little like the AL format, but here the GM has the job and creative control over the game world, instead of having it handed to him by WOTC.

[@grumpygrognard7292]

Yes, the roster of characters approach is much better than playing a single character. I have my players have at least 3 characters each in their rosters. You may even swap out characters in a party if one character needs to recuperate, train for a new level, conduct research, etc. And there is nothing wrong with a player fielding more than one character at a time, if the party needs more members. I think GG suggested somewhere that a good party size should be 10 characters, (Not necessarily all PCs, but PCs + hirelings).

[@paavohirn3728]

I'm curious about how common playing multiple characters at once has been. I started in the late 80's as the only player and with 3 characters. Since then I've played two characters simultaneously in one game in the 3rd ed days. Over the recent years I've often played with my wife having two characters while i have one character who's more PC than NPC. Playing more than one character seems good for my attention as well when one character doesn't have an active role in a certain situation.

[@misomiso8228]

0:30 another thing about early AD&D is that it was made for tournaments. It was a ruleset that everyone could follow and then compare how they did in different modules.

[@JeffersonMills]

I played in several such campaigns off and on starting with AD&D in the late ‘70s. Each DM had his own campaign world with map, calendar, and written “campaign conventions” (house rules and clarifications). The DMs would decide amongst themselves who would run each session. Each player had a stable of maybe 2 to 5 characters of various levels, classes, and alignments in each campaign (no crossing worlds!), so that the players who showed up on a given day could put together a well-rounded party. We always played until a good stopping point - after a battle, etc., so the characters could attempt to raise any dead members, sell and/or divide the session’s loot, train for new levels, etc. That way we didn’t leave a party on a cliffhanger, which would complicate the next session if some players couldn’t make it or others showed up to play. Each campaign had plenty of adventuring areas more or less ready to explore, and the players (not the DM) decided where to go and what to do. Sometimes a DM would create a specific plot, such as political intrigue or a magical plague, but more often it was just exploration and treasure-hunting. Great times!

[@Runehammer1]

great vid, Ben. I think, for me, I just stumble into this over and over, ACCIDENTALLY building a continuous world in all my various games

[@johnhiggins6602]

This idea finally clicked for me a few years back when I first heard Tim Kask talking about how every player had a stable of PCs back in the day. It was like an epiphany: the combination of "troupe/stable" play, the open table or gaming club, the "West Marches" campaign stricture, and 1:1 time passing between games makes everything about old-school D&D make sense. In particular: when you have several PCs, some of the sting of dire consequences is lessened. Death at 0 hp or even getting level-drained is far less devastating when you have other PCs to switch to for the next session. When you have multiple PCs of various races, it suddenly makes sense why the demi-humans are level limited: your elf and dwarf PCs hit a ceiling because (as a matter of sword & sorcery genre convention) it's the humans who are supposed to become the game-world's big-time rulers and hotshots. The demi-humans are supposed to hit a ceiling and quietly retire, maybe popping briefly back into the campaign when their special talents are needed; bult ultimately they cede the high-level ground to human lords and patriarchs and wizards. And the one that I feel is the most necessary to shout from the rooftops: TRAINING TO LEVEL UP! Since this rule is present in AD&D but absent from BXCMI, so many old-schoolers scoff at it. But when a PC has to both pay gold and spend several weeks training to level up, THAT is where you create gaps for players to roll up new characters!!! (Also, let me just add, having finally run a couple of campaigns in this style? It's AWESOME. It's officially the best way to run old-school D&D. Players love it, it's actually pretty easy on the DM, and the 1:1 pace of time passing between sessions really does make the game world feel alive. I heartily advise anyone who likes the idea of playing this style to give it a go. Well worth it.)

[@LtLukoziuz]

"The demi-humans are supposed to hit a ceiling and quietly retire, maybe popping briefly back into the campaign when their special talents are needed; bult ultimately they cede the high-level ground to human lords and patriarchs and wizards." That statement no longer flies today, and thank fuck for that. OSR does have some great ideas (like the ones in this video), but I am happy as heck the view of "humans are the top dog" is no longer a thing.

[@johnhiggins6602]

@@LtLukoziuz "Humans are the top dog" is a genre convention of sword & sorcery, most other sub-genres of fantasy, and even a lot of sci-fi. Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate… all very "HFY." (On the other hand, if you want to see a fantasy setting where it's the humans that hit a ceiling and become irrelevant, just look at Dragon Ball.) "No longer flies today" is a matter of perspective. "Is no longer a popular element of the kind of rudderless kitchen-sink fantasy that modern D&D both models and feeds into" would be a more accurate statement.

[@samurguybriyongtan146]

@@johnhiggins6602 I kinda make the kitchen sink Fantasy more of a feature than a bug. It’s Star Wars like. You can play everyone but everyone has problems and there’s always evil in all the peoples. The Minotaurs are the baddest around, so have a big Empire. other sentients put up with their fascist, racist state because they keep them safe from the horrific beasts in the wild. Each species bring some flavor and some consequences from integrating with a larger society, but it’s grim and gritty.

[@drunkendelver1966]

I am fascinated by the idea of this style of tabletop play. I would love to try this someday with a group. Even if timekeeping seems like a bit of a pain, it keeps the players and DM engaged with the game even when they're not actively playing at the table. Who needs to obsess over complex, optimized character builds and planning dramatic story events that'll inevitably get derailed when you've got the players consistently planning their next adventure and managing their characters' downtime? It's ingenious.

[@jan0195]

I don't know why but every time something like this is brought up I feel like we are discover some sort of ancient mythological knowledge or lost archeo-technology from a better past. Exciting stuff.

[@oberondargos5465]

I played a game that had a another party, it was very fun to hear what they were up to. They ended up being a horrible murder gang who were trying to earn a name for themselves as the most feared pirate crew. They would do something that would make news but some other crew would gain credit for it so they never got famous. Our party was more of a classic "quest to rescue/find someone" At one point we ended up in some kind of tournament and had to pvp this other party. That session was crazy fun.

[@northvashista]

This was very interesting and well done. You changed my mind about the old days and what we were doing. I actually remember playing this way. And I'm surprised to learn I've been remembering it differently from what we were actually doing!

[@cjerowe]

So, Ben Robbins didn't so much invent the West Marches but rediscovered it? This is a seriously great video. Thanks!

[@TheBreadPirate]

This is so cool! I already re-use the same world for all of my campaigns (which means players can impact the future), but making game time move in Real Time is CRAZY! I might use that.

[@Gossamer3592]

This video blew my mind and was exactly the missing piece I needed to realize how I want to run a DCC campaign. THANK YOU!

[@megasquidd]

I got my first D&D experience in the very late 1980s as a young lad. I got inspired to play after reading the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels. Those had a lot to do with what TRPGs have turned into which are "character/player" based games. I remember going to my first convention to play D&D with strangers as a teen. My character got killed in the first hour. Players were getting murdered all around me, and they were having fun. I didn't understand. I spent like 2 hours coming up with a backstory, and I fell into a spike trap and failed a saving throw. Just now am I discovering how those people were having fun. I no longer come up with any backstory longer than a couple of sentences when I create a character.

[@vincejester7558]

And, with a dozen players at the table, there isn't time for monologuing and bardic recitals. You take yer turn (quickly) then quietly figger out what yer doing next turn. Or spend the time between designing yer "Awesome Stronghold".

[@IsaBilal]

If you think about it, D&D would not have been as successful as it is today without the game starting this way. Can you imagine having a gaming club and this great new game, but you have to limit the players to just a few of you, and then you have difficulty continuing the following week because Tim didn’t turn up. And then others want to play, but you’re in the middle of a campaign adventure and you also have to manage numbers… The transient nature of OS D&D in that you could have multiple players coming in or going out, all within a persistent world, is what enabled the game to explode. Any game that limits its player capacity is going to struggle. I mean, just look at how people can’t organise a session nowadays due to availability of friends. Back then it was game night on Whatever-day and whoever turned up got to play and develop their characters. In fact, missing a game gave players that sense of paranoia that other players were getting ahead of them, which encouraged future participation. Great days.

[@ImortalZeus13]

This reminds me of an old D&D advert I saw in a 2006 magazine, where the tag line was “Your group of adventurers will never be stopped by a server crash.” featuring a guy in utter disbelief at his computer screen.

[@midshipman8654]

I think this is really neat in reconfextualizing the whole fundemental formula of roll playing. A lot of times people focus on real minutia, should this be a d10 or a d12, or even something like entirely different subsystems and mechanics, which seems big, but isnt all that impactful on the core essense of play. but this sort of thing has much wider ramifications for all aspects of play and understanding. Its really interesting.I think this is one of my favorite videos of yours.

[@colbyboucher6391]

Yeah, the important thing is that the minutiae tried to *get out of the way* so that you could focus on bigger ideas like this. That's why a lot of things were much simpler.

[@orenmontgomery8250]

Amazing! This is (somewhat) how I run my games! I made up a world, different players play on different parts of the map and its all basically sandbox style with various villains trying to carry out their schemes. I haven't tried time-synching like this but I would be the type to seriously enjoy it.

[@paavohirn3728]

Ooph! Sounds like a ton of fun but I'm really bad at keeping notes in my games to begin with.

[@paulbarker4986]

This is the type of campaign we used to play back in the late 80's and 90's we had families for PC's which lead into several generations which was really good fun too play and shared the DM part between 3 players over years of playing

[@odiwalker3973]

When the quarentine started I decided to DM a game of 5e for my friends. Learned how to deal with Roll20. Created a whole world, some rules to track time and stuff, and secretly invited 2 separate groups of friends to play in it, both parties unaware that they were sharing a world and inadvertently affecting each other

[@HighPriestFuneral]

This has been a fascinating concept to me since I've heard about it. The idea of "secondary heroes" that the other group just assumes are DMNPC's creating worldbuilding, is in fact another group of players going along a journey in that same world. How has it worked out for you and do you plan on trying to bridge that gap at some point by inviting everyone in at the same time?

[@odiwalker3973]

Sorry, man. Somehow I wasn't notified of this. The campaign worked out great for me. It was truly amazing having 2 parties playing in the same world at the same time. And it felt great when I had to describe the consequences of one party's actions for the other, and they had no idea that it were consequences made by actual human players. It the end as the pandemic got under control my friends had less and less time to play so eventually we ended everything and I revealed that there were two parties. They were shocked but enjoyed the revelation. That said lately some of them wanted me to DM again and since I still have the material from that world and all, I'm fleshing out the neighboring kingdom to invite them and new players (some of the secretly) to play in the same world, in the same time period as before. Wish me luck!

[@odiwalker3973]

And yeah I'd totally invite both parties for the same game session should they ever traveled to the same hex 😅

[@stevenshipe3739]

'Campaign' isn't the only word that has apparently changed meaning over time. 'Adventure'' originally meant a single trip into a dungeon and return to the surface, hopefully weighed down with freshly won treasure. It did not mean an entire module, adventure path, or other extended story. Reading the older books with that in mind will also paint a different picture of play from the modern equivalent.

[@vincejester7558]

Adventure is what you get from a dungeon when you don't get what you came for.

[@satturnine7320]

Following GGs logic is both entertaining and exercising I think the original cover art for the PHB and DMG says it all Which I fondly refer to as the Libram of Libations and the Grimoire of Connotations

[@swaghauler8334]

The "Shared PCs World" dynamic was a holdover from the old wargaming clubs that would fight various battles to "game out" a war.

[@GreasusGoldtooth]

This has entirely changed my view on running a D&D game. Definitely using this advice.

[@a.dennis4835]

6:33 - 6:48 "Sorry Jimmy. Even though this dungeon was full of paraplegic goblins, I have arbitrarily decided that your level 20 cleric died because I, the Dungeon Master, chose to end the session in the middle of a dungeon."

[@mrmiffmiff]

There is such a thing as using your best judgment.

[@ditrixgenesis781]

I'm actually in a Westmarch DnD group. It doesn't have a lot of the features mentioned, like gold for XP, or specific downtime, or a real effect on one shots (some DMs like rerunning sessions), but we have stables of PCs, and it's actually called that, and a living world that any level adequate party combination can explore.

[@WellManNerd]

I love the way you broke this down. Great work, and thank you

[@johnscotto5045]

QB, thank you for a very interesting thought piece. When I was a freshman in high school playing D&D in 1979, I don’t know that we clearly understood this aspect of the game. However, we did incorporate it to some extent with a few exceptions. Generally, we tried to end a session with the players getting to a safe haven of some kind. In that case, time did indeed pass at the normal rate in between sessions. In fact, our DM‘s with explicitly ask us what we intended to do over the course of the next week. He would simply make a ruling on our success or failure. If we were in a dungeon the DM would often simply freeze us as we were or, in effect, force a situation where we could get to a safe haven. I cannot recall a single instance where we were in a dungeon and the DM simply made a roll to see if he lived or died, or anything of that nature.

[@Trailblades]

Thank you for explaining this to everyone Ben. I think this style of play is my favorite by far, but it's difficult to explain it to anyone who's not a complete newbie. 🙂

[@ClockworkOuroborous]

I read an interesting post from someone that posited that AD&D was a post apocalyptic setting. Ruined settlements, cities, dungeons, etc. being raided for valuable items by groups of raiders looking for ancient items of power and wealth. Setting up their own settlements as they bring back civilization. Regarding multiple PCs, I was in a game where I had 6 PCs, in various adventures that were occurring concurrently. To avoid meta-gaming most of them didn't really care for each other. The DM's boyfriend on the other hand... she finally had to put her foot down when he kept throwing +3 or more items at his 'new' characters since they were all the children of his highest level/most powerful PC. We wound up splitting the campaign; me and the other players, her running solo with him.

[@khpa3665]

Matt Colville has a lengthy interview with Jim Murphy about how early D&D was played on the West Coast. It has strong similarities with what you're describing.

[@edmundfreeman7203]

Go find the campaign notes to Dave Arneson's "First Fantasy Campaign".out out by Judge's Guild a long time ago. The game is supposed to be even weirder than you think.

[@Volvandese]

The time passage thing is fascinating. I've been thinking about what I'm going to do for my next campaign when my current one ends, and I might make that mechanic a part of it. The PC stable thing works great, and I heartily endorse it. For a couple years I've let my main group of players run out of a shared guild hall with their original PCs and backups and sometimes additional players' PCs as well. For the most part, they conclude their adventuring day back at the hall each session. At the start of the next session they decide who they are playing, with their unplayed PCs occupied by other activities. It really grants a ton of flexibility, both in terms of providing variety to the players and in dealing with individual absences.

[@INCIESSE]

One of your best videos ever, this is my eventual goal as a DM.

[@MadstoneAdventures]

Mind Blown! Wow! I am modifying my "campaign" I am running right now after watching this video!!!

[@blahlbinoa]

I've started tracking days for my campaign now. One of my flaws was going as fast as possible and not tracking time, but I wanted to go slower so I printed up a calendar for Forgotten Realms. Now my players are thinking about how to better manage their time, how long it will take to get somewhere and if they can do something within that time. Not to mention as soon as holiday's show up, I can run it for the players and it shows that the world is moving on with them in it and it's made it even more engaging for our group.

[@jameseast9229]

I'd never heard of most of this, never read through 0e or Advanced. But in DMing 3.5 for a loose "D&D" club that met in some configuration every single day after class I was having players that built stables of characters, run through a persistent world in different parties. It was just the natural fit for us at the time, and we didn't think anything of it. It's kinda weird I went this long withoyt realizing that was unusual. But I highly reccomend using a persistent world to DM/GM stables of characters if you can, it's such a neat experience for everyone involved. SAVE ALL YOUR PAPERWORK.

[@Keyce0013]

You had a good idea about having players make rolls at the end of the session to determine how well (if at all) they make it out of the dungeon. I think that this could be expanded upon a bit by making players each perform their own series of skill challenges. Allow players to turn failed rolls into successes by either allowing players to drop their own loot, randomly roll for it, or leave it up to the DM to determine what a player has to give up from their equipment if they want that character to live. Players might leave the dungeon with a miniboss's magical armor, but when they ran out of game time one of them had to leave behind a flame enchanted blade, which the monsters of the dungeon can pick up and use against the next party they encounter!

[@CountAdolfo]

OK, old school DM... over forty years experience and literally hundreds of games... These things you are saying are all well known to us old school 'grognards' and it never occurred to me to run games differently until I saw that 5e oddly handles campaigns differently. In 1e, and AD&D, PCs often died. It was common practice to bring backup characters... in addition to the few characters that they typically run. Sometimes, players made brothers and played all the brothers... We had four DMs in my area... and we all played in Greyhawk... and events in our various games were all connected. I'm working on a campaign that would introduce our old ways to my son and nephew and their friends... a new generation of players

[@MARSHOMEWORLD]

Just wanted to add that in some of the earliest games I ever ran were looking at in excess of a dozen players at the table at a time because we were playing during an elective. In grade school. It was called quiet games (which we never were quiet of course. But that's beside the point )and this is our chance to get to play DND in the middle of the afternoon on a school day. Not every one of those players was as immersed in the rules or whatever and people came and went sort of seemingly with the ebb and flow of the narrative... Meaning people who normally might not have played would take a chance on it like some of our cheerleaders and other popular kids Etc... Most seem to have a good time and just sort of went by the wayside as their characters died or whatever but my point here is that I didn't think at all unusual to play Such huge groups and it was only later down the road that I ever started finding out that was kind of an unusual circumstance. My gaming during Second Edition and the early 90s was a much more concise group and longer-lasting campaign efforts of a year or more at a time, but I always looked back on those early sessions as giving me the interpersonal skills to keep a big group moving forward and I've utilized it many times when playing at conventions and things like that more recently. You are really on to something here my friend, I don't think if the game hadn't been tailored towards large play that I would have had any kind of reasonable chance to have done it back in the seventh grade.

[@seanz1115]

👀

[@lovenicholson]

I really appreciate your bringing attention to this brother. Thank you.

[@paulll47]

My first experience with DnD was with 4th edition and it completely killed my interest for dnd until I got into OSR games recently, there is a lot more depths and cleverness in these games than people give them credit for.

[@williamlee7482]

D&D 4e was wizards attempt at trying to draw the WOW and MMO crowd into the because the way the was it worked like an MMO with all its daily , at will and encounter powers plus the movement was in squares further emulating an MMO

[@sertaki]

4th edition is a good game. But it's quite a different beast and appeals more to people who like both rpgs and board games and want a bit more of that tactical battle and balance experience. There's a crowd for the game, but it's probably not having a great overlap with people who are watching this video :)

[@paulll47]

@@sertaki You do you dude, I could never stand mmo and 4th was essentially that, hell it was supposed to have something like a "companion app" for pc where you would run your game in a sort of virtual table, not my kind of thing.

[@sertaki]

@@paulll47 Yeah, it's definitely a very different experience. I have played it a bit and mostly enjoyed it, but it's been a while. But I can very confidently say I have 0 desire to run a game of 4, but I'd play in one to get a bit of a different style. :D

[@ed-chivers]

I've been running a "West Marches" style game for the past three years, after watching Matt Colville talking about this approach in his "Running the Game" series. I just checked my notes and I can see I've got 18 players and 22 player characters in the world, not all of them active but certainly with a core of 8 or 9 regular players. I don't run for more than 5 at a time, just as a personal preference but also because I think game sessions would suffer if there were too many players. Playing in this style has been a challenge at times, and keeping track of everything - such as who has been where, and how do NPCs feel about the different characters - can be a handful, but I've found it a really rewarding style of play. I've tried to keep the in-game calendar roughly in sync with the real world but I bend things a little sometimes when I need to. It all works out ok in the end!

[@szulgitgk]

I spoke with a gamer from New Zealand who said that he was a player in a game at university. The game had 8-10 DMs and dozens of players. The DMs mat regularly to talk about what different characters had done so that everything could be altered (e.g. that boss is already dead). The game, apparently, went on for years with players and DMs graduating and making room for the new players. I don't know how much of this is true, but I certainly hope that it is and imagine that it would be much easier to pull off given the on-line aids that now exist. And, imagine if an executive editor (head scribe) wrote the whole thing down--awesome!

[@raysiegrist]

The origins of D&D go back to wargaming and many of those traditions are reflected in it. Like the concept of "campaigns" maintaining continuity, allowing you to merge many different game sessions to your "map" (campaign world). We understood that back then because it was part of our POV. It seems funny that this is being "discovered" 40 plus years later!

[@SuStel]

I read the title and was prepared to groan and scoff at a clickbaity title, but you've actually nailed it. It's a bit sad that younger players don't know about this.

[@WizardOfAtlantis]

Original D&D was/is always meta. The idea of time passing in the game world at the rate of the 'real world' outside of game session time is mind-bogglingly cool. An always-on campaign...magnificent! I think that the original AD&D books could have used an entire chapter talking about the why of Time as it relates to all the goings-on of the campaign world, and that would have tied in to and made sense of all those charts in a way that clearly escaped common comprehension. Great video!

[@daviddamasceno6063]

That certanly explains a LOT!!! It seems to be such an essencial piece to make all those rules work. It's crazy how nobody talks about it.

[@eshelly4205]

I played D and D in the 70s. You rolled your characters. The DM had his D&D book and his cardboard curtain and his dice. We had graph paper and a pencil. Each square was a certain distance. You drew it on the graph paper as you moved into the dungeon. The DM is the key to a great game. His pre game prep and his story telling abilities will make the difference between a boring Sunday or a fun filled day. Also don’t forget the Mountain Dew and snacks….

[@azmendozafamily]

It's funny how we had these understandings when I was a kid playing in 7th grade. The group I ran with was with a buddy from school, is older brother, a highschooler, and his sister who was in college and their dad who was a player/part time GM. This particular group had 16 players, ranging from me, the baby of the group to the original players in this group who all met in college, the dad was part of this group. We all ran with the idea that while it was awesome to level up and get loot and prestige, we all knew that death was but a heartbeat away. The other emphasis was that strongholds, the management of resources and the people under your reign once you got there were integral to the experience. There were actual tie-ins to a modification of the game Diplomacy which made this game cut throat. It was a bit much for my 7th grade "I want to explore that cave, I heard there's treasure and trolls in there. Let's go!" mentality, but it really made D&D Basic so much fun.

[@TheCastleKeeper]

This what I remember from the late 70s - early 80s. Mid-Columbia Wargaming Society had two DMs, and about 50 members. You could join DM A's Campaign which was more advanced for experienced players. Or you could join DM B's Campaign which was simpler and for beginers or less experienced players. We then would then meet on different nights or days depending on your schedule and the DMs. The DMs basically ran the game three times a week, but you could only attend one of the sessions that week. Tuesday night, Thursday night, and Saturday afternoon were the typical game sessions. Please note: you didn't have to try to figure this out - you could have just asked one of us older players that have been around for a while.

[@jothewerewolf]

We are playing an open table campaign at my lgs right now. Except, we have a half dozen DMs, prepped adventures, one-session-archs á la West marches, and played events all happen chronologically with play, with the campaign limited to Waterdeep.

[@johnSmith-cr9gb]

first up, gread video! secondly as someone whos playing tabletop rpg for not too long (around 7 years) i find it interesting that people are not using that system. me and my friends used it almost from the beginning, when we wanted to play but where missing 1 or 2 players. so we started what we calles "shuffle adventures". now whenever a gm has time, place and an adventure they just write a message and a party forms. the best part about it is that now some of our old PCs who turned NPCs are starting an adventurers Guild. with that we can hand out the shuffle adventures more easily and we can conect our campaigns with our shuffles, for example by giving quest to find Rare items needed by the campaign party to the shuffleplayers, during campain downtime. Getting the campaign instandly back into action, giving the shuffle players a greater sense of purpose and connecting our world even more. ps: sorry for all the spelling mistakes^^"