I ask because I distinctly recall that my feeling upon reading the article nearly 30 years ago was one of bemusement. I mean, I was, back then, very much enthralled by nearly everything Gary wrote. He was, after all, the creator of AD&D and his word on the subject was Law. But a list -- a definitive list, no less -- of what creatures qualified as "persons" for the purposes of certain spells? Why was this necessary? Did anyone really wonder whether a swanmay could be charmed or an ogrillon held? Was this even an issue at all? Maybe it was needed in tournaments, I don't know, but it was never an issue that came up in my gaming groups.
Just as interesting as the list Gygax provides are his closing comments in this article. He says the following:
If you, as a player, are grateful to have this expanded list, your gratitude is certainly appreciated but keep in mind that it is a mixed blessing. Players must attempt to remember the list of creatures affected by charm person and hold person, for when it comes time to cast a spell, the DM must never allow them to consult their reference works except for the Players Handbook. On the other hand, the DM can use any reference source at his disposal (including articles like this one) to check for desired information.Now, there's nothing beyond the pale in what Gygax says here. In my experience, it was pretty much standard operating procedure amongst the groups with which I had contact. However, this is the first time I can recall its ever being stated outright as the Gospel of Gary. Again, I don't disagree with it, as it's identical to my own practice, but it is nonetheless interesting to see it stated so plainly.
Dear James ..
ReplyDeleteApologies that I must break my reply into a couple sections .. the blogspot system won't let me post a long, contiguous comment.
Once again, you have chosen an excellent philosophical ‘object lesson’ .. not only regarding the historical development of D&D, but of wider (and contemporary) culture.
‘What does it mean to be a person’ .. an issue of such antiquity, current significance, and that has caused disagreement among D&D players since the earliest days of our hobby. Brilliant!
Of course, the moment you choose (1984) is that of a step-change in D&D between the ‘Golden Age’ (1974-1983) and the ‘Silver Age’ (as you have written about on this blog many times since its inception .. for example 11 January 2009 ‘The Ages of D&D).
That shift was occurring as the game passed from the founding generation, through ours, to not only another age group, but an altogether different paradigm. The likes of Lee Gold and David Hargrave, who were perfectly comfortable ‘hacking’ their way through a (w)holey inadequate OD&D gave way to a world view that was/is terribly uncomfortable colouring outside the lines/rules … and which treats (both in life and gaming) the existential issues of life (not least what it means to be a Person) in terms of (rather more superficial and prescribed) ‘identities’. The 1970s freedom of creating one’s own spells gave way in the 2000s to merely deciding the colour of a lightning bolt .. the days of swords with unique abilities and egos slid into merely ‘skinning’ a generic magic item with pic-n-mix powers. It all rather reminds me of C.P. Snow’s thesis in ‘The Two Cultures’.
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ReplyDeleteOur age cohort (now more or less in our 50s) seems, in retrospect, a transition between these paradigms. While my gaming group of those years drew inspiration from the early tournament adventures, we almost never played a published module, nor did we follow many (most) of the published rules. We fudged character creation (to maximise more 18 Abilities), had pet Gold Dragons, and paid no heed to the level caps for elves. However, we also kept shy of the full-on original Blackmoor and Greyhawk dungeon hijinx. To my knowledge only one of us (my best friend) was more of your disposition .. earnestly purchasing all AD&D materials, TSR RPGs, official magazine subscriptions, et cetera. As he designed most of our adventures (and created beautiful maps for them), we stuck with TSR rule sets (Star Frontiers but never Traveller, for example), even when we went ‘off piste’.*
But this wasn’t so strange .. Gary Gygax alternated between his two personas: one who told us to change anything we didn’t like about the game, the other (who you called ‘TSR Gary’ in the post of 02 June 2008 ‘D&D Biggest Problem’) said if we did so we weren’t playing (A)D&D. Meanwhile (and to your question) Lee and David were merrily turning ‘monsters’ into playable ‘persons’ / PCs (note your blog posts of 21 January 2021 ’Individualistic and Imaginative’) in spite of Gary’s direct reprimands.
This was apiece with (by today’s standards) the schizophrenia of the time: Nearly the entire crowd shouted ‘Cheat to Win!’ to encourage the ‘baddies’ at the local Renaissance Faire - knowing the boring rules-faring goodies would prevail. We grew up in an apparently prosperous and peaceful West with *simultaneously* LGM-30 Minuteman missile installations across the street, and parents joking about a Soviet nuclear weapon strike that could occur any moment. The futuristic, hi-tech, reusable space transportation - so safe an inexperienced school teacher is aboard - blows up because someone failed to check a simple rubber gasket. The ice cream vending truck comes along just after the town sprayed hazardous chemical insecticide on the whole neighbourhood.
Then came ‘Perestroika’ and the world began to get ’normal’
(at least until recently when the world powers returned to form).
That was the weird part.
So, no .. we never wondered whether a Swanamy could be charmed .. not only because they were of a later D&D edition, or that we were comfortable making up our own minds about a Cifal, but mainly because (being the nascent animists, ecologists - and in my case Zen monk - that we were at 10 years old) for us Treants and all the rest were and are Persons.
But then, those kids who we were, had funerals or pet gerbils .. and for them, Persons didn’t have sexuality .. or jobs.
With Gratitude and In Peace.
M.
* .. and that says much to your oft voiced points about the culture of friendly disagreement among gamers of those days: there were 'ideas' rather than 'ideologies'.
M. - this is such an insightful analysis - I agree with you on almost every step, and you put it so well. I sometimes refer to "skinsuit" D&D to explain what I think was lost in the main. Real D&D came down with terminal DragonLancer in 1984 and was cannibalized by the Spectre of Concerned Mothers and Society, whereupon the demon slowly skinned its meal, dined upon its flesh and bone, and now wears the skin like a prize and a counterfeit.
DeleteIts not that I mind people enjoying games other than "real" D&D, it is that they insist on parading around in our game's skin and calling it authentic. Worse, they think the corporate monstrosity is authentic.
It isn't evolution, it is de-evolution - the jocko homo descendant of the vague, scrambled, inconsistent, authentic corporate game of D&D's homo sapiens. And, in that sense, we are Devo.
In 1982, ET had originally been scripted to begin and end with D&D (where Elliot had become the DM in the end), but Steven Spielberg couldn't acquire the rights to the game, I'm presuming due to either TSR's typical business incompetence or potential ignorance. Two years later, Gygax would be off in Hollywood, trying to become a mogul.
We (at least my group) had its last intelligent, egotistical sword circa 1984. We had our last semi-permacharmed ogre. We made our last foray against rails by allying with Strahd. I'm pretty sure that was the year of our last hilarious TPK (in D&D: we would later have two epic ones in Rolemaster). By 1985, we merely echoed 1975, but at least it sounded similar.
Wow. I totally remember this article. It was an eye opener for me, because it was the first time I remember being annoyed by Gary. It just was so unnecessarily fiddly that I couldn't swallow any of it. I think it was the quoted gratitude part that really stuck in my craw.
ReplyDeleteNot entirely sure what it was about this Scroll in particular, but boy even though I had totally forgotten about it until now, I can picture reading it as if I'd done it yesterday. I think maybe because we used charm person and charm monster to the furthest extent the rules (as I've mentioned before: we mashed b/x and AD&D indiscriminantly, and practically innumerately, so I think charm in B/X was the most liberal, so that would have been the one we used) allowed.
I don't know that I ever held the view that the players could ONLY consult the PH. I don't like players reading (let alone quoting) from the Monster Manual etc. in play, but I can't prevent them from knowing stuff from them.
ReplyDeleteBut these days, I don't run D&D so much and the games I run don't have this type of gotcha detail.
Oh please. When we were playing back in the day everyone I played with had all the books. What was I gonna do? Wrestle it out of their hands?
ReplyDeleteI DM'd such a loose mash-up it didn't affect things so much, but books weren't allowed at the table other than the DM. Even if someone recalled a vague list of charmable persons from Dragon, I wouldn't have! If it made sense, I went with it. If I remembered a table existed, I rolled it. If there was no table or I forgot about it, I made a judgment call. The only time I rolled false dice was for player actions that were irrelevant, such as searching for traps or secret doors that were not in existence.
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