And yet, somehow, by compiling all that material under one cover, it became more than the sum of its parts. I knew lots of gamers, myself included, who'd allowed this class or that spell from Gygax's columns into their AD&D campaigns without so much as a second thought. In aggregate, though, they all took on a different character. Things that never bothered me before suddenly did, when placed side by side with other options I hadn't allowed (or didn't like). The result was that Unearthed Arcana was the book that "broke" AD&D for me. It was a bridge too far and it contributed to my growing disillusionment with the game in the mid-80s.
One of the last of Gygax's columns previewing material that would eventually appear in UA was "Demi-Humans Get a Lift," which appeared in issue #95 (March 1985). In his characteristic way, he explains the purpose of his article thusly:
After long contemplation of the plight of dead-ended demi-human characters, and considerable badgering from players with same, it seemed a good plan to work up some new maximum levels for those demihumans with super-normal statistics -- and in a couple of cases just reward those with high stats across the board. Demi-humans were limited in the first place (in the original rules) because I conceived of a basically human-dominated world. Considering their other abilities, if most demi-humans were put on a par with humans in terms of levels they could attain, then there isn't much question who would be saying "Sir!" to whom. With that in mind, let's move along to the matter at hand.Once again, Gary makes it clear that, in his mind, demi-humans were always supposed to play second fiddle to humans, which is why he included level limits. One may argue that such limits do a poor job of discouraging the play of demi-humans, but there can be no question that that was the intention behind it.
Despite that, Gygax decides here to give in to "considerable badgering" from players of demi-human PCs and provide the means for demi-humans to reach higher levels of experience. He does this in two ways. First, he allows single-classed demi-humans to exceed the standard level cap by two. Multiclassed demi-humans must abide by the usual limits. Second, he allows demi-humans with exceptional ability scores, whether single or multiclassed, to achieve even higher levels. While I think the first change is reasonable, if unnecessary, the second more or less ensured that every demi-human PC from then on would have absurdly high ability scores. In my opinion, AD&D already had a problem with ability score inflation; these changes only further encouraged such bad behavior. The article also opened up for play several new demi-human races, such as deep gnomes and drow, both of which, in my opinion, are too powerful for use in an "ordinary" campaign.
Throughout the article, Gary makes a couple of asides that suggests that he himself doesn't much care for these rules changes but is allowing them because "the gamers have spoken." It's very odd and makes one wonder why, if he really was so opposed to these changes, he nevertheless went ahead and presented in them. The tone throughout is strange and he ends the piece by not only saying that these are the final, ultimate, never-to-be-changed-again, for-real-this-time alterations to demi-human level limits but also by suggesting demands for further power escalation are inevitable:
To put a cap on things, let us get something straight. Any statistics beyond those shown, for levels and ability scores alike, are virtually impossible. Spells and magic, even artifacts and relics, will not increase statistics beyond what is shown, and no further word is necessary. If some deity likes a character so much as to grant a higher statistic, then that deity should also like the character sufficiently to carry him or her off to another plane. (Rules for quasideities will, I suppose, now be in demand . . . sigh!)Even more than a quarter-century later, I find Gary's tone odd.
"Cocaine's a hell of a drug."
ReplyDeleteCalumny, pure and simple.
Delete???
DeleteI really appreciated how UA assembled all that disparate Dragon material under one cover. For someone who was not an avid reader of the magazine, UA served as Cliffs Notes. More broadly, I find early D&D's take on race more a sign of the times than an indictment of the game itself.
ReplyDeleteJim Hodges---
ReplyDeleteI've never understood why what were clearly different species are termed races in D&D. A dwarf, for instance, is not a race of human, it's a different species. The same with elves, and I could cite others too. That's always bugged me. Where did this misidentification start and why does it continue?
Any insights or opinions?
I suspect – though I don't know for certain – that the term "race" entered into D&D through Tolkien, who regularly uses it to describe Men, Dwarves, Elves, etc. Beyond that, the word "species" feels too scientific for use in most fantasy settings.
Deletealso, if they are such different species, why so many Half elves, etc? those should be vanishingly rare
Delete"I suspect – though I don't know for certain – that the term "race" entered into D&D through Tolkien, who regularly uses it to describe Men, Dwarves, Elves, etc. Beyond that, the word "species" feels too scientific for use in most fantasy settings."
DeleteYou're probably right, but even JRRT's use is much looser than the later needs of gamification. Tolkien's language of race is as much a part of his literary world and background as anything else, where it's used broadly and in a poetic, declamatory sense to describe all sorts of groupings, such as "the race of the Volsungs" in the Germanic sagas, etc. The saga writers aren't thinking that Sigmund and his kin are a distinct race, naturally.
And man, I hate to nerd out on the Ainulindalë, but JRRT's creation account(s) see Men and Elves as metaphysically separate, not just biologically; the Eldar are bound to Arda and at their death go to (and perhaps return from) the Halls of Mandos, Men have a fate beyond the circles of the world not even the Elves know, and so on. Half-Elves are vanishingly small - they are in all cases special cases, apparently allowed by the Valar and given the choice of Elven immortality (not quite the blessing the Númenóreans thought it was) or the Gift of Death (not quite the curse the Númenóreans thought it was). And don't even get me started on Dior, who was half-Man, one quarter-Elven, and one quarter divine Maia.
As for the Dwarves, well, they really technically shouldn't exist as they were never a part of the Music of the Ainur. Good ol' Aulë was so excited for the coming of the Eldar he jumped the gun and made them in secret. Eru learned of this, cut Aulë a break (he was a good guy, meant well), adopted the Dwarves, but decreed that they had to sleep until the Elves awoke. First things first...
Anyway, yeah, the whole race v. species thing has driven me nuts since almost the day I first encountered it, lo those many, many decades ago.
And Tolkien used "race" much more liberally/broadly than we do now as was the custom in his day. Churchill, for example, sometimes spoke of "the British Race."
DeleteI don't remember us getting too close to the original level limits being a problem to us. We played G1->D2 so maybe we did have some characters nudging the limits.
ReplyDeleteI have a dim memory of reading that GG had to be pressured into allowing non/demi-human(oids) as playable characters in D&D. In many ways I wish he'd stuck to his guns there.
Now we're stuck with (diminished) elves, dwarves and hobbits/ha(e)lflings as part of contemporary Generic Fantasy. They're obviously Tolkieny, but without any of their history and are so disconnected from their original environment that they've become seemingly slight 'sub-species' / specialist variations of humans. I don't remember encountering them in Nehwon or Hyporia. We got a core-rules tie in to Tolkien along with 'races' which are easily seen as humans with a couple of stat and skill specialities, pointy ears and infravision.
Boo! to C&S, T&T, Warhammer, Gauntlet, DungeonQuest and a hundred others for following & cementing.
Hoorah! to those games (esp. RQ) which allow their intelligent non-human bipeds worldviews (and hence cultures) uniquely their own.
This was of limited use to us, since we started and restarted campaigns with chaotic abandon. I only think it came up once, as no one expected to be playing past level 4, and when the rule DID come up, it seemed horribly unfair to suddenly impose it.
ReplyDeleteafter that, we simply ignored. We did have one min/maxer, but he preferred half orcs anyways.
If you use Race as Class, then this can be easily solved by having their level advancement slower, given all the bonus powers and abilities they get. Like how Paladins advance slower than Fighters.
ReplyDeleteI LOATHED Unearthed Arcana from day one. Every single thing about it. And yeah, I’d seen a lot of it in Dragon, but it’s easy to ignore an occasional article. But when it’s assembled and released as canon material? UGH!
ReplyDelete"In my opinion, AD&D already had a problem with ability score inflation."
ReplyDeleteYep. 3d6-in-order avoids a lot of problems.
And yes, the Dragon articles are much better than the blandified compilation known as Unearthed Arcana.