Like many (most?) gamers at the time, I'm not certain I ever played AD&D "by the book." Instead, my friends and I played a cobbled-together mishmash of Holmes, Moldvay, AD&D, and random bits of RPG "folklore" we picked up from Crom knows where. We still called what we were playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, of course, because that was the game to play and we all wanted to play it, but whether we actually were playing something Gary Gygax would have recognized as AD&D is an open question. What's important to understand for our present purposes is that we believed ourselves to be playing AD&D, hence why the new material Gygax presented for use with AD&D in Dragon was so important to us.
My first experience of Gygax's additions had come in issue #59 (March 1982) with his introduction of cantrips. While these minor spells were interesting, they were never widely adopted in our group, unlike those that began to appear a few issues later. A good example of what I am talking about is "The Big, Bad Barbarian," which appeared in issue #63 (July 1982). As its title suggests, this article gave us our first peek at the barbarian character class that would later be included in Unearthed Arcana several years later. Since this was the first new – and official – addition to the line-up of AD&D character classes, I was very excited to see it.
I also perplexed by it. My own sense of what a "barbarian" was had been informed by two sources: ancient history and fantasy literature, particularly Howard's stories of Conan the Cimmerian. The class that Gygax presented in issue #63, with its proficiencies in survival and suspicion of magic, was vaguely reminiscent of both, but still somehow its own distinct thing. I didn't hate the class, but neither did I wholeheartedly embrace it as I would other new Gygaxian classes. I suppose it's fair to say that, in principle, I was attracted to the idea of a barbarian class. I simply wasn't yet sold on the AD&D version.
Part of the reason why I felt this way is that Gygax's barbarian broke a lot of standard AD&D "rules." For example, the barbarian's ability scores were generated according to its own unique methods, unlike even those presented in the Dungeon Masters Guide. Strength is generated by rolling 9D6 and picking the three highest, while Constitution uses 8D6 (Wisdom, interestingly, is generated by rolling 4d4). Furthermore, barbarians get double the benefit for high Dexterity and Constitution scores, both of which they'll almost certainly have, given the way the scores are generated. The class also began play proficient in even more weapons than a fighter, in addition to many other special abilities. Even to my twelve year-old self, it all seemed a bit much.
Nevertheless, I dutifully attempted to make use of the new class. One of my friends asked if he could convert his longtime fighter into a barbarian, since he'd always imagined him as a barbarian. I agreed, since it gave us the perfect opportunity to give the barbarian a whirl, just as Gygax suggested we do. The results were ... mixed. In play, we found the barbarian exceedingly tough in combat and its various abilities useful. However, in its Dragon iteration, the class was utterly forbidden from using magic weapons, which hampered its ability to take on many powerful monsters. I imagine this was intended to be balance out its other strengths, but, in the end, it proved crippling and my friend asked to return his character to being a fighter, which I happily permitted.
My first experience with a new, official class for AD&D ended in disappointment. This made me wary of all future classes Gygax presented in "From the Sorcerer's Scroll, though, as we'll see in future posts in this series, my wariness did not sour me on the idea of new character classes in general. But the barbarian, in either its original version or its "improved" one in UA, never won me over. I retain a fondness for the concept of a barbarian class, as I've explained before. I simply haven't yet found (or created) one that I like well enough to use. One day!
I used to use the Barbarian class from White Dwarf magazine. I think that one was a lot better.
ReplyDeletehttps://explorebeneathandbeyond.blogspot.com/2022/06/original-scenarios-resurrected-ii.html
DeleteBy the time UA came out, my D&D group had enough education and experience (9/10th graders) to be critical. In the Barbarian, we saw more flaws of AD&D; Gary was just constantly slapping more chrome on an overloaded chassis! The UA Barbarian was way over powered and required way to much XP to advance a level. Unlike the majority, we actually did play by the book and were therefore increasingly annoyed with all the unnecessary stuff Gary had, and was continuing to, cram into the game. The Barbarian class was right up there with weapon speed and 10gp-per-pound in terms of silliness.
ReplyDeleteIt's a very powerful class relatively at 1st level. If the special stat generation method is not used, it becomes a lot less powerful relatively when, after everyone has ~ 4000 XP the barbarian is still 1st level, but the fighters are now 3rd.
Delete(Man, I love a good Chrysler reference) We were playing D&D to have fun. You can really only watch your friend's stepmom wash her BMW without a bra so many times. Other than being very, very picky about carrying enough light underground, and protecting it during battle and obscuring it during scrounging, we didn't turn pages to check rules very often. Keep the game moving. I recall finding value in Druids and Illusionists, but frowning on Cavs and the Barbarian. Administrating Barbarians seemed cumbersome. Wasn't there some sort of a winged-man class, maybe a Deryni, something? Too fancy. I'll have my heavy metal without keyboards, please.
DeleteIf character classes are supposed to frame an archetype, the original Barbarian was a stereotype - based on a single instance of a literary character and blown out to say that all are based on that concept. People may bristle at Barbarians of today utilizing magic, but rhabdophobia (like the one-Ranger-per-party rule) was unnecessarily restrictive. It was like the Druids' neo-Darwinism or the Thieves' mafioso guild structure.
ReplyDeleteFrom the beginning there was always the desire to balance out the powers of new classes but maybe not always thought through as to the effect on ongoing play. The magic phobia is a real restriction but irritating in practice. I feel the same way about Demi-human level limits. Hyperborea does a nice job with the Barbarian. It basically becomes a tough thief w/o most of the technical skills. Which does mimic the most famous barbarian pretty well.
DeleteHyperborea is a good game. I should write about it more.
Delete@James Yes, you should. I don't love the game mechanics it's tied to but the setting alone deserve a signal boost.
DeleteI was thinking about that, Hyperborea is my ruleset of choice and the classes are very well done. The classic UA classes, I mentioned this in the UA retrospective comments, feel like they were designed to be used in a thematic campaign (similar to OA, but UA didn't have the structured setting to actually ground them), but because of that they don't really gel with the base classes. I think Hyperborea does a very good job of making them thematic while still fitting with the rest of the classes. The UA cavalier is really absurd, but the Hyperborea cataphract is excellent.
DeleteI actually found the Bandit NPC class in that issue much more interesting as a character concept than the Barbarian.
ReplyDeleteDragon #63 had an excellent cover and was a very good issue overall. The Barbarian class (much like the cavalier) was overpowered and a bit nonsensical at times, as noted in other followups. but I understand the desire to have it, and why Gary created one and others have tried to refine or develop one in D&D since. I've enjoyed the modern versions they've been working with in D&D, even if they more properly should be seen as Berserkers, rather than necessarily Barbarians.
ReplyDeleteIt is a great cover as you say. I remember that we used the Berserker NPC class as the PC barbarian class for a bit, but the loss of control rage mechanic took away player agency.
DeleteIt's a badly balanced and gimmicky addition to the game, but I still prefer it to the heavy commitment WotC has made to all barbarians being berserkers by another name. That doesn't suit broader archetypes any better than Gygax's version did, and if anything it's an even worse reflection of Conan so there isn't even that to justify things.
ReplyDeleteI like the WD Barbarian but if someone asked for it now I'd just say that they should go play a bare-skinned fighter and pay x3 the armour cost of whichever armour they want and play with that. While they'd be unencumbered they'd be more vulnerable to fire, green slime, jellies etc.
ReplyDeleteI still prefer the Dragon #63 version of the barbarian (with the tweaks and additions from Dragons #65 and #69) to the version from UA—I prefer that earlier, non-magic using approach to the class, which feels more rooted in a Conan- or Fafhrd-like barbarian :)
ReplyDeleteAllan.
So every single person in a “Barbarian” society is of the Barbarian class? There are no healers, priestesses, fishermen, stonemasons?
ReplyDeleteAnd aren’t Cavaliers just Paladins, or Fighters on horseback, maybe specialized in lance (if you use specialization)?
D&D (particularly AD&D) went down this weird power gaming rabbit hole.
And the 9d6 for Strength (etc)…. That crap started with the release of the DMG, where Gary had umpteen methods to roll ability scores, since you didn’t get bonuses if you didn’t have a 15+ and some classes need multiple high scores.
It’s like I tell my kids: “If you need to play a Warlock/Barbarian/Druid half-Tiefling to distinguish your character, maybe you should re-adjust your approach to the game? Or enroll in the local theater? I’ll play ‘Joe the Fighter’ everytime and have a blast.”
You beat me to it: the players make the game. The players make the band. The players make the dinner party. The players make the insane trip your wife planned to Punta Cana. Not the rules, not the classes, not the roaring electric guitars, not the meal, and certainly not whatever that dubious cocktail is that some young lad covered in tattoos - but no scars, no stitches, no burns nor bruises - passed your wife compliments of the Sand Bar. Let's just be fair and call it the Kelp Bar.
DeleteI don't have the academic leaning of many folks in here, but I do wonder if there is a resource for building a "Barbarian Ecology" like you described above, where people have their places and stations and roles/duties within the community. I could see a thematic "Let's play a sort of Barbarian culture within its own theater". That is actually pretty intriguing. Shamans are welcome. Wizards can be excused.