On the Loss of D&D's Endgame

You'll find lots of gamers who will sing the praises of the Basic Rules published in the early 80s (either 1981's Moldvay version or 1983's Mentzer version) -- and rightly so -- but it's rare to find many who express the same affection for the Expert Rules, whether the Cook/Marsh or Mentzer version. I personally find that a bit odd, because, for me, the Expert Rules are one of those places I can clearly point to and say, "This is what D&D is all about."

I'm certain that strikes at least a few people as odd. The Basic Rules introduce not only the rules of the game, but also its default setting: the dungeon. If anything is "what D&D is all about," it's the dungeon and surely the Basic Rules do a far better job of describing that environment and what it's like to play in it than do the Expert Rules, which muddy the waters with all this talk of wilderness adventuring and building strongholds and creating magic items and the like. Right?

Well, I'm one of those oddballs who takes seriously the notion that Dungeons & Dragons, despite its name, is actually about more than dungeon delving. After all, OD&D devotes a goodly amount of its sparse verbiage to adventuring in the wilderness -- so much so that the term "sandbox" is every bit as significant for old school play as is "megadungeon." Indeed, OD&D makes it pretty clear that, after a certain point, the focus of the game shifts away from the dungeon and toward establishing and maintaining a "barony." If you read reminiscences of the earliest campaigns in the hobby, such as Blackmoor and Greyhawk, you'll see that this was the case.

The Expert Rules present this shift in focus not as an "add-on" or accretion to the Basic Rules but as a natural development of them. Exploring and taming the wilderness, building a castle, and ruling a domain -- these aren't alien to D&D; they're a major part of what the game was intended to be about. This only makes sense, given the origins of the game in wargaming and yet they're topics that got short shrift even in AD&D, never mind later editions. In this sense, I'd say that, for all my issues with the presentation of Cook/Marsh and Mentzer, they're truer to OD&D than were their various descendants.

I can't stress this point enough, because I think it's a vital counter-balance to the tendency to see D&D, especially old school D&D, as solely about acquiring ever more power in the service of venality. Not only do I think that tendency does a disservice to D&D's origins, but I also think it exaggerates the themes of pulp fantasy to ludicrous heights. While not every Picaro will eventually settle down, many will, particularly if their players wish to continue playing that character beyond a certain point. The Expert Rules showed how to do that; they were where D&D's endgame was fleshed out and revealed it as the logical extension of all that had gone before.

I hesitate to say that the Expert Rules are where Dungeons & Dragons "grows up," because that implies a childishness to dungeon delving that I don't think is appropriate. Nevertheless, the Expert Rules are where D&D grapples with the nature of what it means to have reached high level -- to have "grown up" mechanically -- in a fantasy world. Certainly characters could continue to remain aloof from the world around them, remaining outsiders forever on the make, but how satisfying would that be for their players? The Expert Rules offer up new options of play, things that characters could take up in order both to expand the scope of the game and to ensure that beloved characters can continue to be played even after it no longer makes much sense for them to continue adventuring. These are the rules for King Conan of Aquilonia, as opposed to Conan the wandering Cimmerian.

I am ever more convinced that the progressive deformation of the original Gygaxo-Arnesonian vision of the game is due to the loss of D&D's logical endgame and its replacement by vapid alternatives. Only by restoring that endgame can Dungeons & Dragons again become the game it was meant to be.

The Cleric (Yet Again)

One of the funny things about being interested in the pulp fantasy roots of Dungeons & Dragons is that, OD&D to the contrary, I often feel as ambivalent about the cleric as I do about the thief. In part it's because the cleric archetype doesn't really have an equivalent in pulp fantasy. Certainly there were lots of priests in pulp fantasy, but I can't really recall any offhand that had much in common with the D&D cleric class. Those that wielded magic did so not because of a divine gift (though there are a few exceptions here and there) but because they were sorcerers in addition to being priests -- and usually evil sorcerers at that, since pulp fantasy generally takes a cynical view of religion. Still, the cleric has been there since the beginning and I'm loath to give it up, which is why I regularly look for new and interesting ways to tweak the Gygaxo-Arnesonian patrimony to produce a result that's at least a little bit closer to what you'd expect to find in pulp fantasy.

While looking for High Gygaxian quotes for my recent entry, I came across a passage in the Players Handbook I'd forgotten. In his introduction to the book, Gygax states that

Clerics and fighters have been strengthened in relation to magic-users, although not overly so. Clerics have more and improved spell capability.

On first reading, one might assume Gary is referring primarily to the fact that, in AD&D, clerics get a spell at first level, unlike in OD&D. He probably is, but there's more to it than that. The selection of clerical spells in AD&D is much larger than in OD&D and, more significantly, it includes a few spells that deal direct damage, such as flame strike and spiritual hammer. These spells don't predominate by any means, but their appearance is a deviation from the way cleric spells are presented in OD&D -- as defensive, restorative, and divinatory in character.

I wrote previously about my vision for how to explain clerical magic. I largely stand behind what I wrote earlier and think that the key to that approach is eliminating direct damage dealing spells from the cleric's repertoire, except as reversed spells. One of the many things I disliked about the 3e cleric (and, by extension, the 4e one) is the way that the class was given access to a wider variety of combat-oriented spells. If one is to envision clerics as "white magicians," as I do, then it doesn't make a lot of sense to include direct damage dealing spells, except as willful perversions of the "path" of magic they've undertaken by their vocation.

I realize that, in many people's eyes, I'm relegating the cleric to a "support" role, but I see that as a feature rather than a bug. Clerics shouldn't have spells that are as mighty or versatile as a magic-user; that's not the archetype they represent, at least as I see it. They're a defensive class, which is why they have such good saving throws, the second best attack progression, and the ability to put on plate mail armor. There is a certain logic to it all, even if it's a somewhat strained logic at times and I feel it's important to buttress it whenever I can. The end result might not be a true pulp fantasy-style priest, but it also won't be the heavily armored wizards that they eventually came to be over the years.

The Ages of D&D

In a recent post, I inadvertently coined a couple of terms that seem to have struck chords with a couple of my fellow bloggers: the Silver Age and fantastic realism. At the time, I intended both to be throw-away terms that would let me distinguish between the era of D&D under discussion -- that of the mid-80s -- and the preceding one. Looking back on it, though, I think there's a lot to be said for establishing a lexicon for describing the various "ages" of the game, if only because it'll save me a lot of time in future. Even if people don't agree with the precise way I characterize a given age (or its extent), they'll at least know what I mean by it.

Prehistory (1811-1973): In general, this period doesn't get a lot of discussion on this blog, because, though I have played wargames and enjoyed them, I'd never call myself a wargamer and it's wargames of various stripes that inhabit this era. Nonetheless, the period is very important, as it produced several games besides Chainmail that had powerful influences on the development of D&D.

Golden Age (1974-1983): This is the era of D&D's ascendancy and, for me, its perfection. The argument could be reasonably made that the "pure" Golden Age ends somewhere between 1979 and 1981, depending on whether one considers the completion of AD&D or the mass marketing of the game through the Moldvay Basic Rules to have struck a heavier blow to the culture of early D&D. If one wants to make such fine distinctions, the period between 1979/1981 and 1985 (or thereabouts) is the Electrum Age, which straddles the tail end of the Golden Age and the beginning of the Silver. The Golden Age is one of "gonzo pulp fantasy," with a hodgepodge of influences, particularly Howard, Vance, Leiber, de Camp, and Pratt. The dungeon remains the linchpin of adventure design and the sandbox is the assumed role for a campaign setting.

Silver Age (1984-1989): The Silver Age is a transitional age that marries a sophisticated (some might say "decadent") interpretation of Gygaxian naturalism with a growing concern for "dramatic" coherence. The Silver Age is one of "fantastic realism" and the construction of believable worlds and stories is its great concern. It's also the age where the Great Wyrm begins to eat its own tail, being influenced not just by epic fantasy generally but more specifically by second or third order epic fantasies that were themselves influenced by D&D. The Silver Age is when the mass marketing of the game begun in the late Golden Age reaches its fullest flower.

Bronze Age (1990-1995): The Bronze Age is the age of the boxed campaign set. Whereas the Silver Age generally retained a Golden Age sensibility about the necessity of building one's own world (even if the principles behind that construction were quite different), the Bronze Age is characterized by world consumption. During this period, TSR published no fewer than seven new campaign settings for AD&D, in addition to supporting -- and considerably expanding -- holdovers from previous ages. Most are exhaustively detailed through many products, some of them impressively so. D&D came increasingly to be seen as a generic vehicle for the publication of a wide variety of "fantasy" settings, almost none of which bore much resemblance to the game's literary roots in the Golden Age. This age encompasses not only of the apotheosis of the gaming novel but also when such novels become the primary drivers of product development.

Dark Age (1996-1999): The Dark Age is one of decline and fall. D&D products during this era vacillate wildly between recapitulations of works from earlier eras and bold, if often eccentric, experimentation intended to find an elixir vitae that might sustain the slowly dying beast for a few more years. The acquisition of TSR by WotC in 1997 resulted in an attempt to roll back the worst excesses of the Bronze Age by discontinuing most of D&D's campaign settings and to focus on the "core" elements of the game. Ultimately, this proved unsuccessful, resulting in the perceived need for a new edition of the game.

Whether what followed was in fact a rebirth of Dungeons & Dragons -- a new Golden Age -- or its replacement by something else is beyond the scope of this brief post. I will say, though, that my own growing feeling is that it's probably most constructive to sidestep the entire "D&D/not D&D" debate entirely by making a distinction between "TSR D&D" and "WotC D&D." Even if WotC D&D shares certain bits of TSR D&D's genetic material, both mechanical and thematic, its origins are sufficiently different that it ought to be judged on its own terms rather than as a continuation of the Gygaxo-Arneson lineage. In any case, post-2000 versions of D&D are mostly outside my area of interest in this blog and I intend to avoid discussion of them in the future, except in cases where it has direct bearing on the topic at hand.

A Tale of Two Lists

I yield to no one in my lamenting the fact that neither 3e nor 4e saw fit to include a recommended reading list in their pages. I see this as a further symptom of the way the WotC editions of the game have diverged from its Gygaxo-Arneson roots, being the product of a post-literate culture quite unlike the one that birthed our hobby. I hold out some hope that Pathfinder might correct this oversight, given Erik Mona's deep love for and understanding of pulp fantasy.

That said, I would argue that the divergence that can be seen so clearly in the WotC editions began much earlier. Consider that, in the justly famed Appendix N of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide ("Inspirational and Educational Reading"), Gary Gygax explains:

The following authors were of particular inspiration to me. In some cases, I cite specific works, in others, I simply recommend all their fantasy writing to you. From such sources, as well as just about any other imaginative writing or screenplay you will be able to pluck kernels from which grow the fruits of exciting campaigns. Good reading!

As you can see, Gary wasn't closing off possible sources of inspiration to only a handful of books or authors. He was, throughout his career, committed to taking inspiration from wherever one might find it. At the same time, Gygax made clear which authors and books were the primary influences on him as he created D&D. It's these pulp fantasy books and authors who form the game's "literary DNA" and are the ones most consonant with the game as one of its creators conceived of it. (A similar list written by Dave Arneson would be intriguing indeed)

The DMG was published in 1979. Just two years later, Tom Moldvay's Basic Rulebook includes a lengthier bibliography, entitled "Inspirational Source Material," which was compiled with the help of Barbara Davis, children's librarian at the Lake Geneva Public Library. Moldvay states that

Books on folklore, mythology, fairy tales, bestiaries, and knightly legends can often help the DM fill in important details of a campaign, but fictional tales and fantasy novels usually provide the best sources of inspiration. The following list includes some books which might prove useful.

The divergence is clear. Whereas Gygax's list was a list of the specific books and authors who influenced him in creating the game -- and are thus a window into how he saw the game -- Moldvay's list is a generalized quasi-academic survey of fiction and non-fiction that might hold some interest to players of D&D.

It would be foolish to claim that Moldvay's list is the cause of the shift in the perception that D&D was a "generic" fantasy RPG without very specific inspirations and antecedents. Rather, I think Moldvay's list suggests that, by 1981, either enough gamers already believed this to be case so that including a reading list so different in tone from Gygax's was uncontroversial or that TSR was making a concerted effort to shift the game away from its literary origins in order to broaden its mass market appeal. The truth, I suspect, is somewhere in between. I certainly have an abiding respect for the memory of Tom Moldvay, whose work on modules B4, X1, and X2 reveal him to have been a keen student of pulp fantasy. Likewise, as highly as I regard TSR's products between the years 1974 and 1983, it's not as if the Golden Age ended abruptly and without the gleeful assistance of TSR itself, which made a number of creative decisions that laid the groundwork for the gaming world that exists today.

This is not a matter of "Gygax good/Moldvay bad" and I resist any attempt to characterize it as such. Nevertheless, it's hard to deny that the difference between the two reading lists reveals a shift in emphasis and approach that has had consequences for decades to come. Despite that, I feel compelled to say that, for all their differences, the fact that both Gygax and Moldvay saw the need to include a reading list at all shows how different they both were from the way the hobby would develop subsequently.

Patrimony of Evil

Say what you will about the Third Edition of Dungeons & Dragons itself -- and I have -- but I cannot countenance anyone complaining about the Open Game License, which is nothing sort of a godsend for the old school community. Why, you might ask? Quite simply, the OGL literally ensures that the Gygaxo-Arneson heritage of the game is available to any and all in perpetuity. Without it, games like OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, and Swords & Wizardy, among others, would not be possible. The OGL is nothing short than an insurance policy against the day when Hasbro decides to treat D&D like so many other bits of IP it controls and locks it away in a vault somewhere, never to be seen again (like so many Avalon Hill titles). One day, "Dungeons & Dragons," as a brand name may disappear forever, but the specific ideas and concepts of its creators are now forever available to the hobby to use, develop, and disseminate.

To cite some rather specific examples, let's take a look at some demons and devils created specifically for D&D and see how many of them are now Open Game Content:

Baphomet: This name is, of course, public domain, but the specific association of it with the demon lord of minotaurs is a Gygaxian invention. Thanks to the Tome of Horrors, you can now use him in your retro-clone products if you so desire.

Fraz-Urb'Luu: Famous for having been imprisoned beneath Castle Greyhawk, the demon prince of illusion is OGC, thanks again to the Tome of Horrors.

Geryon: Derived form Greek mythology by way of Dante's Inferno, D&D's serpentine ruler of the fifth layer of Hell is OGC.

The "Faceless Lord:" No, we can't call him Juiblex, but we can call him Jubilex. Again, ToH is to be thanked.

Kostchtchie: Again, a real world mythological name, but his portrayal as the demon lord of frost giants is unique to D&D -- and he's now OGC.

Moloch: Of Biblical origin, Moloch is the ruler of the sixth layer of Hell and lieutenant to Baalzebul. Both and the name of his master are OGC.

Orcus: Orcus has a real world analog, but the image of him as a bat-winged, goat-headed prince of the undead is pure D&D; it's also OGC.

Pazuzu: An ancient Baylonian demon famous in the 20th century for his connection to The Exorcist, D&D's version of him is now OGC.

Careful examination of other OGC products will reveal many other formerly D&D-specific monsters are now Open Game Content that may be freely used by anyone under the terms of the Open Game License. I find it hard not to be very happy about this, because it means, for example, that, were I to publish an old school gaming product, I am free to use many distinct elements of AD&D rather than having to create my own substitutes.

This may seem like a small thing, but it isn't, for much -- though not all -- of the appeal of old school gaming is its unique storehouse of monsters. Without them, there's a sense in which a fantasy game could never claim to be Dungeons & Dragons anymore. I know that, for many people, one of the reasons that 4e does not feel like a true successor to OD&D is because of the way it has abandoned or extensively reworked so many monsters that have been strongly associated with the game for 25 or more years. But, of course, if one's goal is to build an IP you can exploit and others cannot, you have no choice but to abandon the past, particularly since so much of D&D's patrimony has been bequeathed to us, the gaming community, to do with as we please.

And that's why I shall be forever grateful to Ryan Dancey and the Open Game License.

Not Bad

I make no bones about the fact that I rather strongly disliked the cover of the Fourth Edition Players Handbook, both stylistically and in terms of content. I feel it sends a very strong signal, almost certainly by design, that D&D is no longer a unique Gestalt of pulp fantasy, fairy tales, Hammer horror, and the random detritus of pop culture but instead a copy of copy of those very things. This was inevitable, I suppose, given the way that D&D's remarkable goulash has forever changed the way we view fantasy. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that, with very few exceptions, every fantasy created since the late 1970s at least has been either an embrace (and extension) of the Gygaxo-Arneson synthesis or a rejection of it. In a certain sense, we are all Gygaxians now, even if some of us hew closer to orthodoxy than others.

It's no surprise then that Wizards of the Coast, now a subsidiary of Hasbro, would need to do something in order to distinguish D&D from its bastard offspring. If every fantasy out there is D&D or a mutant variety thereof, what then is D&D? As a commercial property, D&D is almost certainly underperforming compared to its erstwhile descendants. When World of Warcraft, which employs a fundamentally Gygaxian fantasy set-up, can pull in over $100 million a month from online subscriptions , why can't D&D do the same? I'm not seriously arguing that D&D can be -- or should be -- pulling down those kinds of numbers, but I'm pretty sure someone at Hasbro asked such questions of WotC. When you consider that the brand name "Dungeons & Dragons" has remarkable recognition in the US, the "re-imagining" of D&D we got in 4e begins to make more sense. (Unfortunately, I think it's simultaneously too much of a change to be a good RPG and too little of a change to be a huge mass market success, but that's a topic for another time)

With that as prologue, let me say that I think the cover of the 4e DMG is not a bad one.

I don't love it. I don't think it's incredibly inspired or anywhere near as good as the revised 1e cover, but it's a solid effort and one that I think hits many of the right notes. For one, it's got a dragon on the cover and said dragon is in a cavern. It's not quite a dungeon as such, but it's close enough and I give it points for that. Second, the dragon looks sinister; he's not a nicey-nicey, please-ride-on-my-back-and-fight-evil dragon. He's a dragon. Now, I don't actually care much for the overall appearance of the dragon myself -- he's too dinosaur-like and spiky, when I would have preferred a more serpentine vibe -- but he's at least something I can recognize. He's broadly archetypal and that's good to see.

The dragon is peering into a crystal ball or scrying device, in which he sees the posers on the cover of the 4e PHB. I think this is just keen, as it ties in nicely with the notion of the Dungeon Master as the overseer of his campaign. I also like it because I think dragons, as immensely long-lived beings, ought to be natural schemers and planners and this illustration implies something of the sort. Some will no doubt see in the cover echoes of the cover to the Cook/Marsh Expert Rules, which employed a similar motif. I'm not sure what to think about that assertion. On the one hand, 4e is first "ahistorical" edition of D&D since OD&D itself, so I'm not sure making an artistic allusion to a rulebook published before most of the new game's target audience was born is all that plausible. On the other hand, I've seen repeated (if implausible) claims that 4e is the result of deep research into the history of the game. If true, someone at WotC might have felt this was an "Easter egg" for long-time fans. I remain unmoved myself, but then I take the heretical view that Moldvay/Cook was in fact another step on the road to perdition, so what do I know?

In the end, I'm left with the feeling that this is a decent cover, probably the best we could hope for with the new game. Looking at it, I feel far more interested in playing the game than I do looking at the PHB cover. I also find it more evocative than than the 3e or v.3.5 covers. I realize this might seem like I am damning it with faint praise and perhaps I am, but I don't dislike this cover. It's far and away the best of the three 4e core book covers and it's more appropriate to the DMG than even the 1e DMG's illustration is. That said, I can think of many other illustrations that'd work better for the DMG than this one and many styles I'd find more suited as well. I'd grade it an A in the C+ world of 4e art, but a B- compared to the revised 1e cover or other illustrations I see in my mind's eye.