The Extraordinary Ordinary

No matter how old I get, I think this illustration by Dave Sutherland will always be the closest anyone has ever come to encapsulating Dungeons & Dragons in a single image. That's in large part because it adorns the inside cover of the rules edited by J. Eric Holmes, which was the first D&D product I ever owned. So, it's invested with a hefty dose of nostalgia. Of course, I also happen to like the image: two fighting men with historical armor and weapons holding back a veritable horde of pig-faced orcs, also with historical armor and weapons, while the magic-user -- complete with a bestarred conical cap -- stands behind them casting a spell.

That's pretty much my mind's eye view of the game, then and now. It's a particular conception of the game, I'll grant. Even in 1977, when this image first appeared, it wasn't the only approach to it, but it was certainly the one I had the most contact with. Looking back on it, what I found appealing was its "groundedness." The armor and weapons in the picture are all based on real armor and weapons from the Middle Ages. Though a mishmash of periods and styles, they're not at all fantastical in origin, which nicely contrasts with the orcs. The magic-user is an interesting case, because, while not "real" in any sense, he's so archetypal that I somehow don't put him in the same category of unreality as the orcs.

One of the interesting things about this illustration is that you can see in it the seeds that would blossom into the fantastic realism of the Silver Age. In a certain sense, guys like Larry Elmore and Keith Parkinson are very much in the same tradition as this early work. In another sense, though, there's a clear difference. Sutherland's men aren't buffed action heroes and his women -- what few of them there are -- don't look like supermodels. This helps reinforce the notion that D&D adventurers are ordinary people, albeit extraordinarily courageous (or foolhardy) ones.

I think it's an important difference and it almost certainly explains both my mild distaste for the Silver Age generally and the continued appeal of the Holmes rulebook. The book includes several other examples of very ordinary looking fighters engage in battle against monstrous opponents. None of these fighters look like Schwarzenegger and that's important to me. The issues I have with post-Golden Age D&D art are not technical in nature but conceptual: the abandonment first of anatomical verisimilitude, reflecting the growing focus on the character as the "star" of his own story, and then of physical verisimilitude, reflecting the shift away from groundedness more generally -- oversized weapons, impractical armor, gravity-defying poses, etc.

All these things seem a break with the past and that saddens me. D&D needs more extraordinary ordinariness in my opinion. Not only would it be a return to the game's esthetic roots but it'd also help distinguish the game better from its bastard descendants, most of which abandoned verisimilitude long before D&D art directors decided aping them was the way to go. Instead of dancing to someone else's tune, wouldn't it be nice to see D&D calling its own once again?

Very Good News

Some superb news on the John Carter movie front. I mentioned back in October that I was a little worried that the approach director Andrew Stanton of Pixar implied he was taking was not one I thought would do justice to the classic stories. Having just read some excerpts from an interview with SciFi Wire, I feel a lot less concerned than I was a few months. As always, the proof is in the pudding and I reserve the right to be disappointed later, but Stanton is now saying things that please me.

For one, the film is not going to be a Pixar animated film at all, but rather a live-action Disney movie that makes extensive use of CGI to realize it. Likewise, Stanton wants the film to look "very authentic" within the constraints of the fact that, because Burroughs inspired lots of imitators, some of his ideas now seem clichéd, even though they in fact the originals. He also indicated that "if you do the story right, there's no way you couldn't" rate it PG-13. "This story of John Carter is not going to be an all-ages film."

Now that's more like it.

Happy Birthday, CAS

Today marks the 116th anniversary of the birth of the Bard of Auburn, Clark Ashton Smith. Of the "Big Three" who wrote in Weird Tales during the 1920s and 1930s, he's the only one to have lived long enough to have died of old age and yet he's also probably the least understood and celebrated. That's a great pity, not just because he's probably my favorite of the Big Three, but also because his works are quite unlike any other fantasy or science fiction writer before or since. Jack Vance probably comes the closest to conjuring up the shade of Smith, but there are lots of subtle differences between the two authors that make such a comparison facile.

For one, Smith considered himself primarily a poet rather than a writer of fiction. Even his most banal prose pieces possess a poetic character to them that transcends his florid vocabulary and indulgence in archaisms. There's an underlying rhythm to his writing that almost demands it be read aloud; I frequently find myself doing just that when I read a Smith story. It's a very strange and powerful thing. Rarely have I encountered a writer whose written words cried out to be spoken. And when you do so, the experience is like few others in literature. Smith's writing is exceedingly sensual, appealing to all our senses, including the mind's eye, that part of our imaginations that doesn't just conceive of people and things and places that have never existed but that strains at the edges of infinity. I find myself at a loss to describe precisely what I mean, but then that's part of my point. Smith's work often gives voice to the ineffable in ways that are both exhilarating and terrifying. Few others writers can do that.

Smith's influence over D&D is mostly marginal. Gygax included him in Appendix N, of course, and various figures in the hobby, such as Rob Kuntz and Tom Moldvay, both show clear debts to his writing. Kieran Forest over The Eiglophian Press recently announced his plan to create an OD&D product inspired by Smith's Zothique cycle and I look forward to seeing it. Yet, Smith is very difficult to translate into gaming materials, in large part because the brilliance of his writings come through not so much in his characters or plots or locations but in the moods he evokes. Smith's writing focuses more often than not on decadence and decline, ennui, and the inevitability and pain of loss, all shot through with a sardonic humor that somehow manages to avoid either the bleakness of Lovecraft or the brutality of Howard. Smith comes across to me as the most "human" of the Big Three, the one whose thought processes and obsessions are closest to my own. Despite that, his genius is elusive and not easily imitated without descending into parody, which is probably why he remains less well known than a writer of his talent ought to be.

Here's hoping that one day, like H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard before him, Clark Ashton Smith will receive the attention he deserves.

Well Said

Mike, over at the ever-excellent Society of Torch, Pole and Rope has posted a nice quote by Paul Crabaugh from issue 109 of Dragon. I'm going to re-post the quote here, because I think it rather nicely encapsulates a foundational principle of the ongoing old school renaissance:

In the Good Old Days, the days of the original three books of the Dungeons & Dragons game, the number of variants on the rules was roughly equal to X, where X was the number of players in the game.

Alas, we all get older and more conservative, and with the publication of the more detailed, more structured D&D Basic Set, variant rules tended to become one with history.

There’s no reason why that has to be so. The D&D game, by virtue of its inherent simplicity, is an excellent platform for experimental rules…

Indeed.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Who Fears the Devil?

Manly Wade Wellman is one of the authors whom Gary Gygax lists in Appendix N without indicating the title of a single book that inspired him in his creation of Dungeons & Dragons. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd suggest it was the short stories of Silver John of which Gygax was thinking. Originally appearing separately in magazine form during the 1950s and 1960s, they were collected under a single cover by Arkham House in 1963, with new linking material written by Wellman especially for the occasion. The collection gave these stories a somewhat greater currency than they'd had previously and it's possibly in this form that Gygax encountered them, although I have absolutely no evidence of this.

Silver John, so called because he carries a guitar with silver strings, is a mysterious wandering balladeer, who possesses a remarkable knowledge of the supernatural. He travels from place to place in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, where he uses his knowledge, courage, and wit to do battle with occult enemies of various sorts, many drawn from the folk tales and legends of the region he knew so well. John is a picture perfect example of a "wise fool," a simple, unassuming man whom others underestimate despite the fact that he clearly possesses a keen insight others lack.

The Silver John stories are folksy picaresque tales with a strong moral undercurrent that I imagine would have appealed to Gary. As I said, I have no idea if he ever read them, let alone took anything from them as he was co-creating D&D, but I think there's much here to recommend. They're a great example of how to take real superstitions and folk beliefs as a foundation and a model for spinning some of one's own creation. Wellman's ability to seamlessly intertwine his own creations with those of backwoods Appalachia is remarkable to read and ought to be an inspiration to referees everywhere, whether or not they were to Gary Gygax.

Dwimmermount (Session 2)

Dwimmermount continued yesterday, although with a slightly different roster of players. One player (whose character was Vladimir the dwarf) couldn't attend and a player who couldn't make it the previous week (whose character was Pike the gravedigger-turned-fighting man -- he used a shovel as his weapon initially) was able to attend. It'll be nice if the group ever manages to reach full strength or, better yet, get additional players beyond four, but, for now, I'm just content with consistent play, since, as I noted before, I think it's a key both to success generally and specifically in the case of old school play.

In session 2, the players took the map they created the previous week and started to examine it for routes they'd not yet explored, as well as the likely locations of secret doors or other hidden features. I was very pleased about this, because it showed the utility of actual map making, which is something of a lost art in the hobby. I also liked how the presence of a map allowed the players to plan their return to the dungeon. They were more knowledgeable about the level's contents and, by looking at the map, they could make good surmises as to what they might encounter elsewhere within it and prepared themselves accordingly. Excellent.

In the absence of the thief class, Vladimir the dwarf had functioned as the party's trap finder. Since Vladimir's player was unable to attend, Brother Candor decided to take on a second hireling (in addition to Lorne the lantern-bearer, brother of the ill-fated Lars) who was similarly skilled. This resulted in the employment of Brak, a goblin, who worked quite cheaply but whose ultimate loyalty was somewhat more malleable than his dwarven counterpart. Henga the shield maiden remained in the service of Dordagdonar the elf, having proved useful as a moveable barrier around which he could shoot arrows.

The session involved a lot more exploration than did the previous one. Part of it was because the players had a better sense of the general layout of the first level and could thus use their time more efficiently. Part of it was that they were simply more bold. They have quickly internalized the notion that, since looted treasure is more valuable in terms of XP, it's in their best interests to find as much of the shiny stuff as they can. Of course, this also resulted in more encounters with dungeon denizens too, but they showed a good command of tactics to give them an upper hand. They also demonstrated an understanding of discretion being the better part of valor, since they avoided entering a large room filled with what they believe is a large contingent of orcs, complete with a leader type, all decked out in ancient Thulian armor. I was similarly pleased at the way they handled traps, even going so far as to haul in logs lumbered from a copse of trees on the face of Dwimmermount to prevent a portcullis trap from activating and trapping them in a room.

Poor Lorne joined his brother in death, which required another trip back to Muntburg to bury him -- can't be too sure in a dungeon. The players worried that, after two men in their employ had died, they might start to get a reputation that'd make it hard to hire more men in the future. So they took several days to travel to the City-State of Adamas to look for alternative sources of labor. In the end, after having bought new and better gear and stocking up on supplies unavailable at Muntburg, they decided against hiring any "city folk," figuring they were more likely to betray them or at least prove unreliable. Of course, the same could be said of Brak, but no one seemed to care, probably because he quickly developed a quirky sketch of a personality that made him endearing. Should he ever die, I expect there will be much mourning.

I was very pleased with how the session unfolded. We created a new house rule regarding the use of small and improvised weapons (roll 2D6 and take the lowest for damage) and the groundwork has been laid for the further fleshing out of the world beyond the dungeon. Although the players only visited Adamas briefly, it will loom largely in the future, as will Muntburg, though I intend to keep the focus on Dwimmermount primarily for a while longer. They just discovered one likely set of stairs leading to the second level, but they're far from clearing level one, so there may be other options.

As a referee, I'm finding this a very satisfying experience. It's much more laid-back than the more "story-heavy" games I've run in the past and, despite my more on-the-fly approach to it, the whole thing hangs together nicely. Characterization is starting to emerge among both the PCs and NPCs, but it's still inchoate, much like the sense of the wider world. I also find it great to watch the recapitulation of history at my table, as the players find themselves coming to similar conclusions as early players about how best to deal with certain things in the game. I'm learning a great deal from the experience and expect to learn much more as we play more.

Both my children (ages six and nearly-nine) hovered around the table at various points, taking a keen interest in the proceedings. I've played a simple version of D&D with my daughter in the past and I think she wants to get in on the action again. My son was more impressed with the dungeon blocks, from which he constructed his own underground lair. That's his creation in the picture above. As distracting as their presence occasionally was -- and I'm grateful for the indulgence of my players as I catered to the kids' questions and comments -- it's also great to see them enraptured by what we were doing. I remember well reading articles during the 1979-1981 period that showed photographs of the elaborate dungeon set-ups of groups that used handmade blocks and terrain to complement their painted minis and being awestruck. I was already playing the game, of course, but those articles had a powerful effect on my young imagination and almost certainly played a role in cementing my lifelong love of this game. We'll see if my games have a similar effect on my children. If the minis and blocks don't inspire them, perhaps my cool mask will instead ...

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.

Aur Onnad Meren!

I'm usually pretty good at remembering important dates of interest to the hobby. So it's with some sheepishness that I admit to having forgotten what would have been the 117th birthday of J.R.R. Tolkien on January 3. I suppose some will no doubt see this as further evidence of my "war" against acknowledging the professor's influence over the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. Like my reservations about the thief or my low opinion of Dragonlance, my willingness to take Gary Gygax at his word when he repeatedly stated that Tolkien was but a minor influence on the game he co-created has become the stuff of humor in certain quarters. The really funny thing is that my opinion on the matter is not born out of dislike of Tolkien or Middle-earth, but rather the opposite. It's precisely because, in my later years, I've become such an admirer of Tolkien's work that I find it hard to credit much commonality between his writings and D&D -- or indeed any fantasy roleplaying game, including those that were in fact set in Middle-earth.

When I was a child, I of course read The Hobbit and, later, The Lord of the Rings. I liked both well enough, but, beyond taking certain visual cues from them, I can't honestly say that they had much impact on my playing of D&D. Indeed, I found much of The Lord of the Rings deadly dull. There was too much poetry and song and a lot of it read more like a travelogue than an epic fantasy. I know for a fact that I used to despise the "The Scouring of the Shire," part 8 of Book VI of The Return of the King, seeing it as anticlimactic in the extreme, whereas now I am convinced that it is in fact the true climax of the entire novel. If one is so inclined, feel free take this all as yet further evidence of my dislike of Tolkien and use it to explain away my blindness as to his "obvious" influence on Gygax.

One of the reasons I have grown to admire Tolkien as I grow older is that I see more clearly now that, despite caricatures to the contrary, The Lord of the Rings is not in fact about the triumph of good over evil. That may be the theme of Tolkien's impersonators, from Terry Brooks on down to Peter Jackson, but Tolkien himself would have laughed at the notion that the history of this world was anything more than a "long defeat," as he so eloquently described it through the voice of Galadriel in The Fellowship of the Ring. For Tolkien, we may in this life experience glimpses of what the final victory over evil might be like, but they are fleeting and even the greatest of our victories always brings with it terrible loss. As others have noted, The Lord of the Rings is not an epic but an elegy and creeping senescence makes me appreciate elegy ever more.

I find it hard to imagine how one could argue that D&D, whether in its Golden or Silver Age forms (or later), is an elegaic game. It's always been a vehicle for escapism and while Tolkien acknowledged the salutary effects of escapism, The Lord of the Rings is not a work of escapism. To read it that way, to treat it that way, is to misunderstand it on just about every level. More to the point, as an example of escapism, it's woefully boring. That's what I thought as a kid and that's how Gygax described it on more than one occasion. That's why D&D is full of orcs and balrogs and halflings and treants: they're the things a shallow reading of the novel remembers about it. They're cool and shiny and easily given stats for use in your next dungeon crawl. But meditations on the inevitability of loss in a fallen world aren't quite so compelling for gaming, which is why no edition of the game has ever encouraged or supported that kind of play.

And I don't think that's a bad thing. Much as I admire and agree with Tolkien, I'm not sure I'd enjoy playing a game about the themes of his own works. I have real life if I want to experience the long defeat. When I game, I want an escape from that, if only for a little while, and D&D, based as it is on escapist pulp fantasy, has done a fine job of providing that. For myself, the two are not contradictory but complementary, which is why I raise a belated toast to Professor Tolkien on the memorial of his birth. He wrote a tale that has immeasurably enriched me and will no doubt continue to do so as I read it again and again. I can't say that of very many authors, which is why, despite my heretical beliefs regarding his influence over my hobby, I hold him in the highest regard.

Excelsior!

This illustration is from the front page of the D1-2 module compilation and is drawn by Bill Willingham. Like most of Willingham's work, it's obviously influenced by comics art from the time. Indeed, if you look carefully at this piece, you'll see it's more than influenced by comics art. Regular readers of the Acaeum probably already know this one, but there are three mighty Marvel Easter eggs hidden within this picture, which are really obvious once you know they're there, but I admit I never noticed them for years.

Dwimmermount Begins

Last Sunday I began my Dwimmermount campaign. I'd intended to begin it before the new year, but a big snowstorm prevented that and it had to be postponed. Unfortunately, the postponement made it impossible for one of my players to make the first session, so I had to make do with only three characters to start, which wasn't my preference, particularly since two of the three were demihumans. That said, I vowed that I'd run Dwimmermount every Sunday like clockwork provided I had at least two players. One of my growing beliefs is that, for old school gaming to work, you need to play not only consistently but also regularly. I'd venture to guess that one of the big reasons why old school play isn't as popular as it once was is because gamers meet a lot less often than they used to and because they don't stick with a single campaign -- or game! -- long enough to let it find its feet and properly establish itself. With very few exceptions, the best campaigns I've ever participated in, either back in the day or more recently, were ones where we played weekly (as close to it) without fail. Anything less and you quickly lose the "thread" from which an old school campaign is spun and you might as well be playing a board or video game.

The three characters who began the campaign consisted of a cleric of Tyche named Brother Candor, a dwarf named Vladimir, and an elf named Dordagdonar. I decided to keep background to a minimum, preferring to let evolve through play. I made one exception: I stated that Brother Candor's now-deceased master had spoken to him of a "hidden" entrance to Dwimmermount beneath some Thulian ruins on the slopes of the peak. I did this for the simple reason that I wanted to vaguely plausible explanation as to why the first few levels of a renowned megadungeon located a day's walk from an outpost of civilization (Muntburg Keep) hadn't been picked thoroughly keen by throngs of adventurers. It's a bit of "poetic license" on my part, but I don't regret it.

We were using Swords & Wizardry as our baseline rules, with quite a few tweaks. I was, for example, using Greyhawk's weapon vs. AC tables. I also used the morale rules from Moldvay, because they remain the best treatment of the topic in any edition of D&D in my opinion and because I think D&D combat only makes sense if you assume the use of morale. Other house rules will evolve through play and I very much look forward to that. One of the joys of using a simple rules set isn't just the ease of house ruling but the necessity of doing so. This is how the game stays fresh over months and years of continued play. It also ensures that we never treat the game as a mere consumer product, prefabricated and "ready to eat." To me, that's anathema and it's frankly that attitude, far moreso than things like thieves or demihumans or even story, that separates the old school from its wayward descendants.

I had already prepared maps for several levels of the dungeon. One of my design principles was to include lots of lateral movement options, both within a level and between them. One of the problems with most modern dungeon design is that there are too few avenues of exploration and the layouts are too logical. I wanted to avoid that, so I made sure that there were rarely cases where a room had only a single exit. Likewise, though my players didn't pursue them, there needed to be ready access to sub-levels, side-levels, and so forth. Exploring a megadungeon is, on some level, a descent into the Underworld. There's room for other types of dungeons, of course -- the type Trent Foster calls a "lair" -- but a megadungeon is special. As the requisite anchor to an old school campaign, its design must follow slightly different rules and those rules must be reflected in its maps.

Beforehand, I placed a few of what M.A.R. Barker calls, in Empire of the Petal Throne, "Saturday night specials." These are set piece encounters -- weird tricks, devious traps, unusual monsters -- that are meant to be memorable or in some way significant. The contents of the rest of the rooms, though, I rolled up on the fly, using the dungeon stocking rules from OD&D Volume 3 and the Monster & Treasure Assortment. I was a little wary of this method to start with, because I'd never done it before, but, in the end, it worked very well, resulting in a very memorable encounter with some crossbow-armed kobolds who nearly killed the entire party, as well as a poison gas trap that claimed the life of henchman, Lars, whose skill with a sling had saved the bacon of his employers during said kobold encounter. When the PCs returned to Muntburg to rest, they buried Lars to ensure he wouldn't return as a risen ghoul later -- curses! -- and they hired his brother Lorne (along with Henga, the shield maiden) to replace him.

As you can see, we used miniatures -- plastic, prepainted ones, alas -- and dungeon models. They were there mostly for show, but they did help me with my descriptions somewhat, since I often have a hard time describing physical locations without props. The party also employed a mapper, which was nice to see. They quickly learned the benefits of doing so, since it enabled them to ferret out the likely locations of secret doors, pit traps, and visualize how unexplored corridors likely hooked up with one another. As noted, they also quickly understood the importance of retreating. They returned to Muntburg to re-supply and rest for a week between forays, which I found eminently sensible. I then used the dungeon restocking table I saw first on Sham's Grog 'n Blog to determine if a room previously cleared had been repopulated while they were away. While they were in Muntburg, we all agreed to adopt the Dave Arneson-inspired rule that XP is only given for gold that's taken from the dungeon and spent. Everyone agreed it gave the thing a very swords-and-sorcery feel, which is what I wanted.

All in all, it was a good start, but it was only a start. I don't consider a campaign to have "taken" until we play at least three sessions consecutively. Session 2 should be this weekend, barring any problems. I see promise in this game, but I admit I also have some concern it'll be stillborn. Life is pretty hectic for most of my players, so it'd be easy for something to derail this. Likewise, we're all out of practice when it comes to a megadungeon-centered campaign and I think it's going to take some getting used to its nuances. Right now, people are enthusiastic, because it's new and different, but there's a reason why many gamers moved away from dungeon crawling in the first place and those same dynamics will come into play with Dwimmermount as well. I have the benefit of at least being aware of them, which puts me ahead of many referees of old, but I also realize that there are some inherent limits to the megadungeon and the key to running a successful megadungeon-centered campaign is to find clever ways to transcend them.

Can I do that? Time will tell.