Game Mechanics

The name of the game is roleplaying, not ruleplaying. The Game master is there to handle all the thousands of situations where rules are UNNECESSARY. Knowledge, logic, reason, and common sense serve better than a dozen rule books.

I do not, and I stress NOT, believe that the RPG is “storytelling” in the way that is usually presented. If there is a story to be told, it comes from the interaction of all participants, not merely the Game Master–who should not [be] a “Storyteller” but a narrator and co-player! The players are not acting out roles designed for them by the GM, they are acting in character to create the story, and that tale is told as the game unfolds, and as directed by their actions, with random factors that even the GM can’t predict possibly altering the course of things. Storytelling is what novelists, screenwriters, and playwrights do. It has little or no connection to the RPG, which differs in all aspects from the entertainment forms such authors create for.

I wonder how the idea of non-armed persons being the norm became so prevalent in the RPG community. Likely from watching too many samurai flicks… In the medieval period almost everyone was armed with whatever they could manage. True : some societies forbid swords to non-aristocrats, that prohibition disappearing as time moved towards what we name the Renaissance. Anyway, in a fantasy world full of magic and monsters, the unarmed and unprotected by armor would be the first to fall, so I assume that a party of adventurers is a fairly common sight. Local persons are wary of them, as these strangers might want to slay, loot and pillage. Once the strangers prove to be friendly, they are welcomed–for their money.

[en réponse à une question] You asked if you could play a henchman character, and I took the time to respond to a question that is arguably obvious–of course, if your DM allows such a subservient role. Now you come back with the rules that say henchmen are NPCs. What a discovery ! Of course, as they are meant to assist PCs in survival in their adventuring, and if you read and follow along, as some millions have managed to do to date, the matter is amply explained. It is a game, not rocket science, and there are no fixed laws other than those your DM sets down–or you dictate in your game campaign.

When I am DMing, humanoids do usually fight to the very last.
If the foes of these humanoids are so foolish as to accept surrender and allow their prisoners to eventually go free and perform further depredations, your « Good » forces are really « Stupid. »
Neutral and Evil PCs in my campaign would indeed accept surrender of humanoids, enlist them to fight on their behalf, and thus they would die for the profit of their human or demi-human masters.
The non-combatants in a humanoid group might be judged as worthy of death by a LG opponent force and executed or taken as prisoners to be converted to the correct way of thinking and behaving. A NG opponent would likely admonish them to change their ways before freeing them. A CG force might enslave them so as to correct their ways or else do as the NG party did. CN and LN opponents would likely slaughter the lot. Evil opponents would enlist, enslave, or execute them according to the nature of the Evil victors and that of the survivors. Enlistment would be for those of like alignment, slaughter for those opposite the victors’ predisposition to order or disorder. Enslavement is an option for any sort of Evil desiring workers.

The audience for WoW-type games inline is huge, and the revenue from subscribers should be much stronger than that from paper game product sales. It seems likely to me that the WotC designers will do their utmost to make an appealing game for those that love playing online, one that is passable to those that enjoy actual RPGing [quelques mois avant la sortie de la 4e édition].

 AD&D

I wrote the MM in about six months, then took a break for a month, wrote the PHB with the MM being printed and sold, the second book taking me about seven months to write. I then took a break to write the G Series of modules and then penned the DMG in about eight months–after completing it I wrote the D Series of modules.

2E was what it was because T$R wanted to remove me from the game system, stop paying me royalties–about 2% of cover, BTW, very reasonable. When the sales plummeted, all sorts of splat boks were published in hopes of making up for loss of sustomers by selling more to the remaining audience.

Psionics, as with weapons speed and the table of comparison of varying damage by armor type, was something I got talked into. I never used them in my campaign–other than the Illithids’ and like monsters attacks. Frankly, they don’t fit with the rest of the AD&D system, and i planned to pull them from a revised edition.

Alignment was meant primarily as a role-playing tool. (Despite what some of the « mature » and « sophisticated » gamers assert, roleplay was indeed a central feature of the AD&D game from the proverbial get-go.) the player was to be guided by it when role-playing his character, and the DM had the same benchmarks to use in judging the PC’s actions. The debates now make me regret that I ever included the system feature, as it is being taken beyond the pale. Better to have the character’s actions speak for their ethics and morality than some letter set. [pour mesurer le sort de cette « regrettable » invention de Gygax, googlez ‘character alignment’ et choisissez ‘images’]

I certainly did hand out XPs in my campaign for spell use, also successful tracking by rangers, use of thief abilities by any PC so doing, that sort of thing. Players generally took all treasure as property of the party, then at the conclusion of an adventure divided it in shares according to the total number of levels of the PCs involved, counting half of any multi-classed PCs levels only as addition the the higest sngle class one, i.e. a F/T/MU of 8/4/10 levels would get 4+2+10 shares of the loot. Magic was always selected by high d% roll, each player getting a roll for each level of his or her PC–in the above example 16 rolls saving the highest. Picks then went from highest on down. Many a tie of 00 rolls occurred. In such case the top scorerers rolled off for order of picks.

The illusionist sub-class sprang from my reading. So many spellworkers in fable and fiction used only the illusory, not « real magic » that had actual substance and effect, that I thought it would be fun to include such an option in the game. Subtilty was indeed a factor in play–and for that reason not a lot of illusionists were active in my campaign.

[Sur l’absence de voleurs PC dans ses campagnes et les détections de pièges] Some of the less caring PCs had orcs who were sent forth to take care of such things. Others of the PCs had henchmen who were of the thief class. There were also such things as wands of secret door & trap detection and knock spells.

[Sur les sources de sa cosmogonie] I used the alchemical for the elemental planes, the old concept of the elheral plane, ideas drawn from the Spiritualist writers of the 19th century, along with mythology. For example, Ancient Egyptian religious belief had an upper realm, Pet, and a lower one, the Duat or Tuat, something that combined areas of a material paradise, uncertain realms, and hellish places. Where one’s soul ended up depended on how the deceased lived life.

Old D&D

We usually managed combat thus:
1. Roll d6 for initiative, low score going first.
2. Weapons attacks and spells with a segment cost of 1
3. Spells with more than 1 segment time involved add 1 pip to the initiative roll per segment, so 2 adds 1, 3 adds 2, and so on. A 6-segment-long spell adding 5 meant that at best it would happen simultaneously with the opponents actions who had rolled a 6 on initiative.
4. Moving into combat range against a longer weapon gave the opponent first attack.
5. Simultaneous attacks occured together where adjusted initiative was the same for both sides.

The first system for determining what happens is the best one, the only one I ever used. If the weapon-wielder has the initiative and strikes the spell caster, the spell is blown. If he misses, or the spell caster wins [the initiative and] the casting time allows, then the spell is activated and takes effect.

When we began playing D&D all the time nobody cared much about using figurines, we seldom if ever did then.

Monsters

When I got to ruminating on the inhabitants of the Underdark, the Drows were the main human-types I came up with to compliment the Illithids. Not wanting to have a lot of repetition in encounters, it seemed that some piscean race would be novel and fit relatively well into the setting. I envisaged large communities of the Kuo-toa wherever there was underground water, expecially in the Sunless Sea environs.

Terry Kuntz came up with the beholder after he had been playing in my campaign for about two months. Where he got the idea I have no ides, but I latched onto it immediately, and with his kind permission made it an integral creature in the D&D roster of ugly customers to encounter.

As to the removal of hobbit, ent, and balrog, that I can speak to. One morning a marshall delivered a summons to me as an officer of TSR. It was from the Saul Zaents division of Elan Merchandising, the sum named was $500,000, and the filing claimed proprietarial rights to the above names as well as to dwarf, elf, goblin, orc, and some others too. It also demanded a cease and desist on the publication of the Battle of Five Armies game.
Of course the litigant was over-reaching, so in the end TSR did drop only the game (the author had assured us he was grandfathered in, but he and his attorney too were wrong) and the use of the names hobbit, balrog, and ent–even though hobbit was not created by JRRT, and ent was the Anglo-Saxon name for giant [exact pour le second, faux pour le premier (cf. Oxford Concise Dictionnary)]

(some famous) Characters

Mordenkainen was my second PC, and I started playing him early in 1974 wanting a magic-user to balance my fighter, Yrag. I still play Mordie now and again in very high-level scenarios where a mage of over 20th level doesn’t over-power the opposition

Rob Kuntz’s Robliar first adventured in the winter of ’72, so he is the elder, but you’ve probably gotten in more action with Robillard than Rob has managed with his PC. Like me, Rob had DMing duties first.

As for adventuring with Mordenkainen, no offense, but most certainly not. I have no idea as to your DMing style, and so he stays home. When Ernie, Rob, Terry, and I took our top PCs into Jim Ward’s specially prepared dungeon adventure the first attack was by a lich with a rof of Cancellation. That experience was quite sufficient to teach us all to be wary…

Divers

Well, I did read about half of the first of the « Dragonlance » novel and found it not to my particular taste in fantasy, so I passed it on to my sons. One read several of their books thereafter and enjoyed them. I enjoy either a lot of action or very interesting and different characters being developed. So, for example, Howard and Vance are favorite authors.

I am really just another gamer. Just because I happen to be hyperactive in the design area doesn’t make me substantially different from, and certainly not superior to, my fellows.