Is WotC D&D Really D&D?

[JamesDixon]

I use D&D as an umbrella term for all fantasy TTRPGs with dice. Sue me.

My lawyers will be in contact...

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

No. b/x to AD&D 1E was DnD. All since is just offshoots. Not to say they are bad or you shouldn't play them. Unless it's 4E or 5E. Those are objectively the wrong way to play DnD. I have over 40 years of material for b/x alone. It's not like I'm limiting myself.

 

[JamesDixon]

No. b/x to AD&D 1E was DnD. All since is just offshoots. Not to say they are bad or you shouldn't play them. Unless it's 4E or 5E. Those are objectively the wrong way to play DnD. I have over 40 years of material for b/x alone. It's not like I'm limiting myself.

Why isn't AD&D 2E on your list?

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

No. b/x to AD&D 1E was DnD. All since is just offshoots. Not to say they are bad or you shouldn't play them. Unless it's 4E or 5E. Those are objectively the wrong way to play DnD. I have over 40 years of material for b/x alone. It's not like I'm limiting myself.

Why isn't AD&D 2E on your list?

Gygax never worked on it. It was made primarily after he was booted out of TSR. I do not completely subscribe to the Holy bible of Gygax but by all accounts he never used AD&D 2E for his games. It is when you started to see the course deviate from what Gygax intended. DnD is Gygax's system. OSR stuff is more DnD than modern DnD. Beyond the mechanics I mean. It goes more into mentality. Death matters, foolishness is punished naturally by either the mechanics of the game or the consequences of the PCs actions, don't fudge the fucking dice, and the GM is the final arbiter of the rules.

 

[JamesDixon]

No. b/x to AD&D 1E was DnD. All since is just offshoots. Not to say they are bad or you shouldn't play them. Unless it's 4E or 5E. Those are objectively the wrong way to play DnD. I have over 40 years of material for b/x alone. It's not like I'm limiting myself.

Why isn't AD&D 2E on your list?

Gygax never worked on it. It was made primarily after he was booted out of TSR. I do not completely subscribe to the Holy bible of Gygax but by all accounts he never used AD&D 2E for his games. It is when you started to see the course deviate from what Gygax intended. DnD is Gygax's system. OSR stuff is more DnD than modern DnD. Beyond the mechanics I mean. It goes more into mentality. Death matters, foolishness is punished naturally by either the mechanics of the game or the consequences of the PCs actions, don't fudge the fucking dice, and the GM is the final arbiter of the rules.

AD&D 2E was just as lethal as prior editions. Also, the DMG repeats the exact same philosophy from prior editions down to the DM being the final judge on the rules. All that changed was cleaning up the rules and presenting it in a better format. In fact, you could use AD&D 1E material just fine in 2E.

EDIT: David Cook that wrote 2E worked at TSR under Gary for years. He even did work for B/X D&D. He knew what Gary wanted.

 

[JamesDixon]

Going through old Dragon Magazines I came across a couple of finds from Dragon #90 and #103. Gary was planning AD&D 2E as early as 1984 as noted in Dragon #90 (October 1984). 13 issues later, Gary goes into further detail on what the second edition will cover plus hopes to have new things. That was Dragon #103 published November 1985. Fits with the timeline for when production of AD&D 2E was started. AD&D 2E PHB clearly states the it is a derivative of Gary's and others work on AD&D 1E.

Dragon #90

Spoiler

Dragon #103

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[JamesDixon]

I forgot to post the cover for Dragon #103. I shall rectify this oversight now.

 

[sgm]

Hey JamesDixon , thought this might interest you.

Old Dragonsfoot discussion about Gary's ideas for what 2e might have been under his direction. Some of it you've already posted about, but also stuff that he discussed online.

https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=39975&sid=c2dd85deab310041d4aa94ed102d866c&start=30

Keep in mind that when Gary spoke about D&D online he had a tendency to give different answers to the same question depending on who was asking, or what he thought at the moment. He played by his own house rules since the beginning of D&D and was always changing things when he felt it was appropriate. The AD&D 1e rulebooks and even the supplements to the 3 LLBs of OD&D were not just attempts to make the rules more coherent (which in retrospect I don't think were nearly successful enough at accomplishing, i.e.: initiative), but to make TSR money. In the case of AD&D it was also to make some sort of unified rules for convention play (as a number of the early modules published for it were originally used for tournaments).

If anyone thinks TSR's business side wasn't making the same kind of financial decisions as WoTC in regards to publishing material, even in the early days when Gary wasn't busy with things other than designing material for the games, I really think they should take a look at both the material published and the reception to it. My own opinion is that the rush to put out more material to make money for a company that was growing very fast, or when it was in financial distress (Unearthed Arcana) often resulted in a lot of questionable content, if not out right useless additions that many people just did not use at their table.

EDIT: Here's a link to some research the Greyhawk Grognard did on Gary's possible 2e (the link in the Dragonsfoot thread was broken).

 

[JamesDixon]

Hey JamesDixon , thought this might interest you.

Old Dragonsfoot discussion about Gary's ideas for what 2e might have been under his direction. Some of it you've already posted about, but also stuff that he discussed online.

https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=39975&sid=c2dd85deab310041d4aa94ed102d866c&start=30

Keep in mind that when Gary spoke about D&D online he had a tendency to give different answers to the same question depending on who was asking, or what he thought at the moment. He played by his own house rules since the beginning of D&D and was always changing things when he felt it was appropriate. The AD&D 1e rulebooks and even the supplements to the 3 LLBs of OD&D were not just attempts to make the rules more coherent (which in retrospect I don't think were nearly successful enough at accomplishing, i.e.: initiative), but to make TSR money. In the case of AD&D it was also to make some sort of unified rules for convention play (as a number of the early modules published for it were originally used for tournaments).

If anyone thinks TSR's business side wasn't making the same kind of financial decisions as WoTC in regards to publishing material, even in the early days when Gary wasn't busy with things other than designing material for the games, I really think they should take a look at both the material published and the reception to it. My own opinion is that the rush to put out more material to make money for a company that was growing very fast, or when it was in financial distress (Unearthed Arcana) often resulted in a lot of questionable content, if not out right useless additions that many people just did not use at their table.

EDIT: Here's a link to some research the Greyhawk Grognard did on Gary's possible 2e (the link in the Dragonsfoot thread was broken).

Thanks for the head's up. I remember reading that a long time ago. It's fascinating to be honest.

The entire rewriting and making coherent rules was a challenge. From reading about what was planned for Temple of Elemental Evil is that the writer had to go through 300+ pages of handwritten notes by Gary. That was to make it coherent. Can you imagine the challenge of going through his notes for AD&D?

Gary was a genius, but a lousy writer. He even admitted that to himself. Only when other authors get their hands on the material does his ideas shine through perfectly. Remember, AD&D 1E was Gary's work and he helmed it. That's why the text and tone is uneven in all the books. David Zeb Cook and his team did a great job taking what was written by Gary and clarified it to be useable at the table. It is also more approachable then the other versions of (A)D&D that came prior. The entire unified class archetypes and putting in the existing classes was a brilliant move. No longer did you have various fighter types using different hit dice or to hit rolls. THAC0 was a vast improvement over the Combat Matrix.

As for what Gary would have written for AD&D 2E, no one knows. After he was sued and threatened by Lorraine numerous times he got shy about discussing it. He didn't want to have another lawsuit on his hands. However, the key thing is that David Zeb Cook was the third employee hired by Gary and worked closely with him for years while having access to Gary's notes shows that the AD&D 2E that he did was what I believe that Gary would have approved of if he was still with the company. After all, AD&D 2E was started by Gary in 1984 prior to the publication of Dragon #90.

 

[sgm]

Thanks for the head's up. I remember reading that a long time ago. It's fascinating to be honest.

The entire rewriting and making coherent rules was a challenge. From reading about what was planned for Temple of Elemental Evil is that the writer had to go through 300+ pages of handwritten notes by Gary. That was to make it coherent. Can you imagine the challenge of going through his notes for AD&D?

Gary was a genius, but a lousy writer. He even admitted that to himself. Only when other authors get their hands on the material does his ideas shine through perfectly. Remember, AD&D 1E was Gary's work and he helmed it. That's why the text and tone is uneven in all the books. David Zeb Cook and his team did a great job taking what was written by Gary and clarified it to be useable at the table. It is also more approachable then the other versions of (A)D&D that came prior. The entire unified class archetypes and putting in the existing classes was a brilliant move. No longer did you have various fighter types using different hit dice or to hit rolls. THAC0 was a vast improvement over the Combat Matrix.

As for what Gary would have written for AD&D 2E, no one knows. After he was sued and threatened by Lorraine numerous times he got shy about discussing it. He didn't want to have another lawsuit on his hands. However, the key thing is that David Zeb Cook was the third employee hired by Gary and worked closely with him for years while having access to Gary's notes shows that the AD&D 2E that he did was what I believe that Gary would have approved of if he was still with the company. After all, AD&D 2E was started by Gary in 1984 prior to the publication of Dragon #90.

I don't entirely agree that the 2E we got (which I did play a lot and enjoyed) is what Gary would have produced, even if he was fully committed to the role of designer. By the time he was talking about 2E (and even a potential 3E) in those Dragon articles, he was already too preoccupied with the business side of things. It's highly likely that Cook, or someone else would have had to produce the majority of a 2E, even if Gary stayed at TSR under Williams (Bizzaro Universe).

Even the psionics section of 1E probably wasn't designed by him. Tim Kask edited material that Gary gave him which ended up in Eldritch Wizardry. It's not known how much of that material came from Gary or others, but when AD&D was being produced, the section on psionics may have been done by someone other than Gary (as he never liked the end result). There are plenty of sections in the 1E DMG that's weren't designed by Gary, but by that point putting his name on the cover sold more books than if some other dude was credited along with him. And the whole mess with Arneson (which started before the lawsuit) most likely played a significant role in how TSR handled credits.

EDIT: I realize that you didn't say that 2E as published was what Gary would have done. And agree no one knows what Gary's 2E would have been. Truth is, I don't believe Gary would have ever produced a 2E like he did 1E. His role in TSR had changed too much for that to have been a real possibility.

 

[JamesDixon]

We can agree to disagree on the matter then.

AD&D 2E was produced by a team that was overseen by David Zeb Cook. He was placed there by Gary in 1984. One thing that everyone seems to miss is that everyone at TSR hated Lorraine. Tim Kask and other employees have commented that they pretty much ignored her to do their own thing. Thus, I'm under the impression that David basically did AD&D 2E the way Gary originally wanted within the mandates that Lorraine put into place. One of those mandates was to purify Gary out of the rules, so he couldn't claim royalties. That didn't happen as evidenced by the Forwards and Credits written by David in the PHB, DMG, and MC Volume 1 Binder. He clearly states that everything their team did is from AD&D 1E.

TSR was a very large company before Gary was pushed out, so it was common to have product line managers to handle the day to day. It's entirely possible that Gary just told David I want a reorganization and rewriting of the rules then let him go his own way. From the way that Tim Kask has detailed on the daily operations that was how it was done. In the end it ultimately comes down to who was in the president's seat when decisions were made to make AD&D 2E. That would be Gary in 1984.

As for the actual argument about Gary and AD&D 2E, he stuck with his own version of OD&D that he and Dave wrote in 1973. His personal game has no bearing on this discussion.

Tim Kask had repeatedly said that he didn't like the rules for psionics were done originally. He wanted to redo them to be more in line with how magic worked.

I'm looking at the credits in the AD&D 2E revised premium edition. The final paragraph says, "This is a derivative work based on the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master Guide by Gary Gygax and Unearthed Arcana and other materials by Gary Gygax and others." That was David Zeb Cook's fuck you to Lorraine.

 

[Old One]

Going through old Dragon Magazines...

To compliment my collection I just bought a box of 50 issues of Dragon, a random mix from #50 through the end of the run. I haven't had a chance to look at them all, but the WotC era issues are crap - they just look horrible (and they jacked up the cover price a lot too). Whoever was doing their graphic design was garbage compared to the old TSR era stuff. It's so bad they're actually difficult to read, because the background behind the text is often busy with some sort of pointless design instead of white or solid colored. Yuck.

To answer the original question: no, WotC game is not really D&D. It's too different.

 

[JamesDixon]

Going through old Dragon Magazines...

To compliment my collection I just bought a box of 50 issues of Dragon, a random mix from #50 through the end of the run. I haven't had a chance to look at them all, but the WotC era issues are crap - they just look horrible (and they jacked up the cover price a lot too). Whoever was doing their graphic design was garbage compared to the old TSR era stuff. It's so bad they're actually difficult to read, because the background behind the text is often busy with some sort of pointless design instead of white or solid colored. Yuck.

To answer the original question: no, WotC game is not really D&D. It's too different.

Were your Dragon magazines in pretty good condition?

 

[Old One]

Were your Dragon magazines in pretty good condition?

The ones I've looked at so far are all really nice. I've been cruising through #201-#205 over the past couple of weeks. I'll be especially interested to see any from < #100. I haven't dug deep enough into the box to find them yet.

My old issues from the 80s are mostly in less-good shape, simply because I've read and re-read them all.

 

[Morblot]

Old Dragonsfoot discussion about Gary's ideas for what 2e might have been under his direction. Some of it you've already posted about, but also stuff that he discussed online.

https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=39975&sid=c2dd85deab310041d4aa94ed102d866c&start=30

[...]

EDIT: Here's a link to some research the Greyhawk Grognard did on Gary's possible 2e (the link in the Dragonsfoot thread was broken).

Adventures Dark and Deep is supposed to be AD&D 2e as planned by Gary. I think it's written by Greyhawk Grognard. Can't say if it's any good as I don't own it.

 

[FriendlyMerchant]

I started with AD&D 1E and have fond memories of the work that Gary and company did. I loved AD&D 2E since it was a vast improvement over 1E and Basic. I never got the appeal of D&D Basic, so never played it. The mechanics though were consistent across editions.

When TSR closed I was saddened due to it meaning the death of AD&D 2E. After WotC bought it I had high hopes for the future of the games. That was dashed when D&D 3.x came out. No longer did the DM have freedom to adjudicate, but the entire mechanics didn't resemble the games that came before. So for me, WotC D&D is just in name only. It's a marketing tool as it shares none of what made D&D/AD&D D&D/AD&D. I see that the trend has continued with 4th and 5th editions.

No. If it's not AD&D, it's not D&D.

 

[Trithne]

Sure it is. They have the legal right to call whatever they want "D&D".

Just because you think it's not "D&D" if it doesn't have THAC0, a lack of feats or whatever, and Gary Gygax's dried cum in the corner of the page doesn't change that.

It's not the _same_ D&D you know, the focus of play is different and it's designed with a different mindset, but to care about "IS THIS TROO DEE AND DEE?" is not only pointless, it's juvenile.

Its an RPG. Who cares what they write on the cover.

 

[JamesDixon]

Sure it is. They have the legal right to call whatever they want "D&D".

Just because you think it's not "D&D" if it doesn't have THAC0, a lack of feats or whatever, and Gary Gygax's dried cum in the corner of the page doesn't change that.

It's not the _same_ D&D you know, the focus of play is different and it's designed with a different mindset, but to care about "IS THIS TROO DEE AND DEE?" is not only pointless, it's juvenile.

Its an RPG. Who cares what they write on the cover.

It's hilarious since you just literally said it's not D&D/AD&D. Thank you for that.

It's just an opinion. Who cares what you write?

 

[Glop_dweller]

Sure it is. They have the legal right to call whatever they want "D&D".

Ah yes... and Sarah Lee Foods could buy the right to make Vegemite using sugar, chocolate and strawberries.

Seems totally legit!....riiight...sure it does.

 

[Trithne]

Sure it is. They have the legal right to call whatever they want "D&D".

Ah yes... and Sarah Lee Foods could buy the right to make Vegemite using sugar, chocolate and strawberries.

Seems totally legit!....riiight...sure it does.

As JamesDixon pointed out, I did say that it's a different game in design and spirit. So it's not D&D if you define D&D as specifically the spirit of B/X or AD&D.

I recall that around the time of 3rd edition, there was a general sense of "Old D&D" vs "New D&D" anyway. I just think of it like that.

I don't think 3e was really the breaking point though: Monte's "Ivory Tower" stuff was annoying, but the core game, without the hundreds of add ons and broken classes, was fine. It only buckled under the weight of too much fan content.

That fan content was what informed the design of 4e and 5e, which is why they are what they are.

 

[Norfleet]

Gary Gygax being more about combat and seeing all Drow as evil will forever make him and any editions closely associated with him unfathomably based.

BDSM elves are evil because the original D&D game worked on the baseline assumption of relatively heroic or at least neutral protagonists. The fact that the BDSM elves are directly opposed to the people who give your characters quests thus makes them "evil". But they can't really consider THEMSELVES evil, because if they did, it'd work like this:

Hmmm... We ARE All Evil.
We All Behave In A Mutually Agreed-Upon Fashion Of Murder, Torture, Deceit And So Forth.
Our Uniform Acceptance Of This Heinous Credo Creates An Orderly And Cooperative Society Which Hardly Seems Evil.
Evil Is Doing Things That Make Others Hurt Or Fear.
We ALL Do That, Of Course.
But Since We ALL Do Such Things, As Sanctioned By Our Culture, It Would Be "Bad" To Do Otherwise.
Which Means...

 

[Alex]

Gary Gygax being more about combat and seeing all Drow as evil will forever make him and any editions closely associated with him unfathomably based.

BDSM elves are evil because the original D&D game worked on the baseline assumption of relatively heroic or at least neutral protagonists. The fact that the BDSM elves are directly opposed to the people who give your characters quests thus makes them "evil". But they can't really consider THEMSELVES evil, because if they did, it'd work like this:

Hmmm... We ARE All Evil.
We All Behave In A Mutually Agreed-Upon Fashion Of Murder, Torture, Deceit And So Forth.
Our Uniform Acceptance Of This Heinous Credo Creates An Orderly And Cooperative Society Which Hardly Seems Evil.
Evil Is Doing Things That Make Others Hurt Or Fear.
We ALL Do That, Of Course.
But Since We ALL Do Such Things, As Sanctioned By Our Culture, It Would Be "Bad" To Do Otherwise.
Which Means...

You can play it in whatever way you see fit; but personally I see it more like this: Drow worship a spider demon and base their whole society. They probably do see their actions as morally repulsive, but through pride and love for money, power and status believe that it is worth accepting the "uglyness" of evil. Of course if you try to play it as "evil is good" silliness it won't work well unless you are going for comedy. But that doesn't mean the drows need to see their actions as justified by anything other than their own desires either.

 

[WhiteShark]

Some cultures in real life really do just celebrate immorality. Aside from obvious examples in modern society, consider the Sawi of New Guinea. Not only did they celebrate murder and cannibalism, but in fact treachery itself. When a missionary first came to their tribe and told them the Gospel, they thought Judas Iscariot was the hero for betraying Christ. I don't get any inkling from the account that they thought anything was wrong with that behavior. Drow could very well think just like that. Might makes right and all that.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Gary Gygax being more about combat and seeing all Drow as evil will forever make him and any editions closely associated with him unfathomably based.

BDSM elves are evil because the original D&D game worked on the baseline assumption of relatively heroic or at least neutral protagonists. The fact that the BDSM elves are directly opposed to the people who give your characters quests thus makes them "evil". But they can't really consider THEMSELVES evil, because if they did, it'd work like this:

Hmmm... We ARE All Evil.
We All Behave In A Mutually Agreed-Upon Fashion Of Murder, Torture, Deceit And So Forth.
Our Uniform Acceptance Of This Heinous Credo Creates An Orderly And Cooperative Society Which Hardly Seems Evil.
Evil Is Doing Things That Make Others Hurt Or Fear.
We ALL Do That, Of Course.
But Since We ALL Do Such Things, As Sanctioned By Our Culture, It Would Be "Bad" To Do Otherwise.
Which Means...

You can play it in whatever way you see fit; but personally I see it more like this: Drow worship a spider demon and base their whole society. They probably do see their actions as morally repulsive, but through pride and love for money, power and status believe that it is worth accepting the "uglyness" of evil. Of course if you try to play it as "evil is good" silliness it won't work well unless you are going for comedy. But that doesn't mean the drows need to see their actions as justified by anything other than their own desires either.

*sacrifices baby to a giant spider*

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

"If we sacrifice a child to our god every Autumn, we will bring good fortune and harvest to the village through the winter months."

There, you now have reason beyond these guys are dickheads for the sake of.