D&D's Forgotten Classes
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- Опубліковано 14 лип 2024
- Dave Arneson listed two classes in his "First Fantasy Campaign" that were never officially published by TSR as D&D classes. What were they? Find out in this video!
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Introduction
2:30 Blackmoor Classes
5:00 The Merchant
13:02 Merchant NPC: Dragon #62
17:16 Merchant NPC: Dragon #136
19:02 Gazetteer 11: Republic of Darokin
21:23 Dave Arneson's Blackmoor D20
23:53 The Sage
28:16 Wrap-Up
31:38 Bonus Content: Drinking & Listening
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DANIEL BOGGS' BLOG POST ON THE SAGE
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I had never thought about a Merchant as a character class...but that monster manual entry is evocative of an ancient time of caravans. Merchants of that time and the explorer merchants of the middle ages were certainly adventurers. So now I think a merchant is as viable an adventuring PC as a Bard, Rogue or Cleric.
Also Taleworlds realy ran with it in Warband and Bannerlord. Definitely can be done.
Ginny Di made a video recently about a 3rd party merchant class with a bunch of subclasses. They all sounded really fun and cool. You should give it a watch.
"Peddler" is a profession (effectively a class) in Forbidden Lands from Free League Publishing, and is very much a traveling merchant archetype. It's actually hilariously good. The game has a strong focus on the kind of base-building you saw with strongholds in old D&D when characters started reaching "name" levels, as well as having extensive rules for your gear breaking and needing replacement. One of the peddler's unique talent trees essentially lets them pull gear out of thin air (or more accurately, their backpack) on a regular basis, mostly eliminating costs of replacing equipment. Another starts out by giving them discounts on purchases, adds on the ability to sense hidden valuables, and caps by leting them "find" a little extra cash when they want it, giving them a lot of extra money to spend over time. Between the two, they've got access to potentially infinite gear and gold, and yet none of this is supposed to be outright magic. Their third talent tree makes them impossibly good liars and con artists. Again, not magic, honest.
You could encounter all sorts of normal humans as encounters. Merchant caravans, knights on a quest, peasants, hunting parties, nomad bands etc. They would be described simlarly to monsters. Everyone is a level x human with different group makeup and gear and "ecology".
The Korean MMO Raganarok Online from like 2003 had a merchant class that had a cart and everything
In Japan back in the 80's there was an introductory book to TTRPGs called "RPG Gensou Jiten" (RPG Fantasy Dictionary) that among other things went over RPGs available at the time and included a simple D&D/RQ/T&T-esque system. A suplimental book was released for it subtitled "Nihon-hen" (Japan-compilation/volume), going over how to make a fantasy RPG campaign based on historical Japan and Japanese folklore. But it included a short section going over English releases about Japan-esque settings, and the author was loosing their mind trying to understand "Oriental Adventures", finding the book's understanding of geisha especially funny.
That's really interesting! Thanks for sharing this info, and thank you for watching and commenting!
I wonder if there's an English translation of that available somewhere, that sounds hilarious
omg I want to see that
Another forgotten class is the Jester - Dragon Magazine #60. I ran one in my younger days, it was a disaster (but I painted a really cool min which I still have).
I remember that Jester class! I always wondered how it played in comparison, it didn’t look particularly powerful.
The jester class wasnt forgotten. They put it in as a kit for the Rogue class in the Thieves handbook for 2e. I have it and have a character that plays it.
We had one. Miguel used to play a very mean jester. We had a lot of fun, especially when he found/was given a wand of wonder.
Oh how I detest Dragon Magazine... Having never been able to afford it as a kid, as an adult I am so glad I did not buy into that scam (see also Anti Paladin).
How was it a scam? Serious question.
O.K. "merchant" as a euphemism for an openly thuggish mafia type is kind of brilliant and suddenly I want to see this in 5th Edition, haha. I mean it probably is already there somewhere. Definitely would be a fun Rogue subclass
I think you could just take the Guild Artisan (Merchant) background for a Rogue and roleplay it that way! Would be a lot of fun!
@@daddyrolleda1I did something similar once. Character had very good penmanship and went around breaking petty criminal kneecaps and making business contacts as a representative of "The Scriver's Guild".
Note- There was no Scrivener's Guild.
it's like The Rabbi from the movie Slevin lmao
In Greek mythology, Hermes was god of the local merchants AND god of thieves.
Yo! I'm just a businessman!
I feel like the fighting man restriction on Sages was because if a priest or magic user would try, the Sage would just say "uh... Why? Just do it yourself."
Ha! Very possible!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
"Oh your trying to take my work and pass it off as your own eh?" Works as well.
Or, from a modern perspective, to prevent a class from min-maxing away something they're supposed to be good at (and putting the skill points elsewhere) because they can hire an NPC to have those skills for them when that was never the design intent.
2e's Dark Sun Campaign had Dune Trader, which also had a merchant class, but called it a Trader and organized it under the Rogue class. It was rehashed in the Revised Setting box set.
Didn't Birthright have a Merchant class in Traders of the Great Bay and Al Quadim had a Merchant Kit IIRC.
@@Octarinewolf I believe so, and IIRC there were merchant kits in other settings as well. Dark Sun's bards were de facto assassins (with a penchant for poisons) as well having the more traditional entertainer/courtier functions.
Arabian adventures had Merchant Rogue and Barber (2e so either could be bard or thief base)
I fully expected a section about Dune Trader in this discussion. It feels like the author glossed over 2e entirely, and just jumped to 3e.
Dune Trader is one of the best splat books written imo.
TSR made an AD&D product in 1980 called THE ROGUES GALLERY. It contains Sage as if it was a class but the information is incomplete to use as a PC. It does show that sages have a major and minor field of study because one sage won't be an expert in everything which I think is incentive to have a party sometimes look for a different sage for information the party may need. The publication also refers to some spell abilities.
I think you can use this and the DMG to create your own Sage class but you will need to fill in some gaps.
From what I can recall the AD&D DM's guide had a fairly good write up of the sage but only as a NPC character. They had some spellcasting ability but they were mostly there to be hired by the PC's to do specialized research, they didn't go an adventures. You could hire them as a one time thing or put them on the payroll full time if you gave them a regular salary and provided them a lab and library.
I am way behind in reading my comments but how funny that I just saw this, and also just recently posted a video about the Rogues Gallery a couple days ago!
Thank you for watching and commenting!
On the scifi side of things, Traveller (1977) had "Merchant" as a core career choice from day one. While Traveller careers aren't much like D&D classes at all (they mostly only impact character generation) it does clearly show there were other early TTRPGs that were thinking about the possibilities of an economic-focused campaign - and many Traveller campaigns and modules were centered on making money through interstellar trade and speculation. Have to pay for ship upkeep and your bank loans somehow. :)
There also was a more recently version of Traveller from about...15-20 years ago, I think. From Mongoose something something. I had a copy somewhere, it's great and also had all that stuff you mentioned.
Also, characters could die at character creation, which was quite fun. ^^
@@NevermindThee Mongoose is doing the current version of Traveller as well, which I believe is a 2nd edition of the one you're thinking of. It's bigger, shinier and much more expensive but still quite recognizable from the GDW version of the days of old. Despite the many iterations and publishers who've held the license Traveller has remained pretty largely the same over the decades, and has always had a place for folks who want to be starfaring businessmen. Lot safer than piracy or exploration or working as a pure merc, but you'll still get tangled up in proper adventures pretty regularly. It's rough galaxy out there. :)
Thank you so much for this! Traveller is one of those games that I wish I'd had a chance to play back in the day, but never did, partially because my group really only played TSR stuff since that's all we saw at our local shop (our science-fiction game was Star Frontiers). I remember seeing ads for Traveller and also Space Opera in Dragon magazine and thinking they looked like so much fun.
@@daddyrolleda1 Somewhat amazingly, Space Opera - the original one-and-only edition - is still available from Fantasy Games Unlimited today, along with most of the stuff they printed over the years. There have even been some post-2000 adventures released for Villains & Vigilantes, another RPG than ran a lot of ads in Dragon back in the 80s. The company's been flying under most folks' radar for decades now, but they're shipping stuff from their warehouse stock and even offer pdfs of a lot of the stuff they finally ran out of. Well worth googling their site if you're feeling nostalgic for 80s games besides TSR product..
Enjoying the videos. As a side note, White Dwarf 21 in 1980 published a Merchant class by Roger E. Moore.
I'm so glad you enjoyed the video! Thank you for watching and commenting!
And, thank you for reminding me about that! For whatever reason, I always associated issue #21 with the "Thomas Covenant" classes (I had... "mixed feelings"... about the novels) and forget about the Merchant article by Roger Moore!
ACKs (Adventurer Conqueror King) has the Venturer class in the core book, who specializes in mercantile ventures, as well as fairly extensive support for trade between cities. They can even get experience from a good trip. The best that I have seen.
Thank you for watching and commenting and providing this suggestion! Another person in the comments mentioned this one, also. There are so many clones and such that I sometimes forget which ones have which elements. I appreciate the reminder!
I miss the Cavalier class from Unearthed Arcana. Had a lot of fun roleplaying one when permitted and I always made sure to set a good example for my squire.
I, too, had a cavalier back in the day. I created it using the magazine article in Dragon #72 and my dad photocopied that article for me to show my DM so he'd allow it. It was a fun character!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
The Dune Trader from the 2nd Edition Dark Sun campaign is a merchant class under a different name. It is based on a rogue/thief style character but has special abilities that allow it to gain more profit on transactions, and the book has description of merchant houses and rules for economic development and running a merchant house. It is a solid, viable PC class, not just an NPC class.
Thank you for watching and commenting and for sharing this! I had the original Dark Sun boxed set but we never really played the setting as much as just mine it for ideas for existing games. I do recall Dune Trader, though! Great insight - thanks!
The Dune Trader supplement was pretty well written, great for a merchant centered campaign, even in a different setting.@@daddyrolleda1
I just want to say that I've watched a bunch of youtubers that cover D&D/Wargaming. I truly enjoy that you focus on the origins and evolution of gaming as a concept. I hope this does not change.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for this nice compliment. I really appreciate it! Making these videos is a lot of fun and while I was there for a lot of it, I always find a different angle that I didn't really consider at the time. Thanks again!
I really appreciate this video. It's so funny how these lesser-known classes mostly came about because "yeah one guy in my group played a character this way, and I'm big man on campus so I get to decide they get a whole new class dedicated to them".
That Monster Overhaul book you showed a peek of looks fascinating. If there's a lot of random tables to roll on like you showed, I'm going to have to get that book immediately. Speaking of books I need to get, I love the preview of the book you're working on that you showed. When it comes to lighter rules, old-school systems I really love the idea of taking the core four classes (fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue) and adding one or two thematically fun features to them to diversify them and make them something unique. I don't really need a full 10-14 level "assassin class", I just want a feature for the rogue that communicates the idea of a silent killer just as much as I want a feature for the same rogue that communicates the idea of a clever salesfolk tracking funds and making deals. Those two characters would feel very different despite using the same base features, and I don't think you need a full class full of random, hard-to-balance features just to communicate that feeling. Even if all your book was was "here's a few tables of features you can give to the classes to make them feel different", that would interest me enough to take a look when it's done.
Thank you so much for this! I really appreciate it!
Yes, the Monster Overhaul books is just full of tables like that ones I showed - the entire book is just that kind of stuff! The one I showed for the Merchant is part of a chapter of 10 "people" that also includes similar tables for Adventurers, Knights, Mercenaries, Barbarians, and more. It's all great stuff. There are also chapters for different encounters by season, encounters by terrain, etc. It's really great stuff.
I really appreciate your comment on the book I'm working on. It's so close to being finished. I should probably just take some time from making videos to finish it up. It's a book dedicated to Expert and Specialist characters like the tables you saw plus adventure ideas, a keyed Guild Hall map with some unique/weird/mysterious NPCs and their secrets, and more. But all very rules light like I was showing.
My brother and I got into D&D way back when. We had to order our stuff directly from TSR Hobbies, because no stores were selling the stuff (we lived in Massachusetts, so we are not talking about living in the boondocks). Getting information on updates was like finding real treasure! At any rate we played with two other school mates (high school) starting in 1977, iirc. One of them was the one to introduce us to RPG's. Have been into D&D ever since (advanced, really, since, you know, they did not develop the other one past 5th level for forever)
Thank you so much for sharing your D&D "journey." I love hearing about how other folks got into the hobby.
And, thank you very much for watching and commenting!
There is also the "Merchant-Rogue" kit in the Al-Qadim Player's Book which was a non-magic merchant type (more of a merchant-adventurer/caravan master/fence)
Great catch - a few folks have mentioned that. I have the base Al-Qadim book and really enjoyed it, but just forgot about it while making this video as I was spending more time to uncover the roots of the class from the early 70's.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Technically this is a kit not a class. Everything in the al-qadim book is a kit except the sha’ir.
Interestingly, in the Dragon Quest series of videogames their core classes in the first game to use classes at all were Warrior, Fighter, Merchant, Jester, Cleric, and Mage with Hero as a unique standalone and an advanced Sage. Warrior was like D&D's Fighter, heavily armed and heavily armored. Fighter was like a Monk, but just focused on physical unarmed strikes and doing them quickly. Clerics and Mages are obvious, Jester is a seemingly useless gag character that sometimes randomly doesn't do what the player wants but at level 20 can become a Sage.
Sage was a caster with full simultaneous Cleric and Mage spell lists, and moderate fighting capacity about on par with a Cleric.
The Merchant, also known as a Dealer, had combat power similar to a cleric but no magic, and could both find extra coins other classes would automatically miss enemies dropping on defeat and could identify items.
Hero is similar to a Paladin, but had flashy direct damage spells from the Wizard as well.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
So many people have mentioned the Dragon Quest games in the context of this video. I was (and am not currently) not currently a huge video game player, so that connection was lost on me. Thank you for sharing this!
I had a friend play a Sage in a BECMI game back in the day. IIRC, he played it as a Magic-User with the Sage NPC class abilities. I believe he specialized in history, and herbalism lore. He was not apoeerful character and I dont think he lasted more that a few months of play, but he was a great player so we were glad to have him in our game.
Speaking of odd lost classes I recall an early magazine with a couple of elemental classes for Original Dunfeons and Dragons in it, I want to say a Pyromancer, and a Geologist or Hydrologist (I remember giggling at the idea of a scientist getting a vachelors and getting magic powers). I recall they were pretty nifty, and wanting to give them a go at some point, but I forgot about hem decades ago. Anychance someone remembers them?
I definitely recall the Pyrologist by Len Lakofka! I chat about it in this video here: ua-cam.com/video/PORfiBst6HE/v-deo.htmlsi=HnJqlxC5p_jn6l4s&t=1173
I've been playing AD&D since 1984, and I've ran a continuous AD&D campaign since '87. I've always played sages as NPC character. Sages in my campaign are retired magic users (Mages) who have set up shoppe in a town. They are scholarly types with a library of books, and many make potions such as healing potions, or maybe something a bit more exotic, like say a stone to flesh potion if it's needed in-game. They charge for their potions, naturally. They also charge for information about monsters, insights about demons, cults, animals, historical figures, etc. I have one Sage in the town I created called Bronzewood, that collects rare things. He not only collects things to keep and study, but he often uses these things to create potions and tonics. "Bring me a few cockatrice eyes from the Welkwood, and I'll be sure to pay you handsomely for them!" Sages might even have spell scrolls for sale, and sometimes maybe a few unique spells that they spent years perfecting. Spell scrolls aren't cheap though. They come at a high premium cost, and they're rare. Game balance is important, so you don't want to make a Sage into a Mage's candy store, but I find that you can use them to hire players for "scavenger hunt" jobs, for information and advice. That's how I choose to do sages, anyway.
"If your party can climb to the top of Mount Morg, and bring back an intact Wyvern egg for me, I'll give you an old map that leads to the ruins of Rangor Keep! It's all but forgotten today, but before it was razed by a red dragon during the Iuz Invasion, it was said to be the storehouse for many, fantastic magic items! The great mystic blade, Hellbinder was reported to have been on display amongst the Keep's magic cache!"
Welcome to the channel! I'm very appreciative that you subscribed, and thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really like these details on how you've used sages in the past. I always love reading about other peoples' campaigns and ideas. Thanks!
You're welcome, man! I think you can make a lot of classic stuff work today, but since the game has evolved, DMs too have to do so as well.@@daddyrolleda1
I really dig your research, analysis as well as speculation! You really conjure up appreciation for the rich history of the game around seemingly obscure topics. Oh and very cool to hear about your upcoming kickstarter!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate you taking the time to let me know. I'm excited for the Kickstarter - hopefully soon!
@@daddyrolleda1 Nice! Good luck!
Jumping in here to say that the Monster Overhaul is a fantastic resource. The merchant section is great, but it's just a tiny taste of all the goodness in there.
It's a fantastic book! I ended up doing a full review of it!
Very interesting. I never saw anybody make a character outside the usual 1e classes, but it would have been interesting.
We always tended to play the "standard" classes as well, as that's all our DM would allow.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
It's eerie that the Merchant and Sage are also the two bonus classes in Dragon Warrior III, released in 1988. The other classes are inspired by the Fighter, Monk, Wizard, and Cleric, with a unique Goof-off character that has a relationship to the Sage thrown in. In the remake they added a thief.
Oh wow - I didn't know that! My knowledge of video games is *extremely* limited. That's really interesting!
Thank you for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Well let me also tell you the very original Final Fantasy is literally Dungeons and Dragons after being translated into Japanese, stuffed on 8-bit hardware, then translated back again. The Japanese version had a Beholder in it, the English version had to name it the Eye and redo the artwork to be less copyright infringing. And the Mind Flayers got renamed to Sorcerers but the art wasn't changed. And so much more.
Adding on to the Final Fantasy 1 post, spellcasrers' casting was all done with a Vancian system.
I loved 3.5 for this, there were classes for literally everything
SO. MANY. CLASSES.
While I started with 1981 Basic D&D, I've spent the most hours playing 3E/3.5/Pathfinder1E and at the time I loved it. I'm still running a 3.X/PF campaign that started in May 2001 but I've been procrastinating lately because as a DM I don't really enjoy that system any more. I'd play it if someone were to run it, but I also suck at optimizing my characters, so I tend to be the weak link in a group if the players are focused on combat optimization.
I like this historical outlook. And I like this format. Keep up the good work. I'm off to watch more of your content.
I truly appreciate that! Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. I look forward to chatting with you in the comments.
So happy I found your channel! Really insightful content, keep it up!
I really appreciate you saying that! Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and I look forward to chatting with you about my other videos. Cheers!
Some feedback that I hope will grow your channel: first of all, fantastic content, easily the best researched early D&D stuff out there. However, please intersperse some visuals so that we’re not always just looking at your hands, and it could stand a little editing, and tightening up as well. Finally, leave the request for likes and subscriptions, and so on for the end. Again, hope you take these suggestions in the best possible light, because I love this channel.
I appreciate all of this feedback. Thank you for taking the time to share it, and for your support.
I'll try to see what other kinds of visuals I can add to mix things up. In some of my videos, I do show product shots, but mainly I'm showing books that I own so folks can see what was in them, so I'm holding them up to the camera.
As for editing... I really have no idea how to do that. I'm making this up as I go along and never learned how to edit. I am paying for an online program that allows me to overlay visuals and text and to merge multiple videos together into one long video, but I haven't quite figured out how to edit the actual video when I do things like mispronounce words or take a long pause to think of a word to use. I have no idea how to do that.
I have tried to mix it up in terms of when to ask for Likes and Subscriptions, but I can leave it to the end. I just worried that a lot of folks might not make it that far, as my average view length is about half (no matter the actual length of the video).
@@daddyrolleda1 Basic video editing is really easy if you use something like Camtasia or one of the Adobe Creative Suite products - there are a lot of basic how-to videos here on YT. I'm just a reading/writing idiot, I'm not a graphic artist at all, but I edit videos all the time at work.
@@daddyrolleda1 Making the video more visually pleasing and engaging, and better edited, will increase those view lengths for sure. Good luck!
I played through the release and progression of all the AD&D main sourcebook all through the 1980's. Still have many of the manuals to this day
Such great content! Your videos always puts my nostalgia gear into overdrive. 😁
I prefer the longer (more detailed) format.
Thank you so much for letting me know! I really appreciate that you took a moment to leave this comment. Cheers!
You have books I haven't seen in 40 years and they look new. Amazing.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
I've always been one to take really good care of my stuff, whether Star Wars Figures, Lego sets, comic books, or D&D stuff. My Moldvay Basic set is probably the most worn, but it's still not that bad.
I hope seeing some of those old books gave you some happiness!
The UK magazine White Dwarf published in the mid 80a a D&D character class called The Artificer - basically a mechanical engineer who was a magic using metal worker / black smith. They had magic related to seeing small things, miniaturisation, powering mechanical devices, locating metal seams, determining metal purity etc
It was a really interesting character class that we had a lot of fun with.
Dragon Magazine had a bunch of classes, too, but from what I've seen, the ones in White Dwarf tended to be a bit more "creative" and pushed the envelope a little more. This Artificer class you mention is definitely one I would've wanted to try back in the day!
@@daddyrolleda1 You can play one in the Eberron game world for 5e (sort of steampunk/D&D crossover)
@@gr3yh4wk1 Ah, yes! I'm familiar with Eberon (the 3.5 version, at least). This one from White Dwarf you mentioned sounded a little different/better to me. Thanks!
I believe "Vampire" was technically a class for a time too, besides in 3.5e when they made all sorts of monsters into classes. It came back in 4e, before once more disappearing.
I think the d20 version was more of a template applied to your base species, but I might be wrong. In 4e it was definitely a class unto itself, albeit not a terribly well-developed one - only two general builds and minimal support. Had a unique healing mechanic that essentially relied on regeneration and being given healing surges by other PC volunteers (ie blood donors) to stay on their feet.
There was definitely a vampire character in Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign (Sir Fang) and from what I understand based on comments and articles I've read, it was responsible for the creation of the Cleric class as we know it today: ua-cam.com/video/PORfiBst6HE/v-deo.html
Thanks for watching and commenting!
In 3.5 alot of races had "Level adjustment" A.k.a if You take this race to play You are gonna sacrifice some of your class fetures.
For example, a Minotaur had a level adjustment of 2 meaning that if he was 5th level and had the class of paladín. Then he had 3 levels in paladín to compensate the level 2 adjustment.
In the D&D 3.5 DM's manual you'll find a prestige class Sage and an "expert" NPC class that you can use as a merchant.
Yes, for sure! I recall all of those. In fact, back in the early 3.5 era, I wrote a supplement for Mongoose Publishing called "The Quintessential Aristocrat" based on the Aristocrat NPC class in the DMG, and I was working on a follow-up for the Expert. I've turned a lot of those Expert ideas into the Expert & Specialist book I'm writing for Old School Essentials that I talk about at the end of the video.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Nice to catch glimpses of old Clyde Caldwell artwork.
The very first Dragon magazine I ever got (issue #76) had a Clyde Caldwell cover, and I've been a fan ever since!
Merchant is a class in Ryuutama, a Japanese TTRPG that is more story vs combat focused. In that game, they essentially have a skill that allows them to do all the haggling so that they can buy things for reduced cost, and sell them at a profit. The game also has player goals, mine was to make enough profit to buy my own shop, and settle down. I also wanted to discover new trade routes. I played a traveling merchant, and that worked very well: I was always eager to explore new trade routes and bargain with people we met, as well as go on adventures with big payouts attached! I was none to happy when my cart, that I carried my trade goods in, got wrecked by a giant tortoise however. It’s a significant investment! I also took the route of becoming the party banker: there was an obnoxious noble type from a powerful merchant family and I made sure to try an keep him in debt and own him! Though we got a little attached towards the end of the campaign ;). My merchant gal was most impressed by his ability to finally pay off his debt, and his connections in the shipping industry. Taking care of her when she hurt her ankle in a pot hole (Ryuutama is brutal to travelers! My character literally hurt herself the first day outside of a town, so we spent several turns literally barely outside the town gates trying to recover health and getting rained on!) didn’t hurt either. Anyways, when you play a sort of quartermaster role to the party, handling purchasing supplies and lending money to cover the costs of less wealthy characters... well it’s almost like the party becomes your hirelings, isn’t s it ;)!
I find the 3e classes of Commoner, Aristocrat, Adept, Warrior and Expert to be absolutely fascinating. I tried convincing my group at the time that they should start out as one of these, gaining 1 to 3 levels in a NPC class before selecting their real class. Oh well, that ship has sailed.
Darn, I'm sorry to hear that!
During the 3E era, I wrote a book for Mongoose Publishing called "The Quintessential Aristocrat." Here's a link if you're interested: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/2827/The-Quintessential-Aristocrat
I was working on "The Quintessential Expert" but that never saw print due to D&D moving to 4E while I was writing it. I saved my ideas and many of them are incorporated into a book I am writing for Old School Essentials on Experts & Specialists characters. The writing, layout, and art are done. I just need to make some edits and then I'm planning to Kickstart it.
Great job! I like long form videos because I paint mini's while I listen :)
That's fantastic! I haven't painted minis for years.
Very early in my advertising career, I used to get sent on trips to do "outdoor rides" where you get in a car with the billboard sales rep and drive around with them all day to look at the billboard locations they are offering for our client's ads, and I would have to approve the location or if not, continue to drive around with them to find another suitable location. There were usually ~20 per day you had to check, so it was an all-day affair (given traffic, etc.). The locations I had to check were all smaller areas like Fresno, Stockton, and Merced (all in Central California) and none of those areas had much night life. So, I began traveling with a little case of miniatures, paints, files, and brushes, and I'd sit up in my hotel room at night with room service and hotel cable TV and painting minis! That was a long time ago.
@@daddyrolleda1 That's how you use your time wisely :)
Great video! So the "Special Interests" section is a complete article and given the available class list being that of the summer of 1975 it seems quite likely this article was in the manuscript Arneson submitted for Supplement II, but cut by either the first editor, Brian Blume, or the second Tim Kask. Anyway I do have some material from Arneson on merchants and you've made me think I should do a post on it. :)
I would love to see that blog post if you do it! I feel like there's a lot more to it than I could cover here, either due to time restrictions or just because I didn't have access to the original history.
And thank you for the compliment and for watching the video, especially given your knowledge and your past of having had direct access to Arneson and his work.
Great video. I personally enjoy your longer videos; I have about an hour to kill each night before work (3rd shift) and this fits perfectly.
Thank you very much for the feedback. I haven't been doing this on purpose, but lately I feel that each video has been longer than the last, and they always end up being much longer than I'd originally assumed they would be when I started recording.
Thanks for making me feel very old, dude! :D
I'm right there with you, I'm sure! In fact... I've found from a lot of folks who make similar comments, that they are actually *younger* than me!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
I waited for this kind of video for a long time, thank you!
You're so welcome! I hope the wait was worth it!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 this was the first of your videos I watched but I started on watching other one and man I'm so happy on finding your channel, I am developing a ttrpg and I am exploring dnd classes trough the editions, it's really hard to found stuff other than 5e related stuff, are there other interesting "forgotten classes" prior to 3e that you are going to talk about?
I'm so glad you found my channel!
Let's see... there were a ton of classes for the "Basic" (Holmes-B/X-BECMI-RulesCyclopedia) version of the game, and also 1E had quite a few (most that were published in Dragon Magazine as "NPC" Classes - back then, if Gary didn't write it, it was considered "unbalanced" and "unofficial" so they were all written as NPC classes - Bersersker, Bandit, Smith, Death Master, Mariner, Alchemist, Astrologer, Archer, Bounty Hunter, Dreamer, Duelist, Jester... the list goes on for a bit).
2E had a lot of classes, too, but again, many were "unofficial." They also created a new concept called "Character Kits" that were designed to slightly modify existing character classes. For example, The Complete Fighter's Handbook had kits for Amazon, Gladiator, Peasant Hero, Swashbuckler, etc. Every class had a book like this with at least a dozen kits, and there were also specialized books for different campaign settings (Complete Spacefarer's Handbook for Spelljammer, Complete Gladiator's Handbook for Dark Sun ,etc.) and for different historic periods (Greeks, Romans, Charlemagne's Paladins, Crusades, etc.) with kits in each of those. Each race also had a book (Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes/Halflings, Humanoids, etc.).
So... there are a LOT!
If you have a specific interest, let me know and I can either answer you back and try to make a video!
@@daddyrolleda1 that's great!
I will do my own research to explore these classes, but to me race classes is something that deserves it's own video, the concept it's so fascinating and nobody talks about it!
We have to thank the osr community and espetially Dungeon Crawl Classics of revitalizing the concept but aside from that informations about it are quite obscure
I will add "race as class" to the queue!
This was fantastic, thank you. I love finding some funny little thread in D&D and digging way back to see where and why it comes about.
Merchants (and Sages) are fun character archetypes that I notice much more in the the “Euro-BRP” tradition. One of my favorite Forbidden Lands characters I’ve played was a Peddler.
A few folks have mentioned the Peddler from Forbidden Lands. I definitely need to check that out!
And in general, I, too, have noticed that non-American fantasy RPGs tend to focus a bit more on intrigued and politics (where a merchant or sage could shine).
Thanks!
Seems like Merchant is a perfectly good class name for lawful rogues who refuse to pilfer from anything but monsters.... :)
I always had fun playing oddball classes, like the Half-Orc Cleric Assassin, who assassinates you with a mace....
Ha! The only assassin I ever played was a Half-Orc Cleric/Assassin! Such a goofy multi-class combo.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
Really glad I just stumbled across your channel. Great video and the bonus content sealed the fact that you are a kindred spirit. Wish I could play in a game you DM
That is such a nice compliment! I really appreciate you talking the time to watch and write such a nice comment. Thank you so much! And, I'm glad you like the bonus content. It's something new I started pretty recently, but I thought it added a bit of personality to a channel that is mostly just an older guy with old hands showing old books!
Thanks again!
@@daddyrolleda1 after 4e came out (3e came out when I was 10ish or so) I went backwards. Dabbled in pathfinder for a bit and then converted completely to 2e and started a new obsession of collecting any old books I could find. Love your content and love learning this old lore.
A Monster Manual! I haven't seen one in decades, thanks for that 🙂
I'm glad it brought some happiness to your day! If you watch my other "D&D History" videos, you'll see me showing all kinds of old D&D products from my collection. You might want to start with "The History of AD&D Hardbacks": ua-cam.com/video/M3ygZCjLqAk/v-deo.html
Very good and informative video.
My drink recommendation: The Jack Rose cocktail. Sour and sweet -
1/2 oz grenadine, 1 oz lime juice, 1.5 oz calvados.
Once upon a time in like, the 50s or thereabouts, a New York accountant wrote a book on cocktails and said there were six that everyone ought to know. That list was: Martini, Margarita, Old Fashioned, Sidecar, Daiquiri, Jack Rose.
I love a good Jack Rose! That's a great suggestion!
And that list is pretty spot-on, and a variation of that list is even in new cocktail books such as the Cocktail Codex. The idea is that there are ~6 basic recipes, and once you understand them, every drink is a riff on that recipe.
Martini. Gin, Dry Vermouth, Bitters. Stirred over ice. Citrus Twist (or Green Olive).
Variations:
Dry Manhattan. Whiskey instead of Gin.
Perfect Manhattan: Whiskey instead of Gin; half-and-half Dry and Sweet Vermouth
Sweet Manhattan: (what most people drink) Whiskey instead of Gin, Sweet Vermouth.
Martinez: Sweet vermouth instead of Dry.
Gibson: Cocktail Onion instead of Green Olive.
Buckeye: Black Olive instead of Green Olive.
Bradford: Shaken instead of Stirred.
Kangaroo: Vodka instead of Martini.
That's 8 different drinks built off of one recipe.
The Sidecar is just a "Daisy" style mixed drink made with Cognac and Lemon. Switch the Cognac to Tequila and the Lemon to Lime and you've made a Margarita, which coincidentally is Spanish for Daisy.
Etc.
I'm glad you like that part of the video. I felt it might add a built of personality to what is essentially just my old hands showing a bunch of old books.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
David Hargrave’s Arduin Grimoire volume 1, from 1977 had a complete merchant class. They had bargaining, lockpicking, seafaring and equivocation abilities. They were good with crossbows.
Thanks for that note! I appreciate it, and also appreciate you watching and commenting. Cheers!
Great history lesson, awesome work!
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Back in the late 80s before Games Workshop became a corporate monstrosity, our group played a Blackmoor style campaign with Warhammer.
Each of us had an army, but we came up with rules for the economic side of being in control of a small nation, and the "Ruler" had a load of options as to how they wanted to run their land. Along with something approaching a "Class" with a couple of levels of advancement.
We deliberatley made it so that the options were NOT "Fair and Balanced" with certain... "taboo" methods being extremely weighted toward wealth at the top.
It was surprising to me and the other guy who wrote the rules, how the players were very keen to play to the typical ideals of the races/streotypes they were playing, even though there was no "in game" reason to do so..
The Orc and Undead guy went straight into slavery and forced labour, building vast war chests, but the other players immediately started forming treaties to deal with any borders they shared with the "Bad Guys".
The Guy who ultimately won, was running the feudal Japanese army from "Ravening Hordes" (GW called them Nihon and did a full range of Samurai and Ninja type figures before fat ugly Space Marines and Orks became their obsession)... his "Leader" had taken "Merchant" option, and was the only one who didn;t gravitate toward a more typical RPG "Class".
That sounds like a really fun campaign! I incorporate a lot of aesthetics and ideas from Warhammer Fantasy into the game I currently run for my daughter and her friends.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I remember a whole splatboot in 2nd Edition called "Sages and Specialists." It had rules for NPC classes. I always thought it strange that every walk of life would have a class and levels where they gain more hitpoints and better saving throws even if they didn't live lives of violence and adventure. Although, to gameify anything means making some arbitrary choices.
A very enjoyable video! I think the typical choice for a creator is to granulate topics for more video ideas, which is fine, so long as one has enough relevant things to say (or says everything they want to say) on it for the target amount of run time.
Cripes, I actually remember sages from the old school. Your comment sure brought back memories!
Yep. They’re all NPC classes but I really thought that they could be PCs if you were running a more mercantile or caravan oriented campaign.
Thank you very much for your feedback!
I have that Sages & Specialists book for 2E and it was one of my inspirations for the book I'm writing that I mention at the end of the video.
The Six of Crows from the Shadow & Bone world is a perfect example of an adventuring merchant campaign and after listening to this it’s quite similar to The Merchant in Blackmoor.
The Crows are one of my favorite parts of the Netflix Shadow & Bone series! Never read the books but I'm very intrigued to give them a try. And this sounds like it would be a fun campaign!
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I like that you show two classes not just one.
Thanks for that feedback! I appreciate it!
B/X refers to merchants on B40 under Normal Human just as a profession, B43 under Trader: "They are similar to merchants, but much braver (and much better fighters)." on X35-36 under Men as a subtype Merchant with stats and a description: "... All merchants wear chain mail and carry a sword and dagger." it's Save As is Fighter: 1.
I didn't think of it when first watching this video, but after seeing Dave Anderson's class list a couple days later, it's a very well-rounded and efficient set of classes when considering how they functioned back in ODnD. With Merchants possibly being made to interact with the Economy element of the game the say way Rangers were to track, or Assassins were made for the social/political parts of the game. I really wish I could see what that classed look liked, assuming it had any abilities to note.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Dave's classes aren't really described and formatted in the way that D&D classes were unfortunately. I would have loved to have shared "the original merchant class" but to my knowledge it's not available anywhere.
The Archer was my favorite class. If I remember right, the first time I saw it was best of Dragon Magazine 1.
Archers were a fun "NPC" class. I remember making an Archer-Ranger, which was one of my favorite characters. They first appeared in Dragon Magazine #45, and were later reprinted in Best of Dragon Vol. III.
Best of Dragon I had the original Bard, Illusionist, and Ranger classes, and info on how to play a Witch.
Best of Dragon II had a ton of "NPC" classes including the Anti-Paladin, Samurai, Healers, Berserker, Scribe, and Ninja.
Best of Dragon III, addition to the Archer, had the Alchemist and the Winged Folk.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
The late David Hargrave in his Arduin campaign had many other character classes -- Witch Hunter, Rune Weaver, Rune Singer, Techno, and many others, including Merchant.
I think you might like the next "D&D History" video I'm going to post (working on uploading my video clips to edit into the main video now - should be uploaded on Wednesday, August 30th 2023). But it's just a quick mention - if you want more on this topic, let me know!
Another super cool video, thanks
Thank you very much! I really appreciate that!
The level of research you put into this is impressive
Thank you so much for saying that! I really appreciate it, and I thank you for watching and commenting!
Great video :)
On the topic of why fighters (nee fighting men) had sole access to sages, I suspect the real answer is not diegetic, but as with many things from that particular era of TTRG design it was a mix of game mechanics and *maybe* was inspired by pop culture references ("Appendix N").
Fighters have always been a bit bland at first glance compared to the progression enjoyed by other classes, particular the casters, but also the skill-based classes that were to come later. They didn't even get the neat ancestry buffs of Dwarves or Elves. Just .. swing a sword, right? Well, no!
They were traditionally the only ones who had access to the best magic weapons, such as the coveted intelligent swords. So they progressed more using the non-XP-based magic item system. They also could set up a stronghold far, far quicker than other classes. Given how short the lifespan of other characters tended to be and how long leveling could take, building a stronghold was something that could be nearly exclusive to fighters in a given campaign. But (he writes in the voice of a late-night infomercial talking head) that's not all! They also had exclusive access to things like .... sages. Sages granted access to information normal PCs could not get, at least not easily. So this was one more way to spiff the fighter class and make them both valuable out of combat and more interesting to play in general.
As the game became more combat-focussed, particularly in the modern play styles (ironic given it started as a war game-adjacent?), some of these details got washed out and now people look at these design concepts with a puzzled look and wonder what the diegetic reasoning might be ... when there probably *isn't* any .. well, none that are *strong* anyways.
Which brings me back to the pop culture reference thing: a *lot* of what is in early D&D is just straight-up references to the pulp fiction and even pulpier fantasy films of the era. The idea of the brawny strongman or woman (in the case of e.g. Red Sonja) consulting with and being guided by semi-mystical intellects is rife in Conan, Grey Mauser, and elsewhere. This isn't something that, at least in a pulp fiction plot, would make as much sense (or produce the right drama / feel) if it were a heroic magician doing so.
So I suspect it may have been a nod to the pop culture concepts that were directly driving a lot of D&D content at the time and a way to ensure, through game design, that fighters remained valuable and interesting mechanically.
Looking forward to your next vid! :)
Thank you so much for watching, and also for this very insightful and detailed comment.
I definitely agree with your POV, and it's one of the reasons why I balk at people who say Fighters are "boring." I feel that they are really paying attention to all the things Fighters can do (exclusively) in the game, a lot of which you detail here. Modern gamers have an expectation of level-based powers and also specifically described "maneuvers" for Fighters, as opposed to, "Our Fighter can hire a Sage to provide insight and clues..."
I think it's partially because for whatever reason, people don't play that way, so the subtleties of what makes a Fighter a great character choice get lost along the way.
Thanks again!
Another special skill that the fighter class had available to him is from the DMG attack matrix and DM screen. Fighters can attack monsters less than 1 hit dice equal to their level per round. For example, a 5th level fighter up against 10 goblins can attack 5 goblins per round. Yikes!
@@blackstone777 That is another great one, and is a house rule I still like to use! :) I go even a bit further and let them attack that # of HD, without the 1 HD-monster limit: so a 5th level fighter can strike at a 3HD and a 2HD monster in a single round, or a single 5HD+. This seems to work OK, particularly as it requires being in range of them, making multiple melee attacks a bit more special and ranged weapons all the more interesting ...
@@blackstone777 Oh, yes, for sure! Fighters actually get a lot of fun stuff, *if* one reads past the short one-paragraph description in the class discussion and delves further to see other benefits they get. They're not "boring" like a lot of people think!
One important bit of context for a character type like the merchant is that Blackmoor did not start off as a game of playing adventurers going into dungeons (though the idea sounds to have formed and solidified quite quickly). To begin with, Arneson imagined his Blackmoor being much like the Braunstein games, in that each player would assume the personage of a given character in the milieu, and simply play out their actions and endeavors during an exciting and exceptional situation (the baron has gone missing, and the enemy forces are looking to capitalize on this). The Merchant is quite emblematic of this, being simply a character that was figured to exist as part of the town and assigned (I'm not sure whether by player choice or by Arneson's choice) to one of the players. Other early examples include people like the town priest (not yet part of the whole D&D cleric) and indeed men at arms like The Great Svenny.
(It is easy, of course, to see how this rather involved character determination kind of fell off when players hit upon how fun it was to go into the dungeon to look for treasure and danger, and where many of the random townsfolk character types had no real function. And I suppose the fact that such places are quite lethal also probably killed off a fair number of them quickly enough that fully rounded backstories and setting positioning became just a bit cumbersome...)
The point being, that there was originally no consideration of something like a merchant needing to be an entire class of characters, but rather simply *a* character. It is, of course, easy to see how that would lead into archetypicality when the whole idea of character classes and more distinct adventurers as the default assumed character type came to be.
This has long been my assumption - that players were playing a "role," not a "class" and a lot of that seems to be borne out by sporadic comments I've seen on message boards or even here on my channel from folks who were around and/or played in Blackmoor at the time, but I try not to make definitive statements like that unless I have some kind of "proof" or comment I can point to.
Thanks for sharing this; as I mentioned, it does confirm a lot of my initial understanding.
@@daddyrolleda1 This is of course a very healthy approach. I concede that there is interpretation in my ultimate conclusions, and that it may be better to not make any definitive statements of some really murky pre-history of a game that nobody reasonably even remembers any more. For example, it does seem that when queried, the original players have often made statements that do not fit neatly together, and may be misrememberings, recollections from different parts of the process, or whatever.
(To be clear, I am not disparaging them. I don't think anyone can reasonably expect one to have perfect recollection of what must have been chaotic and rapidly evolving hobby projects of their youth.)
But what I do find corroborated corroborated in more or less all sources I've found is that characters seem to have been originally informed mainly by their Chainmail capabilities and various attributes (for example, Greg Svenson's character sheets from -71 are just a list of attributes), and later on (the question of how much later is much more ambivalent, but it could not have been much later) the differences between characters being contextualized character-first. i.e. special rules for characters.
Insofar as I can positively establish something, what my findings suggest is that there were originally distinct characters that did have their own various special rules (likely more explicit for some than others, and it seems that these became more strongly codified over time, due to the simple fact that the game informed more of what was needed as it was played, as these things tend to go). Greg Svenson lists some, like Fighter, Magic-User and priest (and indeed the merchant), but emphasizes that they weren't really thinking in terms of character classes, and rather in terms of singular characters. Which is of course quite understandable, it's not as if there was some earlier convention for these things.
(the above, as a strong example of this type of reporting, though unclear which part of Blackmoor's development and play this refers to, comes from Svenson's comments on the ODD74 forum, in 2008. I am unsure how well UA-cam likes links, but I can throw it to you via some way if you want it.)
I admit that this becomes a bit of a question of definitions, at this point, and that it is not unreasonable to suggest that what this instead means is that they did have character classes to begin with, but that each one was, naturally, first rolled out in a character rather than as a "general option." I guess it is a rather unimportant distinction, in the end.
The main thing I wanted to emphasize was that by all accounts, we should read things like The First Fantasy Campaign's list of character types in Blackmoor in the light of this framing of very early and tentative rpg development, where the whole idea of what was character versus a distinct class was less strongly defined, and that it is ambiguous at best what Dave Arneson means when he talks about character types present in that campaign (a class that people could play freely, or that there was a character like this). Mainly because I often see this being taken (in general, not necessarily in this video) as a strong statement of a "class list" of Blackmoor.
Though, it is not unreasonable to assume that even if many of those characters begun as singular one-offs with special abilities, that there likely were others that took after them after the first one. It is a rather natural way for these things to go, where you'd rather not just scrap a lot of work you put into this one character, or where someone else may also want to then play a character like that. Certainly by the time we get to D&D (and this was not too many years later) the idea of a distinct list of classes has very much materialized.
So I suppose ultimately, as you say, this whole topic becomes ambiguous in the end, funnily enough. And it is, at best, a very technical curiosity.
Thanks again for all of that! By and large, what I've learned from what I have read and/or heard in interviews over the years aligns with your comments/interpretation above. Thanks!
Lenord Lakofka created the Pyromancer, and a variant of dwarf and hobbit.
Yes! In Liaisons Dangereuses #74. I mentioned the Pyrologist class in one of my earlier videos (the one about Clerics-Paladins-Rangers-Illusionists-Bards) at this part here: ua-cam.com/video/PORfiBst6HE/v-deo.htmlsi=oeMIqW1_NnrFgxfz&t=1156
Thanks for watching and commenting!
More than happy to give you a good idea of the timetable. There are some things you’ve got wrong. And quite a bit you’ve got right to
Thanks again - I commented on your other comment, but wanted to acknowledge your comments again as being very helpful.
Funny that the Merchant class lived on in the Dragon Quest series in Japan. The Sage sometimes makes appearances in Japanese games too!
So funny -you're the second person to mention this. I am woefully unknowledgeable about any video games, so I wasn't aware of this. Thanks!
Ah, nostalgia. In the 70s my DM had all the original D&D books (well, pamphlets, really.) And "Chainmail", too.
Very fun! I didn't acquire my White Box and Chainmail until much later in the 90's (I just recently made another video about that - TTRPG Boxed Sets: ua-cam.com/video/4b9dcHDAqFo/v-deo.htmlsi=MR5xRbt7LdVwC7h7). That is cool you got to play the original system back in the day!
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I’m coming to you with a question because I think you are likely to know the answer. Back in the 80’s there was a unofficial supplement, or at least it wasn’t for D&D, with a bunch of new character classes. It was a white softcover with a green pencil drawing on the front. Some of the classes inside were the bounty hunter and the buccaneer. That’s all I can remember. I’m hoping you can help.
I can indeed! You're referring to "The Compleat Adventurer" by Bard Games. I never had it, but was always interested in it. They also published the Compleat Spellcaster and the Compleat Alchemist (the last one I do have).
@@daddyrolleda1 Nailed it! I knew you would know!
@@dickjensen8377 Happy to help!
Love this series!
Thank you so much! I'm really glad to hear that. And thank you for watching and commenting!
Whoooooa...the Blackmoor books were clearly an inspiration for Steve Moraff, the creator of the MS-DOS games, Moraff's World and Dungeons of the Unforgiven.
Oh, good to know! I am not a video game player and never really have been, so I'm not a good person to provide insight to video games inspired by tabletop games, unfortunately! Thanks for sharing!
Very interesting. I've been playing since the 70s, and I am jealous of how good a condition your books are still in! Lol
Yes, a few people have commented on that. We didn't grow up with a lot of money, and almost all of these books and boxed sets were gifts from my parents or other relatives, and I always felt like I needed to take good care of them to show my appreciation!
Same here. Alot of these i only dreamed of possesing.
I enjoyed the video. I probably favor the longer form videos myself. Have you tried asking Tim Kask about his editing choices? He was asking for more questions on last week's episode of Curmudgeon in the Cellar. I think he usually records on Friday night, and uploads on Saturday morning.
It is somewhat funny that so many of the early efforts at outlining a Merchant class gave them recourse to magic. While DragonQuest didn't use Classes, it did have Merchant as a skill; and, pretty much every character chooses a college of magic in that game (unless they're using the old warrior alternative from Dragon magazine #86). The skill doesn't do much other than allow one to buy low and sell high; however, the real meat is the options to assay values of recovered treasure. Although, one of the requirements for the skill is that the character must speak, read, and write at least three languages.
Thanks for this! I think someone else asked him a few questions related to my videos, as he recently addressed firearms (specific to my recent video).
@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah, I saw that someone has posted a brief question that week; I thought it must have been one of your viewers. I was very pleased.
I'd never paid a bit of attention to anything other than music on UA-cam, and do not generally engage with any forms of social media; but, since I have become more active here, I have been trying to create substantive engagements with channels that are adding positive, constructive influences on the hobby, especially the "old school" games. So, I really like seeing viewers/subscribers crossing over on those kinds of channels and bumping them up by making comments of the type the algorithm likes. Cheers!
Nicholson was famous for being the merchant. He even played one in his space campaign called starprobe/starempire. Which oddly enough occurs in the same setting. yeah, Blackmoor is in normal space where spaceships could approach.
David Megarry was the first thief. And he definitely started in Blackmoor before they even showed the game to Gary Gygax.
Paladin and cleric also appeared in the game as an attempt to counter Dwayne Jenkins vampire character.
They were quite a few other character classes as well. I should know I’ve got the notes from him
Thanks for all this! I'm very honored to have you watch and comment here. I was just recently listening to an interview about the Secrets of Blackmoor documentary (which I own and have watched many times) and Griff was talking about meeting you and you steering him in certain directions to meet key people.
I have mentioned a few of these things you bring up in some of my other videos on the various classes including the Paladin and Cleric, but I was corrected by someone else that the Cleric (according to this person) pre-existed the vampire character (which I thought was originally played by David Fant, but then Jenkins also played one later). But I have heard the exact story you said - that the cleric was created as a "foil" for the vampire player character. I've read that many times over the years.
I've been curious as to whether some of these things like the merchant and the thief were "roles" and not "classes" in the way we think of classes today. I was reading some stuff by Greg Svenson that he posted on a message board and someone asked him about the classes in pre-D&D Blackmoor, and from reading his response it seemed that classes weren't really a thing but rather each player had a "role" (hence, "role-playing") but there wasn't, for example, a document listing all the "class abilities" of a Merchant. Does that sound right to you?
Thanks again - I really appreciate your insights, and I'm always happy to be corrected on stuff. If there are any egregious things, let me know and I'll add a note in the show notes. Unfortunately UA-cam doesn't let you edit videos after they're posted and I'd hate to pull this one down given that it's been my most popular video to date.
@@daddyrolleda1 If you think about it the roles are the classes. they were leveling up as the game experience points, which was something that Dave Arneson’s did create.
I remember having a conversation with David Wesely about who created leveling. Mike Carr had a merit based leveling system. That has been in game mechanics since chess. The experience points was definitely (Dave Arneson’s) creation. and with that leveling did occur. Each player for the most part expressed what class they would like to be. A.k.a. the role. Initially they were playing themselves transported to the land. That changed over time. Interesting overtones to the beginning of dungeons and dragons cartoon.
but Greg is correct in a sense. One doesn’t notice the transition that the role becomes classes later on. Archetypal classes. Initially my understanding was Dave had the same level of experience points per class to gain a new level. I think Gygax in his attempt to do game balancing made it different for each class. I have to double check that.
The rest of the questions I could probably ask Wesely this coming Wednesday. He probably has an idea or one of the other players.
That is all really insightful. I truly appreciate it. Thank you.
Back in the 1970s there were a number of small-circulation fanzines, which occasionally published new classes, not all of which were intended to be taken seriously. I might still have some issues hidden away in the attic. The one class I remember was the Tumbler, who was basically an acrobat cum Juggler.
That would be so great if you still had some of those! I didn't start playing until 1981 so I missed that very early era of fanzines, and even in the 80's, I was mostly focused on "official" material, mainly because that's the only stuff I ever saw at my local game store.
6:13
"....he didn't think the Assassin would make a viable PC class..."
Proof that the edge-Iords weren't really around in the earlier days of Dungeons and Dragons.
Oh, what a time to be alive.
I think the class can make sense in a more political intrigue style game, but I do wonder about the viability of an assassin joining an adventuring party to dungeon delve, unless it was specifically for a reason of infiltrating a group to get close to assassinate one of the PCs.
I ran an old-school game once through module S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and since most of the players either weren't familiar with AD&D 1E or else had gotten rid of their books, I created pre-gen PCs for all of them, and to maximize the "AD&D-ness" of the game, I included an assassin in the group who was in disguise pretending to be a scout, but in reality was a very human-looking half-orc whose orc witch mother had been executed by the party's Paladin character years prior. The assassin was out for revenge and had planned it for years by pretending to be a scout for the king's army in order to be assigned to the Paladin's adventuring party who were sent to explore the mysterious metal "cave" in the module. Eventually the party split up to explore, and the assassin ended up paired off with the paladin, then killed him.
The paladin player got *his* revenge when the rest of the party members found his body and the cleric cast "Speak with Dead" and he gave a death soliloquy naming the assassin as his killer. It was a lot of fun.
@daddyrolleda1 That sounds like a pretty cool adventure.
I personally always saw the Assassin as a "villain-class" or just an occupation a character has (for example, a wizard could be an Assassin if they are hired to kiIl someone).
Despite my jab at edge-Iords, I do understand the appeal of the Assassin.
D&D + classy liquor notes + Jazz records!? I'm in, I'm sold, you got me, and I am now known. 😆
Thank you SO MUCH for watching and commenting. I truly appreciate it. I especially appreciate that you watched to the end and saw the whisky and jazz portion. If you explore some of my other recent videos, you'll see a ton of jazz records. I hope you enjoy, and I really look forward to chatting with you in the comments. Thanks again!
I love these, more for the worldbuilding than anything else. More stuff to implicitly say 'this world isn't just for adventurers' is welcome. I especially wanna see stuff about some magic user classes that never expect to go monster hunting or dungeon delving, so have con/dex as a dump stat.
That's one thing I liked about 3E - they included "NPC classes" in the DMG that were less powerful than PC classes and covered things that a non-adventuring person would do. There was an Expert (for crafting, smithing, etc.), a Commoner, an Aristocrat, a Warrior (for like town watch and such), and an Adept that was for lower-powered spellcasters, such as maybe a village healer or a hedge wizard or whatever. I thought it was a neat concept. And of course there were tons of NPC classes in Dragon Magazine back in the day was well!
Some class ideas that I would love to see get deep-dives:
- Healer, The Dragon #3. A sort of fighter, magic-user, cleric. Very survivable.
- Berserker, also The Dragon #3. Barbarian lycanthropes. Very powerful but could go into a rage attacking party members.
- Alchemist, The Dragon #2. Interesting class, no one every took me up on this one. Has had iterations through editions plus interesting 3rd party takes.
Thank you so much for this comment! Classes from Dragon Magazine will definitely make an appearance!
Minecraft has the wandering trader so I can see a merchant as an adventurer
Oh, I didn't know that! My lack of knowledge about video games is legendary.
The three pre-modern reasons for travel were war, pilmograge and trade after all
Well done and thanks I started in78 a d hearing the history is awesome
I am very happy to hear that! Thank you so much, and thank you for watching and commenting!
D.H. Boggs book "Dragons at Dawn" has a writeup for both Sages and Merchants as classes. Dragons at Dawn is meant to be as coherent a write up of Dave Arneson's game 1970-73. The Sage has a cool cursing ability (anyone can curse people if they take an education, but sages are really good at it). Merchants mostly get persuasion and appraisal, at level 4 they can start building traderoutes and "factories". Very neat stuff, and a great read overall!
Oh so that’s where dragon quest got those classes!
Ha - you're the third or fourth person who mentioned that. I don't play a lot of video games (hardly any) so I wasn't aware of this when I made this video!
Great info to learn some background to the early game.
I'm so glad to hear that! I hope you enjoyed the video, and if you're interested in the early background, I encourage you to watch my playlist on the History of Early TTPRGs: ua-cam.com/play/PLX6jue56rzl0uAZIFwywJXIMXWVULmTqh.html
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I own all the Gazetteers and even made a Neverwinter Nights server based on the Grand Duchy of Karameikos. Good stuff.
The Gazetteers are some of my favorite products from that era, combined with the "Voyage of the Princess Ark" articles in Dragon Magazine.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Len Lakofka (sic?) is super familiar to me. The name rang a bell immediately. Didn't he have a "named" character spell? Like Bigby or Mordenkeinen; but not them obviously. I can't remember. But it might be a fun video to do a dive on some of the OG folks. Characters they played or events that made it into modules. Or whatever. I enjoy your videos for nerding out. Thank you. My drink suggestion would be heavy rocks, 1/3 solid bourbon and 2/3 orange juice. I like a twist of lime and an actual cherry in it as well. When I'm fancy.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Len Lakofka's character was Leomund, part of the name of the spell "Leomund's Tiny Hut" (and also the name of the column Len wrote in Dragon magazine).
Len created the Lendore Isles as his home campaign setting, which Gary Gygax later agreed to add to the World of Greyhawk. The "L" series of modules were written by Len and incorporated into the Greyhawk campaign setting, including the gods. He also detailed the Suel gods from the Greyhawk pantheon in various Dragon articles.
I like the idea of covering the various early D&D contributors and the characters they played. I will add that to the queue!
Bourbon and Orange Juice! Interesting! Kind of a sour-style cocktails, but those usually also have bitters and sugar.
Thanks again for your support!
Amusingly, Tim Kask just mentioned the Merchant class in his latest Curmudgeon in the Cellar video from the other day. :-)
Oh, good to know! I have to watch that! I'm a bit behind on my UA-cam viewing due to helping my dad move (again!) and my daughter starting high school last week and helping her get ready. Thanks for the tip!
It is interesting how the game has changed over the years.
One of my current lvl 1 characters I created (for 5e) is a High Elf Ranger with Sage background. She also has Deft Explorer rather then Favored Terrain and knows 8 different languages currently. If I ever find a group to play with and go all the way to Lvl 20, she will end up knowing something like 16 or 17 languages. Part of her backstory I created/reasons for adventuring is to gather up every book/document/artifacts they could and send it safely back home to then create a vast library/museum/educational center when she "retires" from adventuring.
That is a really fun background!
It sounds like you don't have a current group. I'm sorry to hear that! But you're doing the exact same thing I used to do back in the 80's, which is to make characters (both PCs and NPCs) in the hopes that I could use them some day. They didn't all get played, but over the decades, I've played a few and I've also used some of the NPCs in the game I now DM for my daughter and her friends.
If you're interested in seeing a "recipe box" of index cards of all the NPCs I made, you can check out this video: ua-cam.com/video/2t_q76JeZjM/v-deo.html
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Thank you for this! It drove me to discover that Dragon Magazine back to 1976 is available on the Internet Archives. I remember banning Idiot and Jester classes from my own game back then. :)
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I started reading Dragon with #76 - a gift from a friend for my birthday. I'd never heard of it, but the next time I went to the store, I saw #72 for sale and snapped it up. After that, a few friends gave me some issues they no longer wanted, so I have a decent collection of very beat up issues from #41 - #83, then issues in decent shape from #84 - #89. After that, my grandma gave me a subscription for my birthday which started with issue #90 and I kept it up all the way until the last print issue, #359.
Also, my mom was super cool and got me the Dragon Magazine CD-ROM collection, which included #1 - #250 plus all of Strategic Review. They were all PDFs so I can still read them even though the special software the set came with is long gone.
Long form is just fine, keep them coming
Thank you so much! I really appreciate you watching and letting me know your preference. Cheers!
I remember when "Elf" was a character class and not a race.
And the original version of Bards...which broke every single rule of multiclass characters.
Yes, I'm running a campaign for my daughter and her friends using 1981 Moldvay Basic, which was the first version of the game to use "race-as-class" (such as "Elf" as you mention). A lot of folks mistakenly think that Original D&D was race-as-class, but it wasn't once the Thief class was introduced in Supplement I, as the rules allow demi-humans (dwarves, elves, halflings, and half-elves) to all be Thieves or Fighting Men (or in the case of the elf, a Fighting Man/Magic-User).
That Player's Handbook Bard was a trip! I was never quite sure why Gary designed it that way, considering he patterned it off the Bard created in an issue of The Strategic Review which was just a regular single class: ua-cam.com/video/PORfiBst6HE/v-deo.html
I remember there was a Ginny Di video recently about a homebrew merchant
Oh man I want that monster overhaul book. I love charts and tables they have helped my game so much.
It is so great! I love the way it's divided up into different sections. Be on the lookout for a full review soon(ish). Thanks for watching and commenting!
I saw the cover for "First Fantasy Campaign" and had to check it out.
I really hope I didn't disappoint and that you ended up liking the video. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
@daddyrolleda1 You did great! Been a long while. Maybe you can cover the Comeback Inn, Wildberries and the Egg of Coot.
@@PeterCorless I will add those to the list. I've been thinking about covering the Egg of Coot specifically but that's a pretty deep reference for folks who most likely already know its origins.
Oriental Adventures is actually a setting called 'Legend of the five rings' by a company named AEG.
AEG sold the rights to L5R to wotc, after wotc mismanaged the fuck out of the IP they sold it back to AEG. AEG then made a dedicated role playing system for the setting.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
You're referring to the *3rd Edition* version of Oriental Adventures, and you're correct its setting, Rokugan, was from the L5R game. I still have some of my old L5R card game cards. And coincidentally I went to college with one of the guys from AEG (jim pinto) and also shopped at a game store where jim and a few of the other AEG guys worked for a time.
The original Oriental Adventures was published in 1985, long before the creation of L5R and AEG, and featured a setting called Kara-Tur, which was originally intended as a stand-alone setting but in the late 80's was eventually incorporated into Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms.
@daddyrolleda1 I haven't watched many if your videos, but if you haven't you should do some deep dives on who and how these settings came to be.
Have you heard of 2nd Ed setting called birth right? It's absolutely massive and full of detail. From what I understand it was the setting for an authors would be book series, but it never got off the ground. Some how the dnd folks got the rights for it.
I prefer one video with multiple classes, personally.
Thank you very much for letting me know, and also thank you for watching!
Side note - the book art is amazing!
I really like a lot of that early art, but I've heard others refer to it as "primitive" or "questionable quality." But I have nostalgia for it, so perhaps I'm not entirely unbiased!
@@daddyrolleda1 yeah it has a few layers of quality, but some has great colors .
Our early gaming group loved to test play all of the "new" character classes published in Dragon Magazine and other early D&D support materials.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
I really liked a lot of the so-called "NPC" classes in Dragon magazine! I found them to be very creative and often more flavorful than some of the official stuff. The Archer was a personal favorite, but I also liked stuff like the Bandit, Ninja, Alchemist, and the variant Paladin classes, just to name a few.
Great video
Thank you very much for letting me know!
Man to woman, sounds like the first Deathstalker movie.
Wonderful channel. I've started playing RPGs with D&D 3.5 myself, and even in that era I was a teenager. I enjoy hearing about things I missed out on due to being a little girl or entirely nonexistent at the time. :p
I am so glad you found my channel and are enjoying it!
I am currently running an old-school D&D campaign for my 14 year-old daughter and her friends (we started when some of the players were 10).
Also, while I began playing in 1981 with Moldvay Basic D&D, in terms of total number hours of playing/running games, I played the most of 3E/3.5/Pathfinder1E (I mostly consider them all the same game).
Thank you again very much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1Ha, I've played Pathfinder 1e the most myself! Or, really, mostly I've ran it. Nowadays I'm changing gears to Worlds Without Number, as far as fantasy systems go anyway. It's so cool that you started playing so early in D&D's history, I'm really going to have to have a look through your channel for more ancient lore! :p
Awesome that you're running a campaign for your daughter and her friends! 10 is about how old I was when I first played D&D at some summer camp, it's a fun age to get into the hobby; can grow up with it. ^^
Worlds Without Number has so many great tables and other inspirational content! Very cool!
I hope you stick around and enjoy some of my other content! I have a whole playlist on D&D History!
And thank you for chatting! It's one of the things I enjoy most about having this channel.
I know this isn't d&d, but in Forbidden Lands there is a merchant class called a Peddler.
A few people have mentioned that! I haven't played Forbidden Lands yet or had a chance to read the game, so I wasn't aware of that. Thanks! And, thank you for watching and commenting.
The other source for these two types of character could be the "background secondary skills in the DMG p12 (my 1st ed). These could be the 'Trader' or many of the 'makers' would deal directly with the public. OR . Change your beat up starship for some thing like the 'African queen' and you become a travelling (inland waterway) salesman/merchant. Lets also not forget the Merchant's Guild and the Theive's Guild; the diference between them being legal trade / illegal trade.
I guess the reason why only fighter/theives can hire sages is the intellectual classes within society; which would be clerics, magic users (as a catch all name), and sages (themselves possibly retired fighter/theif types). If they approached each other over knowledge based information they would never agree on the questions let alone the answers! (Refer to Douglas Adams for what interlectuals might argue about before the answer was deemed to be _ _ .(no spoilers here)).
And finally why are your articles so interesting?.....
I'm glad you're enjoying the channel. Thank you very much! And you get major bonus points for referencing "The African Queen." Nicely done!
Yeah, the Merchant Guild / Thief Guild rivalry is something that was common in Blackmoor and I mention it briefly in the video. It makes a lot of sense!
I enjoyed the video and never heard of a Merchant being a class so that was nice. I do want to point out that the class restriction for hiring a sage was only for long term employment (e.g. installed in the player character's stronghold). Any class could hire a sage for a couple of questions. As someone else in the comments said, I'm sure the restriction was to follow along with the tropes of fantasy stories.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it. All these years, I never caught the stipulation that the hiring of a sage was only for long-term employment. Thanks!