That totally makes sense, and interestingly enough back in the day, I liked WSG better than DSG, partially for that same reason, but over time I've realized that I never used any of that stuff!
As a teen gamer in the 80s we were looking for more mechanics to make things realistic. I also remember games that tried to provide more realism. A few worked well, like Hârnmaster, but many fell short. The shift into more roleplaying from simple dungeon crawls was also a factor.
That's a great way of looking at it! Of the two, in hindsight, I like the Dungeoneer book better, although at the time I was more excited by the Wilderness book, as I felt (very wrongly) at the time that "dungeons" were "for kids."
I found the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide was hugely influential on my gameplay and worldbuilding. The 'dungeons' being 3D cave systems with a fantastic undersea ocean at the bottom instead of a series of flat architectural levels on top of one another just blew me away. The idea of having underground cities and settlements where it made more sense that fantastic magic and creatures would be commonplace. The dungeon exploring equipment list such as special dungeon-barrows for carrying away treasure. And the cover art was just fantastic.
I agree with you mostly. I wasn't a big fan of the weird AC and damage rules abstraction, but I found out that book keeping was less fun. Thanks for the content!
You and I have the exact same philosophy when it comes to the rules. I really appreciate that. Great video. The other conundrum that the introduction of NWPs was that it conflicted with thieves' abilities. If you think about, thieves' abilities are NWPs, but they work with percentiles, and nwps are a d20 roll... it was a disparity that really kind of drove me crazy.
I think the intent of Thief skills was a special ability that is not possible for normal people to learn. You have to be this singleminded specialist. So you wouldn't see a Fighter who could get an NWP to pick locks at -12 on the d20 DEX check. Anyone can climb trees and stuff, if unencumbered and the tree isn't wet and there are reasonably spaced branches. Someone who is a skilled non-Thief climber could maybe do a more difficult tree or bouldering. Thieves can climb a brick wall in the rain. Nobody else even has a chance. Move Silently isn't just "sneaking". Anyone can strip their armor, wear soft shoes, choose to walk on quieter surfaces. And the DM can take that into account when determining encounter distance. But a Thief can cross gravel past a cat and not alert it. All the other ones work the same way. So you'll notice that there aren't Thief skills on the NWP chart, although Mountaineering appears it's that skilled climber I described who nevertheless is nowhere near the Thief skill. Another way to look at it is, you wouldn't let a Fighter roll a really difficult check to cast a 1st level M-U spell. So why would you let anyone else try to use a Thief skill? There is a problem on the NWP lists with Tracking. I really wish they hadn't included Tracking from the Ranger skill, because it offers a chance for non-Rangers to track. But maybe tracking is an acceptable middle-ground skill in this case. I certainly never ever saw a non-Ranger PC pick up Tracking NWP, because the penalties make it a waste for non-Rangers to take. It would be just as much a waste for an NPC to take. So that alone makes me wonder why they even bothered.
neat books but there is a reason why BECMI was the best then and still is today. It was all about role playing and being creative and playing as we lived .. by the seat of your pants. That was fun man. Rulings.. not rules. Like the basic set famously said.. if it's not in the rules.. just make it up and keep on going..
Yes, that is my very approach, which I tried to get across in my video (I'm more of a B/X guy than BECMI, but the same thing applies to both, I'd say).
interesting Martin. B/X - BECMI. Same thing I suppose but let's give some love for the big C. What the Companion rules did it did better than any D&D system in setting up role-playing for outside the dungeon. When your player progresses past mere monster bashing and collecting gold to becoming a mover and shaker in the larger campaign world. The problem is well known with how to handle high level characters and the challenge to throw suitable, challenging monsters at them. Again.. that sort of misses the point of the original intent of the game. Not power gaming .. but role playing. Just a different type but in its own ways even more fun than role-playing low level characters. Yet, just as deadly if DM'd correctly. Cheers Martin! Another great video from you.@@daddyrolleda1
Hey Man! Just wanted to say that I recently stumbled upon your channel and am loving it! I could talk about/listen to AD&D all day long. I got hooked in 1980 at age 10 and still love this stuff to this day. Really appreciate your efforts!
I think it would have been awesome to get a Town Survival Guide. Comprehensive info about, based on community size, what kind of amenities you might see, town defenses, rule of law, interesting judicial methods, finding a trainer, recruiting henchmen and armies, explanation of guilds as royally-granted monopolies, how organized crime operates, getting items identified and appraised and sold, the likelihood of finding a seller who actually has a magic item and the ways you can make that exchange happen. This would be the book that contained craft NWPs, because this is the place that has a lot of NPCs who have those, and the place where PCs can use those proficiencies. DM Section would be about how towns start, develop, and decay. This way if a town gets started in a place the DM has guidance on how to progress it, and if they want a town in a particular layout and point in development they can see how it would have gotten to that point.
A Town Survival Guide sounds great! Interestingly, I'm working on a supplement right now that has a different chapter for each "genre" (Wilderness, Naval, Horror, Sword-and-Planet, Fairy Tale, etc.) and the section I'm working on right now is the City section, which coincidentally has a lot of the ideas you mention above. It's not intended to be totally in-depth but rather a quick overview, including what value and types of goods are available in different size villages/towns/cities. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Sounds cool. I refer so much to the 1e DMG because it really is a good reference book, and it would be great to have something like what you're describing. It would be fun to see a grid of each genre on X and Y axes and an example of a cross-genre piece of inspiration (film, novel, video game). Dunno if many of them would be populated!
Great video! You did an excellent job talking about the shift in perspective on gaming. I love Dungeoneers Survival Guide, like you it’s more for the culture and underdark settings information than the guidelines on proficiencies. I did use those rules and I’d like to talk about my take on the realism vs game approach. For me, it’s all about choice and having options in the game. You might not need to know how to handle swimming in a cave or spelunking, but having something defined you can use as a guide than just handwaving everything. In my experience, DMs who just make up stuff on the fly cause a lot of inconsistency in terms of gameplay. Without some guidance it becomes confusing to have similar situations handled completely differently. Having a book with some guidelines gives to a basis for making rulings in the game and gives the players a framework to play from. Like all the guidelines, you use what you want and ignore the rest. If you don’t want that level of detail, disregard it. These two books gave me both options. It has lore and stuff to make you think about designing adventures which weren’t repetitive and guidelines for how to handle situations which come up in the game. It’s not true realism, they are still abstract mechanics used to represent a situation in the game. Those situations may never come up in the game, but you can look at one example and apply those mechanics to another scenario without having to invent something in the fly and then remember it the next time you play. The other thing I’d like to point out is at the time there were other RPGs coming out which added skills and had more “realism” based mechanics. Paladium had a whole set of options for injuries in combat for example. I think TSR was trying to compete with those games. Fans also wrote into Dragon magazine consistently asking questions about how to handle lots of in game scenarios more realistically. When I was younger I thought I wanted more realistic combat. I wanted to strategize about the best way to take on enemies. I wanted to use the terrain to my advantage, have complex tactics, and be creative with the fight. As a DM I wanted the monsters to not just be pools of hit points, I wanted creatures to use their habitat to their advantage against the players. We used weapon speed, weapon type versus armor type, reaction adjustments, etc to make combat more fun. However, as you stated, it just bogs down the game and over time we abandoned it. It’s one of those things you have to experience for yourself and find a balance between complexity and versatility that works for you. I loved NWPs and kits in 2nd edition. I loved building PCs that had different talents and capabilities in and out of combat. We also were always playing. When I was on the Army in desert storm we played by mail. Those out of session RP opportunities are some of my fondest memories of those campaigns. Creating items, researching areas I wanted to explore, and planning my next move were all things NWPs made me think about. Now, we didn’t always roll for success or failure with those, but learning those NWPs and then building on them was part of the fun. We also developed our own and came up with rules for combining them. For example, herbalism and brewing to make healing salves and tinctures. The NWPs helped prompt us to try different things besides just hack and slash. Want to try to influence a local noble, etiquette NWP can help you impress them. Or maybe dancing can help you ingratiate yourself to them. Sorry this is so long. I could talk about this for hours if you let me. If you ever want to have a discussion I’d love to talk with you about this sometime. Cheers!
The subtle shift in exactly *what* is being simulated is an excellent point. I've long recognized the release of Oriental Adventures as a Rubicon moment for AD&D, but hadn't reflected on the shift from *swords & sorcery* fiction to east Asian *history* with fantasy elements. Thanks!
Just subscribed to your channel and added a few of your videos to my queue to start watching. It would be cool to have a Wilderness follow-up - maybe Doug could team up with Kim Mohan on that! Have you checked out either "Veins of the Earth" (by Lamentations of the Flame Princess) or "Into the Wyrd and Wild" (by Wet Ink Games)? They're both, respectfully, Dungeoneering and Wilderness books for the OSR community and style of play, but they both remind me of the DSG and WSG, in a way.
@@daddyrolleda1 First I've heard of either, which is good. I've heard of Lamentations but have never played it. I'll have to check around and see if I can find PDFs that don't break the bank.
DRa1 - these books were great references but also a real misstep by TSR. As you’d indicated, it was a move to codify aspects of the game that might not really have required it and got away from the rulings over rules idiom of the original game. Cult of the Reptile God is an absolute classic. I played it as a Ranger and ran it as a DM, with both being superbly memorable.
Fantastic overview on the balance between rulings vs. rules as highlighted in the Advanced D&D DM guide. It's a crucial reminder that not every scenario can (or should) be dictated by a specific rule. The emphasis on rulings keeps the game flowing and fun. Your points on realism vs. abstraction, especially regarding HP and AC, really resonate. They're abstract for a reason, to keep gameplay smooth without bogging down in complexity. The mention of the Dungeoneer's Guide and Wilderness Survival Guide brings up an interesting debate: how much realism is too much? These guides offer a deep dive into realism, but as you mentioned, oftentimes, a GM's narrative assertion ('you take damage because you're ill-prepared for the weather') suffices and keeps the game moving. I completely agree that the 'law' of the game lies in its core mechanics-ability scores, rolling a d20, difficulty classes, HP. Other books and guides should indeed be treated as optional, variant rules to enhance the game if-and only if-they contribute to the fun for everyone at the table. This perspective helps maintain the game's spirit without becoming chained to an ever-growing list of rules. Thanks for sparking this thoughtful discussion!
Good video and informative as always! I've been catching up on your videos and I appreciate the history and background you provide. Very nostalgic for me and inspires me to actually get my library organized so that i can more easily reference all these old books in the games, D&D or otherwise, that I am part of now.
Kind of like how at the Food Network one of the executives chided one of the celebrity chefs about too much instruction in the program, "We don't make shows for people who like to cook. We make shows for people who like to watch television," I think these books were mostly for weird nerds like me who didn't have anyone to _play_ D&D with. So reading about it was the best we could do. Ridiculous tables for the pack-load of wild animals were part of the fun, y'know?
I think there was a real niche for simulation style rules like the survival guide books because there were plenty of people playing detailed, literate board games in the hobby like the original SPI, TSR, and Avalon Hill publishers were printing. That included super detailed games like Titan, Runequest, and the plainly titled "Outdoor Survival". There were competitors pushing the limits of thick, simulist rules, so maybe Gygax saw a need to compete in that niche with these two books.
Some of us do prefer realism in our fantasy world. To keep it grounded. I personally don't want ridiculous things such as a giant mechanical dragon that shows up at the rime of the frostmaiden ending. It doesn't fit a medieval world setting. I don't think there should be coffee shops in your towns. I don't wish modernity at all. Now I played in the Air Force when I first learned this game and I played first edition. Talking about a bunch of highly intelligent people. That crowd demanded realism. We didn't just hand wave away a 300 mile trip. If we didn't figure out a methodology for getting there and getting back with the treasure it didn't happen. We just liked it that way. I still prefer it that way and if I ran a game today I would run it that way. Which is why I don't run combat structured rigidly around the turn order.
Feel like the explosion of realism came from the explanation of why and how things are happening. The concept was very new and all the people pointing out how it’s raining and thus it would affect x, y and z.
When I read these two books in the mid 90’s (used book rack) they formed in my head an image of the perfect game of Fantasy Oregon Trail. I never found a group that wanted to play that way, but I think you can run DnD however you want to as long as there is buy-in from the group.
Just want to thank you for all your hard work, it's inspired me to pick up OSE and learn it with my son. We've lightly played TinyD6 style games, so he's super excited to learn B/X--just need to read up on GMing and get the ball rolling! We even found a store in town that hosts and sells TTRPGs, wargaming, ect. Exciting times! Again, thanks for the inspiration. Lovely stuff.
Good video! Although' I'm not quite sure I understand the title of this video -- these two books were just optional rules for people that wanted more granularity and that most people never used. Skills would have happened eventually - if these books never existed -- because Gygax and others were aware of skills from Day 1 and also skills were used very heavily in early games like RuneQuest, Traveller, and many others. So yeah not sure how these books changed the history of D&D? Reason these two books were written was really TSR trying to make some money. 😂 Just like all those character splat books they came out with in the 2e era..
As a kid this was my favorite book. I struggled with reading (I have still never read it) but the cover sent my imagination a blaze with possibilities. After watching your video I agree in a group these rules seem tedious. However I mostly play solo theses days and having rules for this type of stuff could be more useful. Great video as always and has inspired me to break out my copy and finally read it.
Hearing that my video inspired you to re-visit one of your books really made my day! Thanks for watching and commenting, and I look forward to hearing how your exploration of the old Survival Guides works for your solo play game!
BTW, it's definitely not for me, but I actually see practical uses for some of the overwritten mechanics in these books - IF you have players who are very, very rules-minded. You could set up a situation where the party needs to get through a flooded tunnel, and they have look at their stats and conclude that only one of them can hold their breath long enough, so that character has to go ahead alone and scout for another route. You could set up a situation where they run into cold weather, and ensure that by the time they get to their destination, they're too worn down to fight, so they get diverted into another situation if they prudently avoid monsters. It's a way to create certain kinds of drama, while using the game's math to justify it to players who are very "crunchy". But I definitely prefer a system where you can describe the risks of a situation like these, and resolve them with simple, generalized mechanics.
As my bonus comment, I did and still do love metal. I learned to love classical, opera, blues, country and some jazz. To me metal still gets my blood flowing but to drive with less rage I listen to piano or strings! Hopefully I can find that in Paris on my next trip! As I love Manhattan, I should enjoy a Brooklyn! Jazz on Daddy, at volume 1
I wouldn't call "armor class represents the chance for armor to absorb incoming damage completely" any more of an abstraction than "armor reduces incoming damage". It's just different and probably explained badly if people didn't understand it.
Well said, yes both just abstractions. Critical hit tables another abstraction. Hit location tables another abstraction. I always get a kick out of someone trying to tell me that one game mechanic is more real than another.
That said, now that I think of it, at least in later versions dexterity gives a bonus to your armor class too so I suppose a better wording would be something like "Chance to avoid or absorb incoming damage completely". I can see the wording being a bit confusing with dexterity giving you "armor".
These type of books just makes original AD&D sooo crunchy, rule heavy. One reason why I never used them. Request for you Martin. I’d love to see a video of the early board games and video games (Awful Green Things, Dungeon, Wizardry etc) that D&D spawned. Thanks for a great channel!
the survival guides were awesome. Valid stuff that's still usable today (with modern systems i mean). Also, wasn't the DSG the first official appearance of the underdark?
Yes, the Underdark debuted in the DSG and it is full of useful stuff and one of the reason that I think a lot of folks prefer it to the Wilderness Survival Guide. I probably sounded like I was disparaging them too much, but I did find bits and pieces in them to be fun, interesting, and/or inspirational, but by-and-large, I don't really use much from them in my current B/X game I run. Thanks for watching and commenting!
I think your point about the setting guide, that people are no longer interested in creating their own settings, is a bit out of date. I did get that impression in the D&D 3/4e era, when I heard plenty about what was going on with RPGs but was not personally engaged with the whole hobby myself. Now, though, it seems to me that at least half of the people running campaigns, in D&D or otherwise, are playing in their own settings, or at least working on a setting. I think there's a few influences on this - partly the explosion of indie RPGs, partly the "Critical Role era" that we're in and the priorities people pick up from that show. BTW, after a remark another UA-camr recently made about the DMG telling you what kind of setting you'll be playing in (which was the case in 4e, I guess, but not otherwise), I took a look at the setting suggestions in each DMG, and it seems to me like those books have had about the same amount of guidance in creating your own setting throughout the editions. The editions prioritize different aspects, but AD&D, 2e, 3e, and 5e all have a little chunk of the book devoted to encouraging an attitude of "this is your world, do whatever you want with it". The lack of more resources for building a setting ties into one of the biggest problems with the actual published material of D&D today - aside from adventures, which keep people playing the game regularly, they don't want to publish books that are primarily for DMs. It's just a money thing - the corporation has priorities, and they ideally want every player to buy every book they put out. A book that helps DMs build better games is only for, what, 10-20% of players? So the higher level corporate guys don't want to invest in projects that inherently have a much lower ceiling on how much revenue they can bring in. They put some generally useful resources in the back of monster books, which they can at least hope to sell to every DM. Otherwise, they allow some small sections for DMs in the back of the player resource books full of subclasses and items, which everyone buys, but that's it.
I agree with you. It slows things down & takes away from the cinematic feel to have rules for every little thing. It also makes it so the DM has to track so much more. It is ultimately a matter of preference. Some people love to have a really crunchy game & enjoy the realism. Others prefer a fast moving fantasy feel. Neither is wrong.
Oh a sode note about armor class. You're taking hits, you're simply not taking damage. 'To hit' is a misnomer that has caused confusion since the beginning.
I totally agree. I *almost* went off on a tangent to talk about that during the video, but I hadn't really pre-planned to chat about it and I felt the video was already "rambling" as it was. Had I thought about it and at least tried to bullet points my thoughts to make sure I stayed on topic, I definitely would've mentioned that.
It’s really interesting to have you class. These two books is made significant changes since I don’t think I knew anyone who use them… Quite a few who owned them but none you actually have her used them. Including campaigns, where overland travel was a significant part.
Loved hearing your take on simulationist vs abstract play. I primarily play fifth edition and I definitely feel the rules trying to account for a lot of things that the 70's game would have left up to the GM, and I'm frustrated by the feeling of the game being overdesigned. Now I know the old heads would tell me that 5e is too simple and if I'm complaining about crunch I should see how bad it was in 2e, but I've found the longer I spend in this hobby the more I gravitate to higher and higher levels of abstraction in my games because it frees me and my players from the shackles of the design. "I want to do X", the player might say, and while playing 5e I'd say "okay let me google this and see if Jeremy Crawford has explained how this works on his twitter", where a more abstracted game will give me the freedom to just make a ruling on the spot, which speeds up play and is a lot more fun in my opinion.
Thank you so much for this comment! I really appreciate it. Interestingly, while I do approach gaming from a more abstract sense, I hadn't actually intended to discuss that in detail in the video. It sort of came up while I was recording and between cuts (my phone can only record ~16 minutes of video at a time, so long videos take multiple recordings that I then have to edit together) I had to stop and make some new notes to organize my thoughts! I'm really glad you enjoy the content, and as you can tell, I feel very much the same way. Cheers!
thanks for the history. i started gaming in the 80s, multiple systems, and my group tended to prefer more rather than less rules (not hyper specific, but less storyteller mode). combat was of particular interest, so they didn’t want to just get through it to advance the story, but wanted to know the blow by blow (hit location and effects were helpful) to flesh out what actually happened in a fight. similarly, we used non combat skills to flesh out the characters even during roleplaying (fire starting can be helpful in certain scenarios, and we used fishing, hunting, or even foraging tasks as opportunities to generate side quests or simply to enhance the group’s ability to further understand the different characters)- the player was more than just fighter, mage, thief, etc.
A good friend of mine (and a player in an online group I’m running) recently gifted me the Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide and the Wilderness Survival Guide. It was such a generous gesture and I was (and still am) thrilled to have them in my personal collection. However, the more I leafed through them, the more I came to realize that I also probably won’t use much of what is offered inside. I’m not looking for that extra level of detail in my games and I’m not too sure my players are, either. That being said, some of the mechanics are pretty neat and I can see how they could appeal to others. Anyway, excellent video as always!
A really interesting point about these books. I remember getting the red box Basic Rules edition for Christmas when I was 9 years old, and quickly moved up to Advanced D&D. Kids brought the AD&D rulebooks to school with them sometimes, and I remember a particular time when someone in my class brought Deities & Demigods, which I had never seen before. It blew my mind to think that they had stats and abilities for all the gods and heroes from Greek, Egyptian, and Norse mythology, and other cultures that I hadn't really heard of previously, like Babylonian. Connecting the fantasy and make-belief aspect of RPG to real-world made the game more interesting, but it also made me more interested in studying the real world -- so that I could apply that knowledge to the game. I read tons of mythology and folklore, enjoying it all, but always with an eye toward how it could be adapted and used in playing D&D. This made the game immersive and educational in a way that few other things could, and inspired me to be very studious and academic. By the time the DSG and WSG came out, I was a few years older, and starting to study more advanced topics in science. To me, it seemed obvious and self-evident that D&D was attempting to model the real world as realistically as possible, and then add a layer of fantasy, myth, and magic, like frosting on the cake. Although it really did bog down the rule system and made everything rules-heavy and burdensome to try to do this, the allure of it was enticing, and, again, it spurred my interest in academic subjects, thinking that everything I was learning in school could be applied to my D&D gaming. So learning about geology, rock formations, how cave systems develop, weather and climate systems, and all of that, really helped me to feel like I was playing in a more realistic game, and made me far more interested in learning about the world I was really living in. From a pure gaming standpoint, of course now I appreciate abstracting things much more, and coming up with leaner approaches to designing systems of rules that are quick to implement and follow. But the nitty-gritty, detailed, approach that was in vogue at the time these books were being written really did have some important value to it, too.
Traveller uses Strength, Endurance, and Dexterity as your hit points and the way the skill system works you begin to get penalties on your skill rolls as your stats start to go down. It is an intertesting mechanic but I prefer just hit points. It is the same with the mental hit points - I don't really like them. It is better to just have an abstract number that represents damage and when it reaches zero the character is dead.
Hi, thanks for this great video. About Picon : main (and only I ever encountered : I'm 50 and french) way to drink it here is with beer (blond one). You usually put like 1cm of it in a pint. Basiquelly as you would use sirup with water. That s how everyone drink it. Never pure. Not saying you re wrong in the way you drink it : just sharing 🙂 Thanks again for all your videos.
I noticed that in the 70's rpg systems expected people to use the mechanics to make their own world, but then the trend became that game systems would provide players of the game a world to play in. Although I think that world building is part of the hobby, just like collecting minis, collecting special edition books, watching live play, and of course playing the game.
The answer to many of the questions you ask during the video are because different people play different ways. It's good to have a resource for those who want answers to these things. I would much rather have a solid answer to a question, even if it comes up rarely, than have a game come up with all sorts of gimmicky, fun, or quirky ways to handle them. I don't use most of what's in a a set of encyclopedias either, but it's nice to have it there if I need it. When we had these books, bac in the day, we used them as a resource, not a rulebook.
1e, possibly uniquely among editions, explicitly explains that HP isn't a simple measure of physical toughness but incorporates a lot of other factors, which I really appreciated when I read it.
I think fundamentally the urge to look towards 'physics' and 'realism' when arguing rules is the desire for objective fairness. A lot of us don't get to play with a dungeon master who we completely and implicitly trust to help us tell a fun and exciting story. I've played with many Dungeon Masters who seem to get some kind of perverse pleasure out of torturing my character, and, possibly by proxy, me. Now at this point in my life, I know that no D&D is better than bad D&D but I can't say that's always how it's been. In situations like this you want to be able to point to a rule in a book and say "No, you can't do that to me. That's not the rules." Does this actually make for a better game? No absolutely not. I absolutely agree with your approach, but I know where this desire comes from. And I know for all it's flaws, third edition really limited the numbers of ways a DM could just abuse you because it called out a rule for almost everything.
So no, I never noticed the changes that these books brought on...because I wasn't born for a decade and a bit later. Nonetheless, I've looked through these books, but didn't find much that was super useful to my playstyle. I picked up AD&D about a year ago after beginning with 3.5 and then moving onto OSR stuff around 2020. So far, it's been essentially the perfect system for me. I play in 3 different games each week and I'm moving back into designing my own adventure for some of my friends at the moment. Has been a lot of fun introducing them to AD&D, and it's always interesting to see people's reactions when I tell them that I exclusively play AD&D (though that's just a matter of circumstance than anything else, I'm down to play some more OSR styled games whenever I can). Anyway, great video as usual. You probably make the best D&D content on all of UA-cam.
thanks for your videos. I always love seeing a new video from you. SOME realism is necessary for me to achieve any measure of immersion into the game. When you make rules that say you're 150 hit point character can swim through lava then take a power nap on the other side and immediately return to full hit points, immersion is impossible for me. This is basically why I just moved to different game systems instead of playing 5e.
I really appreciate you saying that. Thank you very much! I enjoy reading your comments as well. And, I agree. I think it's fine to have a "realistic" world and to implement restrictions to avoid the exact example you're talking about. So, I'm find with that kind of thing. But there's the "other" kind of "realism" which tries to look at each mechanical sub-system and divide into more and more minute systems to try to achieve "realism" and at that point, the game breaks down. "If someone gets hit with a sword they'd most likely die." This ignores the abstraction of the combat system, seeking to provide some sort of logical explanation for how a character could be hit with a sword and not die. So then someone invents a hit location chart, so maybe that sword blow only hit you in the leg instead of neck or head. That means it does less or more damage depending on where it hit. Tables and modifiers are needed. Just when combat and the action of play should be speeding up for a dramatic moment, it gets bogged down with minutiae. "Wait a minute. A sword was designed to penetrate certain types of armor better than others. That needs to be taken into account." Another table with another rule sub-system that needs to be consulted during, again, what should be the most exciting and quickly-paced part of the game. So, your example of the character swimming through lava... I think it's entirely reasonable for a DM to either say "No, you, nor anyone else who doesn't possess some sort of supernatural or magical fire resistance, can't do that." Or if you *need* a rule, then, "You have to make a CON save at Disadvantage every round or die. After three rounds, regardless of your saves, you die." Something like that - just examples off the top of my head. Also, like you said, things like that, that don't really seem to "work" are great motivators to look into other systems, or design your own! Thanks again!
Totally understand your feeling about the granularity of these rules. Along with the minutiae of the first edition DMG, some of the content will tend to range from little bit unnecessary to essentially useless for the vast majority of players. But I like that they exist and that they're there to mine for resources if an unexpected situation comes up and you're not sure exactly how to handle it, whether during prep or in the middle of a session. I run a B/X- AD&D hybrid game, and my group consists of a husband and wife who spend a lot of time backpacking in the mountains and hiking in the forest, and a woman whose job is to catalog the flora and fauna for her state's wildlife conservation center. So I feel a heavy sense of duty/obligation to really know my stuff and the PDFs of books like these really help with that 😅 The "AC as an abstraction" bit really rings true for me, and it's why I feel the dexterity adjustment is factored into your AC. However, we use both AC and the Damage Reduction system from Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea, as well as a Durability system. Each shield and piece of armor has 100 Durability Points (DP), and each successful hit subtracts one from that. When their DP is low or hits 0 they need to get it repaired. It gives them a good reason to return to town frequently and build a relationship with blacksmiths, and yet another thing to spend all that hard-earned gold on. I completely understand why you feel like it would slow down combat, but for my group they just know that when I roll damage they'll subtract their DR from the total and then mark off one DP from their armor, and we move along. For my group I feel like it's a Best-of-All-Worlds situation!
I gotta say, the folks who say armor making you take less damage, but be easier to hit being more realistic are nuts. The point of armor isn't to soften the blow, it's to stop it entirely. A hit bypassing AC represents you getting in a weak point in the armor. You can pound on someone in field plate all day with a sword, but if all you do is strike their breastplate you'll never make any progress. I think a lot of people fail to understand how armor actually works. But yes, ultimately, it's a game abstraction, so either way is fine.
Appreciate your drinking advice. I didn‘t know about this Brooklyn Variant. Another fine straight Drink to make use of your Picon is the „Mother in Law“ found in Dr. Cocktails Book „Vintage Spirits and forgotten Cocktails“.
I love that book! It was, I think, the first cocktail book my wife bought me many years ago and it's still one of my favorites. But, I do tend to forget about consulting it as newer books have come in, and when I got it at the time, I must have skipped the "Mother in Law" due to not having Amer Picon. I'm excited to try it! Thanks for the reminder!
@@daddyrolleda1 outside the original three core books, these two books along with Unearthed Arcana were the best source material in the edition. Add in the dungeon Master's design kit. BEST supplement EVER!
I never picked up the DM Design Kit back in the day but I've toyed with trying to find a copy on the secondary market, as it looks really good! I'd also one day like to get a print copy of the Campaign Sourcebook & Catacomb Guide. So many people tell me it's their favorite DM advice book ever.
Excellent as always! And your reactions to those three books were almost exactly the same as my own. We loved Oriental Adventures and that was the last D&D I played as a teenager. The Dungeoneers Survival Guide had a great DM's section. The Wilderness Survival Guide was a disaster. That was the book which finally convinced me that it was over for D&D and time to move onto other things (I was only slightly wrong :-). Realism. I think the problem is that the whole reason we have an imagination is so we can deal with reality. The closer you get to replicating real experience the more demanding it becomes that things make sense - sense by way of what it knows - it doesn't care about how beholders float but knows a thing or two about frostbitten toes and won't let you forget about it. If anything, the trick to good game design is to placate that part of the imagination, to keep it satiated so it will shut up and stop trying to reject the fantasy by finding realistic flaws in it, while at the same time not obscuring the focus of the game. And that is the big mistake the WSG made. Wilderness rules should have either been non-existent (they weren't for Conan :-) or so abstract you could cover the entire topic with a few paragraphs. So I may at times seem like a champion of realistic gaming. The truth is I'm not. Reality and the imagination are forces I wrestle with to get what I want. I'm fine with ditching AC for not being realistic, just don't ask me to add another half-hour of pointless math to each encounter to replace it. In the end, my favorite wargame is still Stratego.
If your character is maybe drowning I have them roll 3 D6 under their Con. Then take 1 D6 damage. They can do a similar Stregth check to swim in Chainmail and or a Dex check to take off there armor. Secretly happy to hear you didn't like Kim's book because he regected my story. Happy to hear you are a fellow Specials fan.❤
For many of us Old Timers who had been in since the start and who had created our own rules along the way, these books were a good 'sanity check' as to whether we had gotten close to the mark or not :) In common with many who have been around long enough to enter Gimmerdom (as in Old Gimmer :)), I miss those times - character and story rather than 'DPS' was the central theme and players coming up with inventive answers to problems was half the fun ... even if you had to make up a ruling on the fly. I don't know if this was a universal experience for DM's from the Dawn Times but around here (Midlands England) you could tell when you joined a game if you were being DM'd by someone who learned the game from someone you taught because the House Rules they used were like a genetic fingerprint :chuckles:
Thank you so much for sharing this! I love that last part about how to tell where someone learned to DM! I also agree with you regarding character and story. I remember the first time I saw someone refer to DPS while talking about D&D. I was so confused because I had no idea what that abbreviation meant, as I am not a video gamer. When they finally explained it to me, I continued my confusion. "But... D&D combat is in rounds, not seconds..."
I remember when I first encountered a D&D edition (I think 3rd was the first time I saw the rules outside of stat blocks at the back of Dragonlance novels that I couldn’t decipher) I definitely bumped off armor class like “what is this?” Pretty much as you describe. It’s only much later that I got into “old school” that I came to appreciate the very simple fact that not getting “hit” as often is in fact damage reduction and that what the rules are modeling isn’t a blow by blow fight where you’re describing every action but an abstract representation of a melee. If one starts to get into war games and even more naval war games, one starts to realize what a “hit” is, in a way that a casual kid who likes fantasy stories won’t and then it all kinda makes way more sense. One thought I did have from this video is that a lot of these ideas in these books don’t sound like rules one would want for general play but man they could be really cool scenario theming for a particular adventure, special rules, that sort of thing or just idea fodder for specific challenges.
Why would we ever run one of your videos with no sound? I'd not WATCH it, but listen to it before I do that. 🙂 Always chocked full of great info, even if it is the history or mindset of the game. That, to me, makes me a better player if I know WHAT the creators were trying to accomplish. Thanks for what you do.
I never knew these existed until a couple years ago, and we played in the 80s. Maybe they weren’t widely available in the UK back then. I picked up DSG last year and on a quick read felt it largely unnecessary a tomb
Great video. I find it fascinating that the NWP in Oriental Adventures actually give you a difficulty number that you have to roll higher than instead of every other 1E and 2E book where you roll under the associated stat.
I like your niche. Typically I lean towards the more realistic games but you were giving me a big appreciation for the abstract. Even when i tried to run games in realistic with mechanics i like i had trouble keeping track of them. I do think theyre good when you pick a few to focus on for like 4+ sessions in a row.
Oh, another thing I would like to discuss is the Non Weapon Proficiencies. The DMG had a chart for "Secondary Skills". A great chart with skills for players to use more for background than anything else. You might ask for a specific skill to make a certain type of character. This request usually came with a penalty for the DM being nice to you. And they might deny a request if the player was trying to make a "Power PC" such as an Assassin requesting a skill that would enhance their other skills. But a request for a Thief to have a skill in trapping might be reasonable since it would work well with a backstory. But a roll on the chart gave you a chance for 2 skills or perhaps No Skill of Measurable Worth. So skills were there but there were no rules for them so you would need to make them up. As to the "Blind Fighting" skill. I would think that something like that should take up one of your precious Weapon Proficiency slots. That would keep players from taking it all the time since choices would be limited. Choose a weapon, specialize in it or take blind fighting? And without a spare weapon slot that magic weapon you found can't be used with proficiency!
24:46 Here's another way to think about it. A game is about, largely, what its rules are about. Meaning that they wrote the rules because they thought you'd do the thing really often. In a game without the Thief class and its skill set, you probably see a lot less deciphering treasure maps, pocket-picking, lockpicking - although you might see some careful listening, and will definitely see trap detection and avoidance, and sometimes climbing. So, one might say that the game with the Thief in it is signaling to the DM that they need to create adventures that contain those challenges. The extra stuff a Thief-Acrobat can do mostly relates to traversing across crevasses and moats where CW isn't an option. Seems like a weird focus for a class, but it signals that wide-open gaps should be a common challenge in the adventure or else this whole class will be sucking hind teat. Druids sound useless in dungeons, unless the DM goes through some effort to include wildlife and plants that flourish underground. One might argue that choosing to do that fully enables the Druid class to thrive, while not doing it is a design choice to limit Druid power based on the adventure location. So I would suggest that including rules for diving, caving, cruel weather, etc. indicates that those are worthwhile adventure challenges, giving rules for them is useful because they are supposed to come up so often that ad hoc ruling is insufficient, and the other gameplay elements can best be socketed into these new challenges with the forethought of rules instead of rulings. That said, the rules needed to be MUCH simpler for use at the table. If they can't summarize for reference the entire WSG on one side of a 4-panel DM screen, they wrote it wrong.
All very interesting points! Thanks for sharing this. Lots of stuff to think about. I've often said things about classes that jive with what you're saying about skills and abilities - having a Paladin class implies something about the campaign world/setting that might be different from a game that includes a Monk or a Barbarian. Or, if you have all three, that *also* says something about the world!
You say 'this should just be something the gm makes a ruling on', but consider that most GMs don't have any idea how a cave-in works, or any of the other stuff covered I these books. I don't like the idea of a game that slavishly references every rule whenever something like this comes up, but they could be (and probably were) used as a method for GMs to learn more about the hazards of wilderness and dungeons exploration so that they can make rulings that feel like they make sense. Also while I agree with you that there are certainly better and worse non-weapon proficiencies, almost all of them could prove useful if the GM accommodates and the player is clever enough, 'building a fire' could prove handy in setting a building on fire so that it burns quickly and is difficult to out out. Agriculture could tell a player things about plants, how to kill them, how they might be useful, etc.
Thing is, most players don't have any idea how a cave-in works either. And that's kind of the point: the GM isn't expected to come up with realistic answers, but realistic *feeling* answers.
Not sure if you'll see this, but did I see you are registered for DaveCon in late April in Minnesota? If so, it would be cool to connect now that I've almost caught up on watching all your vids..
I came in at the start of AD&D 2e and never looked at these. I've recently gone back to 4E, and it doesn't care about realism or simulation. It's just about being a fun game for us. I don't expect it's going to last long, but it's a welcome change of pace to the current edition.
It's really nice to hear from someone talking about enjoying 4E rather than just the same old bashing it always seems to get. Thanks for sharing! I had fun with 4E the couple of times I played it, but I was heavily invested in my 3.X game at the time and opted not to switch, but that's not because I thought 4E was terrible or anything. Thanks for watching and commenting!
My gaming group absolutely loved these books when they came out. All of were in the scouts and did the hiking camping thing. Our games were as much about exploration as combat so we used most of the rules. I still use the Underdark map/setting in the back I love it so much. Sadly I have had to learn to back off these type of rules with my current group, because the players do not enjoy it.
Most of these kind of rules were ones where the GM did the heavy lifting and the players just got extra non-weapon proficiency they would try to use. When I used to play D&D these tables were DM/GM tools. They would say, "I gather the following things for my shelter and I have X, Y and Z non-weapon proficiencies." Then I as GM would look at it, make the determination and tell them how it went. They didn't have to worry about the details. The make a ruling not follow a rules style didn't work for groups I played in for years. Reason being they remembered what happens and if it just arbitrary they felt it wasn't fair. This is why I set "rulings" style play for my groups, largely aside and went towards crunchy rules.
Two things. First, the front-end rules are, as Captain Barbossa put it, more of whatchyou call guidelines than rules. No, their not enthralling, yet, our games have over the last 10 years, come up against holding breath, climbing w/or w/o gear, rubble, squeezes and the like, multiple times. Most of the time, our DM just issues a call right there. If we disagree and can find a rule that might support our position (it's only be a few minutes) we'll adjust the gameplay accordingly. Otherwise, he'll just say, OK, in the future we'll... These help standardize gameplay instead of having to recall hip-judgment rulings from a year or more ago (which has also happened and led to a ton of irritation). Second, there are very few NWP that can't actually be used in regular game play. As a list of examples, all of the craftsmanship NWP in the DSG can be seen as the amount of experience one has in making ____ (w/e item) so, should they encounter something similar in play, they can make a reasonable assessment on value, age, possibly historical background or the like with modifiers to success based upon the proposed question. E.g. a Dwarven blacksmith working in their home may not know much about Human armor, thus would likely not recognize an emblem emblazoned on a greave or breastplate, but a Human may actually know especially if they worked in an area that item may have come from. Obviously, someone with History (Local or Ancient) is likely to have a better chance, but that's the why a smith might have a 1/2 ability check or 1/4 ability check instead of a -2. Looking at NWP's as a pure means to create a background for a character is one way of looking at it, but the reality is that if you worked at a bakery (let's say Franz Bakery here in the PNW) making bread or pasteries for a couple years, you would also know that when you go to the store, the store brand bread on the shelf next to Franz brand bread *is the exact same bread from the exact same bakery off the exact same breadlines*. NWP's represent a characters abilities *and experiences*, making it easier for the character to interact with the world that their in while allowing the player to go, "Wait, if my guy spent the better part of 5 years smithing away in Baldur's Gate, he would very obviously know the Heraldry at least SOME of the families or organizations in the area." NWP's also create a way for a DM to say, "Yeah, ok, you the player knows this, but how would YOUR character have an inkling of what their looking at??" Perhaps, this is the result of having 3 lawyers at the gaming table for the last decade, but more guidelines in print is always a good thing.
That was a fiery episode!!! I agreed with it all, although I would also add that the interior art was fun. It is interesting to see the gradual birth of realism in roleplaying games. On one hand, I am appreciative that they bring up hypothermia and all sorts of other things I might not have considered, but of course, the heavy rules I can do without. Oh, by the way, speaking of heavy metal and jazz, do you know about the Black Sabbath jazz tribute band called Jazz Sabbath? You can listen to them here on UA-cam if you are interested.
man, your intro took me back to a kitchen table a long time ago, we used to homebrew those "useless" proficiencies. Specifically i remember the ones you mentioned, calligraphy was a replacement/addition to forgery, juggle as a kind of acrobatics and you could go with CHA instead of DEX when it was performative but DEX if it was to scape a trap or something. but agriculture was used more than once... to mark the separation between city/civilization and wilderness "knowledge of nature" would not apply so you used agriculture instead, for example to know what creatures were attacking farms. one time there was a "curse" on the fields causing severe famine, after much invetigation the guy with agricuture deduced that the only way this could be happening was if the underground source of water was being tampered with and not a magical effect or curse... on we go underground to see what was messing with it ... fond memories, thank you !
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I like the way your group handled these back in the day! That seems like a great way to use them. And, I'm glad to have evoked some positive nostalgia for you. Cheers!
Your dislike of these books was quite apparent, but for me, I now want to buy and read these books! Somehow, crunchy rules for wilderness survival interest me - even if I will almost certainly never use them at the table. It's highly unlikely that I'll ever find a group of friends that wants to play "wilderness survival accountancy." haha You are absolutely right about detailed rules slowing down a game. It's just a matter of what level of "simulationism" the players want. You make a good point about wargames, for example. A more realistic simulation of a battle would have the commanding general issue orders and then have little knowledge and even less control over what happens after that. Perfect knowledge of the battle map and control over troop movements is a complete fiction - but one that makes the game fun to play. Also, the GM advice in these books seems worth a read. I'm sorry to hear that the detailed advice on worldbuilding actually *discouraged* you from worldbuilding. For me, even as a kid, my reaction would've been the opposite - I like trying to figure out plate tectonics and climate bands. But a GM should only do that stuff if it is fun for them; a creative exercise/game on its own. The players will never notice any of that work, nor should they be forced to.
I *think* you can probably acquire them on the secondary market for a lot less than, say, the Player's Handbook or 1st Printing of Deities & Demigods. Also, DM's Guild has them in PDF form for only $10. You could always snag them that way! My daughter's group actually does enjoy the resource management elements as I've discussed a few times in my "DM Advice" videos (which I equate with "wilderness survival accountancy") but that said... it's much less fiddly than the rules presented in these books. I do appreciate that a lot of folks really want and/or enjoy this level of detail, but I find that it gets in the way more than it helps. But, as always, that's just my personal preference! Also, thank you so much for commenting about my wargames analogy. You're the only one to do so thus far, but I thought it was a good way of explaining the different approaches. Thank you for watching and commenting!
I love both DSG and WSG and still use them, I don't really remember much of a shift in perspective when they were introduced. WSG can do a great job of making overland travel meaningful. The weather system is amazing and something I haven't seen improved on. The hunting and foraging tables are great for calculating a DC. DSG's rules for climbing can add a lot of decision making opportunity for PCs. DSG and WSG can both easily be converted to d20 for use with later editions. If you are looking for making the wilderness above and below ground have a more distinct feel these books are amazing.
The DM section in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide was (and still is) gold; the other stuff was a great example of how to get bogged down in the minutia.
I always looked at AC as actually hitting your body, not just your armor. So if you are heavily armored, you are less likely to actually make weapon to skin contact than someone who is unarmored.
Thank you for watching and commenting! I really think it come down to, how do *you* want to describe it in your game so it makes sense and helps combat to more quickly and be more dynamic and dramatic? Sometimes I think it makes sense to describe AC as dodging out the way (a lightly armored Thief with high DEX who dodges a blow) whereas other times I think it makes sense to describe AC as "absorbing" the damage (a heavily armored, but slowly moving, knight who gets hit but doesn't really feel much of the blow due to his armored protection). To me, that's part of the elegance of the system: It can easily handle both types of narrative description without requiring different sub-systems. Cheers, and thank you so much for your support of the channel!
Having played in the early 1980s, I can say that the one thing we didn't want to do was accounting and worrying about these details covered in this book. We mainly wanted to explore weird places and try to survive the traps and monsters and kind of get scared by the spookiness or the fear of the death of your character...However by around 1985 (as we matured toward being juniors and seniors in high school), we started to become dissatisfied with things that seemed unrealistic in setting (more so that in rules like in this book). For instance, we didn't like hack/slash/grab the cash adventures and campaigns that were not thematic as if they would be in a fantasy novel. So much so that we actually simplified the crazy combat rules with the tables in Gygax's (1e) AD&D (10 or more for fighters to hit, 12 or more for Magic Users to hit). We also became more engrossed in fantasy lit like Lovecraft, the Simon Necronomicon, Elric, Tolkein, and so on. At that time we also began to borrow ideas from the Palladium game to make our own home brew system. The adventures we made usually had no more than three combat encounters plus some weird things to interact with. We didn't want to deal with all the complexity of game mechanics, and wanted to get on with the feeling of the world the characters lived in, where we thought a certain "realism" of consistent theme was important...I watch your stuff quite a bit, but I think this is my first comment. :)
Thanks Martin! AD&D Wilderness Survival Guide got you down? Try Frank Mentzer’s Expert Set, enough overland nuts and bolts to please the abstract! Costs and movement rates for boats and horses and rules for increasing players’ standard movement rates, etc. Cheers!
We never delved into these rules in our 1st edition games, but later in 2nd edition the nonweapon proficiencies/skills did come up. I remember thinking they were nice flavor text (sort of like having backgrounds in 5th edition) but never really used or necessary. Your point about skills and feats is interesting. It got me thinking that some of the feats in 5e should really just be backgrounds as very few if any players have ever taken them.
In the early 00s, when I was getting into the hobby, AD&D was my first system. I knew literally nothing about the culture or history of editions, but I recall the grognard helping me round out my book collection referring to UA as 1.5 and the survival guides as 1.75. He was more of a purest I guess, as he told me they were largely unnecessary (survival guides) and downright bad for the game (UA) but I really enjoyed them both when I went against his advice and bought them 😂 the fiddly bits I kinda ignored, but non weapon proficiencies in particular in DSG and the world building section in WSG I found helpful building my first world. UA I loved the expanded spells and classes. Love the Bodysnatchers. Kinda forgot about them. Cheers
Thanks for sharing this story! I always love hearing how people enter the hobby, and particularly those who started "later" but began with an older edition. Cheers!
I love the beauty of these 2 hardcover books . . . and they were well organized compared to earlier books . . . but yes they were filled with useless info. I recall reading a chapter in the wilderness survival guide about deserts thinking it would tell me something useful about travel speeds or the affects of extreme heat and instead I was reading a long paragraph about how piles of sand were only called 'dunes' if they were lower than 50' and higher than that was called a 'draa' or something and I just set the book back down in disgust.
Started with BECMI, rolled that into my 1E games, and then rolled BECMI and 1E into my 2E game. I think moving away from the original "rulings over rules" concept started for me (and probably many others) as a way to have some sort of reference guide on things a DM's have little to no knowledge of in order to make a ruling as to what happens in the game. I went camping once, but I was 10 and it was a spot at a campground with a dozen or so spots with a bunch of groups each with their own tents and campfires... doesn't exactly make me a an experienced survival specialist that can create scenarios and make judgement calls as a DM on realistic situations the characters might experience an do in a wilderness setting. I also visited Carlsbad Caverns during a cross country trip when I was 11... doesn't make me an experienced spelunker familiar with living and non-living hazards of caves capable of creating scenarios and making judgement calls as a DM on realistic situations the characters might experience in an underground environment. Then there's the the stupid "rule of cool" in conjunction or in place of "rulings over rules" that a lot of games started to put out and became a more common playstyle among gamers. Leading into an explosion of "main character syndrome" and who could pull of the "coolest" moment or get the best stuff in the game. The only way to cut down on that BS was to have more rules to work with and pick from to easily put into the game. Rules on environments, light/vison, sound/hearing, movement (jumping, climbing, acrobatics, swimming, flying, tunneling, etc.), size modifiers, equipment/object durability (AC, HP, Saves, etc. for inanimate things), Height/Weight charts, age groups, class level limits, racial stat bonuses AND penalties, proficiencies, encumbrance, weapon speeds, spell components, weapon/attack type vs. armor, food supply/spoilage, critical hits/fumbles, equipment quality, campaign settings (Oriental Adventures/Kara-Tur, Arabian Adventures/Al-Qadim, Ravenloft, Darksun, Spelljammer), castle/fortification construction time/costs, Siege warfare, mass combat, dominion management... give them to me all so that I can spend less time trying to come up with it all myself and have the tools to keep player shenanigans to a minimum. Game rules are the fencepost to which GMs/DMs use to define shape and limits of the game world they want to create for the players. It's easier to tell players you don't use a rule (or tweaked a rule) from official books than it is to tell them you have homebrewed an entire supplemental ruleset that they have to learn.
How do you make a ruling? Especially bad is how do you make a ruling that people strongly disagree on? If I think my character can hold their breath 4 minutes and the GM thinks 1 minute and my character is going to live or die based on the result? We need some way to reach consensus and continue play. "Realism" seems like a way to compromise. So there is pressure to present solutions to problems like this. It's not about realism. It's about how to make rulings.
I never had these books, just browsed through them. For our groups we didn't need a gazillion rules. We rarely used the rules and if we needed a "ruling" on something we might look it up or just make something up on the fly and "argue" for a minute over some modifiers. Like you said, I have never used a rule to hold your breath, keep a tent from collapsing or anything like that. What we did want was lists of new equipment with costs and weight and maybe a notation on what it did. But you can't really make a book out of that. We all understood what armor did and how Hit Points worked. Blows glanced off armor and aside from Critical Hits, it was that final blow that pierced your armor and put you in your grave. Games like Aftermath! that used armor to reduce damage also used very realistic modifiers for each and every weapon type for movement, cover, light conditions, etc... So shooting at a moving target in a wooded area at night made for a nearly impossible shot. In D&D you might have a strict DM who gave you a -4 for darkness and range modifiers. In Aftermath you had "Weapon Damage Multipliers" for each weapon. In D&D most DM's never used the weapon versus armor tables at all or even considered using the weapon speed adjustments for initiative. Sorry for the long rant but if you are going to use realistic rules then you have to use them all and not just the ones that are good for the players. I have yet to see a DM "set a spear" when a PC charges into a group of Orcs causing double damage and impaling the character on the spear!
WSG was one of my favourite books as a young player and I used it through the 2e era as well. The one book I kept over the years lol. The vast majority of the extra mechanics in both of these books were ignored. Enjoyed reading through both books though !
It was a favorite of mine while I was working on creating a campaign setting but as I mentioned in the video, I got a bit intimidated by it! Thank you very much for watching and commenting. I appreciate it!
In 5e for extra long falls i switch from falling damage (max 20d6) to Deadly Improvised Damage (max 24d10, DMG 249). That gives me and my players something that feels much more perilous without making long falls an overly simple instant kill.
When i first started in DnD, I looked at maps i found in the game books as a start, but then it was always just "my world" and id redraw them to suit my taste. I also started looking at the real world, and redrawing coastlines and mountain ranges for my continents and so on. I can kinda draw, so that skill helped make things feel a bit real, and to this day i love to sit down and draw out a dungeon or an overland map.
As far as rules being realistic vs abstract, simulation vs interpretive, at first I was also convinced everything needed to be hyper real. I'm at an age now where I want the story and characters front and center and don't sweat ultra detailed encumbrance or even tracking basic ammo.
There are wonderful games that treat rules as suggestions more implicitly and games that track every fraction of poundage and wind resistance. Depending on the group and the game, rules that suit the vibe of a game and table are great. Horror game? Stress/fear mechanics suit. Light hearted and silly games? Rules need to be able to bend with the chaos. That's how I view rules I suppose.
I totally _loved_ these books... mostly I loved the Wilderness Survival guide. What we used these books for was for 'flavour'... and as a way to pull GP out of the players' pockets... for instance, if we were going to do a large over land drip, we had to buy carts and tents and such.
With total respect to your opinions… I truly appreciate your honesty insight… however there are many moments when I needed guidance for added rules. After clearing out a dungeon, the pack mule was killed. Having a creative use of a polymorph spell, a player turned into an ox to pulled the loot. Likewise, certain campaigns needed to do special actions in the Isle of Dread module: the sail needed repairs so fortunately a character had sail maker as a secondary skill. Agreed, those rules are rarely necessary, but sections like those offered inspiration for a campaign that resembled novels like treasure island and getting lost in Mirkwood. 😊
I have enjoyed abstracting movement. The close, near, far has worked well with minimal pushback from players. I’ve tried getting rid of initiative and it hasn’t really worked.
I love abstract movement, and use Close/Near/Far even though I'm not using miniatures! It works just fine with theater of the mind. I still use initiative, but it's Side-Based. Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel.
If you ever ran a BECMI campaign, I'd play. I always found these books and the Oriental Adventures book confusing until they brought these rules into 2nd edition and then we used them a great deal. We enjoyed the realism but understood some rules like HP and AC were abstractions. We would actually try testing some rules IRL to see how based in reality they were. Like testing strength numbers and what strength we'd have based on carry weight and encumbrance. We were always trying to mix-max.
If you ever do a series about your days as a heavy metal listener, you can call it "Daddy Banged a Head."
For me, Wilderness Survival Guide opened our eyes that there were adventures to be had OUTSIDE the dungeon!
That totally makes sense, and interestingly enough back in the day, I liked WSG better than DSG, partially for that same reason, but over time I've realized that I never used any of that stuff!
As a teen gamer in the 80s we were looking for more mechanics to make things realistic. I also remember games that tried to provide more realism. A few worked well, like Hârnmaster, but many fell short. The shift into more roleplaying from simple dungeon crawls was also a factor.
I always saw “Dungeoneer” as the Engineer of the Dungeon, the DM, rather than just the adventurer. Love those books!
That's a great way of looking at it! Of the two, in hindsight, I like the Dungeoneer book better, although at the time I was more excited by the Wilderness book, as I felt (very wrongly) at the time that "dungeons" were "for kids."
Dungeoneer's SG is an amazing book. The maps and mapping section hooked me instantly.
I found the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide was hugely influential on my gameplay and worldbuilding. The 'dungeons' being 3D cave systems with a fantastic undersea ocean at the bottom instead of a series of flat architectural levels on top of one another just blew me away. The idea of having underground cities and settlements where it made more sense that fantastic magic and creatures would be commonplace. The dungeon exploring equipment list such as special dungeon-barrows for carrying away treasure. And the cover art was just fantastic.
I agree with you mostly. I wasn't a big fan of the weird AC and damage rules abstraction, but I found out that book keeping was less fun. Thanks for the content!
Thank YOU very much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it!
You and I have the exact same philosophy when it comes to the rules. I really appreciate that. Great video.
The other conundrum that the introduction of NWPs was that it conflicted with thieves' abilities. If you think about, thieves' abilities are NWPs, but they work with percentiles, and nwps are a d20 roll... it was a disparity that really kind of drove me crazy.
I think the intent of Thief skills was a special ability that is not possible for normal people to learn. You have to be this singleminded specialist. So you wouldn't see a Fighter who could get an NWP to pick locks at -12 on the d20 DEX check. Anyone can climb trees and stuff, if unencumbered and the tree isn't wet and there are reasonably spaced branches. Someone who is a skilled non-Thief climber could maybe do a more difficult tree or bouldering. Thieves can climb a brick wall in the rain. Nobody else even has a chance.
Move Silently isn't just "sneaking". Anyone can strip their armor, wear soft shoes, choose to walk on quieter surfaces. And the DM can take that into account when determining encounter distance. But a Thief can cross gravel past a cat and not alert it.
All the other ones work the same way.
So you'll notice that there aren't Thief skills on the NWP chart, although Mountaineering appears it's that skilled climber I described who nevertheless is nowhere near the Thief skill.
Another way to look at it is, you wouldn't let a Fighter roll a really difficult check to cast a 1st level M-U spell. So why would you let anyone else try to use a Thief skill?
There is a problem on the NWP lists with Tracking. I really wish they hadn't included Tracking from the Ranger skill, because it offers a chance for non-Rangers to track. But maybe tracking is an acceptable middle-ground skill in this case. I certainly never ever saw a non-Ranger PC pick up Tracking NWP, because the penalties make it a waste for non-Rangers to take. It would be just as much a waste for an NPC to take. So that alone makes me wonder why they even bothered.
neat books but there is a reason why BECMI was the best then and still is today. It was all about role playing and being creative and playing as we lived .. by the seat of your pants. That was fun man. Rulings.. not rules. Like the basic set famously said..
if it's not in the rules.. just make it up and keep on going..
Yes, that is my very approach, which I tried to get across in my video (I'm more of a B/X guy than BECMI, but the same thing applies to both, I'd say).
which is why i started my own guidebook, to play how i want to play :) cheers
interesting Martin. B/X - BECMI. Same thing I suppose but let's give some love for the big C.
What the Companion rules did it did better than any D&D system in setting up role-playing for outside the dungeon. When your player progresses past mere monster bashing and collecting gold to becoming a mover and shaker in the larger campaign world. The problem is well known with how to handle high level characters and the challenge to throw suitable, challenging monsters at them. Again.. that sort of misses the point of the original intent of the game.
Not power gaming .. but role playing. Just a different type but in its own ways even more fun than role-playing low level characters. Yet, just as deadly if DM'd correctly. Cheers Martin! Another great video from you.@@daddyrolleda1
Martin--such a great study, and I'm so glad I found your channel. I'm going to be spending a lot of time on these videos, sir. Thank you.
Hey Man! Just wanted to say that I recently stumbled upon your channel and am loving it! I could talk about/listen to AD&D all day long. I got hooked in 1980 at age 10 and still love this stuff to this day. Really appreciate your efforts!
I think it would have been awesome to get a Town Survival Guide. Comprehensive info about, based on community size, what kind of amenities you might see, town defenses, rule of law, interesting judicial methods, finding a trainer, recruiting henchmen and armies, explanation of guilds as royally-granted monopolies, how organized crime operates, getting items identified and appraised and sold, the likelihood of finding a seller who actually has a magic item and the ways you can make that exchange happen. This would be the book that contained craft NWPs, because this is the place that has a lot of NPCs who have those, and the place where PCs can use those proficiencies.
DM Section would be about how towns start, develop, and decay. This way if a town gets started in a place the DM has guidance on how to progress it, and if they want a town in a particular layout and point in development they can see how it would have gotten to that point.
A Town Survival Guide sounds great! Interestingly, I'm working on a supplement right now that has a different chapter for each "genre" (Wilderness, Naval, Horror, Sword-and-Planet, Fairy Tale, etc.) and the section I'm working on right now is the City section, which coincidentally has a lot of the ideas you mention above. It's not intended to be totally in-depth but rather a quick overview, including what value and types of goods are available in different size villages/towns/cities.
Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Sounds cool. I refer so much to the 1e DMG because it really is a good reference book, and it would be great to have something like what you're describing.
It would be fun to see a grid of each genre on X and Y axes and an example of a cross-genre piece of inspiration (film, novel, video game). Dunno if many of them would be populated!
Great video! You did an excellent job talking about the shift in perspective on gaming. I love Dungeoneers Survival Guide, like you it’s more for the culture and underdark settings information than the guidelines on proficiencies. I did use those rules and I’d like to talk about my take on the realism vs game approach. For me, it’s all about choice and having options in the game. You might not need to know how to handle swimming in a cave or spelunking, but having something defined you can use as a guide than just handwaving everything.
In my experience, DMs who just make up stuff on the fly cause a lot of inconsistency in terms of gameplay. Without some guidance it becomes confusing to have similar situations handled completely differently. Having a book with some guidelines gives to a basis for making rulings in the game and gives the players a framework to play from. Like all the guidelines, you use what you want and ignore the rest. If you don’t want that level of detail, disregard it. These two books gave me both options. It has lore and stuff to make you think about designing adventures which weren’t repetitive and guidelines for how to handle situations which come up in the game. It’s not true realism, they are still abstract mechanics used to represent a situation in the game. Those situations may never come up in the game, but you can look at one example and apply those mechanics to another scenario without having to invent something in the fly and then remember it the next time you play.
The other thing I’d like to point out is at the time there were other RPGs coming out which added skills and had more “realism” based mechanics. Paladium had a whole set of options for injuries in combat for example. I think TSR was trying to compete with those games. Fans also wrote into Dragon magazine consistently asking questions about how to handle lots of in game scenarios more realistically.
When I was younger I thought I wanted more realistic combat. I wanted to strategize about the best way to take on enemies. I wanted to use the terrain to my advantage, have complex tactics, and be creative with the fight. As a DM I wanted the monsters to not just be pools of hit points, I wanted creatures to use their habitat to their advantage against the players. We used weapon speed, weapon type versus armor type, reaction adjustments, etc to make combat more fun. However, as you stated, it just bogs down the game and over time we abandoned it. It’s one of those things you have to experience for yourself and find a balance between complexity and versatility that works for you. I loved NWPs and kits in 2nd edition. I loved building PCs that had different talents and capabilities in and out of combat. We also were always playing. When I was on the Army in desert storm we played by mail. Those out of session RP opportunities are some of my fondest memories of those campaigns. Creating items, researching areas I wanted to explore, and planning my next move were all things NWPs made me think about. Now, we didn’t always roll for success or failure with those, but learning those NWPs and then building on them was part of the fun. We also developed our own and came up with rules for combining them. For example, herbalism and brewing to make healing salves and tinctures. The NWPs helped prompt us to try different things besides just hack and slash. Want to try to influence a local noble, etiquette NWP can help you impress them. Or maybe dancing can help you ingratiate yourself to them.
Sorry this is so long. I could talk about this for hours if you let me. If you ever want to have a discussion I’d love to talk with you about this sometime. Cheers!
The subtle shift in exactly *what* is being simulated is an excellent point.
I've long recognized the release of Oriental Adventures as a Rubicon moment for AD&D, but hadn't reflected on the shift from *swords & sorcery* fiction to east Asian *history* with fantasy elements.
Thanks!
The 2e PHB & DMG devote a kind of silly amount of page space to saying "AD&D assumes a late medieval period"
Love both of these and have found a lot of used. FYI, the fellow who wrote the dungeon guide put out an new, updated version a couple years ago.
Yes, I heard that! Douglas Niles is the fellow to whom you're referring. I heard good things about it!
@@daddyrolleda1 I have a video on it on my channel. I really like it. Wonder if he's planning a wilderness one
Just subscribed to your channel and added a few of your videos to my queue to start watching. It would be cool to have a Wilderness follow-up - maybe Doug could team up with Kim Mohan on that!
Have you checked out either "Veins of the Earth" (by Lamentations of the Flame Princess) or "Into the Wyrd and Wild" (by Wet Ink Games)? They're both, respectfully, Dungeoneering and Wilderness books for the OSR community and style of play, but they both remind me of the DSG and WSG, in a way.
@@daddyrolleda1 First I've heard of either, which is good. I've heard of Lamentations but have never played it. I'll have to check around and see if I can find PDFs that don't break the bank.
DRa1 - these books were great references but also a real misstep by TSR. As you’d indicated, it was a move to codify aspects of the game that might not really have required it and got away from the rulings over rules idiom of the original game.
Cult of the Reptile God is an absolute classic. I played it as a Ranger and ran it as a DM, with both being superbly memorable.
Fantastic overview on the balance between rulings vs. rules as highlighted in the Advanced D&D DM guide. It's a crucial reminder that not every scenario can (or should) be dictated by a specific rule. The emphasis on rulings keeps the game flowing and fun. Your points on realism vs. abstraction, especially regarding HP and AC, really resonate. They're abstract for a reason, to keep gameplay smooth without bogging down in complexity.
The mention of the Dungeoneer's Guide and Wilderness Survival Guide brings up an interesting debate: how much realism is too much? These guides offer a deep dive into realism, but as you mentioned, oftentimes, a GM's narrative assertion ('you take damage because you're ill-prepared for the weather') suffices and keeps the game moving.
I completely agree that the 'law' of the game lies in its core mechanics-ability scores, rolling a d20, difficulty classes, HP. Other books and guides should indeed be treated as optional, variant rules to enhance the game if-and only if-they contribute to the fun for everyone at the table. This perspective helps maintain the game's spirit without becoming chained to an ever-growing list of rules. Thanks for sparking this thoughtful discussion!
Good video and informative as always! I've been catching up on your videos and I appreciate the history and background you provide. Very nostalgic for me and inspires me to actually get my library organized so that i can more easily reference all these old books in the games, D&D or otherwise, that I am part of now.
I appreciate you saying that, and I'm glad you're enjoying them. Thank you very much for watching and commenting.
Kind of like how at the Food Network one of the executives chided one of the celebrity chefs about too much instruction in the program, "We don't make shows for people who like to cook. We make shows for people who like to watch television," I think these books were mostly for weird nerds like me who didn't have anyone to _play_ D&D with. So reading about it was the best we could do. Ridiculous tables for the pack-load of wild animals were part of the fun, y'know?
I think there was a real niche for simulation style rules like the survival guide books because there were plenty of people playing detailed, literate board games in the hobby like the original SPI, TSR, and Avalon Hill publishers were printing. That included super detailed games like Titan, Runequest, and the plainly titled "Outdoor Survival". There were competitors pushing the limits of thick, simulist rules, so maybe Gygax saw a need to compete in that niche with these two books.
Some of us do prefer realism in our fantasy world. To keep it grounded. I personally don't want ridiculous things such as a giant mechanical dragon that shows up at the rime of the frostmaiden ending. It doesn't fit a medieval world setting. I don't think there should be coffee shops in your towns. I don't wish modernity at all. Now I played in the Air Force when I first learned this game and I played first edition. Talking about a bunch of highly intelligent people. That crowd demanded realism. We didn't just hand wave away a 300 mile trip. If we didn't figure out a methodology for getting there and getting back with the treasure it didn't happen. We just liked it that way. I still prefer it that way and if I ran a game today I would run it that way. Which is why I don't run combat structured rigidly around the turn order.
Feel like the explosion of realism came from the explanation of why and how things are happening. The concept was very new and all the people pointing out how it’s raining and thus it would affect x, y and z.
When I read these two books in the mid 90’s (used book rack) they formed in my head an image of the perfect game of Fantasy Oregon Trail.
I never found a group that wanted to play that way, but I think you can run DnD however you want to as long as there is buy-in from the group.
Just want to thank you for all your hard work, it's inspired me to pick up OSE and learn it with my son. We've lightly played TinyD6 style games, so he's super excited to learn B/X--just need to read up on GMing and get the ball rolling! We even found a store in town that hosts and sells TTRPGs, wargaming, ect.
Exciting times! Again, thanks for the inspiration. Lovely stuff.
Loving your channel, I didn't care about the history of d&d as a kid. But since you started I try to watch asap
Good video! Although' I'm not quite sure I understand the title of this video -- these two books were just optional rules for people that wanted more granularity and that most people never used. Skills would have happened eventually - if these books never existed -- because Gygax and others were aware of skills from Day 1 and also skills were used very heavily in early games like RuneQuest, Traveller, and many others. So yeah not sure how these books changed the history of D&D? Reason these two books were written was really TSR trying to make some money. 😂 Just like all those character splat books they came out with in the 2e era..
As a kid this was my favorite book. I struggled with reading (I have still never read it) but the cover sent my imagination a blaze with possibilities. After watching your video I agree in a group these rules seem tedious. However I mostly play solo theses days and having rules for this type of stuff could be more useful. Great video as always and has inspired me to break out my copy and finally read it.
Hearing that my video inspired you to re-visit one of your books really made my day! Thanks for watching and commenting, and I look forward to hearing how your exploration of the old Survival Guides works for your solo play game!
BTW, it's definitely not for me, but I actually see practical uses for some of the overwritten mechanics in these books - IF you have players who are very, very rules-minded. You could set up a situation where the party needs to get through a flooded tunnel, and they have look at their stats and conclude that only one of them can hold their breath long enough, so that character has to go ahead alone and scout for another route. You could set up a situation where they run into cold weather, and ensure that by the time they get to their destination, they're too worn down to fight, so they get diverted into another situation if they prudently avoid monsters. It's a way to create certain kinds of drama, while using the game's math to justify it to players who are very "crunchy". But I definitely prefer a system where you can describe the risks of a situation like these, and resolve them with simple, generalized mechanics.
I have your playlist on every other night for ambient noise. You do your thing, love the content.
As my bonus comment, I did and still do love metal. I learned to love classical, opera, blues, country and some jazz. To me metal still gets my blood flowing but to drive with less rage I listen to piano or strings!
Hopefully I can find that in Paris on my next trip! As I love Manhattan, I should enjoy a Brooklyn!
Jazz on Daddy, at volume 1
I wouldn't call "armor class represents the chance for armor to absorb incoming damage completely" any more of an abstraction than "armor reduces incoming damage". It's just different and probably explained badly if people didn't understand it.
People did understand it but then they taught other people how to play and never explained it.
Well said, yes both just abstractions. Critical hit tables another abstraction. Hit location tables another abstraction. I always get a kick out of someone trying to tell me that one game mechanic is more real than another.
That said, now that I think of it, at least in later versions dexterity gives a bonus to your armor class too so I suppose a better wording would be something like "Chance to avoid or absorb incoming damage completely". I can see the wording being a bit confusing with dexterity giving you "armor".
These type of books just makes original AD&D sooo crunchy, rule heavy. One reason why I never used them.
Request for you Martin. I’d love to see a video of the early board games and video games (Awful Green Things, Dungeon, Wizardry etc) that D&D spawned. Thanks for a great channel!
Way less rule heavy than 5e.
@@archersfriend5900 1e is my favorite, to me the DM makes a decision or a roll check, that’s it, move on. Just became way too crunchy
the survival guides were awesome. Valid stuff that's still usable today (with modern systems i mean). Also, wasn't the DSG the first official appearance of the underdark?
Yes, the Underdark debuted in the DSG and it is full of useful stuff and one of the reason that I think a lot of folks prefer it to the Wilderness Survival Guide. I probably sounded like I was disparaging them too much, but I did find bits and pieces in them to be fun, interesting, and/or inspirational, but by-and-large, I don't really use much from them in my current B/X game I run.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Man you really have great music taste now, I love the Specials.
Glad to hear it! I discovered there in my college dorms!
Love these books. Own and used them when I played.
Great defensive of the abstraction of Gygaxian D&D in the intro, thanks for all your hard work in making these videos.
I really appreciate you saying that! Thank you so much!
I think your point about the setting guide, that people are no longer interested in creating their own settings, is a bit out of date. I did get that impression in the D&D 3/4e era, when I heard plenty about what was going on with RPGs but was not personally engaged with the whole hobby myself. Now, though, it seems to me that at least half of the people running campaigns, in D&D or otherwise, are playing in their own settings, or at least working on a setting. I think there's a few influences on this - partly the explosion of indie RPGs, partly the "Critical Role era" that we're in and the priorities people pick up from that show.
BTW, after a remark another UA-camr recently made about the DMG telling you what kind of setting you'll be playing in (which was the case in 4e, I guess, but not otherwise), I took a look at the setting suggestions in each DMG, and it seems to me like those books have had about the same amount of guidance in creating your own setting throughout the editions. The editions prioritize different aspects, but AD&D, 2e, 3e, and 5e all have a little chunk of the book devoted to encouraging an attitude of "this is your world, do whatever you want with it".
The lack of more resources for building a setting ties into one of the biggest problems with the actual published material of D&D today - aside from adventures, which keep people playing the game regularly, they don't want to publish books that are primarily for DMs. It's just a money thing - the corporation has priorities, and they ideally want every player to buy every book they put out. A book that helps DMs build better games is only for, what, 10-20% of players? So the higher level corporate guys don't want to invest in projects that inherently have a much lower ceiling on how much revenue they can bring in. They put some generally useful resources in the back of monster books, which they can at least hope to sell to every DM. Otherwise, they allow some small sections for DMs in the back of the player resource books full of subclasses and items, which everyone buys, but that's it.
I agree with you. It slows things down & takes away from the cinematic feel to have rules for every little thing. It also makes it so the DM has to track so much more. It is ultimately a matter of preference. Some people love to have a really crunchy game & enjoy the realism. Others prefer a fast moving fantasy feel. Neither is wrong.
Yes, 100% agree that neither is wrong! It's all personal preference for the Referee and the players.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Oh a sode note about armor class.
You're taking hits, you're simply not taking damage.
'To hit' is a misnomer that has caused confusion since the beginning.
I totally agree. I *almost* went off on a tangent to talk about that during the video, but I hadn't really pre-planned to chat about it and I felt the video was already "rambling" as it was. Had I thought about it and at least tried to bullet points my thoughts to make sure I stayed on topic, I definitely would've mentioned that.
It’s really interesting to have you class. These two books is made significant changes since I don’t think I knew anyone who use them… Quite a few who owned them but none you actually have her used them. Including campaigns, where overland travel was a significant part.
Loved hearing your take on simulationist vs abstract play. I primarily play fifth edition and I definitely feel the rules trying to account for a lot of things that the 70's game would have left up to the GM, and I'm frustrated by the feeling of the game being overdesigned. Now I know the old heads would tell me that 5e is too simple and if I'm complaining about crunch I should see how bad it was in 2e, but I've found the longer I spend in this hobby the more I gravitate to higher and higher levels of abstraction in my games because it frees me and my players from the shackles of the design. "I want to do X", the player might say, and while playing 5e I'd say "okay let me google this and see if Jeremy Crawford has explained how this works on his twitter", where a more abstracted game will give me the freedom to just make a ruling on the spot, which speeds up play and is a lot more fun in my opinion.
Thank you so much for this comment! I really appreciate it. Interestingly, while I do approach gaming from a more abstract sense, I hadn't actually intended to discuss that in detail in the video. It sort of came up while I was recording and between cuts (my phone can only record ~16 minutes of video at a time, so long videos take multiple recordings that I then have to edit together) I had to stop and make some new notes to organize my thoughts!
I'm really glad you enjoy the content, and as you can tell, I feel very much the same way.
Cheers!
thanks for the history. i started gaming in the 80s, multiple systems, and my group tended to prefer more rather than less rules (not hyper specific, but less storyteller mode). combat was of particular interest, so they didn’t want to just get through it to advance the story, but wanted to know the blow by blow (hit location and effects were helpful) to flesh out what actually happened in a fight. similarly, we used non combat skills to flesh out the characters even during roleplaying (fire starting can be helpful in certain scenarios, and we used fishing, hunting, or even foraging tasks as opportunities to generate side quests or simply to enhance the group’s ability to further understand the different characters)- the player was more than just fighter, mage, thief, etc.
A good friend of mine (and a player in an online group I’m running) recently gifted me the Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide and the Wilderness Survival Guide. It was such a generous gesture and I was (and still am) thrilled to have them in my personal collection. However, the more I leafed through them, the more I came to realize that I also probably won’t use much of what is offered inside. I’m not looking for that extra level of detail in my games and I’m not too sure my players are, either. That being said, some of the mechanics are pretty neat and I can see how they could appeal to others. Anyway, excellent video as always!
A really interesting point about these books. I remember getting the red box Basic Rules edition for Christmas when I was 9 years old, and quickly moved up to Advanced D&D. Kids brought the AD&D rulebooks to school with them sometimes, and I remember a particular time when someone in my class brought Deities & Demigods, which I had never seen before. It blew my mind to think that they had stats and abilities for all the gods and heroes from Greek, Egyptian, and Norse mythology, and other cultures that I hadn't really heard of previously, like Babylonian.
Connecting the fantasy and make-belief aspect of RPG to real-world made the game more interesting, but it also made me more interested in studying the real world -- so that I could apply that knowledge to the game. I read tons of mythology and folklore, enjoying it all, but always with an eye toward how it could be adapted and used in playing D&D.
This made the game immersive and educational in a way that few other things could, and inspired me to be very studious and academic.
By the time the DSG and WSG came out, I was a few years older, and starting to study more advanced topics in science. To me, it seemed obvious and self-evident that D&D was attempting to model the real world as realistically as possible, and then add a layer of fantasy, myth, and magic, like frosting on the cake.
Although it really did bog down the rule system and made everything rules-heavy and burdensome to try to do this, the allure of it was enticing, and, again, it spurred my interest in academic subjects, thinking that everything I was learning in school could be applied to my D&D gaming. So learning about geology, rock formations, how cave systems develop, weather and climate systems, and all of that, really helped me to feel like I was playing in a more realistic game, and made me far more interested in learning about the world I was really living in.
From a pure gaming standpoint, of course now I appreciate abstracting things much more, and coming up with leaner approaches to designing systems of rules that are quick to implement and follow. But the nitty-gritty, detailed, approach that was in vogue at the time these books were being written really did have some important value to it, too.
Traveller uses Strength, Endurance, and Dexterity as your hit points and the way the skill system works you begin to get penalties on your skill rolls as your stats start to go down. It is an intertesting mechanic but I prefer just hit points. It is the same with the mental hit points - I don't really like them. It is better to just have an abstract number that represents damage and when it reaches zero the character is dead.
Hi, thanks for this great video. About Picon : main (and only I ever encountered : I'm 50 and french) way to drink it here is with beer (blond one). You usually put like 1cm of it in a pint. Basiquelly as you would use sirup with water. That s how everyone drink it. Never pure. Not saying you re wrong in the way you drink it : just sharing 🙂 Thanks again for all your videos.
I noticed that in the 70's rpg systems expected people to use the mechanics to make their own world, but then the trend became that game systems would provide players of the game a world to play in. Although I think that world building is part of the hobby, just like collecting minis, collecting special edition books, watching live play, and of course playing the game.
The answer to many of the questions you ask during the video are because different people play different ways. It's good to have a resource for those who want answers to these things.
I would much rather have a solid answer to a question, even if it comes up rarely, than have a game come up with all sorts of gimmicky, fun, or quirky ways to handle them. I don't use most of what's in a a set of encyclopedias either, but it's nice to have it there if I need it.
When we had these books, bac in the day, we used them as a resource, not a rulebook.
1e, possibly uniquely among editions, explicitly explains that HP isn't a simple measure of physical toughness but incorporates a lot of other factors, which I really appreciated when I read it.
I did, too! It was a great explanation and I recall it being expounded on in Dragon (at least, I think!).
I think fundamentally the urge to look towards 'physics' and 'realism' when arguing rules is the desire for objective fairness.
A lot of us don't get to play with a dungeon master who we completely and implicitly trust to help us tell a fun and exciting story. I've played with many Dungeon Masters who seem to get some kind of perverse pleasure out of torturing my character, and, possibly by proxy, me. Now at this point in my life, I know that no D&D is better than bad D&D but I can't say that's always how it's been. In situations like this you want to be able to point to a rule in a book and say "No, you can't do that to me. That's not the rules."
Does this actually make for a better game? No absolutely not. I absolutely agree with your approach, but I know where this desire comes from. And I know for all it's flaws, third edition really limited the numbers of ways a DM could just abuse you because it called out a rule for almost everything.
It really is impressive how much work you put into these videos
So no, I never noticed the changes that these books brought on...because I wasn't born for a decade and a bit later.
Nonetheless, I've looked through these books, but didn't find much that was super useful to my playstyle. I picked up AD&D about a year ago after beginning with 3.5 and then moving onto OSR stuff around 2020. So far, it's been essentially the perfect system for me. I play in 3 different games each week and I'm moving back into designing my own adventure for some of my friends at the moment. Has been a lot of fun introducing them to AD&D, and it's always interesting to see people's reactions when I tell them that I exclusively play AD&D (though that's just a matter of circumstance than anything else, I'm down to play some more OSR styled games whenever I can).
Anyway, great video as usual. You probably make the best D&D content on all of UA-cam.
thanks for your videos. I always love seeing a new video from you.
SOME realism is necessary for me to achieve any measure of immersion into the game. When you make rules that say you're 150 hit point character can swim through lava then take a power nap on the other side and immediately return to full hit points, immersion is impossible for me. This is basically why I just moved to different game systems instead of playing 5e.
I really appreciate you saying that. Thank you very much! I enjoy reading your comments as well.
And, I agree. I think it's fine to have a "realistic" world and to implement restrictions to avoid the exact example you're talking about. So, I'm find with that kind of thing. But there's the "other" kind of "realism" which tries to look at each mechanical sub-system and divide into more and more minute systems to try to achieve "realism" and at that point, the game breaks down. "If someone gets hit with a sword they'd most likely die." This ignores the abstraction of the combat system, seeking to provide some sort of logical explanation for how a character could be hit with a sword and not die. So then someone invents a hit location chart, so maybe that sword blow only hit you in the leg instead of neck or head. That means it does less or more damage depending on where it hit. Tables and modifiers are needed. Just when combat and the action of play should be speeding up for a dramatic moment, it gets bogged down with minutiae. "Wait a minute. A sword was designed to penetrate certain types of armor better than others. That needs to be taken into account." Another table with another rule sub-system that needs to be consulted during, again, what should be the most exciting and quickly-paced part of the game.
So, your example of the character swimming through lava... I think it's entirely reasonable for a DM to either say "No, you, nor anyone else who doesn't possess some sort of supernatural or magical fire resistance, can't do that." Or if you *need* a rule, then, "You have to make a CON save at Disadvantage every round or die. After three rounds, regardless of your saves, you die." Something like that - just examples off the top of my head.
Also, like you said, things like that, that don't really seem to "work" are great motivators to look into other systems, or design your own!
Thanks again!
Totally understand your feeling about the granularity of these rules. Along with the minutiae of the first edition DMG, some of the content will tend to range from little bit unnecessary to essentially useless for the vast majority of players. But I like that they exist and that they're there to mine for resources if an unexpected situation comes up and you're not sure exactly how to handle it, whether during prep or in the middle of a session. I run a B/X- AD&D hybrid game, and my group consists of a husband and wife who spend a lot of time backpacking in the mountains and hiking in the forest, and a woman whose job is to catalog the flora and fauna for her state's wildlife conservation center. So I feel a heavy sense of duty/obligation to really know my stuff and the PDFs of books like these really help with that 😅
The "AC as an abstraction" bit really rings true for me, and it's why I feel the dexterity adjustment is factored into your AC. However, we use both AC and the Damage Reduction system from Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea, as well as a Durability system. Each shield and piece of armor has 100 Durability Points (DP), and each successful hit subtracts one from that. When their DP is low or hits 0 they need to get it repaired. It gives them a good reason to return to town frequently and build a relationship with blacksmiths, and yet another thing to spend all that hard-earned gold on. I completely understand why you feel like it would slow down combat, but for my group they just know that when I roll damage they'll subtract their DR from the total and then mark off one DP from their armor, and we move along. For my group I feel like it's a Best-of-All-Worlds situation!
I gotta say, the folks who say armor making you take less damage, but be easier to hit being more realistic are nuts. The point of armor isn't to soften the blow, it's to stop it entirely. A hit bypassing AC represents you getting in a weak point in the armor. You can pound on someone in field plate all day with a sword, but if all you do is strike their breastplate you'll never make any progress. I think a lot of people fail to understand how armor actually works. But yes, ultimately, it's a game abstraction, so either way is fine.
Well said!!
Appreciate your drinking advice. I didn‘t know about this Brooklyn Variant. Another fine straight Drink to make use of your Picon is the „Mother in Law“ found in Dr. Cocktails Book „Vintage Spirits and forgotten Cocktails“.
I love that book! It was, I think, the first cocktail book my wife bought me many years ago and it's still one of my favorites. But, I do tend to forget about consulting it as newer books have come in, and when I got it at the time, I must have skipped the "Mother in Law" due to not having Amer Picon. I'm excited to try it! Thanks for the reminder!
Last restaurant we went to just before lockdown, had all 5 boroughs, though I don't recall what they used for Picon.
I still own those two books. The concept of the Underdark absolutely fascinated me. I read and re-read that section countless times.
It's probably the best section out of both of these two books! Thanks for watching and commenting.
@@daddyrolleda1 outside the original three core books, these two books along with Unearthed Arcana were the best source material in the edition. Add in the dungeon Master's design kit. BEST supplement EVER!
I never picked up the DM Design Kit back in the day but I've toyed with trying to find a copy on the secondary market, as it looks really good! I'd also one day like to get a print copy of the Campaign Sourcebook & Catacomb Guide. So many people tell me it's their favorite DM advice book ever.
Excellent as always!
And your reactions to those three books were almost exactly the same as my own. We loved Oriental Adventures and that was the last D&D I played as a teenager. The Dungeoneers Survival Guide had a great DM's section. The Wilderness Survival Guide was a disaster. That was the book which finally convinced me that it was over for D&D and time to move onto other things (I was only slightly wrong :-).
Realism.
I think the problem is that the whole reason we have an imagination is so we can deal with reality. The closer you get to replicating real experience the more demanding it becomes that things make sense - sense by way of what it knows - it doesn't care about how beholders float but knows a thing or two about frostbitten toes and won't let you forget about it.
If anything, the trick to good game design is to placate that part of the imagination, to keep it satiated so it will shut up and stop trying to reject the fantasy by finding realistic flaws in it, while at the same time not obscuring the focus of the game. And that is the big mistake the WSG made. Wilderness rules should have either been non-existent (they weren't for Conan :-) or so abstract you could cover the entire topic with a few paragraphs.
So I may at times seem like a champion of realistic gaming. The truth is I'm not. Reality and the imagination are forces I wrestle with to get what I want. I'm fine with ditching AC for not being realistic, just don't ask me to add another half-hour of pointless math to each encounter to replace it.
In the end, my favorite wargame is still Stratego.
If your character is maybe drowning I have them roll 3 D6 under their Con. Then take 1 D6 damage. They can do a similar Stregth check to swim in Chainmail and or a Dex check to take off there armor.
Secretly happy to hear you didn't like Kim's book because he regected my story. Happy to hear you are a fellow Specials fan.❤
For many of us Old Timers who had been in since the start and who had created our own rules along the way, these books were a good 'sanity check' as to whether we had gotten close to the mark or not :)
In common with many who have been around long enough to enter Gimmerdom (as in Old Gimmer :)), I miss those times - character and story rather than 'DPS' was the central theme and players coming up with inventive answers to problems was half the fun ... even if you had to make up a ruling on the fly.
I don't know if this was a universal experience for DM's from the Dawn Times but around here (Midlands England) you could tell when you joined a game if you were being DM'd by someone who learned the game from someone you taught because the House Rules they used were like a genetic fingerprint :chuckles:
Thank you so much for sharing this! I love that last part about how to tell where someone learned to DM!
I also agree with you regarding character and story. I remember the first time I saw someone refer to DPS while talking about D&D. I was so confused because I had no idea what that abbreviation meant, as I am not a video gamer. When they finally explained it to me, I continued my confusion. "But... D&D combat is in rounds, not seconds..."
I remember when I first encountered a D&D edition (I think 3rd was the first time I saw the rules outside of stat blocks at the back of Dragonlance novels that I couldn’t decipher) I definitely bumped off armor class like “what is this?” Pretty much as you describe. It’s only much later that I got into “old school” that I came to appreciate the very simple fact that not getting “hit” as often is in fact damage reduction and that what the rules are modeling isn’t a blow by blow fight where you’re describing every action but an abstract representation of a melee. If one starts to get into war games and even more naval war games, one starts to realize what a “hit” is, in a way that a casual kid who likes fantasy stories won’t and then it all kinda makes way more sense.
One thought I did have from this video is that a lot of these ideas in these books don’t sound like rules one would want for general play but man they could be really cool scenario theming for a particular adventure, special rules, that sort of thing or just idea fodder for specific challenges.
Why would we ever run one of your videos with no sound? I'd not WATCH it, but listen to it before I do that. 🙂 Always chocked full of great info, even if it is the history or mindset of the game. That, to me, makes me a better player if I know WHAT the creators were trying to accomplish.
Thanks for what you do.
I really appreciate you taking the time to make this comment. Thank you so much!
I never knew these existed until a couple years ago, and we played in the 80s. Maybe they weren’t widely available in the UK back then.
I picked up DSG last year and on a quick read felt it largely unnecessary a tomb
Basically, these were a bunch of optional rules for people that wanted more granularity. I have these two books, and never used them.
Great video. I find it fascinating that the NWP in Oriental Adventures actually give you a difficulty number that you have to roll higher than instead of every other 1E and 2E book where you roll under the associated stat.
I like your niche. Typically I lean towards the more realistic games but you were giving me a big appreciation for the abstract. Even when i tried to run games in realistic with mechanics i like i had trouble keeping track of them. I do think theyre good when you pick a few to focus on for like 4+ sessions in a row.
Oh, another thing I would like to discuss is the Non Weapon Proficiencies. The DMG had a chart for "Secondary Skills". A great chart with skills for players to use more for background than anything else. You might ask for a specific skill to make a certain type of character. This request usually came with a penalty for the DM being nice to you. And they might deny a request if the player was trying to make a "Power PC" such as an Assassin requesting a skill that would enhance their other skills. But a request for a Thief to have a skill in trapping might be reasonable since it would work well with a backstory. But a roll on the chart gave you a chance for 2 skills or perhaps No Skill of Measurable Worth.
So skills were there but there were no rules for them so you would need to make them up.
As to the "Blind Fighting" skill. I would think that something like that should take up one of your precious Weapon Proficiency slots. That would keep players from taking it all the time since choices would be limited. Choose a weapon, specialize in it or take blind fighting? And without a spare weapon slot that magic weapon you found can't be used with proficiency!
24:46 Here's another way to think about it. A game is about, largely, what its rules are about. Meaning that they wrote the rules because they thought you'd do the thing really often.
In a game without the Thief class and its skill set, you probably see a lot less deciphering treasure maps, pocket-picking, lockpicking - although you might see some careful listening, and will definitely see trap detection and avoidance, and sometimes climbing. So, one might say that the game with the Thief in it is signaling to the DM that they need to create adventures that contain those challenges.
The extra stuff a Thief-Acrobat can do mostly relates to traversing across crevasses and moats where CW isn't an option. Seems like a weird focus for a class, but it signals that wide-open gaps should be a common challenge in the adventure or else this whole class will be sucking hind teat.
Druids sound useless in dungeons, unless the DM goes through some effort to include wildlife and plants that flourish underground. One might argue that choosing to do that fully enables the Druid class to thrive, while not doing it is a design choice to limit Druid power based on the adventure location.
So I would suggest that including rules for diving, caving, cruel weather, etc. indicates that those are worthwhile adventure challenges, giving rules for them is useful because they are supposed to come up so often that ad hoc ruling is insufficient, and the other gameplay elements can best be socketed into these new challenges with the forethought of rules instead of rulings.
That said, the rules needed to be MUCH simpler for use at the table. If they can't summarize for reference the entire WSG on one side of a 4-panel DM screen, they wrote it wrong.
All very interesting points! Thanks for sharing this. Lots of stuff to think about. I've often said things about classes that jive with what you're saying about skills and abilities - having a Paladin class implies something about the campaign world/setting that might be different from a game that includes a Monk or a Barbarian. Or, if you have all three, that *also* says something about the world!
You say 'this should just be something the gm makes a ruling on', but consider that most GMs don't have any idea how a cave-in works, or any of the other stuff covered I these books. I don't like the idea of a game that slavishly references every rule whenever something like this comes up, but they could be (and probably were) used as a method for GMs to learn more about the hazards of wilderness and dungeons exploration so that they can make rulings that feel like they make sense.
Also while I agree with you that there are certainly better and worse non-weapon proficiencies, almost all of them could prove useful if the GM accommodates and the player is clever enough, 'building a fire' could prove handy in setting a building on fire so that it burns quickly and is difficult to out out. Agriculture could tell a player things about plants, how to kill them, how they might be useful, etc.
Thing is, most players don't have any idea how a cave-in works either. And that's kind of the point: the GM isn't expected to come up with realistic answers, but realistic *feeling* answers.
Not sure if you'll see this, but did I see you are registered for DaveCon in late April in Minnesota? If so, it would be cool to connect now that I've almost caught up on watching all your vids..
I am! I will be wearing various t-shirts from my shop so you'll hopefully recognize me.
It's books like these which make you wonder whether anyone playtested the books, and whether anyone actually used any of the content in their games.
I ran a river rafting adventure with rules from both the WSG and DSG a couple of years ago.
I LOVED LOVED LOVED Oriental Adventures. We did a 3 year campaign in OA.
Great to hear from a fan!
I came in at the start of AD&D 2e and never looked at these.
I've recently gone back to 4E, and it doesn't care about realism or simulation. It's just about being a fun game for us.
I don't expect it's going to last long, but it's a welcome change of pace to the current edition.
It's really nice to hear from someone talking about enjoying 4E rather than just the same old bashing it always seems to get. Thanks for sharing! I had fun with 4E the couple of times I played it, but I was heavily invested in my 3.X game at the time and opted not to switch, but that's not because I thought 4E was terrible or anything.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
My gaming group absolutely loved these books when they came out. All of were in the scouts and did the hiking camping thing. Our games were as much about exploration as combat so we used most of the rules. I still use the Underdark map/setting in the back I love it so much.
Sadly I have had to learn to back off these type of rules with my current group, because the players do not enjoy it.
I love Madness, their new album is extremely good. And the movie they did in 1981, Take It Or Leave It, is fantastic.
I'll need to check those out! Thanks for the recommendation, and also thank you for staying through the Bonus Content!
Most of these kind of rules were ones where the GM did the heavy lifting and the players just got extra non-weapon proficiency they would try to use. When I used to play D&D these tables were DM/GM tools. They would say, "I gather the following things for my shelter and I have X, Y and Z non-weapon proficiencies." Then I as GM would look at it, make the determination and tell them how it went. They didn't have to worry about the details. The make a ruling not follow a rules style didn't work for groups I played in for years. Reason being they remembered what happens and if it just arbitrary they felt it wasn't fair. This is why I set "rulings" style play for my groups, largely aside and went towards crunchy rules.
Two things. First, the front-end rules are, as Captain Barbossa put it, more of whatchyou call guidelines than rules. No, their not enthralling, yet, our games have over the last 10 years, come up against holding breath, climbing w/or w/o gear, rubble, squeezes and the like, multiple times. Most of the time, our DM just issues a call right there. If we disagree and can find a rule that might support our position (it's only be a few minutes) we'll adjust the gameplay accordingly. Otherwise, he'll just say, OK, in the future we'll... These help standardize gameplay instead of having to recall hip-judgment rulings from a year or more ago (which has also happened and led to a ton of irritation).
Second, there are very few NWP that can't actually be used in regular game play. As a list of examples, all of the craftsmanship NWP in the DSG can be seen as the amount of experience one has in making ____ (w/e item) so, should they encounter something similar in play, they can make a reasonable assessment on value, age, possibly historical background or the like with modifiers to success based upon the proposed question. E.g. a Dwarven blacksmith working in their home may not know much about Human armor, thus would likely not recognize an emblem emblazoned on a greave or breastplate, but a Human may actually know especially if they worked in an area that item may have come from. Obviously, someone with History (Local or Ancient) is likely to have a better chance, but that's the why a smith might have a 1/2 ability check or 1/4 ability check instead of a -2.
Looking at NWP's as a pure means to create a background for a character is one way of looking at it, but the reality is that if you worked at a bakery (let's say Franz Bakery here in the PNW) making bread or pasteries for a couple years, you would also know that when you go to the store, the store brand bread on the shelf next to Franz brand bread *is the exact same bread from the exact same bakery off the exact same breadlines*. NWP's represent a characters abilities *and experiences*, making it easier for the character to interact with the world that their in while allowing the player to go, "Wait, if my guy spent the better part of 5 years smithing away in Baldur's Gate, he would very obviously know the Heraldry at least SOME of the families or organizations in the area."
NWP's also create a way for a DM to say, "Yeah, ok, you the player knows this, but how would YOUR character have an inkling of what their looking at??" Perhaps, this is the result of having 3 lawyers at the gaming table for the last decade, but more guidelines in print is always a good thing.
That was a fiery episode!!! I agreed with it all, although I would also add that the interior art was fun. It is interesting to see the gradual birth of realism in roleplaying games. On one hand, I am appreciative that they bring up hypothermia and all sorts of other things I might not have considered, but of course, the heavy rules I can do without. Oh, by the way, speaking of heavy metal and jazz, do you know about the Black Sabbath jazz tribute band called Jazz Sabbath? You can listen to them here on UA-cam if you are interested.
man, your intro took me back to a kitchen table a long time ago, we used to homebrew those "useless" proficiencies. Specifically i remember the ones you mentioned, calligraphy was a replacement/addition to forgery, juggle as a kind of acrobatics and you could go with CHA instead of DEX when it was performative but DEX if it was to scape a trap or something. but agriculture was used more than once... to mark the separation between city/civilization and wilderness "knowledge of nature" would not apply so you used agriculture instead, for example to know what creatures were attacking farms. one time there was a "curse" on the fields causing severe famine, after much invetigation the guy with agricuture deduced that the only way this could be happening was if the underground source of water was being tampered with and not a magical effect or curse... on we go underground to see what was messing with it ... fond memories, thank you !
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
I like the way your group handled these back in the day! That seems like a great way to use them.
And, I'm glad to have evoked some positive nostalgia for you. Cheers!
Your dislike of these books was quite apparent, but for me, I now want to buy and read these books! Somehow, crunchy rules for wilderness survival interest me - even if I will almost certainly never use them at the table. It's highly unlikely that I'll ever find a group of friends that wants to play "wilderness survival accountancy." haha You are absolutely right about detailed rules slowing down a game. It's just a matter of what level of "simulationism" the players want. You make a good point about wargames, for example. A more realistic simulation of a battle would have the commanding general issue orders and then have little knowledge and even less control over what happens after that. Perfect knowledge of the battle map and control over troop movements is a complete fiction - but one that makes the game fun to play.
Also, the GM advice in these books seems worth a read. I'm sorry to hear that the detailed advice on worldbuilding actually *discouraged* you from worldbuilding. For me, even as a kid, my reaction would've been the opposite - I like trying to figure out plate tectonics and climate bands. But a GM should only do that stuff if it is fun for them; a creative exercise/game on its own. The players will never notice any of that work, nor should they be forced to.
I *think* you can probably acquire them on the secondary market for a lot less than, say, the Player's Handbook or 1st Printing of Deities & Demigods. Also, DM's Guild has them in PDF form for only $10. You could always snag them that way!
My daughter's group actually does enjoy the resource management elements as I've discussed a few times in my "DM Advice" videos (which I equate with "wilderness survival accountancy") but that said... it's much less fiddly than the rules presented in these books. I do appreciate that a lot of folks really want and/or enjoy this level of detail, but I find that it gets in the way more than it helps. But, as always, that's just my personal preference!
Also, thank you so much for commenting about my wargames analogy. You're the only one to do so thus far, but I thought it was a good way of explaining the different approaches.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I love both DSG and WSG and still use them, I don't really remember much of a shift in perspective when they were introduced. WSG can do a great job of making overland travel meaningful. The weather system is amazing and something I haven't seen improved on. The hunting and foraging tables are great for calculating a DC. DSG's rules for climbing can add a lot of decision making opportunity for PCs. DSG and WSG can both easily be converted to d20 for use with later editions. If you are looking for making the wilderness above and below ground have a more distinct feel these books are amazing.
My first character in my current 2e group took Fungi Recognition NWP (and it did actually come up a few times).
I forgot about Fungi Recognition!
The DM section in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide was (and still is) gold; the other stuff was a great example of how to get bogged down in the minutia.
Very much agree! Thank you for watching and commenting.
I always looked at AC as actually hitting your body, not just your armor. So if you are heavily armored, you are less likely to actually make weapon to skin contact than someone who is unarmored.
Thank you for watching and commenting!
I really think it come down to, how do *you* want to describe it in your game so it makes sense and helps combat to more quickly and be more dynamic and dramatic? Sometimes I think it makes sense to describe AC as dodging out the way (a lightly armored Thief with high DEX who dodges a blow) whereas other times I think it makes sense to describe AC as "absorbing" the damage (a heavily armored, but slowly moving, knight who gets hit but doesn't really feel much of the blow due to his armored protection).
To me, that's part of the elegance of the system: It can easily handle both types of narrative description without requiring different sub-systems.
Cheers, and thank you so much for your support of the channel!
Having played in the early 1980s, I can say that the one thing we didn't want to do was accounting and worrying about these details covered in this book. We mainly wanted to explore weird places and try to survive the traps and monsters and kind of get scared by the spookiness or the fear of the death of your character...However by around 1985 (as we matured toward being juniors and seniors in high school), we started to become dissatisfied with things that seemed unrealistic in setting (more so that in rules like in this book). For instance, we didn't like hack/slash/grab the cash adventures and campaigns that were not thematic as if they would be in a fantasy novel. So much so that we actually simplified the crazy combat rules with the tables in Gygax's (1e) AD&D (10 or more for fighters to hit, 12 or more for Magic Users to hit). We also became more engrossed in fantasy lit like Lovecraft, the Simon Necronomicon, Elric, Tolkein, and so on. At that time we also began to borrow ideas from the Palladium game to make our own home brew system. The adventures we made usually had no more than three combat encounters plus some weird things to interact with. We didn't want to deal with all the complexity of game mechanics, and wanted to get on with the feeling of the world the characters lived in, where we thought a certain "realism" of consistent theme was important...I watch your stuff quite a bit, but I think this is my first comment. :)
Thanks Martin! AD&D Wilderness Survival Guide got you down? Try Frank Mentzer’s Expert Set, enough overland nuts and bolts to please the abstract! Costs and movement rates for boats and horses and rules for increasing players’ standard movement rates, etc. Cheers!
I'll need to get our the Mentzer Expert set! I "only" have the Moldvay/Cook Expert book, but I really like it!
We never delved into these rules in our 1st edition games, but later in 2nd edition the nonweapon proficiencies/skills did come up. I remember thinking they were nice flavor text (sort of like having backgrounds in 5th edition) but never really used or necessary. Your point about skills and feats is interesting. It got me thinking that some of the feats in 5e should really just be backgrounds as very few if any players have ever taken them.
BTW, I love your bonus content.
I agree mate. Those two books were honestly rules for the sake of rules. Good vid
I don't have to agree with/adhere to everything you're saying here to find this video really great! Thank you, sir 👊🤓
In the early 00s, when I was getting into the hobby, AD&D was my first system. I knew literally nothing about the culture or history of editions, but I recall the grognard helping me round out my book collection referring to UA as 1.5 and the survival guides as 1.75. He was more of a purest I guess, as he told me they were largely unnecessary (survival guides) and downright bad for the game (UA) but I really enjoyed them both when I went against his advice and bought them 😂 the fiddly bits I kinda ignored, but non weapon proficiencies in particular in DSG and the world building section in WSG I found helpful building my first world. UA I loved the expanded spells and classes. Love the Bodysnatchers. Kinda forgot about them. Cheers
Thanks for sharing this story! I always love hearing how people enter the hobby, and particularly those who started "later" but began with an older edition. Cheers!
I love the beauty of these 2 hardcover books . . . and they were well organized compared to earlier books . . . but yes they were filled with useless info. I recall reading a chapter in the wilderness survival guide about deserts thinking it would tell me something useful about travel speeds or the affects of extreme heat and instead I was reading a long paragraph about how piles of sand were only called 'dunes' if they were lower than 50' and higher than that was called a 'draa' or something and I just set the book back down in disgust.
Started with BECMI, rolled that into my 1E games, and then rolled BECMI and 1E into my 2E game. I think moving away from the original "rulings over rules" concept started for me (and probably many others) as a way to have some sort of reference guide on things a DM's have little to no knowledge of in order to make a ruling as to what happens in the game. I went camping once, but I was 10 and it was a spot at a campground with a dozen or so spots with a bunch of groups each with their own tents and campfires... doesn't exactly make me a an experienced survival specialist that can create scenarios and make judgement calls as a DM on realistic situations the characters might experience an do in a wilderness setting. I also visited Carlsbad Caverns during a cross country trip when I was 11... doesn't make me an experienced spelunker familiar with living and non-living hazards of caves capable of creating scenarios and making judgement calls as a DM on realistic situations the characters might experience in an underground environment. Then there's the the stupid "rule of cool" in conjunction or in place of "rulings over rules" that a lot of games started to put out and became a more common playstyle among gamers. Leading into an explosion of "main character syndrome" and who could pull of the "coolest" moment or get the best stuff in the game. The only way to cut down on that BS was to have more rules to work with and pick from to easily put into the game.
Rules on environments, light/vison, sound/hearing, movement (jumping, climbing, acrobatics, swimming, flying, tunneling, etc.), size modifiers, equipment/object durability (AC, HP, Saves, etc. for inanimate things), Height/Weight charts, age groups, class level limits, racial stat bonuses AND penalties, proficiencies, encumbrance, weapon speeds, spell components, weapon/attack type vs. armor, food supply/spoilage, critical hits/fumbles, equipment quality, campaign settings (Oriental Adventures/Kara-Tur, Arabian Adventures/Al-Qadim, Ravenloft, Darksun, Spelljammer), castle/fortification construction time/costs, Siege warfare, mass combat, dominion management... give them to me all so that I can spend less time trying to come up with it all myself and have the tools to keep player shenanigans to a minimum.
Game rules are the fencepost to which GMs/DMs use to define shape and limits of the game world they want to create for the players. It's easier to tell players you don't use a rule (or tweaked a rule) from official books than it is to tell them you have homebrewed an entire supplemental ruleset that they have to learn.
How do you make a ruling? Especially bad is how do you make a ruling that people strongly disagree on? If I think my character can hold their breath 4 minutes and the GM thinks 1 minute and my character is going to live or die based on the result? We need some way to reach consensus and continue play. "Realism" seems like a way to compromise. So there is pressure to present solutions to problems like this. It's not about realism. It's about how to make rulings.
Imagine a game where the players are trained to accept "GM makes a call" instead of "realism".
I never had these books, just browsed through them. For our groups we didn't need a gazillion rules. We rarely used the rules and if we needed a "ruling" on something we might look it up or just make something up on the fly and "argue" for a minute over some modifiers.
Like you said, I have never used a rule to hold your breath, keep a tent from collapsing or anything like that. What we did want was lists of new equipment with costs and weight and maybe a notation on what it did. But you can't really make a book out of that.
We all understood what armor did and how Hit Points worked. Blows glanced off armor and aside from Critical Hits, it was that final blow that pierced your armor and put you in your grave. Games like Aftermath! that used armor to reduce damage also used very realistic modifiers for each and every weapon type for movement, cover, light conditions, etc... So shooting at a moving target in a wooded area at night made for a nearly impossible shot. In D&D you might have a strict DM who gave you a -4 for darkness and range modifiers. In Aftermath you had "Weapon Damage Multipliers" for each weapon. In D&D most DM's never used the weapon versus armor tables at all or even considered using the weapon speed adjustments for initiative.
Sorry for the long rant but if you are going to use realistic rules then you have to use them all and not just the ones that are good for the players. I have yet to see a DM "set a spear" when a PC charges into a group of Orcs causing double damage and impaling the character on the spear!
WSG was one of my favourite books as a young player and I used it through the 2e era as well. The one book I kept over the years lol. The vast majority of the extra mechanics in both of these books were ignored. Enjoyed reading through both books though !
It was a favorite of mine while I was working on creating a campaign setting but as I mentioned in the video, I got a bit intimidated by it!
Thank you very much for watching and commenting. I appreciate it!
In 5e for extra long falls i switch from falling damage (max 20d6) to Deadly Improvised Damage (max 24d10, DMG 249). That gives me and my players something that feels much more perilous without making long falls an overly simple instant kill.
When i first started in DnD, I looked at maps i found in the game books as a start, but then it was always just "my world" and id redraw them to suit my taste. I also started looking at the real world, and redrawing coastlines and mountain ranges for my continents and so on. I can kinda draw, so that skill helped make things feel a bit real, and to this day i love to sit down and draw out a dungeon or an overland map.
As far as rules being realistic vs abstract, simulation vs interpretive, at first I was also convinced everything needed to be hyper real. I'm at an age now where I want the story and characters front and center and don't sweat ultra detailed encumbrance or even tracking basic ammo.
There are wonderful games that treat rules as suggestions more implicitly and games that track every fraction of poundage and wind resistance. Depending on the group and the game, rules that suit the vibe of a game and table are great. Horror game? Stress/fear mechanics suit. Light hearted and silly games? Rules need to be able to bend with the chaos. That's how I view rules I suppose.
I totally _loved_ these books... mostly I loved the Wilderness Survival guide. What we used these books for was for 'flavour'... and as a way to pull GP out of the players' pockets... for instance, if we were going to do a large over land drip, we had to buy carts and tents and such.
With total respect to your opinions… I truly appreciate your honesty insight… however there are many moments when I needed guidance for added rules. After clearing out a dungeon, the pack mule was killed. Having a creative use of a polymorph spell, a player turned into an ox to pulled the loot.
Likewise, certain campaigns needed to do special actions in the Isle of Dread module: the sail needed repairs so fortunately a character had sail maker as a secondary skill.
Agreed, those rules are rarely necessary, but sections like those offered inspiration for a campaign that resembled novels like treasure island and getting lost in Mirkwood. 😊
And yet, much of rpg playing is about keeping the game moving, so we agree overall. Those specific books should only be used for inspiration
I have enjoyed abstracting movement. The close, near, far has worked well with minimal pushback from players. I’ve tried getting rid of initiative and it hasn’t really worked.
I love abstract movement, and use Close/Near/Far even though I'm not using miniatures! It works just fine with theater of the mind. I still use initiative, but it's Side-Based.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel.
If you ever ran a BECMI campaign, I'd play. I always found these books and the Oriental Adventures book confusing until they brought these rules into 2nd edition and then we used them a great deal. We enjoyed the realism but understood some rules like HP and AC were abstractions. We would actually try testing some rules IRL to see how based in reality they were. Like testing strength numbers and what strength we'd have based on carry weight and encumbrance. We were always trying to mix-max.
Keep it going!
Appreciate the positivity! Thanks!
@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah, keep on making these videos! I'm cheering you on.