Autumn Is Gam(ing) Season...

No, not football. Tabletop roleplaying. It was autumn of 1977 when I fell in love with the Rankin/Bass Hobbit, and autumn of 1979 when I found out we were moving just as things were getting good with my local D&D group. More happily (and against the odds) it was autumn when we moved back (a different neighborhood, but with new friends) culminating in a season spent anticipating the Holmes Basic I knew Mom had gotten me because yours truly wasn't remotely subtle. Christmas 1980, the ending to a perfect fall... 

And so for me at least, autumn has always been (tabletop) gaming season; but why, beyond circumstance and random history, is it so? I suspect the following:

(1) Autumn is cooler. You start moving indoors for cozier entertainments. I'm sure this has changed, what with computer games and the mainstreaming of D&D; and, of course, I played over the summer months as well, although family vacations plucked various party members beyond recall, so maybe they weren't always the best months to be a roleplayer.

(2) October brings ghosts and goblins to every house for weeks ahead of the big night, and these channel the supernatural monsters in just about every dungeon.

(3) Christmas, the true culmination of autumn, brings many people's first gaming experience when not new additions to a pre-existing obsession. Birthdays and Christmas remain the perfect times to grow a collection. Games abound anymore. You can get a fascimile of early D&D for free (Basic Fantasy); but back then, rulebooks were precious comodities.

Of course, your experience may differ. Birthdays happen year-round, and the alchemy of circumstance means that everyone's gaming season has its own trajectory. 

And speaking of autumn, it's coming this week, and after a summer working on Mydwandr, finally available in hardcover, a break is definitely in the cards. Don't be suprised if Pits Perilous resumes a monthy format. Between Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield, there's finally time to relax and explore some digital worlds. Not to worry though, autumn's fantasy bona fides won't be forgotten. There's an excellent chance the cooler (and shorter) months inspire more, not less, gaming goodness. In the meantime, have the best of all possible seasons... 

But You're Not Doing It Right...

How often do we hear that online? Gatekeepers are hardly an endangered species, and they absolutely thrive in certain environments. This stuff rarely interests me; but it came up in a friend's feed last week, and since it involved something I am interested in, original Dungeons & Dragons, I couldn't resist tossing my hat into the proverbial ring. My friend, it seems, was fighting the right side of an argument with an anonymous online other, an argument about the pastime and its rightful execution. You know, the gatekeeper's refrain... 

Specifically, they argued that since OD&D saw itself as a fantastic medieval wargame, miniatures and map boards were mandatory. Theater of the mind stuff was wrong because a free and open-ended game demands restrictions, apparently. I call this indefensible (and decidedly wrong-headed), but there's a lesson here for fantasy's gatekeepers. First though, this argument can't go unanswered; and believe it or not, the stakes couldn't be higher, especially in a hobby where literally everything happens upstairs.

While D&D (in all its flavors) is a fantasy simulation, that's not really what made it great or allowed it to grow beyond its wargaming base. It certainly helped. A lot, actually. But it was its open endedness that allowed it to become more than some niche pastime known only to a wargaming subculture. Gygax saw its potential immediately, so much so that he brought it up, the ultimate hint, in his Foreword. You'll have no shortage of players, Gary promised, which included those not by any stretch of the imagination ardent wargamers. Spot on...

And you can't get past the Introduction before finding out that miniatures were optional, although recommended. To quote Gygax, miniatures are not required. Now Outdoor Survival, for its gameboard no doubt, completed the list of required items, suggesting that counters, cardboard or otherwise, were an assumed element. But common sense was enough to know that Gary wouldn't tether his cash cow to another company's product forever. Anyway, our requirements are down to a lot less than our online gatekeeper thought.

Now it's almost certain that miniatures figured prominently in many early games. There's the famous (if not legendary) plastic dinosaurs (not even in a loose sense) that inspired D&D's now-ubiquitous owlbears and rust monsters. But not everyone could afford miniatures, which weren't yet available in the variety of later years, leaving many groups to forego even their cardboard substitutions. Where I grew up, D&D was catching on in so-called gifted classes at school, where non-wargamers were drawn to its potential sans-accounterments...

It quickly became theater of the mind, and why not? Of course, this speaks to the evolution of D&D away from its original wargaming roots, validating the gatekeepers who might rightly observe that the game was no longer being played as originally concieved. Except that Gary, a practical creative, made the tentative nature of any so-called requirements certain from OD&D's opening pages. At any rate, playing the game differently is another thing completely, especially given how obviously accomodating Gygax and Arneson were.*

Take away D&D's miniatures, and you take away an option. But take away the ability to tailor the game and make it your own, and it's reduced to Monopoly with Avalon Hill influences doomed to nerd subculture obscurity. Anyway, I can't imagine denying our hobby that which sets it apart. The gate swings both ways, and it has no guardians, only clever custodians bringing their active imaginations to life. Appropriately, OD&D ends offering one final nugget of  wisdom: decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way...

*Gygax would later clamp down (hard) on his creation; but this was pureblood OD&D.

Hit Points (Get to the Point)...

When I was a young gamer (so many years ago), hit points seemed like the most important attribute, at least first among equals; and I had a point. In a pastime known for its lethality, one's hits amounted to life itself. How could a mere magic-user hope to compete, much less survive, with 2 hit points? And what was the point (pun intended) of so few anyway? You could say likewise for the whole Player's Handbook; fighters, the works...

And what about your avarage (in AD&D speak) fighter? A typical veteran with a median constitution had a whopping 4-5 hit points, which explains why constitution remains a close second to strength for any martial profession. A robust fighter might get 8 hits, which was definitely better, but first level was still a pretty bitter pill to swallow. By way of example, that's two hits with a longsword. And these were a party's front liners.

I understood. Magic-users specialized in spellcraft (niche protection); but fighters did combat for a living (again, pun intended). And levels didn't necesarily help, since these were rolled randomly on notoriously fickle dice. Barring merciful house rules, a 3rd-level type might easily run 10-12 hit points. That's three average hits from a common longsword. Of course, armor would reduce the number of successful hits, but still. It appeared unworkable...

Until I had an epiphany. After several years of generous house rules designed to mitigate the obvious flaw of a game where you couldn't venture room to room killing everything, I had a flash of insight that put the whole thing into perspective. Twin revelations that transformed my immature campaign into a mature enterprise. I think we all have these moments; and while youth is wonderful, these two insights heighted my pleasure in the game:

(1) You don't fight everything. But door-to-door killing is how it works, right? Wrong. Combat is dangerous, so you avoid all but the most obviously winnable (and profitable) encounters. I admit, a certain charming, get-to-the-point fun was lost; but gearing up to explore the waiting underworld took on a depth that made a second childhood altogether unthinkable...

(2) If at all possible, take henchmen. Charisma isn't a dump stat. An expedition is just that, an expedition. If your game doesn't look like a trip to the unexplored Congo, you're potentially missing out on valuable loot and, of course, experience. There's safety in numbers, and hired help blunts the power of wandering monsters while increasing profitable fights.

Of course, this isn't universal, and our latest, Mydwandr, assumes smaller parties with uniform progression. But you won't find long (or short) rests to recover precious resources either, calling for the same caution AD&D advised. There's no wrong way to play games involving elves and magic, and you may recognize my youthful apprehension in our earlier titles. Even so, AD&D's approach was no mere oversight, and that's this week's point...

Dwarven Mail of Mydwandr...

So Mydwandr, Rules-Light Roleplay, is (finally) out. It's a game. It's a setting. It's both, although admittedly, the gaming aspect predominates. So setting aside the commercial, we'll focus on the magical armors made by the dwarves and gifted to the Kings of Jontavr, who jelously guard, and sometimes squander, this inheritance. These stories are many, and often humorous, although it speaks more to the magic of this mining people:

When a new king is crowned in Jontavr, the dwarves present them a suit of mail in observance of the alliance between their kindreds. These are magical, or perhaps so well-wrought to appear as such, with attributes to match (or flatter) the sovereign. Ragnar IV supposedly slew a wyrm on a boar hunt, earning the title Dragonslayer and recieving a fine suit of Dragon's Mail upon his ascent to the throne, although his rule was brief...

Now candid historians maintain it was a very young wyrm, and that the boy had help, which is almost certainly the case; but the dwarves heard and forged their offering.

Another is the King's Mail of Skard. An intemperate boy given to fighting, he carried a scar into manhood documenting his youthful violence; and the dwarves, bound to make their customary gift, fashioned the King's Mail. This exquisite suit of chainmail glittered, betraying what magics went into it. Simply put, it reduced all melee damage to a single hit, but only between sunrise through noon when his disfiguiring fight supposedly took place...

Accordingly, Skard avoided battle at night or later in the day, leading his counselors to call him Skard Half-Brave behind his back. Such caution made his years many.

All of this speaks to the nature of dwarven magic. As one of the three kindreds, dwarves certainly have the capacity for spellcraft, although culture (and necessity, given the endless waves of fearsome urku they must contend with) doubtless directs most to other pursuits, including their legendary smithcraft. Even so, magically gifted dwarves sometimes become enchanters, aiding their own cause and securing the alliances vital to their properity...