Being in the Main the Mouth of Olde House Rules

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Mentors: Gaming's Miyagi Effect...

Back in the 70s you couldn't learn D&D by reading the little brown books, much less the luxurious hardcovers, all of which were reference works for the already initiated. Long story short, you couldn't learn without a mentor. Or two or three. An indulgent group willing to instruct a neophyte (although let's be honest, we always wanted new players). In this way D&D was much like an apprenticeship, and gaming akin to magic*...

Until 1977, when Holmes Basic reached out to a generation of new gamers, condensing these mysteries into 48 classic pages. Its readers were subsequently directed to AD&D, and who wouldn't crave the upper levels of power those hardcovers represented? This was a necessary avenue for many, although personal instruction remained the principal gateway as these new DMs sought players (assuming most took up that essential vocation).

When the Basic Set (1981) landed, I assumed it was an updated tutorial. The Expert set cleared that up; but this parallel track still led many to AD&D. And once again, it spurred ever-increasing numbers to join the pastime and train their interested peers. Imagine an honest pyramid scheme where everyone wins. Anyway, for players learning the rules this way, there had to be at least one friend or family member ready to receive instruction.

A lot's happened since then. The parallel tracks converged; but every new edition has its introductory rules. Gaming's mainstream now, and you could probably learn how to play just about anything with a google search. But it's still in-person mentoring (allowing for online instruction with a human on the other end), that holds the hobby's attention, initiating fresh players into mysteries beyond any rulebook to bestow. Mr. Miyagi would be proud...

*Mine was a walk-in. My neighbors were playing with their garage door open! 

10 comments:

  1. I strongly deny your primary assertion.

    We did learn D&D from the LBB. Although our game was interestingly different as a result (for example none of us had, at the time, read Lord of the Rings so our information on what an orc was was limited to what it actually said in the rules, and are elves were much more in line with traditional folklore, with the result that orcs were actually more acceptable socially than elves). We developed a shared campaign of "competitive" dungeon-delving, which was a lot of fun (both in play and as gamemaster/designer).

    And we weren't the only group that learned the game from the books. Of course it helped living in Australia and being pretty isolated from anyone else playing the game (as far as we could tell at the time). There were no mentors, but we were all captivated by the ideas that the game presented. And we were used to learning games from the bare rules.

    Most of these groups were wargamers though (probably self-selected because I was and that it how we eventually found each other), so we had a better understanding of the concepts that lay behind the LBB than someone who learned D&D from someone that just played D&D. They were written by wargamers for wargamers, even if the play wasn't actually as a wargame. Plus we were more likely to find out the existence of this strange new game as a result of our wargaming connections.

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    1. My primary assertion was that many people learned to play from others; but I take your point. Interestingly, the wargaming connections you mentioned might actually constitute a form of mentoring, which is what I was getting at...

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    2. The concept of assuming the role of fantasy characters, then going on an imaginary adventure narrated by the back and forth interactions between players and a Dungeon Master wouldn't of come to me without seeing it happen in front of me. That's how alien it was back in the early 80s. I was 10 and had no wargaming background... besides the occasional game of Risk.

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  2. I have to agree with Reverance. I mean, I started playing in 1982, but my friends and I taught ourselves to play from those “luxurious hardcovers” with no mentors involved. I evangelized to everyone I could about them, and most of them bought the books and taught themselves as well.

    I’ve kong since read the LBBs and yeah, they’re a bit obscure. And over the last 15 years I’ve talked to plenty of people who figured it out on their own.

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    1. I'll defer to your experience and update my definition of so-called mentoring to include collaboration among friends. Evangelization is a form of instruction; and once people started talking to each other about the game, a certain amount of informal training was doubtless occurring...

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  3. The game started leaning on Chainmail for the combat. So i assume if you understood that already the rest was easier to grasp than it would be for someone coming in totally new to the whole thing.

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    1. There was a cool example of play which, unfortunately, lacked a sample of the alternate combat system. Holmes cleared that up...

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  4. Reverance, kesher, Ruprecht; thanks for the insights!

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  5. I started with Holmes and no mentor, and moved to AD&D. Later I saw the LBBs and I would never have learned to play the game if they were the first things that I saw and I had no one to teach me.

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    1. I was introduced to OD&D; but Holmes taught me much...

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