What Made Original D&D Great

POSTSCRIPT.

It's been 6 years since I originally wrote the preceding essay, and it's pretty interesting for me to go back, prepare it for the web, and make some minor editorial changes. My writing style has changed quite a bit (or at least I'm in a different frame of mind), and the gaming industry has changed a whole lot.

First of all, in light of my critique of the differences and tensions between games and narratives (stories), it was interesting to read an article by Greg Costikyan in Game Developer magazine last month (the September 2000 issue) which shared many of the same opinions (Costikyan authored the Paranoia, Star Wars, and Toon RPG's).

In the "No Narrative" section's last paragraph, I wrote, "I don't know if this strategy is working for TSR... my gut instinct is that such advances are limited at best." Well, apparently it didn't work very well at all. TSR went practically bankrupt and was acquired by Wizards of the Coast in 1997, which in turn was bought by the Hasbro company in 1999.

In the first paragraph of the final section, "The Big Picture", I said of computer gamers, "most of these people will be able to pick their own games at their own times, rather than join a group playing one game. From a certain sociable standpoint, this is a little sad." What I failed to recognize at the time was the potential of online multiplayer gaming, in particular the massively multiplayer persistent worlds that now exist. I guess that's what I get for not playing any MUDs in college.

Finally, it was just this summer that, under the new corporate ownership, the 3^rd Edition of the D&D game was released. In general, it looks very much like a labor of love, that the designers have seriously thought about the play of the RPG game, and that they've addressed almost all the criticisms in my essay with regard to circa-1994 TSR product development. They've even brought back Gary Gygax to write some columns for Dragon magazine. The only issue where the new rule-set diverges from my preferences falls under "Simple Game Rules" in the last paragraph -- the skills & feats system creates very long character descriptions, and I've seen it bog down play with a lot of page-turning and debate over how to apply any particular skill. But, it general, the new rule-set and philosophy is a definite turnaround for the game from what has gone in the last ten or more years. It should be interesting to see where it proceeds from here.

Appendix