Dragons At Dawn: Experience Points

Anyone who has been following the old-school blogs for a while will remember the 2010 release of the Dragons At Dawn (D @ D) roleplaying game. Edited by D.H. Boggs, D @ D is a meticulously researched re-creation of the original fantasy game, as played by Dave Arneson at his gaming table from 1970-1973. That was prior to Arneson's collaboration with Gary Gygax, resulting in the 1974 printing of a little boxed set called Dungeons & Dragons.



D.H. Boggs did an admirable job of re-constructing those early rules and game approaches. Boggs also provided several direct quotes from Dave Arneson, on his approach to running a fantasy game and doling out experience points. I find Arneson's comments and original experience point system instructive, as it reveals just how far removed modern experience point systems are from the original purpose of the mechanic. Here's what Arneson had to say about experience points for roleplaying, as quoted in D @ D.


"The all pay lip-service to the roleplaying part, but they all end just having you roll different dice for different situations. There again, that has taken away from a lot of the spontaneity of actually roleplaying. When I do my games, I give roleplaying points for people staying within their character. If they want to go out and kill things, that's easy to do, and a lot of referees, that's all they do, but there's more to it. The richness is not in just rolling dice, the richness is in the characters and becoming part of this fantasy world." (Dave Arneson, Pegasus Magazine #14, 1999)


Not surprisingly, much of the criticism of later versions of D&D (and those other fantasy roleplaying games that have touted themselves as improvements to D&D) has been the focus, and pre-occupation, with making combat more prominent, cinematic, interesting, or (shudder) verisimilitudinous. Every version of D&D, and most competing systems, seem to spill inordinate amounts of ink creating ever-more elaborate and labyrinthine combat systems. This has culminated in what some players, of later versions of fantasy roleplaying games, lovingly refer to as "the grind", where most, or all of the gaming session is spent on one, or a few, combats.


Original D&D is oft-criticized for it's simplistic 'experience-for-gold-looted' mechanic. A fair criticism, from those who demand verisimilitude in their fantasy roleplaying. It is not realistic, they argue, that a person gains experience for lifting some gold and treasure out of a hole in the ground, don't you know.


D @ D uses a different set of methods for awarding experience points. One of those may be passing-familiar to those who use an 'experience-for-gold-squandered' mechanic.


"Wizards: Experience points are awarded to Wizards when they successfully complete the creation of a spell in the laboratory....Neither use nor casting of spells counts towards experience. If the player continues to make the same spell over and over, the referee may at some point opt not to recognize more experience points for it or give some lesser percentage. Likewise, the referee may opt to award more experience for successful new research.


Priests: Priests are awarded one experience point for every gold piece worth of treasure donated to their faith or otherwise spent in the service of their religion. Treasure must be gotten through the Priest's personal adventuring and cannot be donated by anyone else. Referees may take away experience points for any behaviour contradictory to the tenants [sic] of the Priest's faith.


All other classes: All other classes are awarded one experience point for every gold piece spent in accordance with the nature of the character. Referee's [sic] and players may develop special interests for the characters if desired, or simply award the points for any spending which is voluntary and not for some unusual project such as freeing a hostage or donating to a bridge construction project. Only cold, hard cash won through adventuring and subsequently spent may be converted to experience points." (page 43)


In the fantasy game originally played by Arneson, it was primarily through the recovery, and appropriate expenditure, of long-lost treasure hoards, that characters advanced in levels. Appropriate expenditure is a critical component for all classes, as it is only through the expenditure of gold (and the Wizard's case, both expenditure of gold for the spell-making materials, and time, in creating his spells) in ways meaningful to the character's motivations and interests that the characters can advance.


If you have not taken note yet, let me draw something striking about this experience points system to your attention now. No experience points for monsters killed in D @ D.


Monsters certainly appeared in Arneson's games, and were an obstacle to the recovery of treasure, but their destruction did not merit experience points.


Imagine removing the benefit of experience for monsters-killed and think just how radically this would change the nature of your fantasy roleplaying game.
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Rewriting The History Of Dungeons and Dragons

There is an old axiom: history is written by the victors. While I do not own the magazine from which the original article was drawn, there is a brief history of the origins of Dungeons and Dragons, appearing on page 29 of the Best of Dragon Magazine I. Written by Gary Gygax, it summarizes his take on the development of D&D. By the time Gary wrote that article, D&D was well on its way to becoming a huge hit. For me, and many others on the periphery of the hobby, that article became the accepted history of the game for many years. As Dave Arneson did not have his own pulpit from which to preach, few were aware of his perhaps different perspective on the development of the game. The internet has been of great assistance in providing us with a more varied and fulsome account of the early days of the hobby.

Dave Arneson, who is credited with co-authorship of Original Dungeons and Dragons, played a different variation of the game than was revealed in those early D&D rules. In Dragons At Dawn, D.H. Boggs attempts to recreate that game. Mr. Boggs also provides us with the following alternate history of the Dungeons and Dragons game:

"One of the wargame rulesets that became a big influence on Arneson's fantasy campaign had been co-authored by Gen Con founder Gary Gygax. After Arneson demonstrated fantasy roleplay gaming to Mr. Gygax in the fall of 1972, Gygax became extremely enthused, and offered to write up the rules for Arneson and publish them. Arneson had no means to attempt this himself at the time and young Dave [24] had collaborated once before on a set of naval rules with the nearly decade older [33] and well connected Gary, so he readily agreed to have Gygax take the lead on typing up and publishing the rules. He mailed Gygax a 16 page manuscript of his rules and consulted with him by phone. This collaboration led to the first published fantasy RPG game in 1974; a game that has continued to grow and attract new players. However the 150+ pages as published by Gygax and business partner Don Kaye were somewhat of a compomise between the way each author actually played, with by far the majority of the rules coming from Mr. Gygax. It was a similar, and yet in many respects, a very different game from what Arneson had been playing with his group in Minneapolis."

I think the subtext of this alternate history is interesting. We are fortunate to have a wealth of information about the early days, via the various discussion boards and gaming sites. I like to think that, some 35-40 years later, old hatchets have been buried, festering wounds have been lanced, and those on either side of the Gygax/Arneson authorship debate are sharing the same pub table, enjoying a couple of pitchers of beer, a plate or two of nachos, and swapping stories of memorable D&D campaigns of yore.Source URL: http://idontwanttobeanythingotherthanme.blogspot.com/search/label/dave%20arneson
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Don’t ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know.

Tavis Allison and Cyclopeatron are musing about whether or not to reveal the target numbers for successful melee attacks to their players.

Dave Arneson has an oft-quoted saying: "Don’t ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know." Essentially, Dave was advocating for keeping as much of the game mechanics off-stage as possible, thus allowing the players to immerse themselves in their characters and the world, rather than meta-gaming, or tailoring their play to the game mechanics.

While I concur with Dave's approach, and have been a vocal proponent of keeping much of the in-game mechanics behind the DM screen, both Tavis and Cyclopeatron make compelling arguments for (sometimes) revealing the to-hit numbers to the players.

The attached 'Percentage Index' table has been sitting on my computer desktop for several months. I think I came across it in one of my visits to the Original Dungeons and Dragons discussion boards. It seems rather Arnesian: rumor has it that, before the d10 and d20 became widely available, probability tables were constructed using the available dice-of-the-day, d6's. The above table allows you to calculate a d20/percentage probability from a throw of 2d6.

Dave Arneson was reportedly a fan of percentage systems. In my mind, I imagine this probability table hanging from Dave Arneson's DM screen, via a paper-clip, and, after calculating the percentage chance to hit, Dave peers over his screen and is saying, "Don’t ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know."Source URL: http://idontwanttobeanythingotherthanme.blogspot.com/search/label/dave%20arneson
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Dragons At Dawn RPG Review

While I was hoping to read a few more reviews of the new Dragons at Dawn RPG before I made the plunge and purchased it myself, my curiosity finally overcame my legendary steely resolve. I downloaded the $8 pdf version of Dragons at Dawn yesterday, and spent a couple of hours today immersed in 60-pages of Arnesian game design.

How does one review a role playing game like Dragons At Dawn? That was the question plaguing me as I prepared to write this blog entry. Several approaches seemed equally appropriate. I could review this game as a exercise in historical archaeology. In doing so, I would want to determine whether the author of Dragons at Dawn (D.H. Boggs) accurately captured the essence of Dave Arneson's gameplay. Alternately, my review could compare and contrast Dragons at Dawn to original Dungeons and Dragons. In applying that approach, I could alternately reveal where "Gary Gygax played it wrong" and where "Gygax provided a much needed tune-up". Or, I could evaluate Dragons at Dawn as a set of rules that must succeed or fail on its own merits. That would require me to consider this rule-set, in comparison to other recently and professionally produced role-playing games. Or I could acknowledge Dragons at Dawn as a labour of love by a die-hard D&D fan, and review it as a DIY effort. That would result in a different set of expectations, regarding completeness and usability. As a further alternative, I could review this as a supplement to an existing game, namely original Dungeons and Dragons. That approach would require that I consider how this adds to the already existing body of rules. I could also apply some or all of those five approaches. The later would result an extremely long post, and likely more research on the part of yours truly (particularly as regards number one).

Before I go any further, I need to say the following. What D. H. Boggs has done, in recreating the original Dave Arneson fantasy rules, is to be applauded. Dragons at Dawn is a superior effort. The author has recovered an important part of the history of Dungeons and Dragons. This offering informs our understanding of the original rules, as well as Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign, thus enriching our enjoyment of the game. This is well-worth the $8 investment.

In the end, I decided to review Dragons at Dawn as a supplement to the original Dungeons and Dragons game. In choosing to review it as such, I acknowledge that I am ignoring the stated intention of the author of Dragons at Dawn, to produce a complete system that represents the Arnesian approach to game play. While that intention is laudable, readers demanding that his effort be wholly successful, in a slim volume of 60 pages, seem unreasonable, when you consider that Gygax was afforded more than 250 pages to produce the original Dungeons and Dragons and the first three supplements.

As a supplement to original Dungeons and Dragons, Dragons at Dawn is a resounding success. It covers (in greater and lesser detail) such topics as cooperative versus competitive play between players, alternative classes such as the Merchant and Sage, variant multi-classing rules, an attribute-based task resolution system, rules for gaining further education and skills, fixed hit points by level, monsters as characters (including increasing their levels), adventure and setting design, random chance and fortune cards, a complicated morale-check system, a flowchart and matrix-based combat system, a spell creation system, non-adventuring experience acquisition suggestions, broadly applied alignment-based magic item rules, recommendations on tracking game time, and equipment lists that have ranges for the cost of various items.

Considered as a variant or augmentation to original Dungeons and Dragons, Dragons at Dawn offers a lot. Peppered throughout the booklet, you are further provided with nuggets of wisdom, being quotes from Arneson himself, culled from various interviews and forums. Those are a welcome addition, illuminating Arneson's gameplay approach and accumulated wisdom.

I am not qualified to comment on whether Boggs has fulfilled his stated goal, of faithfully recreating the game as played by Arneson, others, closer to Arneson can provide that assurance. I will also not wade in on whether or not Gygax got it right in original Dungeons and Dragons. As a collaborative exercise, original Dungeons and Dragons will necessarily contain a synthesis of their two game approaches. As for completeness and usability, the slimness of this volume almost necessitates its' use in conjunction with other gaming materials. But as a supplement or variant for OD&D, and as an illuminating look into the original fantasy campaign, you would be well-served by including this volume in your gaming collection.Source URL: http://idontwanttobeanythingotherthanme.blogspot.com/search/label/dave%20arneson
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