Comments on Gone Gaming: Adventure Games, Part Three: Dungeon Delving

One game along the lines of Dungineer that was pri...

2006-08-15T14:43:00.000-07:00

One game along the lines of Dungineer that was printed in the mid 90's was Arcadia by white wolf. It was a CCG in format but the play much more closley resembled what you describe as an adventure game than it did L5R or MtG. Play involved the players creating a map, hiding rewards on the map and then taking a character across it to complete a quest

little more than tactical exercises, where players...

2006-08-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

little more than tactical exercises, where players moved from one room to the next in a dungeon, cavern, or other carefully keyed location--and fought whatever they found within.

That's the way most people start playing D&D. Roll playing - particularly common, but not unique to, teenage boys. In my experience after a while they progress, usually without the aid of printed supplements, to role playing.

Possibly showing my age a bit here, but we were playing fully fledged D&D campaigns by the late 70s. We rarely used printed modules for adventures.

little more than tactical exercises, where players...

2006-08-11T07:39:00.000-07:00

little more than tactical exercises, where players moved from one room to the next in a dungeon, cavern, or other carefully keyed location--and fought whatever they found within.

This is exactly the way we played during my teenage years in the early 90s. We got a copy of the D&D Cyclopedia and spent most Suunday afternoon wondering through dungeons full of monsters and traps. We were like ten years behind the actual roleplaying world.

Shannon, you forgot two of the classic adventure g...

2006-08-11T06:40:00.000-07:00

Shannon, you forgot two of the classic adventure games - The Sorcerer's Cave and The Mystic Wood.

Both by the same designer, they were my path into the RPG universe (again around 1980); perhaps they just weren't as popular over there?

But before I finally went for D&D I got bitten by the Fighting Fantasy bug (Warlock of Firetop Mountain etc).

I started playing D&D in 1980 too, but I was ... 8...

2006-08-10T23:43:00.000-07:00

I started playing D&D in 1980 too, but I was ... 8. I know we had many a dungeon crawl for many a year;).

I think your point about players expanding beyond what they're offered is true, but I also think the supplements are a pretty fair representation of the general trends. There was storytelling before 1984 (and you could actually find it in other non-TSR publications), but I'm pretty confident it was an outlier.

Compare the average adventure book in 1980 and 2006 and the difference is notable.

--

And DW: if DMs let players out-lawyer them, they're honestly bad DMs. A good gamemaster uses the rules as a guideline, not a bible.

Shannon, the unique thing about D&D in the early d...

2006-08-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

Shannon, the unique thing about D&D in the early days was how user-driven it was. It's true that the early supplements included little room for storytelling. But the first sourcebooks were so basic and included so many holes in the rules that players entranced with the basic idea used them as a framework for their own worlds and their own mechanics. And many of those games were heavy on storytelling.

I was introduced to D&D (and roleplaying in general) in 1980, at the rather advanced age of 24. The folks I played with had all been playing for several years. The sessions I was involved with, and the ones they had played before I showed up, put a lot of emphasis on storytelling. I have no idea if the majority of adult games went that way, but surely a large percentage of them did.

The supplements were there to assist the players who lacked either the time, incentive, or imagination to create their own dungeons. This group was largely made up of teens. But that didn't mean that storytelling wasn't around until 1984. You really couldn't tell what the state of roleplaying was like in those early days just by looking at what the publishers released--the players themselves were a very dynamic part of the hobby.

Outstanding article.I tend to not enjoy games like...

2006-08-10T18:16:00.000-07:00

Outstanding article.

I tend to not enjoy games like Dungeoneer but Runebound appeals to me. You correctly discern the failing of adventure games though, which is exactly that lack of subjectivity that having a game master adds.

I actually don't care for RPG's either... but that's usually because there is so much data and so many ways to out-lawyer the DM that most games end up being what adventure board games are anyway... a quest for the biggest weapon and the most hit points.

One thing I believe sets apart board gamers from role-players is the desire in an RPG fanatics little world to bend the world to his/her wishes. This is often done by buying scores of books in the quest for the "character grail" that will satisfy.

I consider that similar to electronic gamers who play their games with cheat codes.

Board gamers, in my opinion, get satisfaction from working within a limited frame, a sharply defined set of assets and liabilities and reaching for an understanding about how best to balance everything in such a manner that they can win the game.

Just my thoughts. Keep them coming Shannon!