Dungeons and Dragons

Hail and well met, Templars And Sorcerers!

As I'm sure you all know by now, I am a fan of role playing games in general, and specifically Dungeons and Dragons.  Don't worry, I'm not going to post yet another online recount of the history of Dungeons and Dragons, and aren't you glad of it?  I know I am!

The main point I want to make is that D&D has evolved throughout the years and grown through many different editions of the game.  Some insightful person once remarked that D&D is like Doctor Who, whichever edition you first encountered is the one you think is "best".  

My first exposure to D&D was the B/X version, which was soon replaced by the BECMI version.  This version consisted of a collection of boxed sets, each containing rules for the increasing levels of game play.  The firs one was the Basic set, then Expert se rules, Companion set, Master set rules, and finally the Immortal rules.  The initials of these levels give this version its name:  BECMI.

I played some BECMI, which was eventually combined and compressed into the Rules Cyclopedia.  When this version of the game was no longer supported, I graduated to Second Edition AD&D.  

Sometimes I actually got to be a player, but usually if I wanted to play at all, I had to be the Dungeon Master and run the game.  Between playing and DMing, I got to poke around (at least a little bit) in a LOT of generic, unnamed fantasy worlds.  

I found out that I enjoyed creating these little worlds, although in retrospect, I think they often were composed of more-or-less the same elements.  Like I said, they were pretty generic, trying to accommodate all the standard races from the rulebooks.   Of course there were variations on the theme.

I found D&D helpful in practicing my world building, and certain aspects of plot structure.  And I must admit, during my teenage years, I started countless little fantasy stories that were straight up inspired by the information in those rulebooks.  I began to see the elements in the stories of Conan, or Fafhrd and Mouser that helped inspire the game.  Slowly, I got a better understanding of these concepts, and how to employ them.  But-ho boy!  Those early attempts were pretty bad!  But hey!  Ya gotta start somewhere!

I've always had a healthy imagination, but I do think D&D helped me to hone and harness that into whatever rudimentary writing skill I have today.  I've written many a D&D adventure, and a fair few stories.  There's a big difference in the composition of those two things.

First of all, writing an adventure for an RPG has aspects that are easier than writing a story, and other aspects that are harder.  For an adventure, you basically just have to come up with a situation, a problem, or a puzzle.  It's up to the players to figure out how to solve those situations.  Of course, sometimes you have an answer in mind, and it can be mind-blowing when your players decide to do something that you've never even considered a possibility.

On the other hand, if you're writing a story where this motley group of misfits explores the Haunted Castle, you don't have to create the ENTIRE castle like you would for a game.  You have to come up with the parts that turn out to be important to the plot.  In fact, if you have your characters explore every room in that castle, you would probably have a long, repetitive, and cumbersome story.  

On the other hand, you could make sure that the characters do...whatever you expected them to do when they come upon this problem or that puzzle.  Of course, you could miss out on the players doing something exceptionally cool and unexpected.  But you would avoid the Incredibly Stupid Thing that players always seem to decide to do.

Six in one, a half-dozen in the other, I guess.

Personally, I think my D&D game has improved because I'm trying to be a writer.  But I think me trying to be a writer has improved from playing D&D.  It's a weird, symbiotic, chicken-or-the-egg situation.  

I have tried, in the past, to write up D&D game sessions as stories, and some of them turned out pretty badly.  Others were a little better.  However, I've tried to use D&D to compose elements and ideas for stories, and I think that has turned out rather well.  Perhaps these elements are identifiable in my stories, perhaps not as badly as I think--they may be shrugged off as being influenced by the old pulp stories that I am a fan of.  

I still use RPG game supplements for inspiration and ideas for characters and potential plot points.  But of course, inspiration can sneak up on you from just about anywhere--books, TV shows, songs, the way one guys says his line in that commercial...  Like I said, inspiration can just ambush you like a ninja.

I still collect PDFs of some of the older D&D stuff that I missed out on.  And also new stuff published for the Old School Renaissance movement.  I'm especially fond of Labyrinth Lord, as it is basically a re-invention of the B/X version I started out with.  It's not bogged down with too-many rules, and it's a nice streamlined game.  It's quick and easy--that probably doesn't say much about me, ha!

What version of D&D, or what retro-clone do you play?  I'd love to hear about it, so leave a comment below!  

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell