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Luke's Thoughts on the Moldvay edition of Dungeons & Dragons: Basic Set
Hello friends, in this essay I provide more background on the experiences that drew us to our deep dive analysis of the heuristics of the Dungeons & Dragons: Basic Set. If you havenโt read it, you can find the posts in this table of contents.
In February 2012, Burning Wheel HQ began a years-long foray into the world of Dungeons & Dragons: Basic Set. Our group fluctuated somewhat but the core was myself as the game master plus six players: two ladies and four gentlemen. The players had a range of experience with D&D: from none at all, to grognardia, to having worked on the brand.
We used the Moldvay Basic and Cook Expert books as our primary rules texts. And only myself and one other player had experience with this particular edition.1
Our campaign began as an experiment with my Torchbearer co-author Thor Olavsrud to understand how "original" D&D was played. As game designers, we set out to play as close to the rules as possible. While this edition is indeed oldโpublished in 1981โit is a far cry from the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons. It is, by my count, the fifth edition (editions being: The first, three Holmes editions, then Moldvay). I chose this edition over the Gygax/Arneson and Holmes editions because it contains a defined set of procedures that I could follow, not just for the subsystems, but for the entire structure of play: character creation, the adventure, parley, combat, advancement and recovery. I feltย I could play this best as written and thus get closer to how it was intended to be played.
The Perfect Adventure Doesnโt Exist
In order to ensure our experience was in line with what the original designers intended, I used their published adventures rather than our own creations. Since the Moldvay edition is the genesis of "Basic" D&D, we assumed (incorrectly) that the B series of modules published during that period were built for this version of D&D.
In the end, we played through:
B1, In Search of the Unknown (one time)
B2, Keep on the Borderlands (four different times with four different groups)
B3, Palace of the Silver Princess (one time)
B10, Nightโs Dark Terror (four different times with four different groups)
and X3, The Curse of Xanathon (with two different groups)
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With other groups I ran at the time, we also played:
L1, The Secret of Bone Hill
I2, Tomb of the Lizard King
A1, Slavepits of the Undercity
The Wreck of the Shining Star
X1, The Isle of Dread
A2, The Secret of the Slaverโs Stockade
and I1, Dwellers of the Forbidden City
TSR Adventure module covers
Most of these scenarios are, quite frankly, a mess. Theyโre poorly organized, poorly written and poorly conceived. They often disregard the rules they purport to support and, to make matters worse, they are replete with problematic content.
Even the best among them, B2, Keep on the Borderlands, is no exception. It is a horror show of essentialism and patriarchal nonsense. Even its core frame skirts the conceit of Basic D&D. The red book is expressly built only for dungeons, not wilderness or town, but B2 provides a map of the keep/town and small wilderness area containing potential scenarios.2
A Digression into the Borderlands
In B2, the characters sortie out to adventure from the eponymous Keep on the Borderlands to the Caves of Chaos. I want to be careful not to spoil this adventure as it is an excellent scenario containing many layered puzzles. Suffice to say, at the Caves they must root out a deeply entrenched, and rather extensive, infestation of monsters and servants of Chaos who threaten the eponymous Keep.
I think this module's design is genius because it evokes exactly what this era of D&D is about: exploration and puzzle-solving. The puzzles are geographical, social, magical and physical in natureโon a variety of scales, from tiny objects, to map-wide. Exploration serves to reveal information that serves in solving the puzzles. The design is simple in execution, but surprisingly subtle. One solution opens one possibility and closes the others. When we played, it was easy for me as the dungeon master to make the Caves feel alive. In fact, I had a sense that Gygax had designed this scenario and then Moldvay re-edited the D&D rules to evoke the experience of playing Keep on the Borderlands.
While they lost seven brothers and sisters on their journey, our WeD&D group completed B2 in grand style: In the finale, their plans were so effective, their exploration so thorough, that the victorious player characters suffered not a point of damage in the final confrontation, even though I opposed them with a mind-boggling array of villainy.
Darker Moments
Even with clever play, the game is unflinchingly deadly. Between six players, they lost 13 characters in their first 12 sessions, not including archers, soldiers, torch-bearers and haplessly charmed denizens. Such a grim death toll is unheard of in contemporary versions of Dungeons & Dragons.
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In fact, I submit that though they share a name, these are two different gamesโand this 1981 edition of the game does not cater to modern sensibilities. Which is exactly why we bowed our heads to it. The game is deceptively simple, and almost friendly in tone, but truly it is a harsh mistress, breaking our hearts and hopes as we map, call, fail our saves and get swarmed and killed by kobolds.
During one of the darker moments of the game, when curses flew as adventurers fell, my players turned to me and said, "Don't worry; don't feel badly. It's not you. It's the game."
What a tremendous thing to say.
Submission Is an Act of Enlightenment
Our experiences showed us that this iteration of Dungeons & Dragons isnโt a farce and it isnโt broken. It is a magnificent game. The previous editions contain seeds of the hobbyโseeds of greatness in themโbut this edition elevates the entire practice with focus and digestible procedures. It contains a fully realized visionโa vision of a monster-filled world, riddled with dungeons, ready to be plumbed by desperate heroes.
However, approaching the game was challenging due to our preconceptions about Dungeons & Dragons as it evolved.3 So we took great care. Rather than bending the game to our predilections, we bent our collective will to the game. We learned it, and it taught us. While it can be cruel, there is a savage logic operating underneath it's Erol-Otus-drawn skin. Something that we could grasp, even if it hurt. Once we divested our modern notions of fantasyโof Dungeons & Dragons, evenโand subjected ourselves to its simple, deadly logic, we leveled up as players, as friends and even as game designers.
PTSD&D
What have I learned throughout this process? I can break it down into three things:
Make no assumptions.
Set aside your biases
and play the game.ย
At the table, the group was often engaged, but not at the level I'm accustomed to with Burning Wheel. For most players, interactions with the system are simple and briefโeither a die roll or two, or the selection of an expendable resourceโwhile the engagement via the caller and mapper is very high. There's a little character play, but nothing as intense as what I'm accustomed to. But layers of minute decisions are so fraught with peril, I had nightmares later that night after our games (as did other players). We called it PTSD&D.
I learned that it's a hard game to run. Not because of prep or rules mastery, but due to the role of the dungeon master as impartial conveyer of really bad news. And, since the exploration side of the game is a cross between Telephone and Pictionary, I often sat impassive as the players make bad decisions. I wanted them to win. I wanted them to solve the puzzles, but if I interfered, I would have rendered the whole exercise pointless.
Through this exercise, I gained a deeper understanding why fudging dice is the worst rule ever proposed. My players' sense of accomplishment for having defeated B1, B2, B3 and B10 is enormous. They went through hell and death to survive long enough to level. The players have their own stories about how certain scenarios played out. They developed their own clever stratagems to solve the puzzles and defeat the opposition. Hell, X survivedโfrom the first session to the last. Given what we know now about the survivability of fighters, the improbability of it boggles my tiny brain.
If I fudged a die, I took that all away. Every bit of it. The game would become my story about what I wanted to happen, not theirs. The players, rather than being smart and determined and lucky, would pander to my sense of dramaโto what I think the story should be. A practice I find profoundly less interestingโand such a stance even exceeds the authority assigned to the dungeon master by the game.
A Dungeon Hotrod
This edition of the game is hackable in the same way a hotrod is customizable. You can tune the engine, try different tires and even change the chrome, but you can't take it off-road. This game is a hotrod built to explore dungeons. As soon it moves away from puzzle-solving and exploration, the experience frays. There are precious few levers for the players to pull once they're out of their elementโthe dungeon. Heaven forfend, for example, that we get into an in-character argument at the table. The game is utterly silent on that resolution. Might as well knife fight.
Trve Kvlt D&D
For me, I need to experience games so I can internalize them. As soon as I feel that haze of nostalgia drifting through me, I know my critical faculties have failed me. Getting the chance to pierce the veil of nostalgia and look at this game with fresh eyes has been a poignant reminder not to pretend nostalgia is knowledge.
This exercise also engendered an equally dangerous sentiment: I have that terrible urge to claim to know the true D&D.ย D&D has mutated into quite a beast in its lifetime. And it seems that everyone who plays it claims to know the truth, the best way to play (I think this one of the magical qualities of the game).ย Now that we've gone back and played 1981 D&D we are better D&Ders than 1982 and onward! Right? Maybe, but probably not.ย
D&D isn't one thing anymore, if it ever was. Today, itโs an idea, a culture, a brand, a product, a hobby, a folk practice and, occasionally, a game. It's a broad canopy covering a lot of flora and fauna. This old tree that we climbed is just one part of the forest of ideas that sprung up in the wake of 1974. Getting a feel for how the game was played in 1981 certainly helped me see the current iterations more clearly, and it helped me identify design decisions made in this edition and others. I can see how those decisions have ramified through play, through the folk practice and through the culture over decades and editions and traditions surrounding the game.
So, as much as I'd like to lay claim to it, I do not believe I have found the one true way. It's a great game, and I encourage you all to play, but in the end it is merely one game out of many.
Next week, we conclude our reflections on Dungeons & Dragons: Basic Set with one of Lukeโs favorite examples of why this game will break your fucking heart.
If youโd like to hear more, you can listen to our companion podcast here.
And I'd only played Cook Expert when I was a lad. I still have that book. Very sturdyโthough it has suffered from much abuse at my hands.
And like B1, B2 was designed for the Holmes edition, predating Moldvay's publication by a year.
Starting its divergence in 1977, before this game was even published in 1981.