So Much Bad Design...

[Beoric]

If I may, I think there's a valid point to be made about the change in society being at the root of some of this. Most modern gamers come to tabletop RPGs after having grown up with video games that have NPCs only programmed to reply to certain answers and expecting to run fetch quests, etc. and my 20 something son has reported he's met GMs that run their games like that -- they can't improvise well if they can't see an answer to the question in the list of stuff the NPC is supposed to say.

And then there's the fact that there's SO MUCH MORE cool spec fic stuff available to watch than there was when, if I am inferring correctly, we were kidlings. Not to mention the video games. No wonder kids aren't reading as much (although don't get me started on them being force fed problem lit novels rather than being encouraged to read anything that will excite them about reading, as happened with both my children). Why read about a hero (or about mopey mopers who are powerless and selfish, as my kids were forced to do again and again by their schools, but I digress) when you can BE a hero in a video game?

So yeah, things have changed and will continue to do so and sometimes change is liberating and nifty at the same time it also can lead to new problems.

It's swell that the people who dig story games can go play them. I just hate to see other fantasy shoved aside, but maybe there's still room at the table. Seems like there is. I'm reminded of the way big fat fantasy has so dominated the fantasy book market that there's been no room for sword-and-sorcery for... decades, and that a whole bunch of modern readers don't know that fantasy doesn't HAVE to be glacially paced and info dumpy.

Well, sure, but the modules WotC has been pushing for years ALSO is filled with fetch quests and preprogrammed events. Like, seriously, read Dragons of Despair, which was published in 1984. Or better yet, listen to the gg no re playthrough, which is at least entertaining.

It's true that there being only a handful of decent fantasy movies back in the day, most of which aren't nearly as well done as the current stuff, left us hungry to create and play. But OTOH, I think seeing more fantasy that is well written makes my game better.

Sure, there are lots of ways of scratching the fantasy itch. But Classic TTRPG play is unique in the amount of agency it gives players. I am reluctant to assume that changes in pop culture are driving changes in playstyle, when new players don't really have the opportunity to try Classic play.

As you pointed out, the old modules themselves don't do a good job of teaching it. The new modules certainly aren't teaching it. WotC has no interest in teaching it (and doesn't eve seem to understand it). The only way to learn it is if your DM (read, parent, usually) teaches it to you, or if you get intrigued enough to do a lot of searching and reading grognards - much of which content is pretty negative, and often not particularly instructional.

Since the gateway is usually WotC marketing, to you or your DM, most new entrants to the hobby are going to learn gaming the WotC way. And if it feels a little flat, will they search out different styles of gaming? They would have to know those styles exist first.

We can't know if general changes in pop culture would discourage new gamers from Classic gaming, because (for the most part) new gamers have been given no opportunity to accept or reject it. My hypothesis is that people are more accepting of both fantasy and gaming in general, and there would be more acceptance of it than back when we started playing (1979 for me, I think). But until somebody actually starts doing studies, we just aren't going to know.

Anecdotally, I know when I talk about my game to gamers who started on late edition play, they are very interested in my game. And I may get a chance to to run a campaign for a bunch of people who started out with Trad games, so we will see how they enjoy it. This is actually why I am revisiting N1, since it has elements of both, and I think it will be a good tool for teaching skills for Classic play.

 

[The1True]

But once again I digress. My real point here is that you folks in these threads seem pretty cool and I like seeing your thoughts and I hate to see you arguing. Live long and prosper.

Don't worry about it. Most of the real haters haven't been around in a while. Without the diferring viewpoints this place would be a wasteland.

or about mopey mopers who are powerless and selfish, as my kids were forced to do again and again by their schools

I will never EVER forgive "Stone Angels". CanLit? More like CanShit!

GMs that run their games like that

Not gonna lie. Witcher and Fallout have been massively influencing my gameplay for the last few years. Sidequests are the best, and I've started reducing or removing time limits on major quests so the players aren't afraid to pursue distractions.

 

[The1True]

Mid-life crisis, and all that.

Seriously bro. Roll20 find a game. or Reddit find a game.
A buddy from my regular game group and I are trying out 5e (again) right now, and if we like it, we're going to find some other folks to broaden our horisons. If we don't like it, we're going to regress to PF1e and find some crusty GenXers to help us work through our massive backlog of accumulated adventure material.

Life's too short; Play more D&D!

 

[The Heretic]

I read this stuff and get to thinking that maybe 90 percent of gamers just view the hobby completely differently, as a constant combat game.

Praise be to poor Bryce for combing through all the crap to point us to the good stuff...

I found Bryce completely by accident. I was trying to find a PDF copy of a Dungeon magazine I was running an adventure from when I found his review (and skewering) of the adventure I was running. "Psh, what's this?" After reading a few more reviews I got hooked.

Bryce put into words what I was thinking when I was looking at all these old modules. Keep them interactive. Keep them interesting. Create g

 

[squeen]

Seriously bro. Roll20 find a game. or Reddit find a game.
A buddy from my regular game group and I are trying out 5e (again) right now, and if we like it, we're going to find some other folks to broaden our horisons. If we don't like it, we're going to regress to PF1e and find some crusty GenXers to help us work through our massive backlog of accumulated adventure material.

Life's too short; Play more D&D!

I plan to get on Classic Adventure Gaming Discord server with EOTB, Prince and the gang and start looking for AD&D games there. Once I get comfortable on-line I'll start DMing again. Folks here will be welcome, of course.

I've been spoiled in that one-shots feel hollow, so ideally I'd be looking to get something regular going if I can attract decent players.

Just in a funk at the moment. Life is paused while I rethink some priorities.

Mostly now I'm watching the Last Defense of the West unfold in real-time in the US. It's the miserable post-culture-war 1970's all over again---I just heard Japan may be entering stagflation of all things! Thinking about retirement & how to protect my family from possible treacherous times ahead if the current socialist/globalist trajectory continues. I always thought Atlas Shrugged was ridiculous and preachy, but these days...?? Rand lived through the Soviets. This is apparently what communist regimes do to prosperous nations they seek to control: Over spending. Cronyism. Corrupt judges. Property appropriations. Controlling food supplies. Travel restrictions. Weak policing and gangs running the cities. Forever wars. It's the standard playbook to drive a paniced populous into the eager arms of the new Totalitarian State. Surrended your liberties and we'll keep you safe! (After a little famine.) But I digress...(and probably sound like even more of a crazy old kook than usual to you youngsters.) Time will tell.

 

[Beoric]

So, thread cleanse.

 

[The1True]

So, thread cleanse.

It's worth a try...

 

[The1True]

Mostly now I'm watching the Last Defense of the West

The internet has a way of finding us when we are at our most alone and vulnerable. Giving us a great new group of friends who confirm all our worries and fears, and driving away family and old friends who may have questioned what we always felt to be true.

All we see is what we don't like about others while we run from what we know to be unkind about ourselves.

 

[squeen]

The internet has a way of finding us when we are at our most alone and vulnerable. Giving us a great new group of friends who confirm all our worries and fears, and driving away family and old friends who may have questioned what we always felt to be true.

All we see is what we don't like about others while we run from what we know to be unkind about ourselves.

I appreciate the sentiment. Sincerely. But I think that's pretty far off the mark. Yes, we are awash in propganda, and each and everyone of us will fall into a echo chamber if we're not careful (and maybe even if we are)---you included.

But it's simple really. I just want to be free to call it as I see it. Others may or may not agree (which is fine and healthy), but if you are going to mock me, or try to silence me---I'll tell you to piss off. I happen to have an opinion about objective reality that is different from yours. It's not an attack if my perceptions do not align with your tastes. Feel free to dismiss them. I won't go after you personally...but it's also not my problem if you take it personally. ("Hey! You have a negative opinion about something I like! That's a defacto attack on me! Take it back!", etc.)

I think many folks my age have grown tired of the passive aggressive cancel-culture, and collectively we're done with the bullying. We get it: you have a collective liberal views that tolerates zero dissent. However, politeness is required both ways, or else GFY. Show a healthy respect to others. Allow diversity of opinion and expression. I believe the cultural pendulum may be swinging back to the middle, but it's going to disturb some folks who thought they had somehow achieved total social control over what others can and cannot say. That's tyranny.

 

[The Heretic]

I think many folks my age have grown tired of the passive aggressive cancel-culture, and collectively we're done with the bullying. We get it: you have a collective liberal views that tolerates zero dissent. However, politeness is required both ways, or else GFY. Show a healthy respect to others. Allow diversity of opinion and expression. I believe the cultural pendulum may be swinging back to the middle, but it's going to disturb some folks who thought they had somehow achieved total social control over what others can and cannot say. That's tyranny.

I am not sure that this is the appropriate forum for this kind of discussion. This, after all, is a board about game design.

 

[The Heretic]

I think I have said this before, but it bears repeating. Modules like Hommlet are great because of the stories surrounding them, that DMs and players tell about how it turned out, which give some inkling about how to play. The transmission of this knowledge for a long time was of older players to younger players, but now there is a lot on the internet. But the kicker is, you need to know it is there to look for it, which is getting harder due to the enshitification of Google. OTOH, railroady modules teach DMs exactly how they are supposed to be run by laying everything out for them.

DMSGuild could really benefit from a series of supplements that explain how to run classic modules in the classic style, like a Beginner's Guide to Running the Village of Hommlet (or whatever).

I am curious, how would you run Hommlet? I ran T1-4 for my nephew and nieces close to 20 years ago, and I remember ignoring most of the in town stuff. Were you able to get any traction out of the village itself?


The Heretic

 

[Beoric]

So, I ran it in Eberron, in an area (the Eldeen Reaches) that is a former province of an established power (Aundair), but declared its independence a couple of generations ago. The predominant religion in Eldeen is druidic, while one of the major religions in Aundair is a particularly militant branch of the Church of the Silver Flame (my stand-in for Cuthbert).

When Eldeen declared independence, the Aundairan nobility in the region had to get with the program or leave. The family of the current Viscount of Verbobonc had to abandon its holdings there, and didn't like it; while the Church, which had a checkered history in Eldeen, lost influence there. The Viscount and the Church are allied in a sort of influence operation where they are just sort of moving people in an building stuff in the Viscount's old lands, and the locals have no systems or procedures for dealing with it (technically no laws are being broken).

So you have a mix of original villagers who are druidic, original villagers who are moderate followers of the Silver Flame, and newcomers who have a political agenda and/or are members of a more militant sect of the Church. The druidic types and the newcomers don't like each other, while the old members of the CHurch are being asked to pick sides and really don't want to. Meanwhile, bandit attacks are on the rise, and everyone has to work together to deal with the threat. The village elders are trying to keep a lit on it, and reluctantly have to let powerful newcomers like Terjon, Rufus and Burne in the Council because they have an obvious rule in the defence of the village.

So villagers snipe at each other, there is always the threat of a brawl at the Inn, and they are too focused on each other to notice or react to the threat that the Temple represents. If the party makes friends with one side they alienate the other, so you either get help from Jaroo or from Terjon, but not both. And since both sides are suspicious of each other, they are likely to accidentally misdirect the party as to who are the bad actors in town.

I haven't developed it more that that yet, because of course my players haven't engaged with ANY of this, they just recruited a couple of NPCs from the Inn and went straight to the moathouse.

One other thing I did was make sure that Lareth showed up at the Inn. I portrayed him as a wealthy noble that the townspeople were falling all over themselves to please (to the exclusion of any attention or service for the party). This was with the intention of annoying the players, and making them hate Lareth, but in a way that wouldn't cause them to outright kill him. So he was a known (and disliked) entity when they encountered him in the moathouse.

As presented, the village seems kind of idyllic. The tension between factions is mentioned, but not described. So you kind of have to make it up on your own. The basic thing I took from listening to AP podcasts and reading about other people's running of Hommlet is that the NPCs have to be active. They need to have plans and be doing things that intersect with the player's activities in the village. "Oh, the traders aren't so bad, but you know who's a real bad apple? That miller, I don't trust him at all. I hear he shorts the local farmers on their flour, and he has strange visitors in the night." NPCs that are identified as spies need to actively spy, in ways the PCs might notice. Have the PCs see when the potboy watches them carefully, and then runs off to the druid to report. People group together by faction, and speak in hushed tones; with everyone acting suspiciously, who do you know who is really a bad guy? Bandits from the moathouse, and masons from the work camp, need to come to town to spend money and cause trouble. Burne's men-at-arms need to pick fights with the party. People need to sneak around at night, sometimes for factional meetings, sometimes to spy, sometimes to liase with agents of the Temple; so the PCs have people to follow and spy on while they put all this together.

A rumor table would have been great - preferably one for each faction, depending on who you are talking to. And an encounter table that includes various things the NPCs could be doing that might interest the PCs.

 

[Malrex]

Rumor/gossip table in my opinion is one of the most important things in a city or town to make it come alive.

 

[squeen]

T1 was well done T2-4 (Nulb and the Temple) were much weaker.

T1 came alive through cross-data in the individual sites and the rich history of the region (due to play testing). It always was fascinating for me as a player to stumble into the aftermath of other parties' actions.

 

[The Heretic]

So villagers snipe at each other, there is always the threat of a brawl at the Inn, and they are too focused on each other to notice or react to the threat that the Temple represents. If the party makes friends with one side they alienate the other, so you either get help from Jaroo or from Terjon, but not both. And since both sides are suspicious of each other, they are likely to accidentally misdirect the party as to who are the bad actors in town.

That's a fascinating way to do it. Did you try to integrate all of the excess information from the location key into this? That's what always got me. We have descriptions of each and every house, with all these little interrelationships, but how do you use that as a DM? Get the the PCs to knock on the door to each house in the village? That's silly. I suppose you could create your own chart, but it would be asking a lot to have a beginning DM keep track of the 100+ villages in Hommlet.

(the ToEE video game handled the village in an interesting way)

The Heretic

 

[The Heretic]

T1 came alive through cross-data in the individual sites and the rich history of the region (due to play testing). It always was fascinating for me as a player to stumble into the aftermath of other parties' actions.

How much of that did you see as a player? Did your group end up talking to the various villagers at their homes?


The Heretic

 

[Hemlock]

Now I'm trying to play BECMI with my kids and I CAN'T UNTRAIN MYSELF. They're rolling dice to find the secret doors and open the locks. They have yet to trigger a trap, but I would imagine once they've been stung once, they'll be rolling dice for that as well. There's a huge room in B5 where a pair of tamed wolves are guarding the corpses of their dead adventurer masters. My kids wanted to just attack them. And on the other side, I've been trained to NOT coach the players, but who... is going to show these guys how to play? The elf NPC is like "hey, maybe those are pets. They look hungry..."

My first thought in this scenario is to emphasize emotion:

"You see three blood-spattered corpses lying on the floor, one of them with a rusty dagger through its eye socket. Between the corpses and you sit two sad-faced wolves licking each other's ears and faces. When they notice you come in, the wolves stand up and start growling softly. It seems that they don't want you to come any closer to the corpses."

If players choose to attack after that, I feel they've had fair warning that combat is not mandatory.

As far as rolling dice for secret doors and traps goes, just tell them not to do that, and that for now any dice rolling necessary will be done by the DM, after considering the totality of the situation.

 

[squeen]

How much of that did you see as a player? Did your group end up talking to the various villagers at their homes?

The Heretic

I barely remember playing T1 after it came out ('79!) after a friend bought it. He gets the distinction of introducing me to D&D (Holmes Basic w/ B1), but was too Monty Haul of a DM and I eventually started playing with some older HS kids that lived about a half-hour away in the north Chicago suburbs. They had started with the OD&D LBB---likely bought in Lake Geneva---a year or two earlier than me. That DM/group never played pre-written modules for the next 8-9 years. We bought almost zero of TSR's products after the 3 AD&D books came out, and still barely scratched the surface of most of our DM's various dungeons and worlds.

When I started out with the home campaign 30+ years later, I inserted it along a trade route to the larger city, presumably Verbobonc, but it was never traveled to, even though the Viscount's agents (including a rival NPC party) made their presence felt on a few occasions.

On their original visit (a small job posing as traders as a lure for bandits), they went to the Welcoming Wench, of course, and ended up hiring two local farm boys as henchmen and meeting Elmo. The local lads were their conduit into the backstories of the community. They did eventually (returning a short time later after a level or two) collaborate with Brune and Rufus and took on the job of exploring the Moathouse (for them?). In their first foray they discovered Lareth, but he was able to escaped and later sought revenge, chasing them back to their home-base several days travel from Hommlet. They had a few more clashes with him in various locales after that (including a memorable showdown in the B2 Temple) and finally, years later, killed him with a poisoned arrow as he attempted to elude them one last time. He was a wonderful love/hated nemesis.

My plan as a DM was that they would eventually return and be drawn into a (largely rewritten) ToEE with the Elder Elemental God in it's last level instead of Zuggtmoy. Agent's of Lloth would also make an appearance (instead of Iuz) and the would possibly become untrustworthy allies against the EEG while searching for the various "keys" to his prison. This never reached fruition because the party traveled much further east and north in the world (chasing Lareth), and that became the all original material campaign setting they played for the better part of a decade (posted here).

In Hommlet itself, there are the agents of the Temple to get mixed up with like Rannos Davi, the trader. The unreliable NPCs to hire at the Wench (e.g. Zert, Spugnoir, etc.). Our cleric joined the St Cuthbert chruch. I also recall they eventually interacted with the Ashstaff the druid, but only a little. Even years later, Burne and Rufus were consulted concerning world events, despite the fact that our party's level has exceeded theirs---a sort of faux White Counsil, to borrow a Tolkien term. Good NPCs of note still tend to be wise, for obvious reasons.

Hommlet became a template for me. I saw how you can have depth in a location that does not "jump out at you", but will slowly peel away after multiple visits---driven entirely by what the party is trying to do. Your task as a DM is to be familiar enough with the site to offer up those connections at the proper time. In many ways, that's why it's easier to do this with original content, because you've got a very clear picture of everything that's not in the foreground and when to hook them with the current action. Rumor tables are handy, but honestly, my players are a talkative bunch and end up finding out things in the conversation with NPCs that I, as DM, handle in a "natural voice", speaking the NPC's lines & dropping lures as necessary.

Hommlet feels both deep and unforced because it grew up organically from Gygax's rebooted Greyhawk campaign. It's got history, but it's not in-your-face, linear railroading. Instead it's something to be discovered (or not). It's what I tried to copy in my writing: potential energy. I think many of the later TSR staff writers were too dim to get how that's suppose to work.

 

[Beoric]

That's a fascinating way to do it. Did you try to integrate all of the excess information from the location key into this? That's what always got me. We have descriptions of each and every house, with all these little interrelationships, but how do you use that as a DM? Get the the PCs to knock on the door to each house in the village? That's silly. I suppose you could create your own chart, but it would be asking a lot to have a beginning DM keep track of the 100+ villages in Hommlet.

No, other than to note their faction and the odd bit of gameable content. Most of it was there just in case the players happened to knock on random villagers' doors, or loot random villagers' homes; Gygax didn't even name most of them, although Mentzer added a few names here and there. I mean, I did create a chart, but it was with information I made up, not the blandness of most of the villager entries (I mentioned here somewhere a couples of weeks ago that I have a spreadsheet to assist with that). Even there, I picked only a few villagers to highlight (people on the village counsel, people with PC classes, people who sell things the players might want to buy, and people with interesting entries like the gossipy woman, or the widower with a crush on the widow).

As @squeen notes, above, there is stuff that kind of jumps out at you - Temple agents and unreliable party members - but none of that plays with the religious and political tension that is supposed to exist, and squeen doesn't mention it as being part of his game. A lot of the info is extraneous, and could be replaced with a table of random names, household treasure, and how the treasure is hidden.

One thing I did was, I gave the original villagers surnames associated with their jobs - Smythe, Weaver, Taylor, Farmer, etc. - while newcomers had surnames that were not job related. A subtle code for the players to pick up on if they were looking for it. Which might have worked if they had talked to anyone outside of the Inn...

On my VTT villager's tokens are named, and coded for their faction, so where the module says that a random number of villagers will be present at the Inn, I could just pull tokens from a few households and drop them at the Inn. Ofc, the players never talked to anybody other than the obvious NPCs with question marks over their heads - Ostler, Zert, Elmo, etc., and just weren't social enough to have it come up. I may have to run it for a different group to get more out of it.

BTW, the gg no re playthrough of Hommlet is here.