The Cycle: Intermission — My Personal History with D&D

 Before the Cycle moves forward, I want to take a moment to share how I first met D&D.

In the Fall of 1976, I was 14 years old. I lived on the navy base in Millington, TN. My best friend, John, and I played some Avalon Hill strategy games, Tobruk and Panzer Leader, mostly. At school I had been seeing people walking around with copies of The Sword of Shannara and Lord of the Rings. I didn’t know what they were, but the covers definitely caught my attention – and my imagination. I had also seen guys talking over things drawn on graph paper and rolling dice. I overheard a conversation with a dragon. I couldn’t make sense of it, but I was fascinated.

One Saturday John came to my house, very excited. He told me to come with him, that there was something going on at the community center and he wanted me to see it. I didn’t know that John had already sat in on a session. Obviously, it was D&D, but not just any D&D. It was the so-called LBB (Little Brown Books) D&D. By this time the first three supplements were in circulation as well. I was hooked.

In those days, $10 was a princely sum for a 14-year-old, so the boxed set of the first three books were out of the question. Copying was in its infancy, scarce and expensive, so John took it upon himself to hand copy the first three booklets. Somehow we acquired a photocopy of Supplement I, Greyhawk, and parts of Supplement III, Eldritch Wizardry. After that, almost all of our time was spent playing.

I have so many fond memories of D&D. I’ve played every major edition at least once. I eventually scored the boxed set, as well as Holmes basic. D&D taught me basic arithmetic to a high degree. I learned how to count the pips on a handful of d6s at a glance. I made enduring friendships and lasting memories. This “game” has been my constant companion through every up and down I’ve found my way into. Through its lens I’ve come to understand things that may still evade me had I not had it.

My beloved game, my steadfast friend, has changed so much since it first entered the world. Almost immediately, it began to be forcibly morphed into something it wasn’t meant to be. Its combat system was abstract, and never intended to be a realistic combat simulator. Yet beginning with Greyhawk, that was the very role it was forced into. Unfortunately, every change made in support of that goal, in search of “realistic combat”, required multiple rules to prop it up. The cruft grew exponentially throughout the system, and by the time of AD&D, the game I cut my teeth on was buried. Buried, but not dead.

Supplement after supplement, edition after edition, moved D&D further away from its simple, yet profound philosophy. I don’t fault the luminaries that brought it to life. They were answering public demand and corporate realities. In fact, I’m not even sure they fully comprehended the lightning they had captured. Yet, they did bolt system after system onto the simple chassis. As each new system burdened the elegant engine, they sought to remedy the burden by more systems. Every abandonment of a simple truth required yet another “fix”. A myriad of classes, combat rules, and alterations to the magic system came and went. My beloved game, my friend, had become an artifact, a historical curiosity. It was something to look at and marvel, “How did this mess ever become successful?”

I intend to rectify that by stripping away decades of accumulated cruft — not by writing yet another fantasy heartbreaker or retroclone, but by revealing the original philosophy implied by the rules themselves. Only the rules from the first three booklets, Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and Underworld & Wilderness Adventures will be considered. There may not have been a guiding philosophy while the rules were being hashed out, but an implied philosophy is revealed in hindsight. It is a philosophy that is at once robust yet graceful, implied but existential. More than all that, though, it is worthy. It is worthy of respect, not only as an artifact or historical oddity. It is worthy as a game. It’s not broken, flawed, simplistic, or incomplete in its systems. It’s worth playing, on its own strengths, of which there are many.