Misconceptions: Common Tongue

"LANGUAGES: The "common tongue" spoken throughout the "continent" is
known by most humans. All other creatures and monsters which can speak have
their own language, although some (20%) also know the common one."

That is the direct quote from Book I: Men and Magic. The "common tongue" has been much maligned, in print as well as my gaming circles. "It doesn't make sense", goes the common refrain, "for all humans to speak a common language. Real life isn't like that." So, a bazillion languages spring up, complete with language trees sporting proto-linguistics, dead languages, ancient forms, and all that. That is a totally acceptable way to breathe life into one's creation, and I'm not criticizing any referee for doing it. My point is that the original authors were not advocating a global language, as the critics would later assert.

Yet, look more closely. The key, over-looked, phrase is "throughout the "continent"". In other words, the basic, local area. That, taken with the fact "common tongue" is in quotes, should be enough to convey the intent. It should be remembered that the D&D of the Little Brown Books did not have a setting attached. It simply was not possible to name a language for humans to speak, so it was simply called "common tongue". It was in quotes, and lower case. If a globe-spanning human language would have been the intent, it would have been written as Common Tongue. If we did want to draw a modern analogy, we could say that English is the "common tongue" of the continent of North America.

It is also worth noting that only 20% of non-humans speak it. So, it is definitely a human "common tongue", which is stated in the rule quote above. It is also "known by most humans", further evidence that the term "common tongue" was used as a matter of convenience, in the absence of a setting-specific language. Continuing the above analogy, English is known by most people of North American descent, with 20% of non-North Americans speaking it (obviously I'm not quoting demographics, just putting the "common tongue" rule into a real-world context).

That's it for the first installment of Misconceptions. I hope you enjoyed it, and that it may give you a new perspective on certain aspects of Original D&D. Thanks for stopping by.

Misconceptions

One of the problems with being the standard against which all else is judged, is that you are also judged. D&D, being the first RPG, naturally became that standard. So-and-so has more realistic combat. Such-and-such has better magic. Over the years, though, I think certain misconceptions have crept into the collective conscious. They come from a lot of places, mostly somebody taking something and twisting it around to shine a better light on their latest creation, or simply their favorite game. Advertising is a big source of these misconceptions, as game after game has touted its supposed superiority over D&D.

So, I'm starting this series about these misconceptions. The original D&D was a much tighter design than we have been lead to believe. The original D&D is actually quite an elegant little system. It isn't burdened with the level or depth of rules detail that many newer systems are.

Lastly, please note that in this series I am speaking strictly of Original D&D. That is, the Little Brown Books, the supplements Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Eldritch Wizardry.

S&W Character Sheet

I have uploaded a Swords & Wizardry character sheet to my Google Docs (link at bottom of blog). It is in PocketMod format. It is based on one I found for Labyrinth Lord, and modified slightly. So, there it is, then . . .

Fondly Recalling: The Fantasy Trip

Let's take a quick trip in the Way-Back Machine, shall we? The year is 1980, the place is a row of shops in Pembroke Mall, Virginia Beach, VA. A gangly, bespectacled 17 year old picks up something called In the Labyrinth . . .


 As I've said before, D&D was my first RPG. I started gaming life as a wargamer, though, but that's a different story. I was introduced to D&D by a friend of mine, I didn't discover it on my own. He was the DM, always, and I was the only player in his games. We played as constantly as two teens could manage. We lived less than a mile apart, so we played a lot.

Being a wargamer, too, I loved learning and trying new games. Being a mid-level teen from a four-child family, money was tight, so when I saw a little ditty called Melee, I was in. Melee was great fun. It was much more tactical combat (with a board and counters!) than D&D, which definitely got my wargamer blood a'flowing. Then came Wizard. Dueling mages, what could be cooler than that!? Magic-users, uh, sorry, I mean Wizards, actually duking it out on the sands of the arena, something I'd never done, or seen, in D&D. A magic system with points, rather than fire-and-forget. Damn!

Anyway, I played those two as often as I could find an opponent.

Then, that fateful day in The Alley. In the Layrinth was, I think, $7 or $8, somewhere in there. It was rich for my budget, but I had to own it. Here was a book that turned Melee and Wizard into a full-blown RPG. But not just any RPG. It had a combat system I loved, and a magic system I thought was the coolest thing since sliced bread. More than that, though, it was mine. Nobody lead me to it. Nobody taught me to play it.

(I should mention here, that I'm not trying to imply that my friend ruled our gaming. I wasn't a victim of RPG oppression or anything.)


I devoured In the Labyrinth as well as the first two Micro-quests. It was the first skill-based game I'd ever played. It had it's sticking points, sure enough (You mean there's only three stats?! I only get to use d6's?!), but they didn't diminish my love for the game. But, two trans-Atlantic crossing and three years later, and it was gone, along with Melee and Wizard. I'll always love it though, because it was my first RPG discovery.

The Book of Orange

I have uploaded the first installment of my personal Swords & Wizardry, which I am calling The Book of Orange, in honor of a friend. It is on my GoogleDocs page, link at the bottom of this blog. It is not intended for sale or distribution. It is made available for evaluation and comment only. The first installment consists of my take on classes, with pretty radical changes to the Cleric and Magic-User, plus other not so radical changes. My take on the dwarf and elf is there, along with alignment. Finally, there is a Magic chapter. It is an extensively re-imagined magic system, but still compatible with existing spell lists. I invite anyone interested to read over it and offer any constructive comments.

Irony

Irony can be such a subtle thing. This thought occurred to me whilest reading some forum posts about "What is S&W?". One of the staple answers to such a query always involves house ruling. Back in the days of 0e we house ruled. AD&D tried to do away with that. It was an attempt to cover all the bases. Not to stifle creativity, just to establish a common tongue, as it were. The idea was that if you sat down at 20 different AD&D tables at 20 different conventions, they would all be the same AD&D.

The real death knell for creative thinking in D&D was actually the internet. There have always been plenty of people willing to step up and create new classes, subclasses, systems for this or that, and so on and so forth. Back in the day, you had to wait for the next issue of Dragon to access these folks, and they never directly addressed your needs. You took what was on offer or you didn't. Then came the internet.

Consider this: In 1977 if you wanted a different magic system, you made it yourself. In 2007, you Google it. There are plenty of people who have already done the work. If you don't like one, there're plenty more. Their work is still considered house rules, but not your house. DMs (I prefer the original term, Referee) became lazy. Since the advent of AD&D they had been discouraged from deviating from the written word. Now of the intrepid few that did, many of them just used the work of the other intrepid few.

Then, as irony would have it, the internet came to the rescue. Games like S&W, Labyrinth Lord, and BFRPG sprang up. Not only do they encourage individual referee's to house rule and customize, they require it. And, thanks to the internet, they are in wide distribution among players who share their passion for such gaming on forums and across the blogosphere.

Long live the clones and the intellectual exploration they engender!

Alignment and the Cosmology of Kalagris

     There are three alignments in the Kalagris campaign: Law, Chaos, and Unaligned. The great ideological conflict of the world isn't concerned with Good and Evil. Chaos is literally destroying the world piece by piece. While good vs evil is important at a personal level, at the cosmic level, it comes in second. Far more pressing is where your character stands in the Law vs Chaos struggle.

     No one in the world, not ancient elven scribes or the most erudit human philosophers, understands the true nature of what is happening to the world. As horrific as it may be, it is a natural part of the process of birth-death-rebirth. Ultimately, it is natural. To the people living through it, it is something else entirely.

     It is the ultimate confrontation between Law and Chaos. That is where the line is drawn: are you aligned with the powers of Law, and thus the continued, ordered existence of Kalagris, or are you aligned with Chaos, bent on the unravelling of the world and all within it? This polarity means that people may find themselves allied with strange bedfellows. There are plenty of people and organizations that resist Chaos. Some do so to protect their own evil existence, some do so out of a sense of duty. Yet, when it comes time to take arms, they stand shoulder to shoulder. They can sort out their “personal” problems another time.

The Alignments

Law

     Essentially, those aligned with Law stand against the forces of Chaos. It is important to understand that they stand against Chaos. It is not merely a philosophical choice, it is a plan of action. In principle virtually everyone on Kalagris is Lawful in word, but the Law-aligned are Lawful in deed, taking the fight to the enemy, actively resisting the Chaos Gods and their agents.

Neutrality

     Like Law, this isn't a simple withdrawal from the struggle, it is a sincere belief that one has no place in that struggle. Merely declining to become involved isn't enough. Truly neutral characters are extremely rare.

     Druids

     Druids are among the only true neutral people on Kalagris. They have a sense that the Chaos Encroachment (as they call it) is a part of some cosmic cycle. They believe (mistakenly) that the Maelstrom is a machination of the Chaos Gods. According to their conclusions, it is simply time for the Chaos Gods to be ascendant. Being a part of the natural cosmic cycle, it is beyond the reach of anyone on Kalagris to interfere. This includes agents of Chaos seeking to call down the Maelstrom (it should advance at its own pace), or seeking some personal gain in the name of the Encroachment.

Chaos

     Those aligned with Chaos are believed to be mad by virtually everyone else on Kalagris. Some welcome and embrace the Maelstrom to varying degrees, believing in the powers of Chaos in a very literally sense. There are some that believe in it in a more philosophical sense, viewing the tenets of Chaos figuratively, believing it represents their freedom. Finally, there are those who follow the Chaos Gods, slaves to their whims. In spite of the varied nature of those aligned with Chaos, they are universally met with distrust, at best. In some provinces a known Chaotic alignment is grounds for a summary execution.