The Making of a 1980s Dungeons & Dragons Module

An anonymous reader writes: Over at Medium, Jon Peterson (author of Playing at the World) has put up a new in-depth article covering the internal process at TSR that created Dungeons & Dragons modules in the 1980s. The adventures created at that time (by the likes of Tracy Hickman, then a staff designer) paved the way for many later computer role-playing games, and this piece shows how TSR work was pitched, storyboarded, proofed, edited and organized. With the positive reception of the new 5th edition of D&D and the attention paid to the fortieth anniversary of the game, the historical record behind modern gaming gets ever more important.

Comments

It was a lot more social

[msobkow]

When we played, it was a far more social game than any of the electronic equivalents. A good dungeon master would let you try creative solutions for problems that weren't pre-programmed, sometimes throwing the game into entirely uncharted territory. More importantly, your team-mates were characters with personality, not just players with supporting stats.

How often does the thief in the party actually steal from team-mates in the electronic versions? Yet our team had a thief character who would do exactly that -- swipe anything that wasn't nailed down -- and sometimes use a crowbar if it was. :)

Re:I remember playing

[gl4ss]

...so is blizzard going to bring on their first role playing game soon or something?

they made an ok nethack clone back in the day (18 years ago? or something) with a really neat rendered intro video but it wasn't much of a role playing game and then they made a virtual amusement park game with multiple players and rides that you needed 40 people to go through but I haven't heard of them producing a rpg yet..

Re:Fun article. But "Quagmire"?!

[wonkey_monkey]

Giggygaxiddy.

Professional, soulless dungeons vs. real played

[DNS-and-BIND]

"For me, "hobbyist" refers not esthetics so much as *origin*. That is, whence did game X or module Y come? Was it created to fill a slot in a production schedule or did it arise out of play? That's the big difference between, say, Gygax's Giants-Drow series and the Dragonlance modules. The former were professional write-ups of adventures based in actual play, whereas Dragonlance was conceived from start to finish as an effort to sell modules. Certainly Dragonlance borrowed elements from adventures and campaigns that were actually played (like Jeff Grubb's deities), but there was no such thing as a Dragonlance campaign prior to its being written up for sale, unlike nearly adventure Gary Gygax wrote during his time at TSR."

-- James Maliszewski, Grognardia.blogspot.com

Re:How many virgins were involved?

[alphatel]

Not sacrifice, just the 40 year old kind?

Well that brings me to a fun story of how I got into D&D. I was trucked off by my parents to Florida one summer to stay with a relative for a few weeks. Lucky me there was a hobby store nearby and I had stashed a jar of quarters that had been untapped all year. After looking around for a few hours (what else was there to do in Florida when you're 14?), I found the D&D books, they were already second edition but something about them intrigued me. They were way beyond the scope of playing a video game (we're talking monochromatic consoles/handhelds back then), but they offered so much wealth in terms of creation and exploration. I made the decision to buy a kit complete with DM Guide, Monster Manual and a few starter adventures. I went to the register to inquire if my terms could be met.

I asked the nice lady behind the counter "Can I pay with all quarters (in my New York accent which I didn't know until that day that I had one)" To which the lady replied "What are kawters?". I hadn't brought any with me, so it took me a few minutes to explain that 25% of a dollar was a coin that had a $0.25 value. When she finally got it she said "Oh you mean Kwat-ers." I came back the next day and paid with my Kwa-ters, laughing the whole way. It's one of those things you never forget, and part of it was because it was about D&D, a game that literally helped saved the bored skull of a preteen.

In the end, I actually became friends with someone I never got along with previously, simply because we wound up at a rather raucous D&D game together. Still best friends decades later.

5th Edition kind of sucks

[jsepeta]

D&D 5e brings back a lot of the crap I didn't like from 3.x, ignores positive changes made to the game in 4e (powers, tactical battle with miniatures, skill challenges) and introduces a couple of new things: higher prices for books, missing information on how to handle certain situations (for instance: poison), and advantage/disadvantage. All summed up, it's got me saying "meh". The fact that the core rulebooks cost $50 each instead of $20-$30 makes them out of the price range of what 12 year-olds can afford (the age when I started playing AD&D). It seems to me that WotC really fucked up this release, not having the PHB, DMG, and MM ready at the same time. Yes the new books are gorgeous, but have you ever had to use them for building a character or referencing information mid-game? I give it a C.

Re:5th Edition kind of sucks

[Chibi Merrow]

I'm pretty sure there's precedent for staggered releases of the core rulebooks. 3.5 and 3rd edition were like that, from what I remember, which actually allowed some third-party publishers to swoop in and fill the gap a bit for a few months.

Also I find it amusing that the things you list as "positive" changes to 4th edition are the exact things people like myself didn't like about it. Considering Pathfinder is far and away the best selling tabletop RPG today, it seems people who liked the 4e "improvements" are in the minority.

I'd also add that when I bought the 4th edition books, I was shocked to see they lacked rules for crafting (or anything not related to combat, really), stats for metallic dragons, or really any information about monsters other than their most basic combat statistics. So, again, precedent.

After seeing 5th edition played, and talking to the designers, I'm much more hopeful for it. At the very least, my group is going to try the starter once we're done our current Pathfinder campaign.

Still playing 1e after 35+ years

[HBI]

It works (tm). Sure, the books are poorly organized and not every situation is covered, but that is a strength, not a weakness. If some player decides to do something, you evaluate the chances using your head (remember that?) and roll the dice.

The Giants series is fun. Players are currently at the bottom of the Hall of the Fire Giant King killing trolls after routing the Drow. Soon, they will be heading into the (later titled) Underdark...searching for the Vault of the Drow. Homemade modules are still the best, though. Underneath Nulb, that nasty town where the Temple of Elemental Evil is located, a whole series of dungeons exists in my world. Its most powerful inhabitant is the lich Gehirn, who asks riddles - trading your life for his magical goodies.

A popular religion in the area is the worship of Goatse. The holy symbol is two hands clutching a ring. I believe that worship is popular here, too.

Anyway, anything that can keep adults in their 30s and 40s occupied once every two weeks and having fun is a good thing. Who needs 5e?

Re:Still playing 1e after 35+ years

[Whorhay]

I didn't start playing until 2nd edition I believe, but I feel much the same way. The more I read about the newer editions the more it sounds like they are trying to imitate video games. Which is amusing because what I always wanted was a video game that would imitate the open world sandbox and freedom of D&D and similiar games.