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Comment by platz | Hacker News Reader

Actually, dnd is a stylized, simplified form of wargaming that gained popularity in the early 20th century, replacing formulas with dice rolls.

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I disagree. Obvs D&D evolved out of a literal wargame (chainmail). And there are a lot of influences from wargaming, but 90% of the focus (from the beginning) was on: - Characters who grew and changed each time you played - Exploring party dynamics having more to do with narrative than mechanical intricacies - Unreal places that were presented as living breathing spaces to explore - Module design was a mixed bag. Most of the places didn't make literal sense. I could see someone making the argument they were just a loose collection of wargame-like scenarios linked by hallways. But if memory serves there was a balanced mix of fighting, tricks, traps, and puzzles, as well as other non-combat encounters

I'll admit I didn't play until AD&D in about '84 - was the original edition really that different in focus?

> I'll admit I didn't play until AD&D in about '84 - was the original edition really that different in focus?

The original edition or white box D&D was about as deep as Diablo 1. You rolled up a PC, the DM designed a dungeon -- not a campaign, they just built a dungeon -- and then the PCs tried to survive it. That's all it was about.

As I understand it from people who played it and from interviews with Gygax, the primary difference is that OD&D was far more free-form than than later editions - so free-form that it placed a tremendous burden on the dungeon master to fill in the gaps and limited its audience to hardcore gamers.

Again, based on what I've read, part of Dave Arneson's original innovation that became OD&D [1] was that your character continued from game to game, giving the player a personal interest in the character and also engagement in developing them. That would seem to disagree with the parent's description.

[1] Like all innovations, Arneson's was a product of earlier ones such as Braunstein by Dave Wesely.

> As I understand it from people who played it and from interviews with Gygax, the primary difference is that OD&D was far more free-form than than later editions - so free-form that it placed a tremendous burden on the dungeon master to fill in the gaps and limited its audience to hardcore gamers.

It depends on exactly what you mean. OD&D ran from 1974 to 1977 or 1979, so there's actually a fair bit there. If by "original D&D" you mean the first boxed set which had three booklets: Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, then it really is as I described it. There were 3 character classes, stats didn't really do anything, and the guidance for the DM was "create a dungeon with a minimum of 7 levels for the players to explore" or something like that.

However, there were a lot of supplements, for OD&D too: Greyhawk (thief, paladin, non-Chainmail combat rules) and Blackmoor (assassin, monk, underwater rules) in 1975. Eldritch Wizardry (psionics, druids), Gods Demi-Gods & Heroes (real-world and literature-inspired pantheons), and Swords & Spells (large scale combat) in 1976.

There was also new content in The Strategic Review (precursor to Dragon magazine) like the Ranger class, the Bard class, and (I think) the first printings of the Thief class. I think other stuff appeared in White Dwarf.

By the time TSR decided to go with the Basic/Advanced approach in the late 70s, most of everything we find in AD&D had been printed in some way. Both Basic D&D and AD&D were collections of existing rules as much as revisions or refinements to it.

That matches the history I know, generally. The original Basic, the 'Holmes Blue Book' by J. Eric Holmes, was indeed a much simplified restatement of OD&D, intended as an introduction. AD&D had many changes and much more material, though obviously it drew a lot on its predecessor.

I don't know that OD&D, even at the end of its publication run, offered nearly as much as AD&D. For example, where is the DMG? The modules?

However, while I know that OD&D had sparse rules as you say, and that the DM was expected to fill in the gaps and dungeons, where does it say that the characters didn't continue from adventure to adventure, from game to game?

The basic D&D book (before AD&D) was similar to AD&D, but simpler rules and fewer tables.

The original Basic (the 'Holmes Blue Book' by J. Eric Holmes) was actually a reorganization and simplification of OD&D, not Advanced D&D (despite Holmes being published around the same time as AD&D). Holmes was intended as an introduction to OD&D; AD&D was extensively revised from OD&D, and the OD&D/Holmes rules were very different from AD&D in many ways.

There were at least two more revisions of 'Basic', which was updated into the early 1990s. It was much more a separate game, not a lead-in into 'Advanced', and I think publishing it may have been a contractual obligation to D&D's co-creator, Dave Arneson, who was gone before AD&D.

> D&D evolved out of a literal wargame (chainmail)

ok. Please avoid downvoting me then?

It might be because: >replacing formulas with die rolls

makes no sense, as D&D still has formulas, and most wargames had die rolls.

Then there's the bit about:

>...gained popularity in the early 20th century...

I don't think the 70's count as early in the 20th century.

> The English writer H. G. Wells developed his own codified rules for playing with toy soldiers, which he published in a book titled Little Wars (1913). This is widely remembered as the first rulebook for miniature wargaming. Little Wars had very simple rules to make it fun and accessible to anyone.

> The world's first recreational wargaming club was the University Kriegspiel [sic] Club, founded in 1873 at Oxford University in England.

> Actually, dnd is a stylized, simplified form of wargaming that gained popularity in the early 20th century, replacing formulas with dice rolls.

That's the entirety of what you wrote. Correct the sentence, not the people reading it as written.

What are you quoting? I would like to read more of it.

Jon Peterson's "Playing at the World" gets into the wargaming history of D&D.

Both Little Wars and Kriegspiel are much simpler than AD&D.

I'll buy that Little Wars is simple (from my understanding).

Kriegspiel, however, was very far from simple. It was just focused on battle simulation.

From my understanding, it was intended to be played by each side (either individual or team) being in their own room with their own map of the battle. Communication would go to the referee, who would run "reality". The referee would have a map and use charts, tables, dice, and pure fiat to sent information and update the state of the game to the players. Plus the game was played to a real clock. An ideal setup would have the opposing generals only communicating with the referee by means of runners, to simulate the telephone effect.

I really can't call a game that requires no less than three terrain maps and three rooms to be "simple". Especially when you see the dice the game uses.

Simpler than AD&D, not implying that they're simple. What you described is a big kriegsspiel- the equivalent of Gygax and Kuntz running multiple parties through the Greyhawk dungeon at the same time. They would have used similar methods to limit information being shared between parties.

Or for a more measurable metric, the von Reisswitz rules are 76 pages, which iirc was about the size of the player's handbook:

https://toofatlardies.co.uk/product/kriegsspiel-1824/

Edit- Oops, just reread what I originally wrote and I said 'much' simpler, which would be stretching things.

Honestly, I'm not sure what you expected, given the intersection of the venue, the topic at hand, and the inescapable stereotypical nature of the adherents of both. You're lucky your karma is still a positive value with no imaginary component...

Good post—just wanted to say that on HN, you need to put a line between each of your bullet points or else they will collapse into one paragraph as yours did.

And don't forget TSR's first product the ECW wargames rules I have a copy siting next to me

What you seem to be referring to is D&D's tactical miniatures combat, which is indeed a form of miniatures gaming (and famously derived from Chainmail and its fantasy supplement.)

Unlike miniatures games, however, D&D as a whole usually shifts its primary focus to collaborative storytelling, exploration, and character progression, and its tactical miniatures combat is 1) small-scale with a 1:1 relationship between players and protagonists (though large-scale battles can be added as appropriate) and 2) optional (though it can be a large part of the game if players desire.) D&D is also usually played over multiple sessions with a contiguous game world, further enhancing the storytelling and character progression possibilities, and usually has no fixed objective or victory condition.

There are D&D-derived board games and tactical miniatures games (such as the 4E board games or the D&D miniatures games) that adopt D&D's tactical miniatures combat rules, but they largely remove the collaborative storytelling, acting/role-playing, multi-session character progression, and open-ended nature that are core to tabletop RPGs.

On the computer gaing side, a game like StarCraft is interesting because the single-player campaign includes wargame-like levels (with many units as well as resource gathering, building, and unit production) and RPG-like/dungeon-crawling levels (where you primarily control one or more hero units that gain experience and treasure and level up as they explore the level.) Even though they use the same game engine and combat system, these are fairly different game experiences.

The fundamental difference between wargaming and D&D (and tabletop RPGs in general) is the role-playing. D&D is a role-playing game; it happens to use some elements of wargaming but the whole point is the role-playing. There are other RPGs with no wargaming elements.

> replacing formulas with dice rolls

Wargames had lots of dice rolls, afaik ? D&D has lots of forumlas.

> simplified

D&D combat, especially in some editions, can be notoriously complex.

Maybe you and I are talking about different war games.

Are you trying to say that D&D is just wargaming but with dice? Or are you trying to say that D&D is just wargaming full stop, and Kriegspiel got simpler after they added dice? Either way, you can't have played much of either D&D or wargames.

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