Everything Herein is Fantastic

I've been going through the "Better Living Through Clones" series of posts because of a basic realization about how I view Dungeons & Dragons. Fundamentally, the rules of the game are similar in any given version, but no single variation is precisely to my liking. The logical conclusion is to find the rules I like best, steal them, and use them on my own terms.

While my current game uses B/X, this is mostly accidental; I wanted to run B1 and started by asking for players for B/X, and have just kept going with it. I like the game, and it has some good rules that should be part of any referee's arsenal. I decided a while back to continue with B/X through the campaign's natural ebb and flow, and it's still going strong. I also intend to run some Metamorphosis Alpha once the Goodman reissue comes out.

But for the long term, my true love remains OD&D, and eventually I want to go back to it. Part of it is that D&D is an "ample framework" ripe for modification. This is why I've been slowly working through so many other games; I want to see tested ideas that can fit within the limits of this framework. EPT damage, for instance, is possibly the best way to do d6-based damage, while I like LotFP's trade-offs for extra offense or defense.

I've always felt it was a shame that so much emphasis has been placed on literal clones, with so many games having mild variations on Charm Person, Cure Light Wounds, the Sword +1, +3 vs Dragons and the orc. I prefer the approach of Geoffrey McKinney's original Carcosa, published as Supplement V. A couple of other Supplement Vs and a few Supplement VIs came out, but none were, like Carcosa, focused expansions of OD&D. I see creating such a "Supplement" almost like a medieval guild member's "master piece" – the work that proves that you've gone beyond a journeyman and come into your own.

An interview from ten years ago with Dave Arneson had a quote I found interesting:

Going into a fantasy world was actually again kind of a copout from my point of view. I didn't want people always coming up with some new book saying we just had to use because it was right and the old one was wrong. This was a fantasy world, so who could come up with anything to prove that he was lying or that a monster wasn't accurately represented?

This reminds me of the OD&D afterword, which this post's title is taken from:

In this light, we urge you to refrain from writing for rule interpretations or the like unless you are absolutely at a loss, for everything herein is fantastic, and the best way is to decide how you would like it to be, and then make it just that way! On the other hand, we are not loath to answer your questions, but why have us do any more of your imagining for you?

Running OD&D doesn't actually require rules to be much different from running B/X or Swords & Wizardry, or really even from a "light" version of AD&D if you like it. It can work like any of those that you want. Instead it is a way to inscribe the quote above on your banner: everything is fantastic, and the game works as the referee wants it to work.

What's important about OD&D is that very, very little is actually systematic and regular or predictable in it. This was huge in Gygax's philosophy of game design, and has been rejected in modern RPG design in favor of unified systems. But the lack of systematic detail in OD&D allows the referee to add whatever works for a given problem. The wisdom of this is simple, and it ties into why I've been pillaging other systems for functional bits.

For instance, I think that having unified attribute modifiers is a mistake, because it constrains the system around those modifiers and makes it harder to borrow subsystems that use attributes differently. With OD&D, attributes are, for the most part, just numbers. You can add others, have them work however it works best for you, and not change the game much. I actually think it's very odd that so few people do basic things like expand the list of character attributes; agility, luck, perception, appearance are all possible choices.

This ability to borrow with zero chance of breaking or requiring significant adaptation is critical for the referee to be able to make the game just as the referee wants it. It's not simply a question of being rules light, since compared to Tunnels & Trolls, OD&D is actually pretty rules heavy. The game has to be rules-flexible. OD&D pretty much assumes you will be going and using your own systems (or another completely different system) for a lot of the stuff that happens outside of basic dungeon-crawling and hex-crawling, rather than trying to create a system that handles everything.

This is why I like reading and running other games. I find things that work, find things that I don't care for, and through experience I find and hone the game the way I want it. In the long run my goal is to have a D&D that is thoroughly mine to the point where I don't need a clone or new edition to run it; I'll just need my OD&D books and my house rules. I don't feel that I'm there yet, but I see that as the path a referee should aim for. In the long run my goal is to have what Gary Gygax described in a controversial editorial called "D&D, AD&D and Gaming" in Dragon #26 (June 1979):

D&D will always be with us, and that is a good thing. The D&D system allows the highly talented, individualistic, and imaginative hobbyist a vehicle for devising an adventure game form which is tailored to him or her and his or her group. One can take great liberties with the game and not be questioned.

For me, that's the reason that OD&D still matters, and why it's worth running when there are so many versions of the game that are perfectly playable as-is.