Riffing off of my last post, I was thinking of how the "module" as presented by TSR, Judges Guild, and others back in the day has had an overall negative influence on the game. This is not a new observation, by any means, but it's what's on my mind.
As mentioned in the last post, most modules focus on dungeon delves (at all levels of play), with some wilderness exploration/sandbox modules and a fair number of epic quests for artifacts for higher level play, but very few dedicated to city/social adventures, domain level play, or planar excursions. The rules suggest that the development of players' skill should develop from dungeoneering out to wilderness exploration, then to domain management/war gaming mixed with RPGing, then on to the epic quests and planar exploration. But the examples of play provided by the vast majority of modules are maybe a bit of town play or wilderness exploration as a prelude to the dungeon, if it's not just the dungeon itself.
There's a good reason for tournament play to focus on the dungeon. If you're going to have many groups of players competing, it makes a lot of sense to just run everyone through the same dungeon. Other types of play are much harder to compare. And scoring is easy. How many monsters were defeated? How much treasure was found? How many traps avoided?
It's a lot like in teaching. Often, the most effective ways to teach students are the hardest to fairly measure with a test. So we get teachers teaching to the test, rather than trying to inspire and motivate their students to become independent learners. We focus on grammar and memorizing facts and formulaic mathematical calculations rather than inspiring the minds of our students. Well, I try to inspire my students as much as possible. I think I do a pretty good job of it. But many teachers don't.
Many DMs are similar. They look at the rules, and read over the ideas of what the game could be. Then they look at modules produced by TSR or WotC (or others) and see it's just dungeons all the way down. Not that there's anything wrong with dungeoneering (and I totally read that in a Seinfeld voice as I typed it, although that wasn't my intention when I started writing it). But it does limit the game, and the appeal of the game, if it's only ever dungeon of the week play.
I tried all sorts of odd adventures when I was young. I'd get a crazy idea from a book, movie, TV show (especially Saturday morning cartoons), Nintendo game, or whatever, and modify it into a gameable situation. And the only modules I had back then were Isle of Dread and Crash on Volturnus for Star Frontiers. I had alternate realities, dream worlds, other planar pocket dimension dungeons, weird quests for not overly high level adventurers, etc. And we all dove into the domain game once we had enough high level characters and the Companion Set to guide us.
Was it consistent world-building? Hell no. There was often no rhyme or reason. But I did explore many facets of game play. But as I got older, and was exposed to more modules, my play design did shift. It wasn't something I consciously decided to do, it just sort of happened. My designs for adventures shifted. Even my current campaign has a relatively realistic area map, with relatively mundane (by fantasy adventure standards) dungeons. There is a room in my micro-megadungeon that has portals to odd places, but the party hasn't found it yet.
I need to start adding some more things like that into the game. Get back the vibe of freedom and creativity I had when I was younger. Shake off the yolk of "module" design and just have some fun with things. Get a bit more wild and wahoo with the game. And encourage others to do the same. And that doesn't mean to throw out consistency in the world, or realism to balance out the fantasy. It's just that my designs for many years now have been a bit too "realism" based rather than just letting my imagination run wild. I need a bit more of that creative chaos in my games.
I dunno, I gotta go with "it's you." Which is totally fine. ;-) The game gives you all the tools your imagination needs. I can't imagine thinking "but I have to write more dungeons because I see them in modules." There was Greyhawk, Judges Guild's cities and towns and wilderness and islands and portal series, advice telling you to buy Outdoor Survival, the Thieves Guild line from Haven, Midkemia Press, and everything in Appendix N. My players went all over. Dungeons are fun but you limited yourself. And I'll bet you were rolling dice and having a blast at the time anyway. Why "look back in anger?" Let's not forget, as the wave of accessories grew there were plenty of maps to roam, more planar material, more cities and towns, hell even Spelljammer! The choice is yours, but count your blessings. You had role-playing games! :-)
ReplyDeleteDoes my tone here read as angry? I'm more bemused than angry, but that's text.
DeleteIt could just be me. I only have my experience, plus anecdotal information. While the OSR has all kinds of creativity like I'm discussing here, my experience with mainstream gamers has been that they've been brainwashed by decades of modules into thinking that *that* is what D&D is supposed to be.
And I think my own shift over the years was not something I decided consciously to do, but I was trying to meet the expectations of newer (often younger) gamers that I played with.