For once and all, there IS NO canonical D&D

[glandis]

I read from Eero (Eero, whose posts I usually read with anticipation, appreciation and enjoyment) over here this:

and surely the AD&D DMG is a pretty good source on what D&D is like as a game.

And I find I have to post.

OK, so it's Christmas day, and I'm no doubt cranky because not only am I not visiting with family, my plans with friends aren't happening because life does bad things to people sometimes. Still, I sure don't want to pass a headache on to to anyone else, so I'm gonna try and make this both cathartic (for more than myself, I hope) and useful (so maybe Ron gets no site-admin headache). But - man-o-man-o-La-Mancha, how could anyone who has paid attention to the D&D discussions here, in StoryGames OSR threads, or really, anywhere - how could anyone type that? Not to pick on a particular phrase too much, but it seems to exemplify persistent concern that, really, ought not to exist any longer. No, the AD&D DMG is NOT even a "pretty" good source on what D&D is like as a game. It is a lousy source. All early D&D texts are especially lousy sources for determining any definitive thing about what D&D is like as a game, for many reasons. Editorial reasons, historical reasons, reasons cultural, commercial, maybe even reasons inherent-to-RPGs. Seems to me Ron's had some interesting discussions about those reasons, and just how ... unsupportable claiming a direct link between a text and actual play is in D&D.

Here's a more palatable (to me) re-framing: "the presence of something in the AD&D DMG may help explain why some people sometimes played or play that way." But that's all it does, period, end of story. Whenever someone is telling you about what D&D is like as a game (maybe RPGs generally, but again, certainly and in any case especially D&D), they are telling you what it is like for them. Any claim of exclusivity is always an absurdity.

I mentioned recently that I have never seen D&D XP used in other than a "we level when it seems right" fashion. I mentioned widespread experience of that. I have widespread experience of D&D, through all decades of its' existence with (many) players on both coasts of the US and (some) players in the middle. My name is in Polyhedron #3 (I recently re-discovered) as a D&D tourney "winner". None of that means a damn thing about my ability to say what D&D is, and the DMG (any DMG, really) is no more use than I am in that regard. There were/are people that treat (local meaning of) "strict" XP as essential! Maybe lots, I don't know - all I know is lots didn't/don't.

What matters is what we're actually doing in play, and if we want to use pieces/touchstones/design elements/whatever from D&D, we should give up using them "like D&D did" or caring about canonical D&D in any way. Many, MANY overlapping ways to play D&D exist and have always existed. It is when someone states/implies that something is EXCLUDED from "way to play D&D" that they are most likely wrong. And fear of being excluded in that fashion may have been understandable, once, or in some places, but - here? Now? I hope that fear is pretty rare. Because I think we've pretty clearly established that D&D has been and is played in many, many ways.

For example, the most recent discussions here led me to clearly see something that, well, maybe I knew at some level, but it never quite clicked. It was that my D&D module/tournament play in the '76-'82 time frame was actually WIDELY varied - we played different modules as seemed appropriate to each, and now I can see great diversity, even in CA. But we always tried to do "campaign" play one way. And ... we called all of it "D&D." (Also, the "campaigns" were all ultimately unsatisfying, the modules were often quite fulfilling - but "real" D&D was campaign play and the modules somehow weren't. But those are separate subjects).

So, um, that's it. Let's not even worry about canonical D&D. No canonical D&D, right?

[Ron Edwards]

Seriously.

[Eero Tuovinen]

I suppose a defense of some sort is in order, as I am being quoted.

You should not read that quote out of context; I was replying to Callan's assertion (of his experience; nothing wrong with his D&D experience being the way it is) that D&D is a specific way (to wit, that D&D is a game where ordinary logistical expenses are not important). I took up the DMG as a counter-example: surely, if the AD&D DMG addresses the issue, and with a pretty elegant rule to boot, it can't be the case that D&D in general is the way Callan asserted. I had two counter-examples in that post: first was my own play-experience, and then was a quote from a pretty mainstream D&D book, to prove that our particular practice is not esoteric in the field of D&D.

The reasons for why I consider the DMG a reasonably good source originate in entirely ordinary cultural history source control: when a given text is immensely respected among the practitioners, regularly quoted, and I encounter many people who actively play with it, I come to the conclusion that it is "a pretty good source" on the topic. Note that "pretty good" is not the same thing as "the absolutely incontrovertible universal measure" - it seems like you're reading it more with that sort of emphasis for some reason, when I merely intended it as a low-hanging, easy counter-example to Callan. I wouldn't want to claim that the DMG is an absolute source of any sort, it's just one of the most influential texts in the history of D&D, no more nor less. Attempting to claim otherwise smacks like historical revisionism to me; I don't myself draw on AD&D in my D&D exercises to any significant degree (at least compared to how much I rely on Basic and the '74 edition), but I don't feel that I'd need to pretend that AD&D players do not exist or have importance to understanding D&D as a whole. Unless I am entirely mistaken in my knowledge about the history of the game in the early '80s, it was an era during with 1st edition AD&D was the absolutely dominant flavour of the game in terms of respect and publications (if not necessarily in terms of play; many seem to have only nominally played AD&D); I might be mistaken, but it seems to me that almost everybody who's seriously into old school D&D has pored over the DMG pretty carefully.

As for the rest, I don't really have anything to add - I obviously have no particular interest in what "real", "official" or "canonical" D&D is beyond facility in communication, so I agree with the sentiment, even if I don't have such a big chip on my shoulder about it. To me the post-modern lesson about labeling is obvious, anyway: the terminology we use, including the label of "D&D", is necessarily only a matter of conventional communication. As long as we understand what other people are referencing with labels, I couldn't care less. I usually use "D&D" as an empirical label of cultural history: what are the practices that have historically been called "D&D", what are the practices that descend from those practices, what are central currents (trends that influence the direction of the entire phenomenon) and what are esoteric marginal developments? That's D&D when I talk about it, and it includes such a variety of things as Lamentations of the Flame Princess and 4th edition D&D. Understanding the word in this way, I don't see what is controversial in using the AD&D DMG as a source for discovering some things that have something to do with D&D.

(The following might or might not be on topic, depending on whether you wanted to talk about how we label things, or if you just wanted to assert that labels are meaningless.)

To see the utility in the way I like to use the label of "D&D", I have a funny biology analogy: "dinosaurs" are a clade of saurids that, like all clades in modern phylogenetics, is defined in terms of ancestral relations starting from an arbitrarily chosen sample set of beings. (Specifically, you choose one or more beings that you want to call "dinosaurs", then you find their nearest common ancestor and all descendants of that ancestor; your clade consists of all beings with that common ancestor.) Just like we can define the term D&D historically by selecting a sample set and discovering ancestral relationships (direct cultural dialogue and acknowledged transmission of tradition in the case of cultural history, as opposed to simply genetic exchange relations), we can define "dinosaur" in this same way. Significantly, "dinosaur", when you define the label cladistically like this, comes to include some pretty esoteric creatures that do not possess many of the traditional qualities associated with dinosaurs. Birds, for example, are cladistical dinosaurs despite not being extinct, not being very large, and not being given headline roles in caveman movies.

To me arguments about what is D&D are like arguing about what is a dinosaur: it is interesting to study the history of transmission to discover the many forms of D&D as defined historically, just like it is interesting to study genome and find that hey, birds are dinosaurs, too. This, however, relies on treating labels like "D&D" as a matter of convenience instead of an article of faith - whatever name we use for "the cultural tradition that originates in the '74 D&D booklets", we need to be able to use that term without dogmatic insanity. If we get stuck arguing about the definition of clade instead of the definition of dinosaur, we're still strictly on kindergarten level, arguing about labels instead of the underlying relationships that we should be labeling. The term "D&D" is only valuable in the same way the term "dinosaur" is: as a convenient yet vague layman's shorthand, or as a rigorously defined term of art (biology or history, respectively).

[Eero Tuovinen]

Also, a stray thought: in the field of cultural history we often find that terminology gets politically charged because people see great significance in being included or excluded under a given label; sometimes everybody wants to be a dinosaur, you're just not cool if you're just a crocodile or something. Of course this happens with phylogenetics as well; if a sufficiently dinosaur-like being appears, such that everybody wants to call it a dinosaur, the definition of the clade might change by including one more creature into the definitional sample set. Arguing about the labels for these sorts of merely superficial reasons happens a lot more in cultural history than in phylogenetics, likely because people have more identity invested in terminology of cultural history than terminology of phylogenetics.

In this light one might speculate that a lot of arguing about what D&D is comes about not because of mere blind dogmatics, but rather because people are fighting about asserting the dominant importance of their own lineage: your stereotypical Internet D&D warrior might actually agree that of course your D&D is just as D&D as mine if they were also granted that yes, your D&D is a living tradition with current importance, and not in danger of being thrown out of the clubhouse. This of course ties into the paranoid attitudes gamers have about "support" and other external signs of a "living" game.

For the more scholastically inclined, though, this is not that interesting an issue when compared to the concrete questions of lineage and historical influence; I play the sort of D&D I play because it's what I want to play at this time, and it doesn't matter to me how many other people are in the same tradition. I only call it "D&D" because I perceive the game as such as a designer and historian; any time a discussion about the game veers into something I do not being D&D, I cheerfully grant the terminological point while retaining my assertion that the game's primary influences and design priorities come from certain flavours of D&D. The truth is simply not the same thing as the label used for it.

[Callan S.]

I have to admit, when Eero mentioned the wealth spent per fictional month, I felt quite undercut in that regard. I felt my own (life) experience quite valid. However, I wont treat it as invalid - I bet atleast 10% of gamers played without those wealth spent per month rules like my own AD&D play experience, and I'd bet it probably  is more like 70% to 80% of gamers ignoring those rules, much like seemingly 'everyone' ignored the weapon vs armour tables ('everyone' being some fairly large percentage, but unlikely to be 100% and probably not even 90%).

That said, I think there is a confusion in the clearing up of confusion. Fact is, the wealth per month stuff is in there. How much XP a cleric needs for 4rd is in there - how much XP a kobold gives is in there. The thaco of a fifth level fighter is in there (though who the hell knows how thaco works, eh? ;) )

If I read 'all that matters is what were doing in play' as just meaning whatever we do in play is fine - well no. You start dropping stuff like the wealth tables, you're just ignoring the text. My own experience of play is one that falls away from the D&D text (thank goodness in regards to those stupid weapon vs armour tables...)

Complicating that further is that generally a GM can use various tricks to make some rules matter, while making other rules not matter - for example, a GM can decide you get some gold. A crude negation is he could do so to simply negate the effect of the wealth spent per month rules. What use is playing by the rules when the GM can use his system given currency creation powers to undercut the rules? I was asking that before I hit the forge, back in the day.

But even with that complicating stuff, though it might be uncomfortable to engage the idea of it (as with my own history running into the wealth per month thing), the more you discard various quite existant rule components, the more you step away from D&D. IMO, not a bad thing! And yeah, it's kind of a pedantic distinction when a GM might be using rules X, but then using system legit powers to nullify the effect of rules X. But the distinction is there. Stop caring about canonical D&D? Sure? Treat it that there aren't various editions of canonical D&D? No. Even athiest historians don't ignore various religious text fragments as if it's just a matter of how the religion was practiced this morning that matters.

'What matters is what we're actually doing in play' has a few possible interpretations - I might have read an interpretation of it that was not intended - in which case the above may be no great reply to anyone! :)

But in regard to one particular intepretation, I don't agree what were doing now is all that matters.

[Ron Edwards]

Eero, your specific points are well-spoken, but you are apparently oblivious to your own language in the post Gordon is referencing, and in general, whenever you post about D&D. Your language is immoderate. It exerts extreme ownership over a concept of "pure" or "real" D&D, and you seem to think it's exempt from critique because it's not associated with a given text. Your statements about specific texts ("old D&D," 4th edition) are tainted by condescension. Furthermore, and with apologies in case you're sick of hearing about this, your extended defense is a prime example of Unitarian tap-dancing. It may have seemed perfectly logical to you as you hammered it out, but it is not. It reeks of precisely the same identity-issues as you discussed in your second post.

Please consider and reflect Gordon's criticism without batting it away like a tennis ball. It applies to your posting perfectly.

Callan, you're making the discussion more complicated and I want to see it become simpler. In fact, I want all the discussions at this site to become simpler - it's time to focus on accuracy and less on haring off on every little shiny point. You in particular are prone to muddying and dispersing topics, and although I don't question your sincerity, I think you're being self-centered in appropriating any thread to whatever strikes your fancy in it.

Please focus on the threads you're starting - the one about XPs and lives is a great topic, which I'll visit soon - and let others work out their issues in their own.

Best, Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

I'm starting to think that there's some point to this D&D identity discussion that I don't grasp, considering that we've repeatedly gone around the race track with Ron to the exact same results: I'm accused of (characterized as, whatever - doesn't have to be particularly hostile) being proprietary about D&D, I attempt to explain that I'm only proprietary about my own funtimes, Ron tells me that I'm tapdancing. As far as I can see the issue is just that I shouldn't sound so cocksure about my D&D campaign being excellent, which doesn't exactly compute for me - it is excellent, no reason not to say so :D

Regarding the current bout specifically, it perhaps did not come across up there that I agree with Gordon completely on the substantial issue. I don't think that it's fair to claim that the DMG is completely irrelevant (it has had influence, and it depicts ideas that have seen heavy use in actual play), I do think that historical rpg scholarship is a valid pastime (which Gordon seems to deny), and I never intended to imply the existence of any sort of D&D canon, but aside from those contextual issues, I have no complaints about his main point, which I understand to be that we should not let imaginary canons and labels limit our play. I don't think that I'm batting his criticism away, I don't even see what he's criticizing; as far as I can see, Gordon just misread me (or I miswrote, however one wants to see it) and thought that I advocate some sort of exclusive definition of D&D based on the AD&D DMG. Because that's not what I actually advocate - not even close - I don't see that we even have any criticism of me going on here.

[Ron Edwards]

Yes, Eero, I know you are confident in the substance of your position. Anyone who interacts with you on-line is familiar with this confidence.

As far as the strictly intellectual content is concerned, it's true - whenever you write non-judgmentally, there is no issue. I am asking that you review your posts from now on regarding the judgmental content - particularly when you speak of any strain of D&D as an entity. Gordon's related point extends that to anything as canonical, which I agree with. And finally, that you not equate the excellence of your play-experience with its identity as a pure or essential or historical throughline of a D&D entity.

Thanks, Ron

[glandis]

For what it's worth, the "no XP" post I referred to (my post #18 here) is also guilty of, um, insufficient recognition that others played differently. It's an easy thing to misstep with, I guess, and it annoyingly distracts from what are - at least for me - far more interesting things.

[Eero Tuovinen]

As far as the strictly intellectual content is concerned, it's true - whenever you write non-judgmentally, there is no issue. I am asking that you review your posts from now on regarding the judgmental content - particularly when you speak of any strain of D&D as an entity. Gordon's related point extends that to anything as canonical, which I agree with. And finally, that you not equate the excellence of your play-experience with its identity as a pure or essential or historical throughline of a D&D entity.

This I can do, I believe. No evaluating D&D in terms of quality or utility, and no crediting the quality of my own play experience to my sources and influences. Perhaps we shall see an improvement in the quality of my discussion.

[glandis]

Discussing in detail seems against the whole spirit of the post in the first place, but not responding at all feels rude - which really isn't my intention. So: I saw the quote as a pointer towards a kind of discussion/attitude/whatever about "yes, REAL D&D!" that just seemed mistaken, and all too commonly used by folks - myself included. There's lots of other, useful points often included even when it gets involved, but really, it's there WAY more than it needs to be. Especially here, especially in light of recent discussions. So any willingness to examine more carefully and edit away such influences is exactly what I'd want to see happen. Thanks for listening to that.

There's plenty I do agree with from Callan and Eero in the posts above, but unless one of you really wants some detail hammered flat, I guess leaving it at "try a different attitude in posting about D&D - understand how huge the variances and how disparate the influences" is enough for me.

[Eero Tuovinen]

I am happy to hear that you are satisfied, Gordon. I have a definite weakness/virtue in Internet discussions of pushing tenaciously, and pushing, and pushing a matter until I see a conclusion in the sense of classical intercourse. (I myself mostly see it as being committed to a discussion, but I have realized over the years that others can see it as annoying pestering, or even trollish thick-headedness.) This means that I am much, much easier to deal with, and also happier, when others do clear summaries and acknowledge it when we have actually accomplished some sort of communication. When nobody pays attention to where agreement exists, or disagreement is found incorrigible, and where opinions are actually corrected in light of debate, we are pretty much doomed to one of those annoying back-and-forth discussions that meander on forever like over-ripe zombies.

The above is to say, I agree with you about it being unnecessary to discuss this matter in detail at this time.

[Callan S.]

There's A: Not wanting to get into complication and B: Giving a whole bunch of reasons not to, but don't question those reasons, because A.

I follow A. Just please don't add B in the process. Why? It's complicated...*boom ting*

[glandis]

Maybe it's the internet, or maybe me, but - Eero, I'm confused. To me, your paragraph 1 screams "please, talk to me more" and paragraph 2 says "no, we're done." Um, if you really need more discussion - I can push persistently at a discussion for quite a while, I'm just not sure if a) this subject requires much (you & Ron seem to have sorted the style issues out, and the general core "no REAL D&D" point doesn't seem to actually be in dispute), nor that b) we could do it here without driving Ron batshit insane (for which I, at least, hardly blame him). Seems like your paragraph 1 might be saying more discussion would be your preference (making paragraph 2 - resignation? Snark? Realism? I'm, as I said, confused). If so, I'm open to discussion elsewhere/in email/whatever. I'd just be looking for a focus.

Callan, similarly - I'm not sure if you're saying B has been added, or not. And if so, by who, when, and what you think B is. Maybe I don't need to be sure, because my a) and b) (and the rest) above apply to that as well.

Again, "willingness to examine more carefully and edit away such [my D&D is REAL D&D and a D&D text flat-out causes me to be right about that] influences" is the useful outcome I'm interested in, and it seems like there are at least slight nods in that direction. I can be done, right there. But I'm not trying to cut off points other people think are useful by saying that.

[Ron Edwards]

Bah. Gordon's made his point, I agree with it fully, and I don't really care what anyone else is saying about it. I'm calling this thread done.