The Basics of becoming an Expert DM

Blue Box Expert Advice

Yes, this title is a bit of a play on words. In my opinion the best "Beginner" version of The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game is Basic/Expert edited by Frank Mentzer and released circa 1981. Frequently referred to as BECMI, the acronym for Basic, Expert, Companion, Master and Immortal box sets, this version builds upon the original 1974 edition authored by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson (often called ODD or White Box), and the previous "Basic" versions of J. Eric Holmes, and Tom Moldvay, David "Zeb" Cook and Steve Marsh (B/X). BECMI seems to be the most novice friendly and complete edition while retaining much of the spirit of free innovation and creativity that characterized the early days of the hobby. Using clear language accessible to everyone, in his Basic and Expert sets Mr. Mentzer describes how to roll the unusual dice, record important game data on your character sheet, map your first dungeon as a DM and create your own setting including home town and wilderness. 

In the Red Box BECMI basic set, the author describes how to begin play as a character (using a solo game) and how to draw and populate a beginner dungeon to run for your friends/family. Like the previous versions of Basic, this set covers play for character levels one to three and encourages the gamer to pursue higher levels by purchasing the next product.

Turning to the next in the series, the Blue Box Expert Set, we find a concise explanation of the process for designing a setting and suggestions for running a successful FRP campaign. In two short pages (pp. 28 & 37) of Expert, the essentials of "mastering the game" are presented in an organized and easy to follow manner. 

A careful reading of these two pages will reveal that taking the time for "thinking it through" is more important than anything you may put on paper. The setting "lives" in your head more than it exists in the maps, notes and boxed text you put on paper. By imagining a character "living" in your fictional world and making a mental note of their point-of-view, what they know, what they likely see, etc., we start to develop the "facts" regarding our fictional world. 

Mr. Mentzer suggests we start with what we know about the "real world" borrowing from things like gravity, weather, and technology (15th Century Europe is the game's default assumption, but it need not be yours) before we add in some fantasy "magic". This assumption of reality forms the basis for improvisation as we continue to imagine how the characters interact with their fictional world, especially during play when the unexpected is sure to happen. We simply cannot pre-plan for everything. Preparation for the campaign is primarily getting yourself into the mindset of our fictional setting.

Blue Box Expert suggests one start the process of actually putting things on paper by designing the home town. In Basic we learned that the dungeon is the "basic" setting for the game. Expert adds a wider context, the world in which our characters spend their days and will find the dungeon. In this way the game shifts from a series of episodic delving sessions to campaign play and continuity takes on meaning. 

In designing our fictional world, the guiding principal is to start local and to keep it relevant to play. One need not create all the heavens and earth prior to our first session. A small area will suffice. Place the home town/starting place from which the characters will venture out seeking fame and fortune at the center. Place the dungeon nearby so the party can easily go back and forth. Give some thought (from a characters' perspective) as to what lies just beyond the local area. Expert suggests giving some thought to the area under human control, the area under non-human control, and how power is exercised. (A rumor or two may be a nice incentive for exploration.)

Home Town is a place where services are available, NPCs abound, and rumors can be heard. It is wise to make Home Town a safe place (at least in the beginning of the campaign) as the dungeon and wilderness will offer enough danger and excitement. (If we think about it, a place of safety is probably why the town was built to begin with.) The PCs may be seen as "intruders" by the locals or themselves be natives to Home Town. Home Town will connect by road or river to other sources of trade and will offer a local market place for goods. It will thus likely attract the attention of thieves or bandits at some point. 

When thinking about the setting, it is important to keep some objective perspective. The PCs are the most important drivers of play, but they are a relatively small part of the world in which they live. By portraying the NPCs as having their own business to go about you will add to the richness of your setting.

Expert doesn't do your work for you, however. The maps, descriptions, encounter tables, and adventure ideas presented in this section of Expert are merely examples meant to inspire your own creations rather than being "ready made" adventures. Setting down in type something for you to run simply by reading to your players was Basic, Expert teaches the art of running the game by first showing you (the DM) how to design our own version of a setting. To "master" the game is to go beyond merely applying the rules. To become a master is to become a "creator". 

Thus we have Expert step-by-step advice on designing your own setting and running a successful campaign all on less than two pages of text. 

Flavors of D&D

...and A Game About Nothing.

Almost a half century ago Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created The Original Fantasy Role-Playing Game and with its publication, started a new hobby - adventure gaming. As authors of  The World's First RPG, they forged ahead into uncharted territory while drawing upon their past experiences with another game genre, notably their shared interest in tabletop wargaming with miniature figures. It is perhaps no coincidence that Mr. Arneson looked to his Napoleonic wargames for inspiration, and Mr. Gygax relied  heavily for the new game's combat mechanic upon his previously published medieval miniatures wargame rules, Chainmail. What we the consumer got in their product, White Box D&D, is a somewhat incomplete guide "for running fantastic medieval wargames campaigns playable with paper pencil and miniature figures".

Over the decades since its publication, the original game has been altered, added to, and advanced so that we hobby gamers currently have multiple versions of the World's Most Popular RPG to choose from today, including several official editions and many other less official flavors which are not published by the current IP holder. Each version of the game seems different enough, while all remain somewhat the same, so that I tend to think of them collectively as "the various flavors of the D&D hobby". A summary of the menu includes the following "official edition" entrées:

Do it yourself - The Original Edition heavily based on tabletop miniatures wargaming, seems aimed at a wargame audience. Typical of miniature wargames rules of the day, it requires a referee to run the game and one who is willing to add to the rules as written and customize play at their table. It relies on the referee having access to the previously published Chainmail rules (especially its Fantasy Supplement) and a popular boardgame (Outdoor Survival) in order to make full use of this product.

  

Tournament style - The Advanced Game delivered in a new hardcover format is the author's personalized vision of how the game should be. Written in full Gygaxian style and tone, the author's stated intent is to standardize the game so that tournament play is reasonably attainable. Advanced establishes the game as a distinct brand and will define "fantasy" for an entire generation.

Accessible for everyone - Basic, especially in its Red Box version, places emphasis on being user friendly and inviting. It teaches the uninitiated how to play and DM using a programmed introduction and solo play to ease one into the game. Far from being an inferior version of the rules that are just aimed at beginners, the Basic Game retains much of the original philosophy and appeal of the original version for veterans such as myself.

The Open License - 3/3.5 is a fresh vision of a new publisher for just how to play the game. This version seems to envision the IP as everything for everyone and it combines various subsystems borrowed from various other games under the familiar IP branding. This edition makes use of miniatures as the standard for play and its many tomes demonstrates that a desire to be all things to all gamers can result in too much of a good thing.

Going almost digital  - A continued desire on the part of the IP holder for the game to be the all-purpose solution for all your gaming needs, 4e is an acquired taste. While it has its loyal fans, it remains the least popular version of our game. Its lack of universal appeal leads to products such as those published by Paizo and the OSR - all using the famous game's OGL. Did I mention that the Open Game License is a really good thing for the hobby in general.

Finally, the Next version - It is an 800 pound gorilla in the game room and has outstripped all others in popularity. The IP holder has again borrowed ideas from a number of independent press RPG products (many using the OGL) in an initial attempt to win back the fanbase, but coincidentally also stumbles upon a large number of new consumers thanks to certain internet influencers. Capitalizing on the popularity of online streaming and televised shows that include dramatic interpretations of tabletop play or nostalgic scenes featuring classic versions of the game, the current edition outstrips all previous versions in popularity despite being frequently derided for having abandoned its roots. Criticism aside, record sales for nearly every official 5e release is virtually assured as the game has become a pop culture lifestyle brand. 5e is seemingly poised to be the one game to rule them all. 

We've come a long way from being just a bunch of nerdy hobbyists with a shared love for games and fantasy stories.

Acquisition & Investigation

Why I Play TTRPGs

The simple answer is of course "we play for fun and fellowship". It is my nature to question the obvious and to dig a little deeper and what follows is my (current) thoughts on the role of "acquiring" and of "discovery" as they pertain in the hobby of tabletop gaming.

The online "old school renaissance community" has a saying/mantra, "we play to find out". This sentiment suggests that we won't have a script to follow, no pre-written story as it were. It also alludes to the investigation side of adventure games as is evident on many levels in all that we discover through the act of playing. 

Exploration and discovery may lead to the acquisition of great (character) wealth, magic and power as we advance our in-game persona - the player character - through application of various aspects of the game's mechanics. Experience for all those gold pieces snatched from monstrous lairs and brought to the surface, and maybe spent on training or other services, can be one common old school source of "experience points". 

XP or experience points are accumulated through treasure or defeating monsters and as it adds up will eventually allow the player to "level up" their character, thus acquiring greater (superhero!) abilities and power. Higher level characters are better equipped to delve deeper into dungeons and can undertake more dangerous quests by virtue of having more hit points and access to more damaging weapons and magic. This is the essence of  the acquisition side of the game (although the game always hinted at establishing a stronghold from which one would wield political power).

Investigation is the defining activity in some tabletop roleplaying games - Call of Cthulhu player characters are called "Investigators" and it therefore immediately comes to mind. But investigation (asking questions), and discovery through both exploration and role-play, is not unique to Call of Cthulhu and they have been an essential play element of the hobby even from its earliest days. 

The dungeon environs are by their vary nature unusual and filled with tricks and traps and fantastic creatures. The discovery of just what lies buried beneath the surface of our fictional world of fantasy adventure is a huge part of the fun to be found in playing. Balancing knowledge of what is different than the real world, and what is the same, is an essential part of "playing the game". 

Designing and Stocking the dungeon is a significant part of the enjoyment I get from taking the role of game referee. Discovering just how my players will solve the challenges they uncover while exploring my "dungeon" is the reward I have in mind when planning my sessions. Invariably my players will surprise me as they come up with ways to interact with my encounters that I could never have imagined. 

A typical tabletop RPG is two parts imagination (what the referee comes up with and what the players come up with), one part rule procedure and one part chance (the dice rolls). Applying the game rules during play (and adjusting the narrative per outcome of dice rolls) is always a constant challenge as I seek to improvise and act as game judge/referee, reacting to creative ideas as they are put forth by my players when they face-off with an interesting challenge. The more understanding the players have regarding the nature of our imaginary world serving as "the stage" upon which their characters "act out their part" in our "play" (as it were!), the better they are able to devise clever solutions to the problems being faced down by their characters. Example - consider the various oozes! (the mindless cleaning crew of dungeon halls) Some oozes (molds, etc.) are harmed by fire, others may feed on it, etc. Figuring out the specific vulnerabilities of these "dungeon ecology" creatures can be an enjoyable aspect of classic dungeon exploration and play. 

Originally aimed at a wargames audience (role-playing didn't exist as a gaming hobby until the 1974 publication of TSR's Original Edition), much of the emphasis of the classic game is on combat mechanics. The Original Fantasy Role-Playing Game has been described as a "dungeon skirmish" game. This is undoubtedly true, but there is a lot more to unpack. It is a game about acquiring and about investigation and discovery. 

Combining tactical combat wargaming elements with a fantastic setting filled with wonderous creatures, supernatural forces and virtually anything a referee can imagine (or lift from a source of inspiration), the games we now call tabletop RPGs are as much about climbing the ladder to character success and power, and finding out what is lurking unknown in the fictional world setting as it is about slaying monsters.