Chasing The Dragon

So, I like podcasts. As a stay-at-home dad, I'm busy (a lot) but usually not doing stuff that takes up too much of my 'mental attention.' Throwing on the headphones while cooking, cleaning, or driving is something I do.

[okay, no, I don't use headphones while driving...but you get the drift]

Most often, it's sports or news-related, but...as often as I can find it...I like to listen to podcasts about gaming. At least, about the type of gaming I do.

So it was Tuesday, that I was searching through my iHeart radio app, looking for podcasts...any kind of podcast!...about 1st edition AD&D. Because I needed something to occupy my mind, and throwing on CNN in the background was not my idea of "relaxing white noise."

And LO I found one: Chasing the Dragon, by a guy named Jason Wood, AKA The Mad Cleric. Started in 2016 (jeez...pre-Covid), he dropped all of six episodes, documenting his "quest" to learn and play AD&D (1E). No idea if he's still playing AD&D...his last 1E-related blog post appears to be from 2017 (though he did attend GaryCon in 2024). His is not a very active blog.

ANYhoo, I listened to the whole series. It's pretty good (very listenable) but also...so, so frustrating.

I'll explain: Jason (or "TMC," as I'll hereafter refer to him) first started playing D&D in 2011 with the 4th edition. Would have been in his mid-20s at the time (a little older than most folks stumble into D&D). at the time of the podcast he was 32 years of age. 

And yet he wanted to learn 1E!  Mainly, he wanted to play all those classic 1st edition adventure modules using the actual system for which they'd been written. It was a gaming experiment...and a pretty cool idea...for a guy who'd never had the chance to play in the heyday of the 70s and 80s.

[ha! Funny thing...the television series Stranger Things came out in 2016. TMC makes reference to it in his final podcast...the serendipitous coincidence of people becoming interested in 1E at the same time]

And me? I feel like a heel listening to this. Because I was so NOT into AD&D in 2016 (remember that it wasn't till 2020 when I finally broke down and returned to 1E). If TMC started his podcast today, I could actually help him and provide him with good information and context for much of the weirdness of the game...but in 2016 it wasn't even on my radar. Hell, I probably would have advised him to play B/X if he'd asked me my opinion back then.

And this is SAD. I feel sad about that. Because when it came to trying to LEARN the game, TMC ended up tapping a bunch of different people for advice, most of whom had no good advice (or very little) to give. And some of whom actually gave him counterproductive stuff...the kind of stuff that, in my opinion, would result in a frustrating, crappy game and (even worse) probably just lead him back into the stifling WotC embrace of 5E.

Does that sound harsh? Uber-hyperbolic? Okay, maybe it is. But yesterday, in anticipation of this post, I was re-listening to Episode 1 and jotting down notes (mainly timestamps) and my son asked me what I was listening to (he was doing geometry homework at the kitchen counter at the time). I told him: I'm listening to an old podcast about a guy trying to learn AD&D and the questions he's asking from these guys who don't have much expertise with the system. Kid asked if he could listen, too (i.e. take off the headphones, papa). So I did. After a few minutes he said: "These guys have no idea what they're talking about! They're just yapping; they're not actually SAYING anything!"

Yeah. I know.

The time stamps I was making note of were questions that TMC was asking his guests...because I figured I'd list them here, on Ye Old Blog, and write out the answers I would have given him. But after seeing how aghast my son was, I decided to do something different: I forwarded the podcast to one of the questions, played it for my son, and then asked him what answer he would have given the interviewer (stopping the podcast so he didn't hear the guests' answers). My daughter wandered into the kitchen at about this time, and I ran her through the same exercise.

Here's the question (from 47:36 of the podcast):

"So, for myself or for anyone else who wants to learn AD&D what advice would you give? And with your advice I'd also ask for your two best house rules that you can remember."

Diego's answer: Advice? Be prepared. Know the adventure you're running. Know the rules. Two best house rules? #1: all dice rolls 'in the box.' #2: no PVP.

[we have a puzzle box lid that we roll all our dice in. Only dice that land in the box "count;" any die that bounces out of the box gets rerolled]

Sofia's answer: Be prepared for anything. Best house rules? No "goofing." No phones at the table.

My kids. So smart. Their answers were ten times better than the ones I would have given. 

SO...maybe I won't harangue and berate and belittle the poor guy for his near-decade old podcast. Hopefully, TMC has continued his 'experiment' and is still playing 1st edition today...hopefully, he's discovered for himself how and why the game works...I mean, nine years? That's a pretty good chunk of gaming under the belt. Plenty enough time to "figure things out."

Isn't it?

For me, I suppose I have a burning question of my own: if a person sits down to learn AD&D with a concept of role-playing shaped by latter day editions, are they going to be able to realign their expectations? Shift their paradigm, so to speak? For myself, who played plenty of "trad" RPGs in the 1990s, I can tell you there were subtle tweaks of reprogramming that needed to be rewired in my brain. You can see it in my older, dumber blog posts. Fortunately (for me), I already had a foundation of D&D play from my youth...I'd been witness to successful D&D play, and it was just a matter of digging out WHY it had been successful.

Which is easier said than done (no one really knew anything about this damn hobby when I was a kid). But after two decades (!!) of speculation on gaming and game design, I've got a pretty good handle on it. Maybe a smarter, wiser person than me could figure this out in half that time, without the foundational play experience? Maybe?

Ah, well.

I know...I know..that I have readers who are going to see this line of thought as incredibly presumptious and arrogant. Because, in a nutshell, I seem once again bent on dragging "edition wars" into this glorious hobby of ours, being judgmental and thick-headed about what makes "good play" or "bad" and yadda-yadda-yadda. Yeah, I know. "D&D has evolved," right? It ain't the same game it was, it serves different needs, the people playing it are different, etc., etc.  Okay, sure...I don't want to fight you folks (much) over the subject. I'm just a salty curmudgeon made saltier by the trends I see in the country I live in.

[and that's all I'll say about the election other than: boy, am I glad I live in Washington State!]

Anyway, I'm NOT (really) trying to come down hard and "judge-y" on people who play D&D differently from me. My frustration...which I feel the need to express...is that there are people out there, who might want to play D&D the way that I do...and who could!...if they only could get the few, simple answers they need. There ARE simple answers! Not easy ones, perhaps, but simple. There is a roadmap to (what I call) "solid D&D play." But getting it into the hands of the right people at the right time (2016! 2016!) is a tough ask.

SO...if you're a buddy of TMC, or happen to have run into him or gamed with him at GaryCon, give him a shout out from me. Tell him there are people who have only just discovered his stuff and are curious to know how it's all worked out for him in the intervening years. We'd like to hear more about his travails with AD&D 1E, and see how much (if any) they mirror our own. Tell him, the system is still being played by folks...many folks...around the world. 

Just let him know. And happy Thursday folks.

; )

[posted Friday because my Thursdays always seem to bog down. Darn it!]