Its interesting because your video format feels like it reflects your way of approaching things and talking, its like sitting at the table and spending time on a talk, having a good time and I enjoy that a lot. Its one of the better ways to end the day for me. I wager that more efficient video formats would make a difference but I like your style way more.
This is such a great comment, and I appreciate it so much. Thank you for taking the time to let me know, as that's the kind of vibe I was going for. Thank you so much for watching and for your support of the channel. It means a lot. Cheers!
I've read (or audiobooked) all of the REH Conan. The only heroic near equal of Conan in the stories is... Valeria in Red Nails, though she's more of a speed fighter than a strength one. Zenobia in Hour of the Dragon, who eventually becomes Conan's queen at the end of the story, equals him in courage.
I definitely agree. As someone running a game for my 14yo daughter and her friends, I would find it strange to begin placing limitations on them for a fantasy game. I don't see the upside of doing so and trying to make a fantasy game more "realistic." It's also why I don't care that Armor Class makes it harder to hit instead of absorb damage, etc. I'm not trying to make the game more realistic. That said, we fortunately are playing 1981 B/X D&D which didn't include any of gender-based limitations that showed up in Advanced D&D. Thank you very much for watching and commenting.
There is a HUGE difference between the dragon flying because magic, and the 2ft tall person being as great a warrior as the 8ft half-giant. One is fantastic to imagine, the other completely invalidates any player option that SHOULD be powerful.
Thank you, Martin, for the retrospective. I was amused by your attempt to pronounce my name, which I thought that you did a commendable job. My name is pronounced EE-vor Yan-chee to be exact 😊. I was surprised how much information you had about my time at TSR in the early to mid-80s, and that I'd moved on to work at Tonka Toys. As you mentioned, I was hired primarily to work on the SPI games that TSR acquired or newly created, and as art director I had the responsibility to contact freelancers (e.g., Mark A. Nelson) to do artwork, mostly for interiors. And yes, you're correct per one of your other videos, that my longtime best friend John M. Seaton and I introduced Brian Blume to Gary Gygax just before John and I left for our respective universities. We played SPI board-games with Brian, and that led to us taking Brian up to Lake Geneva to meet Gary. I had a lot of fun working at TSR, and especially socializing with the staff artists Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, the late Keith Parkinson, and eventually Jeff Butler. Thanks, again, for the trip down memory lane!
Oh wow! What a treat to have you here in the comments! That is amazing. Thank you SO MUCH for watching and then commenting on my video. I truly appreciate you having taken the time to do so. I also appreciate your support of subscribing to the channel. That means so much to me. All my best!
@@daddyrolleda1 I appreciate your comments, Martin. I sent the link to this episode to John M. Seaton, so that he can enjoy your retrospective. Thanks for taking me back in time, and keep up the wonderful work.
Len Lakofka (RIP) was *pilloried* in the fan press for that article. One zine, I can't remember which, even printed a cartoon of him being burned in effigy. So yeah, this approach was seen as pretty damn icky and patronizing by many even back then.
If this came out in 1976, the topic of fighting sexism and gender equality would still be quite active. Women don't get the automatic right to their own bank accounts until 1967, the article comes out in the exact period of time where marital rape was first being debated for outlawing, etc. In many ways, the advocacy for gender equality was more prevalent then than now, as it had to be for progress to be made.
The zine is Alarums & Excursions, issue 19. Tim Kask (he was also burned in effigy in that cartoon) wrote a letter in response to the article with the cartoon that was printed in issue 20. If you search for Alarums & Excursions you can find it online still. You have to a couple dollars for each back issue but its honestly worth it to take a look at the fan culture of the time.
@@crazycaleb Wow nice find! Yes, you're right you can still get all the old versions of A&E in electronic form from their web site for $2 each, the last time I looked. Might have to go pick up a few old issues of A&E. I'd like to look at A&E #100 because supposedly there is a short diceless TTRPG in #100, that predates the publication of the first officially published diceless TTRPG which is Amber: Diceless Roleplaying (1991). Amber is still the first officially published diceless RPG, but interesting that an A&E published game predates it by quite a few years with respect to using a diceless mechanic.
I just don't think young folks understand how diffiuclt and time consuming that work is. Today, laser printers are ubiquitous and anyone can do a high quality doc. I never played with print or even mimeograph but I admit I did love the smell of freshly mimeographed documents. Sniffing those might explain my memory degradation.
Regarding Gygax's pseudonym, I would be unsurprised if it was simply to make it seem like there were more people contributing to the magazine. Definitely lots of examples, historically, of people doing that when an independent publication hasn't attracted enough writers yet, or when they want to seem like a greater diversity of ideas are being presented.
He could have made it less obvious. I think at that point he may well have wanted to take off the crown and just be another voice. Early EGG like to push the ideas that the rules can be whatever you want them to be. Ive heard of people calling him, asking about what a rule should be. His response was usually being what did you do? That sounds about right to me. The later years were different when he desperately needed people to buy more books and thus NEED his rules.
I don't mind the long videos but I usually have to watch them in pieces. I like it when you tell us a little bit about what people are asking or talking about on things like Out On A Limb. Gives us a little perspective on what people were looking for way back when.
These early Dragons were hard to get into with the bad typesetting, bad art and chaos. I started with Moldvay D&D then got into AD&D. I too got a subscription in the 80's (81 was my first) and saw these old issues online, oof! They get really good a few years after they started. I still have my original issues.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I loved getting Dragon every month. It was such a special treat to come home after school and find a new issue was waiting for me. I started reading with issue #76 and then went back to get as many back-issues I could find so I have a smattering from #41 to #76. I have most issues from #77 to #89 and then starting with #90, I began subscribing and kept up my subscription all the way until the last print issue, #359. I still have all mine as well!
I know they were kind of amateur and had much simpler tools to use but even so _newspapers_ of the time had formatting all worked out. The formatting that makes it look like two separate times was sloppy even then.
I think there was wisdom in referring to the original gamemaster's as referee, instead of master. Referee, is a person referencing rules (as the name is derived from), and a person who is expected to make neutral judgements.
I remember an editorial in an early issue of The Dragon where someone explained why they stopped using the term referee. It was a holdover from tabletop wargames, where you needed someone to adjudicate disagreements over whether a miniature was inside a cannon's firing arc or whatever. The thinking was "referee" didn't capture the scope of the gamemaster's responsibilities and authority, and implied he was just there to settle disputes among players.
I've long felt the most accurate title for the job would be "facilitator." I don't care how my players want to refer to me, but that's how I refer to myself.
First off: I really appreciate your responsible use of click-bait! I realize that clickbait titles are just part of the youtube hustle, so I don't begrudge creators for them. Saying up front that the title was clickbait, then including that content up front is just *wonderful*. Second, thank you for openly calling out sexist old D&D content as being sexist. Too many in the OSR sphere seem to care more about the "politics" of OSR rather than the RPG design philosophies, and I appreciate so much about your channel (learning about D&D history from primary sources, DMing advice for OSR campaigns), and the lack of political bias is a big part of why I'm subscribed. Thirdly: the part of the video I found most interesting was the editor defending including fantasy fiction in Dragon. It shows that despite that they were still calling it a "war game" that the fictional elements of the game were a big part of what was capturing people's imaginations about D&D even very early on.
with all due respect...annd i know thats often an excuse to be hella disrespectful lol...but isnt it hubristic to decry someone's verisimilitude as sexist?? d&d isnt a boardgame..it isnt chess where each player has the same number of pieces..or monopoly where everyone starts with the same amount of $$...on the contrary rpgs like d&d...and especially their old-school rules...revel in imbalance! wasnt it the ideological dedication to balance which was one of the things that made 4e so hated?? im a female gamer and i recognize that males are stronger..sooo if u said red sonja could out arm wrestle conan imma say thats stupid, u know? could she beat him in combat with speed and ingenuity? heck yea...but never with pure strength. we should champion diversity..not deny it and say females are identical to males bcoz thats silly......buut i guess it depends on if ur game is the sort where your dm makes the 6'5 barbarian roll a strength check against a kobold...or they say theres no point in rolling despite "the rules" bcoz obvs they succeed
Funny how I completely blocked out that there was differences to male/females back in the day. Not something that is missed today 😀 And the length is fine, I also finde it very relaxing, listening while painting for example and just looking from time to time.
I've been working on creating a bit more of a realistic take on D&D. Not super realistic, just trying to keep about the same amount of complexity as 5e, but when setting ability score min-max-average for various races it just felt "goofy" to not have different strength scores for human women. I gave them higher dex scores to balance it out. A lot of this early stuff was sexist or pointless complexity or both, but erasing all differences can make things really weird and immersion breaking or just plain silly. Sometimes that's fine, but sometimes it's not.
There are other ways to do it. I give all characters the same dice rolls for generating Strength. However that ability determines what _percentage_ of ones _own_ weight one can lift and carry. On average a Human will therefore be a better labourer than a Halfling. But a Human and a Halfling with the same Strength score will get the same damage modifier in hand-to-hand combat. I'm also just assuming that the right tools and training are a great equalizer.
I've had RECENT players try and argue with me that 'women' can't have an 18(00) strength. I have ZERO interest in attempting to relate game statistics to a real world counter part, especially in a game with dragons, magic and the like. It just seems stunningly silly. If my daughter wants to play a fighter, gets an 18 strength, and then rolls a 00, there's no way on God's green Earth I'm gong to tell her she can't have it because she's playing a 'girl'. And to me, that just reveals the silliness of the entire idea. As far as level limitations by race, just say.. due to their short lives, humans get +10% (cumulative) to earned experience and give them +1 to two ability scores and -1 to one ability. Done... no level limits.
It is fantasy. If a male can have spells then a female can have Conan/Superman strength. Because.... it is fantasy. There are Amazonians and Wonder Women in fantasy after all. I think the criticism is misplaced. D&D was a creation of the times. And TSR struggled between wargame simulation and fantasy for a long time. There were some oldheads but there were also hippies and more women, gay and trans than were common with companies in those days.
It's not a silly idea. It is a reasonable idea rooted in observation of the real world(*). It is totally fine if you want your fantasy world to work differently than the real world but calling significant correlations of attributes with sex a "silly idea" is very arrogant and the sign of a society engulfing itself in willful blindness for political reasons. Again, it's fine if you are not into simulationist emulation of the real world in RPGs (I'm also not, for what it's worth). But that's no reason to patronize people who are or were interested in that. *...as anyone can verify by checking the current weight-lifting records, for example.
That's fair if that's what you want to do. But I wouldn't criticise those who want a more "realistic" game when it comes to things like relative strength linked to size (or other more realistic mechanics like slower natural healing). I remember when the Drow were introduced and learning the female Drow were bigger and stronger than the males (and also more socially dominant) and thinking "cool idea."
@@gregh5665 Im not criticizing, at all. I just never played that way though the girls never really wanted to play regardless. I actually mostly played Basic/ Expert back in the days. If I knew this rule existed, it was lost to the ages.
Even if you exclude magic, the majority of monsters and places in D&D couldn't exist. It's actually silly to then try to apply detailed realism to the game in that way
Nice work, hitting the title subject right away allows people who like shorter videos to come in and out while those of us that were interested in the full length extra content got the supplementary info. I'm glad you went for tea while you weren't feeling well and since I'm not a drinker I encourage you to talk up any drink/snack you were enjoying while you worked (even if its a new flavor of Cheetos and a local soda)
Will do! I have mentioned a few non-alcoholic beverages before, including what I thought was a fun NA version of an "Old Fashioned Cocktail" made with cold brew coffee instead of a spirit (such as whiskey). But I will keep this in mind for future videos. If you saw the one I made right after this one, I was still sick and simply made some fresh-squeezed Mandarin orange juice, which was delicious. And thanks for your comments on the video "structure." I appreciate the feedback.
A lot of FRPG's of the 70s and 80s would have female characters subtract 1 from strength and add 1 to constitution/endurance and/or fatigue. In some cases female characters would get a +1 to dexterity/agility and even charisma/appearance scores. One thing in all the games I knew of back then was females did not get any bonuses or penalties to intelligence or wisdom scores due to gender. It was not just D&D.
I vaguely remember that as well, but I can't recall exactly who did it. I know demihumans in AD&D 2e did this. A dwarf would have + Con and Str and - a couple others like Dex and Cha. Appearance was in Call of Cthulhu, it wasn't very well-explained how you used it. I think all humans rolled 3d6 Appearance.
I can understand recognizing variation in average body size or life span for the sake of story-telling flavour, but to have differences that impact on how a player experiences game-play is another thing altogether.
It sounds a bit too much like builds. You must choose between the fighter build and the sorceress build or the archer build. Some games have tried to define different types of strength but I do not want to bother with a game that makes me calculate explosive strength, endurance strength etc.
I somehow missed this one. You need to do a video where you reenact the filibuster from Parks and Rec, but you read an entire issue of Dragon. Another great video!
I definitely think issue by issue would be better. I like longer videos, but trying to keep the issues straight would be easier if it were per video. At least for me.
Gary and Len's emphasis on female limitations are stupid in a fantasy game even if they could support them. They don't help make the game more fun and just make it less accessible. The level titles of Succubus and Seer are laughable. I am glad Tim Kask decided to keep printing fiction, it inspired some of my Dad's best writing. The Dragon did contain a lot of great creators earliest work. Click bait all you want.🎉
Note: Jennell Jaquays ( a female TTRPG designer legend) wrote a similar article in Dungeoneer #1 in 1976. A much more balanced treatment of females -- she also had cooler titles for women in her article, but she still did use titles like Charmer, Cybil, and Vestal Virgin -- not as bad as what Len used -- but you just have to remember these sere different times. And actually -- not sure what is wrong with "Seer" -- that title has nothing to do with gender.
Yup! And Comeliness pre-dates Unearthed Arcana even! If you watch my video on why D&D Has Six Ability Scores, there's more info there: ruclips.net/video/OSa1fwcxsG8/видео.htmlsi=jxQx3lu-SDTh9fqi
Well, it was fiction, but D&D-adjacent since it appeared in Dragon. But yes, I was so excited when I saw his name on these stories since I mainly knew him for his comics work and creating some of my favorite comic book characters.
Your videos have piqued my interest in OSR and looking into older systems like BECMI, thanks a bunch. Would love a video on the Planescape campaign setting, if that's something that interests you. :)
I am so glad to hear that! If you're interested in BECMI and don't have much familiarity, I would suggest checking out the Rules Cyclopedia, which is available on DriveThruRPG as a PDF, Soft Cover, or Hard Cover: preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/17171/DD-Rules-Cyclopedia-Basic That book from 1991 takes the first four sets from BECMI (Basic, Expert, Companion, and Masters) to run characters for levels 1-36. It's one book with both player and DM stuff (monsters, treasures etc.). For many folks of that era, it's their "desert island" D&D book. As you probably know from my videos, I play the version of D&D that slightly predates BECMI (B/X) and that version has a fantastic retro-clone published by Necrotic Gnome called Old School Essentials: necroticgnome.com/products/old-school-essentials-classic-fantasy-box-set?pr_prod_strat=e5_desc&pr_rec_id=187b3dc55&pr_rec_pid=6575080800317&pr_ref_pid=1773732593709&pr_seq=uniform I will add Planescape to the list. I briefly discuss it here (but note that I mispronounced "Sigil" as a few folks kindly pointed out to me): ruclips.net/video/2JqOqNv4KTE/видео.htmlsi=KCDx0bRWjNbC0hmE Cheers! Thank you for watching and commenting!
Planescape is a game centered around planar hopping as you might know. Combined with the hub city of Sigil. It looks like one of the more high-powered places you can run around in. We're deciding if we should give it a try next.
Thanks for the video. I always love your work. If you are not aware, Tim Kask , the original editor of the dragon and TSR do it all employee #1, is still active on RUclips. If you haven't done an interview with him, it would be well worth your time, I suspect. Forgive me if you have already, I'm old and my memory is poor. Subscribed and shared! I would love to see this channel grow.
I don't mind thumbnails that make you want to click them personally! Definitely did not have a problem with this. My only concern is that people looking for coverage of dragon magazine might not know this covers it.
I love the idea of monks having a special system for duels to advance in level, but I think I'd want it handled in a one-on-one session so the other players don't get potentially bored while it happens.
Both great ideas! I don't mind the idea of monks (and the concept, at the time, always applied to high-level assassins and druids) needing to have some kind of test/combat/whatever to advance in level by defeating the current person at that level, but like you, I think it's best handles one-on-one unless somehow it could be worked into a bigger thing involving all the players (maybe they are investigating because they have heard the opponent is planning to cheat or something?). But I also didn't think it was necessary to have a whole different combat system for the monk trying to advance. Love your chest idea!
@@daddyrolleda1 if I ever get my bronze age game off the ground, one of the things I want to do is once you make name level like around level 10 or 11 you can't progress any farther without doing "great deeds" the first might be founding a town or setting up a colony. It'll progress from there where you'll have to slay named monsters to advance. Like Medusa is a named monster. There is only one of her and she's around 15 HD. Probably equal to a dragon once her stats are all done. And on the other hand , evil NPCs need to slay your PCs to advance to higher levels, so high level play will be really dangerous.
Misogyny aside, I do think the idea of a seducer of any gender could be interesting. No caps, be any class you want but based on your background you can choose to take certain skills that reflect your former life.
I sometimes play a German RPG called The Dark Age. It's a skill-based game and there's a magical tradition called "The Arcane Dancer" all magic abilities are different dances, and there are advantaged like Beautiful Voice and Good Looks I and Good Looks II. Stuff you wouldn't typically see in an American TTRPG -- but definitely not sexist because both male or female characters can be Arcane Dancers and have these advantages (i.e. absolutely no game limitations based on either gender). It is interesting how games from different cultures can be different.
D&D doesn't have a lot of skills early on. AD&D 2e starts using non-weapon proficiencies, a sort of proto-skills/feats. But here you just say something witty or describe how you negotiate and I arbitrate how some blokes receive your words. At most I might use a reaction roll for their first impression.
Love that Daddy Rolled a 1 gives us an interesting review of the earliest Dragon Magazine (sorry The Dragon) issues. 👍👍👍👍😎😎😎😎 When I first played 2e in the late 80s, I tended to play female characters. It was a running joke in my group. I can't remember getting limited by my DMs, not that I ever rolled up an 18 Strength! By the way, don't know if anyone has already said it, in that Gardner F. Fox book cover image of Kyrik: Warlock Warrior, the background is the matte painting of planet Rigel 7 from the original Star Trek pilot "The Cage", just mirror flipped left to right! 😊😊😊😊
Oh, wow! No, no one has mentioned that yet. What a great eye you have to pick that up! Well done. Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it.
You're welcome! 😊😊😊😊 As for the cover painting, I'm a Trekkie, and that painting is iconic. Note, I think this sort of thing was done a lot in books back then. No judgement, just an observation.😊
I am a Trekkie/Trekker/Whatever as well! I used to watch reruns of the original series after school when I was a little kid, and then after I discovered TNG in High School, I saw that TOS was also on late at night while I was in college and I'd watch them in the common room in my dorm hall.
Thanks! I hope you enjoyed it beyond just the somewhat click-bait style thumbnail/headline article. There's a lot of other great content in these two issues! Thanks as always for watching and commenting!
@@DavidMasters-nt7rmNo--PDM does a lot of real content too--just those videos don't get watched nearly as much as the click bait ones. You should have seen his latest campaign video--his figs and terrain are amazing. I'd love to see some tutorials on crafting the different buildings he uses.
@@andrewlustfield6079 It's unfortunate. His work on gaming philosophy, terrain, running adventures, homebrew rules, and just plain old school reminiscing was quite good and often excellent, but the outrage-fueled clickbait finally drove me away. He even took to doing "I'm holding my head, I'm so shocked and dismayed by this" thumbnails like the ones on that awful, awful, awful Dungeons & Discourse channel. (Really, it's TERRIBLE.) It was an embarrassing downturn for what had been one of the better D&D/TTRPG channels, right up there with Seth Skorkowsky, CaptCorajus, Questing Beast, and some others (now including Daddy Rolled a 1, which I only recently discovered and love). And I say none of that because I disagree with criticism of WOTC - they're a corporation, so by default my attitude is screw them, and they've dropped the ball PLENTY and have earned getting called out on it - but because that kind of outrage bait is lazy, tired, and has infected every corner of online fandom. It's a disappointment to see previously good content creators succumb to it. He's better than that side of fandom - or used to be, at least.
@@DavidMasters-nt7rmIf you're trying to grow your channel, some degree of click-bait is expected. But I've his feed still has a lot of good content--though it's less on philosophy and more on alternate game reviews lately. Using his platform to plug other TTRPGs is a good way to get exposure to games that deserve attention. As for philosophy goes--I love that kind of content too. It's what drew me to his channel in the first place. When he gets into it, there's so much more meat on the bone than so many others there who cover things on a very superficial level. The Alexandrian is another great channel for that kind of content. RPG PHD is also pretty good--he has a theater background and has great content when it comes to characters and game plots that are not 5e specific. And another one I've just discovered is We Love RPGs---so far that one is very solid. I don't always agree with DM--and that's not what I'm looking for. It's the way he presents ideas--at least for me--I have to stop and consider what he is saying vs the way I've been running games. Like the gold piece was supposed to be according to the DMG--it's a rare and wondrous thing. As for the latest with WOTC. Shrugs. I never made the shift to third edition back in the 2000s--I had bought 20 years worth of D&D rules, I didn't need to buy more. So WOTC hasn't seen a dime of my money. I will say I have major philosophical differences with the direction 5e has taken. I like a lot more realism and low magic settings. just as one example--the base difference between a first level character and a 20th level character is +4 or 20%? That's like saying there's a 20% difference between someone who has had two semesters of archery in college and someone competing for Olympic medals. I think that's more of a difference than a base 20%. I prefer more HEMA inspired combat--where weapons and armor choices are more than a fashion statement. It makes a difference if you're using a 8 foot spear vs a long sword (which should really be called an arming sword--though I've given up on trying to enforce that change) Dan's video on getting rid of initiative rolls really changed my combat rounds--going from initiative rolls to a combat sequence based on weapon reach. Things have become so much faster and it makes more sense too---best of both worlds.
Later on 2.5 tried to expand all the stats but I don't think anyone used them. There was 2 substats under each stat and you could play with the points a little bit . It let you tailor the bonuses for the stat slightly.
@@dodgeplow some of the 2.5 stuff is good. They manage to make sure to tell people "Don't try to use all of this stuff in a campaign" but those should have been DM books and not "players option"
Hey, Martin! Another excellent vid, so glad you're doing well in the transition from blogger to RUclipsr! I am hoping to do the same someday! Palmyra is not far from where I live in NJ, btw! I hope to check it out.
So great to hear from you! I have fallen way behind on my blog but I do hope to be a bit more consistent this year. And I really hope you get to check out the Con. @DMTales (Wesley Allen) is a great guy and one of my inspirations for starting my RUclips channel. And it's for a good cause! If you go, please tell Wes I said "Hello." And, thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it. Cheers!
I am so glad to hear that, and I really appreciate you watching (listening?) and commenting. It means a lot. Good luck prepping for your game. I'm currently prepping a one-shot for my friend's 50th Birthday. He said he didn't want a big party and specifically asked me as my gift for him to run this. Only three players, who will each be running two PCs. I'm going to run the old-school "I6: Ravenloft" module from 1983!
On reding and getting inspiration, i like to watch phd&d on RUclips. He's got great concepts and sources for different types of characters, using novelists and historical references.
To be fair, it was pretty limited to this specific article (which oddly was picked up from Len Lakofka's own "Liaisons Dangereuses" fanzine - I guess he didn't learn his lesson). Lakofka, Gygax, and Tim Kask were subsequently attacked in print by others in the gaming community for having published the article, including a somewhat "famous" editorial cartoon in Alarums & Excursions (which as you know was published by a woman gamer). But just seeing the choices made to publish that article and then use up 12.5% of the entire page count for it... I'm really a little surprised that at least somebody didn't say, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't do this..."
Not that it was right -- and yes would not be acceptable these days in a TTRPG today -- but it was totally like that back then -- watch James Bond Dr. No (1962) and you'll see what I mean. They then gave James Bond a female boss in 1995. Judi Dench was a great "M".
@@daddyrolleda1 Jennell Jaquays (a woman) wrote an article in Dungeoneer #1 that had differences between men and women (not as silly as Len's article), actually a much, much better article. But just wanted to point out that both men and women thought differently back then -- just watch TV shows, movies from the 60s, etc... "Leave it to Beaver", "I Dream of Jeannie", "Bewitched", I could go on and on and on... Definitely unacceptable now -- just want to point out those were different times -- and if you want to criticize Gygax you have to like criticize hundreds of movies and shows from that era.
@@quantus5875Hey, what are you doing, actually? Is it fair for me to say, "Caitlyn Jenner, a woman, set the men's decathalon world record in 1976?" That article was written under the name Paul. Let's not do this historical revisionism thing.
@@VinnyBloo IMO two different deals -- Jennell was using Paul as a pseudonym because she felt she had to, but she was free to write about anything she wanted to. My stance is just to show that I think criticism of Gygax is unwarranted - yes if he'd done that strength cap table in 2010 then yes, but back in 1976 you also had Jennell writing rules that had level caps, and differences between males and females. Your topic is a little subtle and deals with opinions, yours and mine seem to differ -- but if you go look on the Wikipedia article every reference to her in the entire article is "she" or "her". The only reference to the name Paul is the following: "Jennell Allyn Jaquays (born Paul Jaquays; October 14, 1956 - January 10, 2024) was an American game designer, video game artist, and illustrator of tabletop role-playing games (RPGs)." I'm not an expert on her, but interviews with her - her views - should back my opinion.
I love your channel and the breadth of knowledge you have about D&D. You're so interesting to listen to, and clearly very smart! I can't wait for the next video. I just feel like you've handicapped yourself via ideology with this one, though. It seems that you're suggesting that any acknowledgement of the nature of women is "sexist." Of course women aren't as strong - this is objectively true. And of course women use their female beauty and wiles to their advantage to manipulate men to get what they want. This happens all the time in common experience. It is a tool at their disposal, just as men's strength and ingenuity are tools which they rely on often. And they use that tool well and frequently. For thousands of years no one would have disputed this up until about 10 minutes ago. You say that we have "moved past this kind of thinking" but what evidence do you have to show that this sort of thing is no longer a regular part of common experience? It surely is. I'm not trying to be mean at all - I have a wife and three daughters that I love more than anything. But I would be a fool to think 1) they could be as strong as I am, or 2) they don't have realities of their nature which lead to various behaviors common to women. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it just IS. It's crazy to me to deny what clearly IS, to try to spare feelings or whatever. In fact, doing so places a negative judgment on female nature, because it assumes that a woman acting like a woman is bad, since women should act like men with no distinguishing traits or behavior between them. To me, making different stats for women makes perfect sense, as they are clearly physically weaker than men. The problem is, from a game perspective, if we did that there is no attribute score where women would have a clear advantage to make up for this deficiency. Hence, if we did adjust strength to reality, there would be an inherent disadvantage to playing a woman in D&D and no one would want to. So, while it's another way that we suspend reality for the game, it's probably best to not distinguish between the sexes for attribute scores.
Those class titles - yikes! I was familiar with the AD&D stat and level limits on women, and the gross treatment of Comeliness, but this was new to me.
I, too, am from California! We are weird. And I say pronounce it how you want. I only point out my pronunciation every time because I got a lot of very helpful comments once regarding my pronunciation of the word "arquebus" (which wasn't wrong - I was just using the British pronunciation with a very soft "r") and I've also learned a certain segment of the community wants to chime in with their corrections so I figure I may as well just be upfront about it and admit I don't know how to pronounce something! Thanks for watching and commenting.
As for video length, i still think around the 45min-1hr mark is good. As of "now" i havent watched the recent previous one that is over 2hrs. You show a lot visual content, which i like, so it's not really conducive to have on the background or car drive.
I remember this article, and thought it was pretty crazy stuff. As a DM at the time I placed no restrictions on female characters. The only thing was I penalized them -1 on their Strength ability score, which I would not do now even though it's pretty much supported by biology. To balance that, they got a +1 on Dexterity. Beyond that, I felt that any gender differences should come about through role playing. But I was never big on having a lot of rules for everything anyway. My group and I wanted fun and fast-paced gaming, and rules creep was antithetical to that.
Sagas of the Icelanders, a modern Apocalypse World thing, plays up the social norms and differences of gender in old Iceland. It doesn't try to be a historically realistic Iceland, it's the Iceland of the sagas. When playtesting it, we found that men had the ability to act in honourable ways and defend their honour, while women had abilities to define what honour is. Everyone can cleave someone with a seaxe and start bitter feuds.
I don't think I could do four hours! I think my video that was 2 hours 15 minutes is probably the longest I'll do. That wasn't planned but just kind of worked out that way. I'll try to keep the 90 minute mark in mind. Thank you so much for the feedback.
I totally get that, and thank you for the feedback. It's so difficult to know the right balance, as I get quite a few comments from folks who say they really enjoy my longer form videos because they listen to them while doing other things (not even necessarily watching!). But I do try to be cognizant of folks who prefer shorter videos. I've also learned that anytime I do a "series," the subsequent videos after the first always get a lot fewer views. Thanks for your support of the channel, as always, and for sharing your feedback. I really appreciate it.
I am aware of Master of the Game, but I haven't read it yet. Thanks for the tip! Did you see that Troll Lord Games is reprinting all of Gygax's "World Builder" books (Canting Crew, Living Fantasy, etc.)? The Kickstarter just went live!
You are very far from alone. The vast majority of the subscribers and viewers of my channel strongly prefer the history deep dives like this versus my Reviews or DM Advice, which is funny because I never intended to become the "D&D History Guy." But I'm having so much fun making them because they help me dig deeper than I would have otherwise, and I love sharing the early history of the hobby, especially with folks who are new to the game. Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
Lycan-Subscribe! 😂 I truly enjoy everything from Daddy Rolled a 1! I can't always listen on day one because the videos are so long. Yet, the length is justified by the depth and density of the content. Please continue to delve into the history of our hobby. Bonus comment: Earl Grey tea and Ray Charles! Another great combo.
Thank you so much! I always appreciate when folks watch all the way through to the end of the video and bonus content and then comment on it! Watch/listen on your own time. I just appreciate the support. Thanks again - I really appreciate it!
The beauty score showed up again briefly in 1st edition as a comeliness score that applied to everyone, not just women. It was pointless and implied there's some universal standard of beauty. No one I knew ever used it. I love the really early Dragon magazines for their crazy creativity, but man this article is cringe. I remember the letters pages and editorials in that time where gamers were lamenting the lack of women players. I knew women players at the time, but they were definitely a small minority. I would chalk this one up to a sweaty adolescent fantasy, but from the condescending title, it sounds like the author (or editor perhaps) really thought they were making an effort to recruit women to the hobby. In a sense, perhaps it did help the game become more inclusive in the long run, in that there were lots of games at the time that had minor differences between generating male and female characters, but this was so extreme it may have provoked a "let's not do that again" response. Off the top of my head, I remember Chivalry and Sorcery had you randomly generate a character's height, which had a significant effect on melee combat. And women of every race tended to be shorter and lighter on average. There were also some differences in rolling for social roles, which were based on Medieval European culture. I think the game with the most extreme difference was Pendragon, which was an Arthurian RPG where everyone was assumed to be a knight of the round table. Women couldn't be knights. I think there were rules for generating female characters, but they were just intended to be NPCs. I think the first edition of Powers and Perils had significant modifiers to the ability scores of female characters- even to the point of making female characters less intelligent. I never owned a copy, I just have vague memories of playing it once.
My recollection is that the "comeliness" stat was introduced to try to get people to stop associating the charisma stat with "beauty", and return it to the original goal of representing persuasion/leadership/personality/magnetism. Teens in particular generally had no conception of "charisma" as something that didn't revolve around beauty.
Some games legitimately had an "appearance" stat, like some espionage role playing games. But the stat applied to both women and men. Lakofka's article is strange in that the stat only applies to women. I talk about it briefly, in another post but Jennell Jaquays wrote a better article about women in role-playing games in Dungeoneer #1. One super cool thing about the latest Pendragon release (the new starter set). Female Knights!! Super cool -- love that game.
I played Pendragon in the 80's. I didn't even know it was still around. I will say for it, I learned a lot about the culture and geography of Britain in the dark ages from that game. It strangely mixed technology from the high middle ages with an otherwise Saxon-invasion-of Romano-Cymric Britain setting@@quantus5875
You are mistaken about King Arthur Pendragon. The 1985 boxed set includes 2 pages about women characters. Greg outlined the roles of women both in the literature that his game emulates and in the history that runs alongside (at a distance). He names several fighting women, giving them cultural and historical context. "All player-character women are extraordinary women" (pg 23). He provides reason for excluding women knights, includes approaches for non-knight women PCs, and includes notes for using women knights. He then leaves the matter in the hands of the referee (who may want to stick as close as possible to the literature, to history, or to explore a middle path). "When creating women knight-characters, you need not use the statistics which indicate that women are normally smaller than men" (pg.24)
@@jarrettperdue3328 You just said it it yourself, - women were not knights as player characters in Gregg Stafford's Pendragon (1985), which I own and played. Explanatory notes and an option? If Gygax had done that you would have called him sexist -- why are female PC knights an option and not a default, you would say. What I am trying to point out those were different times. I love Pendragon (1985) and current Pendragon. But now women can be knights as a player character not some option, If, you don't have it highly recommend you check out Pendragon (2023). Female knights are so cool! And the Pendragon (2023) starter set is amazing! Great job by Chaosium! This product is going to do well!! It also gets back to my point these are make-believe, fantasy games, some people try and criticize Gygax because he has this strength cap table in AD&D 1ed that I almost always forget even exists, because I never used it.
Yes, that would be a long plane trip! I've been social media friends with Wes from DMTales for a few years and his RUclips was one of my inspirations for starting my own channel. He asked if I would mind plugging his convention, and I was happy to do so!
@@daddyrolleda1 Oh yeah. I think I found your channel by his recommendation originally. Lovely guy, really nice atmosphere around his channel and great content. It's kind of too bad I'm not around in any other social media aside from RUclips as this platform doesn't really support deeper discussion and staying in touch. I still think I'm happier the further I stay away from my FB account and the like 😅
I don't want to let Len, Tim, and Gary off too easily here. We can say they were a product of their time, but Ursula K. Le Guin published A Wizard of Earthsea in 1968, the same year Anne McCaffrey published Dragonflight (she also won the Hugo Award that same year). Elise Gygax played of course and Jean Wells was corresponding with Gary by 1978. There were many "products of that time" who didn't embrace sexism the way these men did. I wish they'd made better choices.
I don't know if it applies to these guys, but a lot of guys in "nerd culture" seem to nurse a grudge against women based on social difficulties we had as adolescents feeling romantically rejected in school. It seems like some people feel like if they can't be an alpha male in the real world, they will get that feeling of superiority by making their gaming/fantasy subculture an inhospitable place for women.
To be fair to Gary, he also hired a lot of women to work on D&D and gave dozens of women their start in the business. I read a book on the history of D&D art and most of the early artists Gary used were women.
You also have to remember, products of their time existed largely due to ignorance. They didn't have the same resources modern people do to connect with others and learn about injustice. We are very privileged to be in an era where you can at the touch of a button summon feminist writings. A lot of people who are smug about the way people in the past thought would have had the exact same ideology if they had lived in that time period and era.
@@HumanoidCableDreads What are you talking about? The fight for women's rights/liberation was raging during this exact period of time. Unless you were very much sheltered, these issues would be part of the general culture more than they are today due to strident advocacy by groups on both sides. Right about the same time as this article comes out, the process of finally outlawing marital rape is starting nationwide (though it does take until the 90s for the most backwards states to finally remove spousal exemption). While the access to the writings might have been less prevalent, the topics would most certainly have been more prevalent than in the current day.
I never liked xp/level damage. Xp to me is something they have earned fairly. In WFRP you might get limbs chopped off, eyes gouged, your sanity blasted away and attributes reduced but what you have learned on the way to glory remains with you. I would rather have my vampires permanently drain your Con than steal levels. Coffee/chocolate shops and tea houses are great for meeting up with people. You can run into inside trading, radicals, people reading and discussing the paper and spies. We've used caravanserais where everyone who is out and about on the road tuck in for stays. Both as hubs on the road and designated visitor zones outside the city wall. We had one caravanserai that was an entire small town, where crews of ships stay when the two week long moon-night falls.
I know there's a change in audio quality when I record my screen (as I was doing in this video) versus my "hand and book" videos which are recorded on my phone. I'm not really sure how to fix that. I don't have the best equipment not am I super knowledgeable from a technical standpoint. If you have suggestions, I'm very open to them. In any event, thank you for watching and commenting anyway.
@@daddyrolleda1 You could get an external microphone. Something like the clip-on Rode SmarLav+ or Shure MVL, which connect to a standard 3.5mm headset socket. Microphones built into laptops tend to sound bad for whatever reason, similarly to how their webcams record much worse video than phone cameras.
Thank you for the suggestions! As it so happens, I do have a Shure microphone (not sure which model exactly) but while recording, I did forget to put it in front of me so it was off to the side. That might have affected things. I've done screen records before and nobody has mentioned the audio quality. I've just noticed it's different from my phone-recorded audio, but usually when the entire video is just one or the other, it doesn't stand out.
BRP games like Call of Cthulhu have an Appearance attribute. It's not fully explained what it does, except that you might flirt with it at the pub using good looks and initial charm followed up by the real social skills. You can make attribute rolls in BRP by rolling a d100 against Attribute x5 or Attribute x3 or something. There is no Charisma attribute but there are several social skills with much greater use than Appearance. Chaosium specifically points out that Appearance is shallow and pretty much good only for first impressions. All humans roll Appearance the same way, 3d6. Humanoid monsters roll differently, many mythos creatures have none. To this day I have absolutely no idea how to use it, players roll it if they feel like.
@@anyoneatall3488 It could have some limited uses but for the most part we ignored it. Most things were done with skills. You could roll INTx3 or x5 sometimes but most was skills. They suggested you might use APP as a first impression roll. There is no Charisma attribute in CoC.
Great video! Although I only watched the women in D&D part. You do realize you'd actually get more views if you had just done the women in D&D segment -- and not done the look at Dragon (videos over an hour turn a lot of people off - I almost didn't watch it because of this). But glad I watched your first segment. 😂 Note: there is an excellent article written by Jennell Jaquays (as Paul Jaquays of course) in Dungeoneer #1 that is much better than Lakofka's article. Her article is called "Those Lovely Ladies". She also created attribute caps (interesting because this is a female writing this article). She did have a much more equal view than Len did though -- especially for the time this was published. The basic way that Jennell handled level caps was that females got a +2 to Charisma, and if a female had a strength of 17 she lost one of her extra charisma points, and if she had an 18 strength (yes, 18 strength was allowed by Jennell) you lost both of your extra Charisma points. There is other stuff in the article -- she does the title stuff as well -- but much more well done than Len, and also a ton of great worldbuilding stuff and a very pro view of women for the time. Jennell was fantastic!! A true legend!!
We also never really played in greyhawk. We'd steal module ideas, sure. But in my experience, every world we played in back in the day was a homebrew setting. So some of the DMs had created an order of fighters who were all women, or a guild of mages who only accepted men. But that was a personal regional choice to that fantasy realm or country or what have you
Agreed. Why try and simulate reality in a make-believe, fantasy game. I almost forget those ability cap rules are even there because we never used them.
I really appreciate that! Thank you! It's so funny but like two comments down from this is a comment from another person telling me that the video was too long and they stopped watching after the "women in D&D" part, and that they almost didn't watch it because it was too long. The person was well-intentioned (he said I would've gotten more views with a shorter video) so it's fine. I always appreciate that feedback. Thank you again!
wait...males and females ARE different..why shouldnt it be replicated in the game? as a fantasy game i guess reality can be abandoned in favor of the game mechanics..but for ppl who want more verisimilitude it makes perfect sense to include differentiation......like a gargantuan dragon could be said to fly with itsy-bitsy butterfly wings coz of MAGIC...but its far less taxing to the imagination to say its wings are huge monstrosities that sweep up tornado-like winds.......like perhaps it shouldnt affect your players' fun...buut its precisely why in my games if a 6' male fighter wants to make a strength check against a 2' tall kobold its like...um..dont bother rolling coz u win of course....soo it only makes sense..from a sword and sorcery perspective..that male characters would be hella strong (and stronger than female characters) and female characters could use their beauty to manipulate their opponents.
This is supposedly a woman commenter, but I don't know. Swallowing the stereotypes makes it seem like either you're a man pretending to be a woman or you're one of those sad tradwife types.
When I started, my DM was pretty strict about the race level limits ("kind of") but we all cheated on our ability scores (including the DM, who encouraged it!) so we had max stat in our primary requisite to advance to max level. We also never played the same PC long enough to ever even reach the max level! But we never used the Strength limits for men or women characters. We mainly played B/X and those rules weren't in there. There were only in Advanced D&D. I preferred the B/X way.
@@daddyrolleda1 I just never got the reasoning that here you are a 6th level fighter and you can’t get any better if you wanted to. Those were thrown out early on. I honestly have never played a female character, when I was a kid I wouldn’t have, but now that I’m 53 years old I totally would and am planning on it the next time I get to play a new character. Thanks for the reply and love you channel!!
@@seanfaherty yep exactly. It’s your campaign, it’s your game. Use the rules but make it fun. If you don’t agree with something, don’t use it. This game isn’t real life. I’m sure not every game of D&D is the exact same. Even Gary said mold it to your liking.
What really detracts from this review is how judgmental the reviewer is. We can all read. Len was attempting the reality (and it is the reality) that men are different than woman. Not better or worse, just different. It wouldn’t be a problem, if the reviewer would explain what was going on, what Len was trying to do, that would be one thing. But saying “this is sexist, that is sexist” all the time, is just woke. The rest of the history and material is great!
I really appreciate that. Try as I might, I can't seem to figure out how to make shorter video. One person told me I should have *only* covered the Women in Gaming segment and left the other parts for another video. I figured I'd use the somewhat controversial "Women in Gaming" article as an entryway to introduce folks to the other parts that I feel might get lost and overlooked if I left them separate. In any event, thank you so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Well I'll give you some more feedback from my POV and hope it's not TMI! But how I see it is, I'm coming to your channel to get your personal take on things which includes your choice of subjects to cover and how you cover them. So while you do give a lot of great factual and technical info of course it's not just that which I value, so I wouldn't be happier or better served if you were limited to just covering one topic in a video. I think the whole "keep it short" approach applies in commercial short-form media where the idea is to inform on an advertised topic (Think news headlines) but I would HOPE if someone is clicking on a video about vintage Dungeons and Dragons and how it had a specific rule set they aren't tapping a pocket watch going "Tut tut, this is running a bit long for my taste. I have a video on 1970's Lego sets and a compilation of 1950's advertisements yet to fit in before my daily re-enactment of favored Dr Who moments. Why, my 4th Doctor scarves are nearly drip-dried from their daily hand washing!" Long form is much better in my opinion! But mainly I hope you keep doing it how you most want. That way you'll be doing what you enjoy for an audience that enjoys what you do. Also as a side note I really enjoy the commentary you give on the artists and their artwork!
Thank you so much for writing this! I really appreciate you taking the time to explain how you approach the watch the channel, as it helps me know what I should be focusing on going forward. Sincere thanks for your support. Cheers!
I think it just came from D&D's wargamer roots. Yes, over time we all realized we're playing a completely make-believe fantasy game, so no reason for simulations like that.
@@quantus5875 I totally agree with you on that point, and there were other times when heavy simulation became the sine qua non of an RPG. It's interesting how much of it is still around in spots, though, especially in the case of folks talking about world building and insisting on high simulation. To be clear, I like some but not to the extreme.
One of the most glorious articles I've read in a late 80's local mag was the mathematically accurate artillery rules. IRL artillery, especially non-assisted early modern period artillery, is a lot of math and now you can enjoy this in your game.
I did the same when creating my TTRPG. Certain kind of spirits, eldritch patrons, charisma-based skills, stat cap (STR, CON, WIL, PER), some Weapon Masteries, how magic and psionic work, and the like.
The video game Morrowind - widely thought to be one of the greatest roleplaying video games - has different attributes for male and female of each race, and that is from 2002. If you do not read the manual it’s not particularly obvious. In general, men have more strength and endurance, while women are more intelligent, personable and sometimes agile - although it varies by race. Personally I never minded it because it leads to more character options. It’s also balanced, although it could impact your character options.
I'm used to the WFRP scale. Strength 3 is a human. Strength 2 is a goblin. Strength 4 is a space marine. It sounds suspiciously like builds to me. Am I gonna go with a fighter build, a sorceress build or a ranger build etc. And I am not a fan of builds.
These were two modules/adventures, EX1 and EX2, written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR in the early 80's, that are based on the Lewis Carroll's novels "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass." They are full of puns and humor, but if played straight, they are quite dangerous!
I can only imagine my much my daughter would roll her eyes if she were to read this! She's a bit shy (embarrassed?) of me having a RUclips channel. But I sincerely thank you!
Considering how D&D was created by people who had been historical wargamers trying to create rules that extended their wargaming to familiar genres of history, chivalry, sword&sorcery, mythology, etc it shouldn't come as any surprise that the early rules were crafted to reflect the feel and sensibilities of those genres.
What is sexist or unreal about saying men are stronger than women at maximum levels? The rest of it is kind of odd but the strength part a representation of the real world.
Well, they did in the past when it was trying to be more simulationist, but most of the attempts at simulationism in RPGs just end up not being fun anyway. I never really had an issue with it either way, but not having modifiers for gender does just make things simpler in a game where people pretend to be Wizards and Elves. IIRC there were rules in 1e that also had ability score modifiers based on age too, but no one I knew ever used any of those rules because we never kept track of time and most characters died or the campaign ended before they got more than a couple of years older anyway.
This particular article I discuss goes beyond just trying to be "simulationist" (which I don't agree with anyway) and gets into replacing Charisma with "Beauty" and using level titles like "Wench," "Succubus," and "Sibyl" for female thieves, and giving all women PCs regardless of class powers of "Seduction" and "Charm Men." That's just egregious sexism.
@@daddyrolleda1 I wouldn't say it's sexism so much as immaturity. :) Never assume malicious intent when being dumb explains it pretty well. Ah, to be young and dumb again!
@@RedSiegfriedthis is less mental or age immaturity, keep in mind Gygax and co were adults with children while writing D&D so this wasn't adolescent ideas. This is a result of the times, women in fantasy were framed in these terms, especially pulp fiction which was a massive inspiration for much of the ideas behind D&D.
We have jumped fools twice by waiting at the latrines. Sometimes it's a proper running water source, sometimes it's buckets or a hole. One group of dungeon-dwellers combined latrines with shroom farms in a clever way.
Fantasy Wargaming had rules for female characters which reflected the beliefs of medieval society. D&D is its own creature though. We see the D&D preference for female statistics limitations is featured in the 1e PHB and UA. Telling women that they can compete against men in power lifting isn't sexist, it's merciful. Idk, maybe we need more men in women's sports to knock out some more teeth and crush more ocular cavities to level that playing field? There certainly is absolutely no historical evidence of a "honey pot" operation being effective and the article is just faulty because modern mind.. That said I played basic and never messed with this stuff that much beyond campaign setup.
The best non-historically accurate historical RPG I've read is Pendragon. It tosses medieval Britain out the window and makes you play the romantic Camelot of Mort d'Arthur. You are all manly knights. Every single PC is a knight. There are hunters and wives and wizards and nuns around you but you nothing but knights. You are ruled by mighty passions that makes you run into the forest and scream when you hate saxons too much.
Ars Magica and later Aquelarre are pretty good takes on historical-mythical Europe or the Iberian peninsula. Ars Magica is all about wizards. Auelarre is very focused on medieval WFRP life on the iberian pennsula.
17:40. "...women using their feminine wiles to get men to do what they want. Um, we've moved past that kind of thing." LOL. Imagine a world in which this never occurs! Now that would be a fantasy!
One of my friends joked that we should fill a dungeon with every stupid seduction monster they had. Nothing but hags, dryads, vampires and other nonsense. Players never fall for it. They think "Oh, there is a chump in silk clothes sitting here on a bed in the middle of the Muck Pit. We'd better walk around this shit." The most clever ruses I've faced has been monsters in disguise who had figured out what players expect. Not some weirdly seductive person on a dais in nowhere, but someone who looks like a kidnapped peasant with bad teeth.
No need to apologize for the "sexism" of early D&D. The worst that can be said for caps on female strength scores is that it's in harmony with scientific realism. It's actually true to reality. But D&D isn't reality and is "just a game", so an argument can be made for ignoring reality there. OTOH, the fantasy aspect is in harmony with sex differences as well, at least if one considers classic Sword and Sorcery fiction.
The strength limits on female characters made sense, but the last female character in my campaign had Gauntlets of Ogre Power making her the strongest in the group, lol.
I really like the racial/sex/class level limitations. It made characters different. Players can have different experiences and challenges. It adds variety. I don't care at all thats its politically incorrect to the wierdos out there who think everyone is identical.
or Halflings and Hill Giants. Oh, wait there is a difference between these two -- but yeah -- this is a make believe, fantasy game -- so yeah why not -- my halfling wearing a girdle of storm giant strength. 🤣
is what the origional writers did and continue to do is assume that female game players would play the game(s), in the same manner as male players, how wrong they are / were. By adding un-needed rulings for various aspects of the rules will always erk some players. Female players play differently anyway; in most novels (regardless of genre) female characters are not treated the same as males but there are no obvious rules and reasons presented. Saying it is sexist is only from the stand point of a modern audience; and then as now if you do not like the rules, changes them!
Agreed!! I totally believe that today rules like that are unacceptable -- but back then times were different -- yeah, I played AD&D 1st Ed for 13 years and I sometimes forget those strength cap rules even exist -- because we never used them. Yes, change the rules -- house rule folks -- if you don't like the rules.
Part of the history of our hobby is to look at wonky old rulesets, try to see why they came to be and even try them out a bit. Our group sometimes likes to take out wonky old games like MERP or Metamorphosis Alpha or an old JG convention adventure to see how it could have worked. Sometimes you need to sit down and play it to figure things out. We learned that humans have a few hidden abilities in MA. On paper, they are weak and lack the cool mutant powers of non-humans. They can recruit a few goons, usually other humans from the same tribe or mutants they encounter. But then you notice that all technology on the Warden is made for humans. A robot won't necessarily recognise a mutant as an intelligent creature, but is unable to harm a human. Medical units know how to treat a human PC but not a plant-person.
Those rules were not in the original 3 booklets, which I still use today.. All kinds of silly optional rules were published in The Dragon, and other zines back then. I guess you can try to judge the whole generation of gamers by a couple of dumb articles in order to create some click bait, but this strategy will never work on me.
Thank you very much for commenting. Not sure if you had a chance to watch the video (or were interested) but I definitely don't think I came across as judging anyone. At least, I did not intend to. I think the article was in poor taste even back then, and history shows that the author was attacked pretty mercilessly by authors in the industry even at the time for having published it. I don't believe his intent was to be sexist (I say as much in the video) but it's still something I wanted to talk about. The main reason for the so-called "click-bait" strategy was that I was covering *all* of the articles and many of the ads, and providing context of the writers and artists who created them, for two issues of Dragon Magazine (#2 and #3). I've found from past experience that a simple thumbnail and title that describes that gets far fewer views and comments. So, I tried something different this time by picking a specific article from these two issues that I assumed a lot of folks would have interest in and highlighting it. It seems to be working, as more folks are watching this video than many of my previous ones, and they are leaving comments to share their thoughts.
Where did he try to " judge the whole generation of gamers by a couple of dumb articles?" I'll help you out: He didn't. Not once. Didn't even HINT at such a thing. I mean, heck, he's OF that generation of gamers. That era is his roots! He criticized one article. And it DESERVED the criticism. Not once did he direct that criticism to the rest of us gamers of the era, nor other creators, other games, and so on. Didn't judge anything but that article and what it presented. If this upset you, you might have some soul-searching to do.
I would like to point out, how many people in history were casting lightning bolts and fireballs in the middle ages? Not very damn many, for a good reason. I would like to point out, how many people in history were destroying magically animated skeletons by holding out a holy symbol and praying really hard at them in the middle ages? Not very damn many, for a good reason. I would like to point out, how many people in history were slaying dragons and stealing their hoards in the middle ages? Not very damn many, for a good reason.
This is a game with undead hordes, talking dragons, forest spirits, elves and dwarves, ooze creatures, gelatinous cubes, magic spells, treasure chests that come alive and east people, walking trees, demon gods, and the ability to resurrect the dead, among dozens and dozens of other such things. Somehow, "women weren't soldiers in the middle ages" seems like a silly argument in that context, don't you think?
@@njp4321 One thing that is cool is that the new version of Pendragon has female knights!! So cool!! Yes, almost everyone gets it now -- this is a make believe game, so even in an Arthurian setting (which is really just another fantasy setting) TTRPG why can't there be female knights. Love that change!! And the back stories on the female knight pre-gens is so cool!
@@quantus5875 Pendragon was never about historical realism to me. It was Mort d'Arthur in a weird romantic Camelot. The sort of Camelot portrayed in nostalgic knight novels centuries afterwards. You could play a female knights in old Pendragon too, as an option. You are still a knight, and the game rigidly defines what an arthurian knight is. You can't shoot people with a bow. You can hunt leopards. There is a magic system, but you won't touch it.
@@SusCalvin Yes, agreed you could play female knights as an "option". For people reading this post this is exactly how the option is stated in Pendragon 1e (1985) on page 23, "Your gamemaster might allow women knights in his Pendragon campaign. Always assume they are not allowed, then check with your gamemaster." I also agree with you I took an unrigid view of Arthurian fantasy -- after all it is still a fantasy game IMO -- not a game about historical realism.
Its interesting because your video format feels like it reflects your way of approaching things and talking, its like sitting at the table and spending time on a talk, having a good time and I enjoy that a lot. Its one of the better ways to end the day for me. I wager that more efficient video formats would make a difference but I like your style way more.
This is such a great comment, and I appreciate it so much. Thank you for taking the time to let me know, as that's the kind of vibe I was going for. Thank you so much for watching and for your support of the channel. It means a lot. Cheers!
I've read (or audiobooked) all of the REH Conan. The only heroic near equal of Conan in the stories is... Valeria in Red Nails, though she's more of a speed fighter than a strength one. Zenobia in Hour of the Dragon, who eventually becomes Conan's queen at the end of the story, equals him in courage.
I get it, the Eagles explained that women are all magic, you know that Witchy Women song.
I just find it odd to try and apply realistic physics to a game with dragons. That they can fly in D&D breaks pretty much every law of physics.
I definitely agree. As someone running a game for my 14yo daughter and her friends, I would find it strange to begin placing limitations on them for a fantasy game. I don't see the upside of doing so and trying to make a fantasy game more "realistic." It's also why I don't care that Armor Class makes it harder to hit instead of absorb damage, etc. I'm not trying to make the game more realistic.
That said, we fortunately are playing 1981 B/X D&D which didn't include any of gender-based limitations that showed up in Advanced D&D.
Thank you very much for watching and commenting.
There is a HUGE difference between the dragon flying because magic, and the 2ft tall person being as great a warrior as the 8ft half-giant. One is fantastic to imagine, the other completely invalidates any player option that SHOULD be powerful.
Thank you, Martin, for the retrospective. I was amused by your attempt to pronounce my name, which I thought that you did a commendable job. My name is pronounced EE-vor Yan-chee to be exact 😊. I was surprised how much information you had about my time at TSR in the early to mid-80s, and that I'd moved on to work at Tonka Toys. As you mentioned, I was hired primarily to work on the SPI games that TSR acquired or newly created, and as art director I had the responsibility to contact freelancers (e.g., Mark A. Nelson) to do artwork, mostly for interiors.
And yes, you're correct per one of your other videos, that my longtime best friend John M. Seaton and I introduced Brian Blume to Gary Gygax just before John and I left for our respective universities. We played SPI board-games with Brian, and that led to us taking Brian up to Lake Geneva to meet Gary. I had a lot of fun working at TSR, and especially socializing with the staff artists Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Clyde Caldwell, the late Keith Parkinson, and eventually Jeff Butler.
Thanks, again, for the trip down memory lane!
Oh wow! What a treat to have you here in the comments! That is amazing. Thank you SO MUCH for watching and then commenting on my video. I truly appreciate you having taken the time to do so. I also appreciate your support of subscribing to the channel. That means so much to me. All my best!
@@daddyrolleda1 I appreciate your comments, Martin.
I sent the link to this episode to John M. Seaton, so that he can enjoy your retrospective. Thanks for taking me back in time, and keep up the wonderful work.
Len Lakofka (RIP) was *pilloried* in the fan press for that article. One zine, I can't remember which, even printed a cartoon of him being burned in effigy. So yeah, this approach was seen as pretty damn icky and patronizing by many even back then.
If this came out in 1976, the topic of fighting sexism and gender equality would still be quite active. Women don't get the automatic right to their own bank accounts until 1967, the article comes out in the exact period of time where marital rape was first being debated for outlawing, etc. In many ways, the advocacy for gender equality was more prevalent then than now, as it had to be for progress to be made.
Covering that fanzine response would be a cool video.
The zine is Alarums & Excursions, issue 19. Tim Kask (he was also burned in effigy in that cartoon) wrote a letter in response to the article with the cartoon that was printed in issue 20.
If you search for Alarums & Excursions you can find it online still. You have to a couple dollars for each back issue but its honestly worth it to take a look at the fan culture of the time.
@@crazycaleb Wow nice find! Yes, you're right you can still get all the old versions of A&E in electronic form from their web site for $2 each, the last time I looked. Might have to go pick up a few old issues of A&E. I'd like to look at A&E #100 because supposedly there is a short diceless TTRPG in #100, that predates the publication of the first officially published diceless TTRPG which is Amber: Diceless Roleplaying (1991). Amber is still the first officially published diceless RPG, but interesting that an A&E published game predates it by quite a few years with respect to using a diceless mechanic.
Oh, this should be interesting! I’m glad you deal with these topics respectfully, your videos are always quite high quality
a thumbs up AND an attaboy remark. Well said.
I love these videos. And I enjoy the length and the details. It’s game therapy for me Martin. Please don’t stop my brother. ❤
Thank you so much! I've really appreciated all the comments you've been writing. Thank you for watching and commenting. Cheers!
I looked up McEwan Miniatures and tin-soldier is apparently still selling vintage minis, quite possibly from the original molds!
Oh wow - that's amazing! Very cool!
awww thank you! My part time jobs in college were doing paste-up at newspapers (complete with wax machines and zip tone)
I just don't think young folks understand how diffiuclt and time consuming that work is. Today, laser printers are ubiquitous and anyone can do a high quality doc. I never played with print or even mimeograph but I admit I did love the smell of freshly mimeographed documents. Sniffing those might explain my memory degradation.
Regarding Gygax's pseudonym, I would be unsurprised if it was simply to make it seem like there were more people contributing to the magazine. Definitely lots of examples, historically, of people doing that when an independent publication hasn't attracted enough writers yet, or when they want to seem like a greater diversity of ideas are being presented.
Agreed
He could have made it less obvious. I think at that point he may well have wanted to take off the crown and just be another voice. Early EGG like to push the ideas that the rules can be whatever you want them to be. Ive heard of people calling him, asking about what a rule should be. His response was usually being what did you do? That sounds about right to me. The later years were different when he desperately needed people to buy more books and thus NEED his rules.
Those level names for thieves are not only offensive, they make no goddamn sense in the context of thieves.
Agreed on both accounts!
I don't mind the long videos but I usually have to watch them in pieces.
I like it when you tell us a little bit about what people are asking or talking about on things like Out On A Limb. Gives us a little perspective on what people were looking for way back when.
Good to know! Thank you for taking a few minutes to comment and let me know what parts of the videos you enjoy. Thanks!
These early Dragons were hard to get into with the bad typesetting, bad art and chaos. I started with Moldvay D&D then got into AD&D. I too got a subscription in the 80's (81 was my first) and saw these old issues online, oof! They get really good a few years after they started. I still have my original issues.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I loved getting Dragon every month. It was such a special treat to come home after school and find a new issue was waiting for me. I started reading with issue #76 and then went back to get as many back-issues I could find so I have a smattering from #41 to #76. I have most issues from #77 to #89 and then starting with #90, I began subscribing and kept up my subscription all the way until the last print issue, #359. I still have all mine as well!
I know they were kind of amateur and had much simpler tools to use but even so _newspapers_ of the time had formatting all worked out. The formatting that makes it look like two separate times was sloppy even then.
I think there was wisdom in referring to the original gamemaster's as referee, instead of master. Referee, is a person referencing rules (as the name is derived from), and a person who is expected to make neutral judgements.
I remember an editorial in an early issue of The Dragon where someone explained why they stopped using the term referee. It was a holdover from tabletop wargames, where you needed someone to adjudicate disagreements over whether a miniature was inside a cannon's firing arc or whatever. The thinking was "referee" didn't capture the scope of the gamemaster's responsibilities and authority, and implied he was just there to settle disputes among players.
I've long felt the most accurate title for the job would be "facilitator." I don't care how my players want to refer to me, but that's how I refer to myself.
First off: I really appreciate your responsible use of click-bait! I realize that clickbait titles are just part of the youtube hustle, so I don't begrudge creators for them. Saying up front that the title was clickbait, then including that content up front is just *wonderful*. Second, thank you for openly calling out sexist old D&D content as being sexist. Too many in the OSR sphere seem to care more about the "politics" of OSR rather than the RPG design philosophies, and I appreciate so much about your channel (learning about D&D history from primary sources, DMing advice for OSR campaigns), and the lack of political bias is a big part of why I'm subscribed. Thirdly: the part of the video I found most interesting was the editor defending including fantasy fiction in Dragon. It shows that despite that they were still calling it a "war game" that the fictional elements of the game were a big part of what was capturing people's imaginations about D&D even very early on.
with all due respect...annd i know thats often an excuse to be hella disrespectful lol...but isnt it hubristic to decry someone's verisimilitude as sexist?? d&d isnt a boardgame..it isnt chess where each player has the same number of pieces..or monopoly where everyone starts with the same amount of $$...on the contrary rpgs like d&d...and especially their old-school rules...revel in imbalance! wasnt it the ideological dedication to balance which was one of the things that made 4e so hated?? im a female gamer and i recognize that males are stronger..sooo if u said red sonja could out arm wrestle conan imma say thats stupid, u know? could she beat him in combat with speed and ingenuity? heck yea...but never with pure strength. we should champion diversity..not deny it and say females are identical to males bcoz thats silly......buut i guess it depends on if ur game is the sort where your dm makes the 6'5 barbarian roll a strength check against a kobold...or they say theres no point in rolling despite "the rules" bcoz obvs they succeed
Funny how I completely blocked out that there was differences to male/females back in the day.
Not something that is missed today 😀 And the length is fine, I also finde it very relaxing, listening while painting for example and just looking from time to time.
I've been working on creating a bit more of a realistic take on D&D. Not super realistic, just trying to keep about the same amount of complexity as 5e, but when setting ability score min-max-average for various races it just felt "goofy" to not have different strength scores for human women. I gave them higher dex scores to balance it out.
A lot of this early stuff was sexist or pointless complexity or both, but erasing all differences can make things really weird and immersion breaking or just plain silly. Sometimes that's fine, but sometimes it's not.
There are other ways to do it. I give all characters the same dice rolls for generating Strength. However that ability determines what _percentage_ of ones _own_ weight one can lift and carry. On average a Human will therefore be a better labourer than a Halfling. But a Human and a Halfling with the same Strength score will get the same damage modifier in hand-to-hand combat. I'm also just assuming that the right tools and training are a great equalizer.
I may be remembering wrong, but I think even knights of the dinner table made fun of these differences.
I've had RECENT players try and argue with me that 'women' can't have an 18(00) strength. I have ZERO interest in attempting to relate game statistics to a real world counter part, especially in a game with dragons, magic and the like. It just seems stunningly silly. If my daughter wants to play a fighter, gets an 18 strength, and then rolls a 00, there's no way on God's green Earth I'm gong to tell her she can't have it because she's playing a 'girl'. And to me, that just reveals the silliness of the entire idea.
As far as level limitations by race, just say.. due to their short lives, humans get +10% (cumulative) to earned experience and give them +1 to two ability scores and -1 to one ability. Done... no level limits.
It is fantasy. If a male can have spells then a female can have Conan/Superman strength. Because.... it is fantasy. There are Amazonians and Wonder Women in fantasy after all.
I think the criticism is misplaced. D&D was a creation of the times. And TSR struggled between wargame simulation and fantasy for a long time. There were some oldheads but there were also hippies and more women, gay and trans than were common with companies in those days.
It's not a silly idea. It is a reasonable idea rooted in observation of the real world(*). It is totally fine if you want your fantasy world to work differently than the real world but calling significant correlations of attributes with sex a "silly idea" is very arrogant and the sign of a society engulfing itself in willful blindness for political reasons.
Again, it's fine if you are not into simulationist emulation of the real world in RPGs (I'm also not, for what it's worth). But that's no reason to patronize people who are or were interested in that.
*...as anyone can verify by checking the current weight-lifting records, for example.
That's fair if that's what you want to do. But I wouldn't criticise those who want a more "realistic" game when it comes to things like relative strength linked to size (or other more realistic mechanics like slower natural healing).
I remember when the Drow were introduced and learning the female Drow were bigger and stronger than the males (and also more socially dominant) and thinking "cool idea."
@@gregh5665 Im not criticizing, at all. I just never played that way though the girls never really wanted to play regardless. I actually mostly played Basic/ Expert back in the days. If I knew this rule existed, it was lost to the ages.
Even if you exclude magic, the majority of monsters and places in D&D couldn't exist. It's actually silly to then try to apply detailed realism to the game in that way
Nice work, hitting the title subject right away allows people who like shorter videos to come in and out while those of us that were interested in the full length extra content got the supplementary info. I'm glad you went for tea while you weren't feeling well and since I'm not a drinker I encourage you to talk up any drink/snack you were enjoying while you worked (even if its a new flavor of Cheetos and a local soda)
Will do! I have mentioned a few non-alcoholic beverages before, including what I thought was a fun NA version of an "Old Fashioned Cocktail" made with cold brew coffee instead of a spirit (such as whiskey). But I will keep this in mind for future videos. If you saw the one I made right after this one, I was still sick and simply made some fresh-squeezed Mandarin orange juice, which was delicious.
And thanks for your comments on the video "structure." I appreciate the feedback.
A lot of FRPG's of the 70s and 80s would have female characters subtract 1 from strength and add 1 to constitution/endurance and/or fatigue. In some cases female characters would get a +1 to dexterity/agility and even charisma/appearance scores. One thing in all the games I knew of back then was females did not get any bonuses or penalties to intelligence or wisdom scores due to gender. It was not just D&D.
I vaguely remember that as well, but I can't recall exactly who did it. I know demihumans in AD&D 2e did this. A dwarf would have + Con and Str and - a couple others like Dex and Cha.
Appearance was in Call of Cthulhu, it wasn't very well-explained how you used it. I think all humans rolled 3d6 Appearance.
I can understand recognizing variation in average body size or life span for the sake of story-telling flavour, but to have differences that impact on how a player experiences game-play is another thing altogether.
It sounds a bit too much like builds. You must choose between the fighter build and the sorceress build or the archer build.
Some games have tried to define different types of strength but I do not want to bother with a game that makes me calculate explosive strength, endurance strength etc.
I somehow missed this one. You need to do a video where you reenact the filibuster from Parks and Rec, but you read an entire issue of Dragon. Another great video!
I definitely think issue by issue would be better. I like longer videos, but trying to keep the issues straight would be easier if it were per video. At least for me.
I appreciate the feedback. Thank you!
Gary and Len's emphasis on female limitations are stupid in a fantasy game even if they could support them. They don't help make the game more fun and just make it less accessible. The level titles of Succubus and Seer are laughable.
I am glad Tim Kask decided to keep printing fiction, it inspired some of my Dad's best writing. The Dragon did contain a lot of great creators earliest work.
Click bait all you want.🎉
Note: Jennell Jaquays ( a female TTRPG designer legend) wrote a similar article in Dungeoneer #1 in 1976. A much more balanced treatment of females -- she also had cooler titles for women in her article, but she still did use titles like Charmer, Cybil, and Vestal Virgin -- not as bad as what Len used -- but you just have to remember these sere different times. And actually -- not sure what is wrong with "Seer" -- that title has nothing to do with gender.
Thank god the Beauty Score never return-- *Remembers Comeliness in 1e*
Oh, well thank Hextor Comeliness died in 1e
Yup! And Comeliness pre-dates Unearthed Arcana even! If you watch my video on why D&D Has Six Ability Scores, there's more info there: ruclips.net/video/OSa1fwcxsG8/видео.htmlsi=jxQx3lu-SDTh9fqi
I LOVE ALL DADDY ROLLED A 1 VIDEOS!
Thank you so much! I really appreciate you helping out.
Hope you enjoy the rest of the video, and thanks again!
Woah, I knew Gardner only from all his comics. Never knew he did d&d stuff too.
Well, it was fiction, but D&D-adjacent since it appeared in Dragon. But yes, I was so excited when I saw his name on these stories since I mainly knew him for his comics work and creating some of my favorite comic book characters.
I personally love the longer videos!
I like the chance that I had a chance to opt out of the longer video. Video on women in D&D was great!! -- then booked out.
Your videos have piqued my interest in OSR and looking into older systems like BECMI, thanks a bunch.
Would love a video on the Planescape campaign setting, if that's something that interests you. :)
I am so glad to hear that! If you're interested in BECMI and don't have much familiarity, I would suggest checking out the Rules Cyclopedia, which is available on DriveThruRPG as a PDF, Soft Cover, or Hard Cover: preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/17171/DD-Rules-Cyclopedia-Basic
That book from 1991 takes the first four sets from BECMI (Basic, Expert, Companion, and Masters) to run characters for levels 1-36. It's one book with both player and DM stuff (monsters, treasures etc.). For many folks of that era, it's their "desert island" D&D book.
As you probably know from my videos, I play the version of D&D that slightly predates BECMI (B/X) and that version has a fantastic retro-clone published by Necrotic Gnome called Old School Essentials: necroticgnome.com/products/old-school-essentials-classic-fantasy-box-set?pr_prod_strat=e5_desc&pr_rec_id=187b3dc55&pr_rec_pid=6575080800317&pr_ref_pid=1773732593709&pr_seq=uniform
I will add Planescape to the list. I briefly discuss it here (but note that I mispronounced "Sigil" as a few folks kindly pointed out to me): ruclips.net/video/2JqOqNv4KTE/видео.htmlsi=KCDx0bRWjNbC0hmE
Cheers! Thank you for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Thanks for the response, I'll be looking more into the Rules Cyclopedia tonight!
Planescape is a game centered around planar hopping as you might know. Combined with the hub city of Sigil. It looks like one of the more high-powered places you can run around in. We're deciding if we should give it a try next.
Any day with a video from you is a great day!
I really appreciate that. Thank you!
Why is level 3 Fighter Gladiator and not GladiatRIX?
That does seem to have been a miss!
Thanks for the video. I always love your work. If you are not aware, Tim Kask , the original editor of the dragon and TSR do it all employee #1, is still active on RUclips. If you haven't done an interview with him, it would be well worth your time, I suspect. Forgive me if you have already, I'm old and my memory is poor.
Subscribed and shared! I would love to see this channel grow.
I'd love to hear a chat between you two.
I don't mind thumbnails that make you want to click them personally! Definitely did not have a problem with this. My only concern is that people looking for coverage of dragon magazine might not know this covers it.
I love the idea of monks having a special system for duels to advance in level, but I think I'd want it handled in a one-on-one session so the other players don't get potentially bored while it happens.
38:44 Fun idea: Intelligent chest, but instead of being hostile It's just bored and wants someone to take it outside so it can see the sunlight.
Both great ideas! I don't mind the idea of monks (and the concept, at the time, always applied to high-level assassins and druids) needing to have some kind of test/combat/whatever to advance in level by defeating the current person at that level, but like you, I think it's best handles one-on-one unless somehow it could be worked into a bigger thing involving all the players (maybe they are investigating because they have heard the opponent is planning to cheat or something?). But I also didn't think it was necessary to have a whole different combat system for the monk trying to advance.
Love your chest idea!
@@daddyrolleda1 if I ever get my bronze age game off the ground, one of the things I want to do is once you make name level like around level 10 or 11 you can't progress any farther without doing "great deeds" the first might be founding a town or setting up a colony. It'll progress from there where you'll have to slay named monsters to advance. Like Medusa is a named monster. There is only one of her and she's around 15 HD. Probably equal to a dragon once her stats are all done. And on the other hand , evil NPCs need to slay your PCs to advance to higher levels, so high level play will be really dangerous.
Misogyny aside, I do think the idea of a seducer of any gender could be interesting. No caps, be any class you want but based on your background you can choose to take certain skills that reflect your former life.
I sometimes play a German RPG called The Dark Age. It's a skill-based game and there's a magical tradition called "The Arcane Dancer" all magic abilities are different dances, and there are advantaged like Beautiful Voice and Good Looks I and Good Looks II. Stuff you wouldn't typically see in an American TTRPG -- but definitely not sexist because both male or female characters can be Arcane Dancers and have these advantages (i.e. absolutely no game limitations based on either gender). It is interesting how games from different cultures can be different.
D&D doesn't have a lot of skills early on. AD&D 2e starts using non-weapon proficiencies, a sort of proto-skills/feats. But here you just say something witty or describe how you negotiate and I arbitrate how some blokes receive your words. At most I might use a reaction roll for their first impression.
Love that Daddy Rolled a 1 gives us an interesting review of the earliest Dragon Magazine (sorry The Dragon) issues.
👍👍👍👍😎😎😎😎
When I first played 2e in the late 80s, I tended to play female characters. It was a running joke in my group. I can't remember getting limited by my DMs, not that I ever rolled up an 18 Strength!
By the way, don't know if anyone has already said it, in that Gardner F. Fox book cover image of Kyrik: Warlock Warrior, the background is the matte painting of planet Rigel 7 from the original Star Trek pilot "The Cage", just mirror flipped left to right!
😊😊😊😊
Oh, wow! No, no one has mentioned that yet. What a great eye you have to pick that up! Well done.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it.
You're welcome!
😊😊😊😊
As for the cover painting, I'm a Trekkie, and that painting is iconic. Note, I think this sort of thing was done a lot in books back then. No judgement, just an observation.😊
I am a Trekkie/Trekker/Whatever as well! I used to watch reruns of the original series after school when I was a little kid, and then after I discovered TNG in High School, I saw that TOS was also on late at night while I was in college and I'd watch them in the common room in my dorm hall.
I love how you don't pull punches on this at all.
Thanks! I hope you enjoyed it beyond just the somewhat click-bait style thumbnail/headline article. There's a lot of other great content in these two issues!
Thanks as always for watching and commenting!
I love all Daddy Rolled a 1 videos!
You used to do good videos, too. Shame you jumped on the outrage bait bandwagon - but I guess if it gets you clicks, right?
My man PDM. I love PDM and DRa1 too.
@@DavidMasters-nt7rmNo--PDM does a lot of real content too--just those videos don't get watched nearly as much as the click bait ones. You should have seen his latest campaign video--his figs and terrain are amazing. I'd love to see some tutorials on crafting the different buildings he uses.
@@andrewlustfield6079 It's unfortunate. His work on gaming philosophy, terrain, running adventures, homebrew rules, and just plain old school reminiscing was quite good and often excellent, but the outrage-fueled clickbait finally drove me away. He even took to doing "I'm holding my head, I'm so shocked and dismayed by this" thumbnails like the ones on that awful, awful, awful Dungeons & Discourse channel. (Really, it's TERRIBLE.)
It was an embarrassing downturn for what had been one of the better D&D/TTRPG channels, right up there with Seth Skorkowsky, CaptCorajus, Questing Beast, and some others (now including Daddy Rolled a 1, which I only recently discovered and love).
And I say none of that because I disagree with criticism of WOTC - they're a corporation, so by default my attitude is screw them, and they've dropped the ball PLENTY and have earned getting called out on it - but because that kind of outrage bait is lazy, tired, and has infected every corner of online fandom. It's a disappointment to see previously good content creators succumb to it.
He's better than that side of fandom - or used to be, at least.
@@DavidMasters-nt7rmIf you're trying to grow your channel, some degree of click-bait is expected. But I've his feed still has a lot of good content--though it's less on philosophy and more on alternate game reviews lately. Using his platform to plug other TTRPGs is a good way to get exposure to games that deserve attention.
As for philosophy goes--I love that kind of content too. It's what drew me to his channel in the first place. When he gets into it, there's so much more meat on the bone than so many others there who cover things on a very superficial level. The Alexandrian is another great channel for that kind of content. RPG PHD is also pretty good--he has a theater background and has great content when it comes to characters and game plots that are not 5e specific. And another one I've just discovered is We Love RPGs---so far that one is very solid.
I don't always agree with DM--and that's not what I'm looking for. It's the way he presents ideas--at least for me--I have to stop and consider what he is saying vs the way I've been running games.
Like the gold piece was supposed to be according to the DMG--it's a rare and wondrous thing.
As for the latest with WOTC. Shrugs. I never made the shift to third edition back in the 2000s--I had bought 20 years worth of D&D rules, I didn't need to buy more. So WOTC hasn't seen a dime of my money.
I will say I have major philosophical differences with the direction 5e has taken. I like a lot more realism and low magic settings. just as one example--the base difference between a first level character and a 20th level character is +4 or 20%? That's like saying there's a 20% difference between someone who has had two semesters of archery in college and someone competing for Olympic medals. I think that's more of a difference than a base 20%.
I prefer more HEMA inspired combat--where weapons and armor choices are more than a fashion statement. It makes a difference if you're using a 8 foot spear vs a long sword (which should really be called an arming sword--though I've given up on trying to enforce that change)
Dan's video on getting rid of initiative rolls really changed my combat rounds--going from initiative rolls to a combat sequence based on weapon reach. Things have become so much faster and it makes more sense too---best of both worlds.
Beauty would come back later in 1985 as comeliness (Unearthed arcana). Not sure if you mentioned it
I have indeed discussed Comeliness! ruclips.net/video/zwU7bsSKQmE/видео.htmlsi=rmLitr22d0VILJmo
Thanks for watching and commenting.
Later on 2.5 tried to expand all the stats but I don't think anyone used them. There was 2 substats under each stat and you could play with the points a little bit . It let you tailor the bonuses for the stat slightly.
@@Dragonette666when they finished selling books to all the players they had to come up with excuses for people to buy new books
@@dodgeplow some of the 2.5 stuff is good. They manage to make sure to tell people "Don't try to use all of this stuff in a campaign" but those should have been DM books and not "players option"
@@Dragonette666gotcha. the "new" books were coming out as I was in college so I never got much into them
Hey, Martin! Another excellent vid, so glad you're doing well in the transition from blogger to RUclipsr! I am hoping to do the same someday! Palmyra is not far from where I live in NJ, btw! I hope to check it out.
So great to hear from you! I have fallen way behind on my blog but I do hope to be a bit more consistent this year.
And I really hope you get to check out the Con. @DMTales (Wesley Allen) is a great guy and one of my inspirations for starting my RUclips channel. And it's for a good cause! If you go, please tell Wes I said "Hello."
And, thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it. Cheers!
I like these long videos. Good to listen to while working on my D&D game.
I am so glad to hear that, and I really appreciate you watching (listening?) and commenting. It means a lot. Good luck prepping for your game. I'm currently prepping a one-shot for my friend's 50th Birthday. He said he didn't want a big party and specifically asked me as my gift for him to run this. Only three players, who will each be running two PCs. I'm going to run the old-school "I6: Ravenloft" module from 1983!
@@daddyrolleda1 I love the old original Ravenloft. Have fun with that!
Daddy rolled a 1 (but if he was Mommy, it would be rounded down to 0 under these rules).
On reding and getting inspiration, i like to watch phd&d on RUclips. He's got great concepts and sources for different types of characters, using novelists and historical references.
Thanks for all your knowledge and insight into this topic and its historical context!
You are very welcome! Thank you so much for watching, commenting, and for your support of the channel. I really appreciate it!
Any chance of a Warhammer fantasy role play game episode as i know next to nonothing about that game
I think that could be a great topic for a potential future video! I'll add it to the list!
Wow…the sexism was strong. Given the time period it shouldn’t come as a shock, but wow it sticks out nowadays.
To be fair, it was pretty limited to this specific article (which oddly was picked up from Len Lakofka's own "Liaisons Dangereuses" fanzine - I guess he didn't learn his lesson). Lakofka, Gygax, and Tim Kask were subsequently attacked in print by others in the gaming community for having published the article, including a somewhat "famous" editorial cartoon in Alarums & Excursions (which as you know was published by a woman gamer).
But just seeing the choices made to publish that article and then use up 12.5% of the entire page count for it... I'm really a little surprised that at least somebody didn't say, "Hey, maybe we shouldn't do this..."
Not that it was right -- and yes would not be acceptable these days in a TTRPG today -- but it was totally like that back then -- watch James Bond Dr. No (1962) and you'll see what I mean. They then gave James Bond a female boss in 1995. Judi Dench was a great "M".
@@daddyrolleda1 Jennell Jaquays (a woman) wrote an article in Dungeoneer #1 that had differences between men and women (not as silly as Len's article), actually a much, much better article. But just wanted to point out that both men and women thought differently back then -- just watch TV shows, movies from the 60s, etc... "Leave it to Beaver", "I Dream of Jeannie", "Bewitched", I could go on and on and on... Definitely unacceptable now -- just want to point out those were different times -- and if you want to criticize Gygax you have to like criticize hundreds of movies and shows from that era.
@@quantus5875Hey, what are you doing, actually? Is it fair for me to say, "Caitlyn Jenner, a woman, set the men's decathalon world record in 1976?" That article was written under the name Paul. Let's not do this historical revisionism thing.
@@VinnyBloo IMO two different deals -- Jennell was using Paul as a pseudonym because she felt she had to, but she was free to write about anything she wanted to. My stance is just to show that I think criticism of Gygax is unwarranted - yes if he'd done that strength cap table in 2010 then yes, but back in 1976 you also had Jennell writing rules that had level caps, and differences between males and females.
Your topic is a little subtle and deals with opinions, yours and mine seem to differ -- but if you go look on the Wikipedia article every reference to her in the entire article is "she" or "her". The only reference to the name Paul is the following: "Jennell Allyn Jaquays (born Paul Jaquays; October 14, 1956 - January 10, 2024) was an American game designer, video game artist, and illustrator of tabletop role-playing games (RPGs)." I'm not an expert on her, but interviews with her - her views - should back my opinion.
I love your channel and the breadth of knowledge you have about D&D. You're so interesting to listen to, and clearly very smart! I can't wait for the next video.
I just feel like you've handicapped yourself via ideology with this one, though. It seems that you're suggesting that any acknowledgement of the nature of women is "sexist." Of course women aren't as strong - this is objectively true. And of course women use their female beauty and wiles to their advantage to manipulate men to get what they want. This happens all the time in common experience. It is a tool at their disposal, just as men's strength and ingenuity are tools which they rely on often. And they use that tool well and frequently. For thousands of years no one would have disputed this up until about 10 minutes ago. You say that we have "moved past this kind of thinking" but what evidence do you have to show that this sort of thing is no longer a regular part of common experience? It surely is. I'm not trying to be mean at all - I have a wife and three daughters that I love more than anything. But I would be a fool to think 1) they could be as strong as I am, or 2) they don't have realities of their nature which lead to various behaviors common to women. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it just IS. It's crazy to me to deny what clearly IS, to try to spare feelings or whatever. In fact, doing so places a negative judgment on female nature, because it assumes that a woman acting like a woman is bad, since women should act like men with no distinguishing traits or behavior between them.
To me, making different stats for women makes perfect sense, as they are clearly physically weaker than men. The problem is, from a game perspective, if we did that there is no attribute score where women would have a clear advantage to make up for this deficiency. Hence, if we did adjust strength to reality, there would be an inherent disadvantage to playing a woman in D&D and no one would want to. So, while it's another way that we suspend reality for the game, it's probably best to not distinguish between the sexes for attribute scores.
Those class titles - yikes! I was familiar with the AD&D stat and level limits on women, and the gross treatment of Comeliness, but this was new to me.
I, too, am from California! We are weird. And I say pronounce it how you want.
I only point out my pronunciation every time because I got a lot of very helpful comments once regarding my pronunciation of the word "arquebus" (which wasn't wrong - I was just using the British pronunciation with a very soft "r") and I've also learned a certain segment of the community wants to chime in with their corrections so I figure I may as well just be upfront about it and admit I don't know how to pronounce something!
Thanks for watching and commenting.
As for video length, i still think around the 45min-1hr mark is good. As of "now" i havent watched the recent previous one that is over 2hrs. You show a lot visual content, which i like, so it's not really conducive to have on the background or car drive.
I remember this article, and thought it was pretty crazy stuff. As a DM at the time I placed no restrictions on female characters. The only thing was I penalized them -1 on their Strength ability score, which I would not do now even though it's pretty much supported by biology. To balance that, they got a +1 on Dexterity. Beyond that, I felt that any gender differences should come about through role playing. But I was never big on having a lot of rules for everything anyway. My group and I wanted fun and fast-paced gaming, and rules creep was antithetical to that.
Sagas of the Icelanders, a modern Apocalypse World thing, plays up the social norms and differences of gender in old Iceland. It doesn't try to be a historically realistic Iceland, it's the Iceland of the sagas. When playtesting it, we found that men had the ability to act in honourable ways and defend their honour, while women had abilities to define what honour is. Everyone can cleave someone with a seaxe and start bitter feuds.
Up to 90 minutes is good. Don't do 4 hours, i won't listen after a certain point.
I don't think I could do four hours! I think my video that was 2 hours 15 minutes is probably the longest I'll do. That wasn't planned but just kind of worked out that way. I'll try to keep the 90 minute mark in mind. Thank you so much for the feedback.
Loved the video. In my opinion the video is too long, so I need a few days to finish it, but it's definitely very interesting.
I totally get that, and thank you for the feedback. It's so difficult to know the right balance, as I get quite a few comments from folks who say they really enjoy my longer form videos because they listen to them while doing other things (not even necessarily watching!). But I do try to be cognizant of folks who prefer shorter videos. I've also learned that anytime I do a "series," the subsequent videos after the first always get a lot fewer views.
Thanks for your support of the channel, as always, and for sharing your feedback. I really appreciate it.
Gygax had a book called Master of the Game that continues those thoughts on female characters. I think it was more focused on strength.
I am aware of Master of the Game, but I haven't read it yet. Thanks for the tip!
Did you see that Troll Lord Games is reprinting all of Gygax's "World Builder" books (Canting Crew, Living Fantasy, etc.)? The Kickstarter just went live!
That sounds cool I will have to take a look@@daddyrolleda1
I read this book, but I've long since lost the copy in moves across the country.
@@daddyrolleda1 Cheers for the Troll Lords!! So awesome that they're reprinting Gygax's stuff!!
I'm listening with headphones in an electrical shop.
That's great! Thank you for letting me know. I really appreciate the feedback.
i like the history deep dives, but thats me.
You are very far from alone. The vast majority of the subscribers and viewers of my channel strongly prefer the history deep dives like this versus my Reviews or DM Advice, which is funny because I never intended to become the "D&D History Guy." But I'm having so much fun making them because they help me dig deeper than I would have otherwise, and I love sharing the early history of the hobby, especially with folks who are new to the game.
Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
Lycan-Subscribe! 😂
I truly enjoy everything from Daddy Rolled a 1! I can't always listen on day one because the videos are so long. Yet, the length is justified by the depth and density of the content. Please continue to delve into the history of our hobby.
Bonus comment: Earl Grey tea and Ray Charles! Another great combo.
Thank you so much! I always appreciate when folks watch all the way through to the end of the video and bonus content and then comment on it!
Watch/listen on your own time. I just appreciate the support. Thanks again - I really appreciate it!
The beauty score showed up again briefly in 1st edition as a comeliness score that applied to everyone, not just women. It was pointless and implied there's some universal standard of beauty. No one I knew ever used it.
I love the really early Dragon magazines for their crazy creativity, but man this article is cringe. I remember the letters pages and editorials in that time where gamers were lamenting the lack of women players. I knew women players at the time, but they were definitely a small minority. I would chalk this one up to a sweaty adolescent fantasy, but from the condescending title, it sounds like the author (or editor perhaps) really thought they were making an effort to recruit women to the hobby. In a sense, perhaps it did help the game become more inclusive in the long run, in that there were lots of games at the time that had minor differences between generating male and female characters, but this was so extreme it may have provoked a "let's not do that again" response.
Off the top of my head, I remember Chivalry and Sorcery had you randomly generate a character's height, which had a significant effect on melee combat. And women of every race tended to be shorter and lighter on average. There were also some differences in rolling for social roles, which were based on Medieval European culture.
I think the game with the most extreme difference was Pendragon, which was an Arthurian RPG where everyone was assumed to be a knight of the round table. Women couldn't be knights. I think there were rules for generating female characters, but they were just intended to be NPCs.
I think the first edition of Powers and Perils had significant modifiers to the ability scores of female characters- even to the point of making female characters less intelligent. I never owned a copy, I just have vague memories of playing it once.
My recollection is that the "comeliness" stat was introduced to try to get people to stop associating the charisma stat with "beauty", and return it to the original goal of representing persuasion/leadership/personality/magnetism. Teens in particular generally had no conception of "charisma" as something that didn't revolve around beauty.
Some games legitimately had an "appearance" stat, like some espionage role playing games. But the stat applied to both women and men. Lakofka's article is strange in that the stat only applies to women. I talk about it briefly, in another post but Jennell Jaquays wrote a better article about women in role-playing games in Dungeoneer #1.
One super cool thing about the latest Pendragon release (the new starter set). Female Knights!! Super cool -- love that game.
I played Pendragon in the 80's. I didn't even know it was still around. I will say for it, I learned a lot about the culture and geography of Britain in the dark ages from that game. It strangely mixed technology from the high middle ages with an otherwise Saxon-invasion-of Romano-Cymric Britain setting@@quantus5875
You are mistaken about King Arthur Pendragon.
The 1985 boxed set includes 2 pages about women characters.
Greg outlined the roles of women both in the literature that his game emulates and in the history that runs alongside (at a distance). He names several fighting women, giving them cultural and historical context.
"All player-character women are extraordinary women" (pg 23).
He provides reason for excluding women knights, includes approaches for non-knight women PCs, and includes notes for using women knights. He then leaves the matter in the hands of the referee (who may want to stick as close as possible to the literature, to history, or to explore a middle path).
"When creating women knight-characters, you need not use the statistics which indicate that women are normally smaller than men" (pg.24)
@@jarrettperdue3328 You just said it it yourself, - women were not knights as player characters in Gregg Stafford's Pendragon (1985), which I own and played. Explanatory notes and an option? If Gygax had done that you would have called him sexist -- why are female PC knights an option and not a default, you would say. What I am trying to point out those were different times. I love Pendragon (1985) and current Pendragon. But now women can be knights as a player character not some option, If, you don't have it highly recommend you check out Pendragon (2023). Female knights are so cool! And the Pendragon (2023) starter set is amazing! Great job by Chaosium! This product is going to do well!!
It also gets back to my point these are make-believe, fantasy games, some people try and criticize Gygax because he has this strength cap table in AD&D 1ed that I almost always forget even exists, because I never used it.
Awesome plugin for Ecclesicon! Too bad Palmyra, NJ is a tiny bit too far from Finland 😅 I'll be there in spirit!
Yes, that would be a long plane trip! I've been social media friends with Wes from DMTales for a few years and his RUclips was one of my inspirations for starting my own channel. He asked if I would mind plugging his convention, and I was happy to do so!
@@daddyrolleda1 Oh yeah. I think I found your channel by his recommendation originally. Lovely guy, really nice atmosphere around his channel and great content.
It's kind of too bad I'm not around in any other social media aside from RUclips as this platform doesn't really support deeper discussion and staying in touch. I still think I'm happier the further I stay away from my FB account and the like 😅
@@daddyrolleda1 Oh and Discord. I use discord a little bit. You don't happen to have a presence there?
I don't want to let Len, Tim, and Gary off too easily here.
We can say they were a product of their time, but Ursula K. Le Guin published A Wizard of Earthsea in 1968, the same year Anne McCaffrey published Dragonflight (she also won the Hugo Award that same year).
Elise Gygax played of course and Jean Wells was corresponding with Gary by 1978.
There were many "products of that time" who didn't embrace sexism the way these men did. I wish they'd made better choices.
I don't know if it applies to these guys, but a lot of guys in "nerd culture" seem to nurse a grudge against women based on social difficulties we had as adolescents feeling romantically rejected in school. It seems like some people feel like if they can't be an alpha male in the real world, they will get that feeling of superiority by making their gaming/fantasy subculture an inhospitable place for women.
To be fair to Gary, he also hired a lot of women to work on D&D and gave dozens of women their start in the business. I read a book on the history of D&D art and most of the early artists Gary used were women.
You also have to remember, products of their time existed largely due to ignorance. They didn't have the same resources modern people do to connect with others and learn about injustice. We are very privileged to be in an era where you can at the touch of a button summon feminist writings. A lot of people who are smug about the way people in the past thought would have had the exact same ideology if they had lived in that time period and era.
@@HumanoidCableDreads What are you talking about? The fight for women's rights/liberation was raging during this exact period of time. Unless you were very much sheltered, these issues would be part of the general culture more than they are today due to strident advocacy by groups on both sides. Right about the same time as this article comes out, the process of finally outlawing marital rape is starting nationwide (though it does take until the 90s for the most backwards states to finally remove spousal exemption). While the access to the writings might have been less prevalent, the topics would most certainly have been more prevalent than in the current day.
@@aprisia You think nerds in WI during the 70s had a lot of exposure to women's lib? I think you're delusional.
I never liked xp/level damage. Xp to me is something they have earned fairly. In WFRP you might get limbs chopped off, eyes gouged, your sanity blasted away and attributes reduced but what you have learned on the way to glory remains with you. I would rather have my vampires permanently drain your Con than steal levels.
Coffee/chocolate shops and tea houses are great for meeting up with people. You can run into inside trading, radicals, people reading and discussing the paper and spies. We've used caravanserais where everyone who is out and about on the road tuck in for stays. Both as hubs on the road and designated visitor zones outside the city wall. We had one caravanserai that was an entire small town, where crews of ships stay when the two week long moon-night falls.
the bad thing about level drains is they technically do more "damage" to a higher level character than a low one.
The audio sounds much worse than in your "hands-and-books" videos.
I know there's a change in audio quality when I record my screen (as I was doing in this video) versus my "hand and book" videos which are recorded on my phone. I'm not really sure how to fix that. I don't have the best equipment not am I super knowledgeable from a technical standpoint. If you have suggestions, I'm very open to them.
In any event, thank you for watching and commenting anyway.
@@daddyrolleda1 You could get an external microphone. Something like the clip-on Rode SmarLav+ or Shure MVL, which connect to a standard 3.5mm headset socket.
Microphones built into laptops tend to sound bad for whatever reason, similarly to how their webcams record much worse video than phone cameras.
Thank you for the suggestions! As it so happens, I do have a Shure microphone (not sure which model exactly) but while recording, I did forget to put it in front of me so it was off to the side. That might have affected things. I've done screen records before and nobody has mentioned the audio quality. I've just noticed it's different from my phone-recorded audio, but usually when the entire video is just one or the other, it doesn't stand out.
BRP games like Call of Cthulhu have an Appearance attribute. It's not fully explained what it does, except that you might flirt with it at the pub using good looks and initial charm followed up by the real social skills. You can make attribute rolls in BRP by rolling a d100 against Attribute x5 or Attribute x3 or something. There is no Charisma attribute but there are several social skills with much greater use than Appearance. Chaosium specifically points out that Appearance is shallow and pretty much good only for first impressions. All humans roll Appearance the same way, 3d6. Humanoid monsters roll differently, many mythos creatures have none. To this day I have absolutely no idea how to use it, players roll it if they feel like.
Appearence is a pretty useless stat in coc i do agree
@@anyoneatall3488 It could have some limited uses but for the most part we ignored it. Most things were done with skills. You could roll INTx3 or x5 sometimes but most was skills. They suggested you might use APP as a first impression roll. There is no Charisma attribute in CoC.
Another nice deep dive! Thanks!
I appreciate you watching and commenting, and your support of the channel. Thank you!
Thank you so much!!!!
You're welcome. Really hope it helps. Have fun at the Convention and good luck with the fundraiser!
Great video! Although I only watched the women in D&D part. You do realize you'd actually get more views if you had just done the women in D&D segment -- and not done the look at Dragon (videos over an hour turn a lot of people off - I almost didn't watch it because of this). But glad I watched your first segment. 😂
Note: there is an excellent article written by Jennell Jaquays (as Paul Jaquays of course) in Dungeoneer #1 that is much better than Lakofka's article. Her article is called "Those Lovely Ladies". She also created attribute caps (interesting because this is a female writing this article). She did have a much more equal view than Len did though -- especially for the time this was published.
The basic way that Jennell handled level caps was that females got a +2 to Charisma, and if a female had a strength of 17 she lost one of her extra charisma points, and if she had an 18 strength (yes, 18 strength was allowed by Jennell) you lost both of your extra Charisma points. There is other stuff in the article -- she does the title stuff as well -- but much more well done than Len, and also a ton of great worldbuilding stuff and a very pro view of women for the time. Jennell was fantastic!! A true legend!!
In my games, we ignored the racial level limits and the sex statistical limits. I think even as kids, we knew those were weird and artificial.
We also never really played in greyhawk. We'd steal module ideas, sure. But in my experience, every world we played in back in the day was a homebrew setting. So some of the DMs had created an order of fighters who were all women, or a guild of mages who only accepted men. But that was a personal regional choice to that fantasy realm or country or what have you
Same. My best friend in HS was a girl who played a barbarian character and was awesome at it, I can't imagine those games without her antics.
Agreed. Why try and simulate reality in a make-believe, fantasy game. I almost forget those ability cap rules are even there because we never used them.
I love the long videos.
I really appreciate that! Thank you! It's so funny but like two comments down from this is a comment from another person telling me that the video was too long and they stopped watching after the "women in D&D" part, and that they almost didn't watch it because it was too long. The person was well-intentioned (he said I would've gotten more views with a shorter video) so it's fine. I always appreciate that feedback.
Thank you again!
wait...males and females ARE different..why shouldnt it be replicated in the game? as a fantasy game i guess reality can be abandoned in favor of the game mechanics..but for ppl who want more verisimilitude it makes perfect sense to include differentiation......like a gargantuan dragon could be said to fly with itsy-bitsy butterfly wings coz of MAGIC...but its far less taxing to the imagination to say its wings are huge monstrosities that sweep up tornado-like winds.......like perhaps it shouldnt affect your players' fun...buut its precisely why in my games if a 6' male fighter wants to make a strength check against a 2' tall kobold its like...um..dont bother rolling coz u win of course....soo it only makes sense..from a sword and sorcery perspective..that male characters would be hella strong (and stronger than female characters) and female characters could use their beauty to manipulate their opponents.
This is supposedly a woman commenter, but I don't know. Swallowing the stereotypes makes it seem like either you're a man pretending to be a woman or you're one of those sad tradwife types.
I never understood having limitations for Race or sex. We threw those out
When I started, my DM was pretty strict about the race level limits ("kind of") but we all cheated on our ability scores (including the DM, who encouraged it!) so we had max stat in our primary requisite to advance to max level. We also never played the same PC long enough to ever even reach the max level!
But we never used the Strength limits for men or women characters. We mainly played B/X and those rules weren't in there. There were only in Advanced D&D. I preferred the B/X way.
@@daddyrolleda1 I just never got the reasoning that here you are a 6th level fighter and you can’t get any better if you wanted to. Those were thrown out early on. I honestly have never played a female character, when I was a kid I wouldn’t have, but now that I’m 53 years old I totally would and am planning on it the next time I get to play a new character. Thanks for the reply and love you channel!!
Us too
Homebrew it until it’s fun
@@seanfaherty yep exactly. It’s your campaign, it’s your game. Use the rules but make it fun. If you don’t agree with something, don’t use it. This game isn’t real life. I’m sure not every game of D&D is the exact same. Even Gary said mold it to your liking.
Are you interested in the reasons for them?
What really detracts from this review is how judgmental the reviewer is. We can all read. Len was attempting the reality (and it is the reality) that men are different than woman. Not better or worse, just different.
It wouldn’t be a problem, if the reviewer would explain what was going on, what Len was trying to do, that would be one thing. But saying “this is sexist, that is sexist” all the time, is just woke.
The rest of the history and material is great!
The longer the better!
I really appreciate that. Try as I might, I can't seem to figure out how to make shorter video. One person told me I should have *only* covered the Women in Gaming segment and left the other parts for another video. I figured I'd use the somewhat controversial "Women in Gaming" article as an entryway to introduce folks to the other parts that I feel might get lost and overlooked if I left them separate.
In any event, thank you so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Well I'll give you some more feedback from my POV and hope it's not TMI! But how I see it is, I'm coming to your channel to get your personal take on things which includes your choice of subjects to cover and how you cover them. So while you do give a lot of great factual and technical info of course it's not just that which I value, so I wouldn't be happier or better served if you were limited to just covering one topic in a video. I think the whole "keep it short" approach applies in commercial short-form media where the idea is to inform on an advertised topic (Think news headlines) but I would HOPE if someone is clicking on a video about vintage Dungeons and Dragons and how it had a specific rule set they aren't tapping a pocket watch going "Tut tut, this is running a bit long for my taste. I have a video on 1970's Lego sets and a compilation of 1950's advertisements yet to fit in before my daily re-enactment of favored Dr Who moments. Why, my 4th Doctor scarves are nearly drip-dried from their daily hand washing!"
Long form is much better in my opinion! But mainly I hope you keep doing it how you most want. That way you'll be doing what you enjoy for an audience that enjoys what you do. Also as a side note I really enjoy the commentary you give on the artists and their artwork!
Thank you so much for writing this! I really appreciate you taking the time to explain how you approach the watch the channel, as it helps me know what I should be focusing on going forward.
Sincere thanks for your support. Cheers!
They had an odd level of simulationism back in those days; some of it is still around.
I think it just came from D&D's wargamer roots. Yes, over time we all realized we're playing a completely make-believe fantasy game, so no reason for simulations like that.
@@quantus5875 I totally agree with you on that point, and there were other times when heavy simulation became the sine qua non of an RPG. It's interesting how much of it is still around in spots, though, especially in the case of folks talking about world building and insisting on high simulation. To be clear, I like some but not to the extreme.
One of the most glorious articles I've read in a late 80's local mag was the mathematically accurate artillery rules. IRL artillery, especially non-assisted early modern period artillery, is a lot of math and now you can enjoy this in your game.
@@SusCalvin Wow. That's old skool wargaming at its finest(?).
I did the same when creating my TTRPG. Certain kind of spirits, eldritch patrons, charisma-based skills, stat cap (STR, CON, WIL, PER), some Weapon Masteries, how magic and psionic work, and the like.
The video game Morrowind - widely thought to be one of the greatest roleplaying video games - has different attributes for male and female of each race, and that is from 2002.
If you do not read the manual it’s not particularly obvious. In general, men have more strength and endurance, while women are more intelligent, personable and sometimes agile - although it varies by race.
Personally I never minded it because it leads to more character options. It’s also balanced, although it could impact your character options.
Very interesting observation-- did not know that.
I'm used to the WFRP scale. Strength 3 is a human. Strength 2 is a goblin. Strength 4 is a space marine.
It sounds suspiciously like builds to me. Am I gonna go with a fighter build, a sorceress build or a ranger build etc. And I am not a fan of builds.
You should do an episode about Dungeonland and Land Beyond the Magic Mirror.
What was that?
I can these to the list of potential future topics. Thanks!
These were two modules/adventures, EX1 and EX2, written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR in the early 80's, that are based on the Lewis Carroll's novels "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass." They are full of puns and humor, but if played straight, they are quite dangerous!
I love Daddy Rolled a 1!
Daddy Rolled a 1, rolling out bangers
I can only imagine my much my daughter would roll her eyes if she were to read this! She's a bit shy (embarrassed?) of me having a RUclips channel. But I sincerely thank you!
Considering how D&D was created by people who had been historical wargamers trying to create rules that extended their wargaming to familiar genres of history, chivalry, sword&sorcery, mythology, etc it shouldn't come as any surprise that the early rules were crafted to reflect the feel and sensibilities of those genres.
What is sexist or unreal about saying men are stronger than women at maximum levels? The rest of it is kind of odd but the strength part a representation of the real world.
Well, they did in the past when it was trying to be more simulationist, but most of the attempts at simulationism in RPGs just end up not being fun anyway. I never really had an issue with it either way, but not having modifiers for gender does just make things simpler in a game where people pretend to be Wizards and Elves. IIRC there were rules in 1e that also had ability score modifiers based on age too, but no one I knew ever used any of those rules because we never kept track of time and most characters died or the campaign ended before they got more than a couple of years older anyway.
This particular article I discuss goes beyond just trying to be "simulationist" (which I don't agree with anyway) and gets into replacing Charisma with "Beauty" and using level titles like "Wench," "Succubus," and "Sibyl" for female thieves, and giving all women PCs regardless of class powers of "Seduction" and "Charm Men." That's just egregious sexism.
@@daddyrolleda1 I wouldn't say it's sexism so much as immaturity. :) Never assume malicious intent when being dumb explains it pretty well. Ah, to be young and dumb again!
@@RedSiegfriedthis is less mental or age immaturity, keep in mind Gygax and co were adults with children while writing D&D so this wasn't adolescent ideas.
This is a result of the times, women in fantasy were framed in these terms, especially pulp fiction which was a massive inspiration for much of the ideas behind D&D.
@@magnuscolableI just think they realized Red Sonja wasn't going to beat Conan at arm wrestling.
@@swirvinbirds1971 hahaha you know, I freaking love that movie.
Reply hazy, try again.
len went mental at me for talking about toilets in dungeons and he angrily said there are no toilets in dungeons
We have jumped fools twice by waiting at the latrines. Sometimes it's a proper running water source, sometimes it's buckets or a hole. One group of dungeon-dwellers combined latrines with shroom farms in a clever way.
Fantasy Wargaming had rules for female characters which reflected the beliefs of medieval society. D&D is its own creature though. We see the D&D preference for female statistics limitations is featured in the 1e PHB and UA.
Telling women that they can compete against men in power lifting isn't sexist, it's merciful. Idk, maybe we need more men in women's sports to knock out some more teeth and crush more ocular cavities to level that playing field? There certainly is absolutely no historical evidence of a "honey pot" operation being effective and the article is just faulty because modern mind..
That said I played basic and never messed with this stuff that much beyond campaign setup.
The best non-historically accurate historical RPG I've read is Pendragon. It tosses medieval Britain out the window and makes you play the romantic Camelot of Mort d'Arthur. You are all manly knights. Every single PC is a knight. There are hunters and wives and wizards and nuns around you but you nothing but knights. You are ruled by mighty passions that makes you run into the forest and scream when you hate saxons too much.
Ars Magica and later Aquelarre are pretty good takes on historical-mythical Europe or the Iberian peninsula. Ars Magica is all about wizards. Auelarre is very focused on medieval WFRP life on the iberian pennsula.
17:40. "...women using their feminine wiles to get men to do what they want. Um, we've moved past that kind of thing." LOL. Imagine a world in which this never occurs! Now that would be a fantasy!
I think he meant moved past a woman character only being good for seducing men. Now it's a player choice not a forced game mechanic.
One of my friends joked that we should fill a dungeon with every stupid seduction monster they had. Nothing but hags, dryads, vampires and other nonsense.
Players never fall for it. They think "Oh, there is a chump in silk clothes sitting here on a bed in the middle of the Muck Pit. We'd better walk around this shit."
The most clever ruses I've faced has been monsters in disguise who had figured out what players expect. Not some weirdly seductive person on a dais in nowhere, but someone who looks like a kidnapped peasant with bad teeth.
No need to apologize for the "sexism" of early D&D. The worst that can be said for caps on female strength scores is that it's in harmony with scientific realism. It's actually true to reality. But D&D isn't reality and is "just a game", so an argument can be made for ignoring reality there.
OTOH, the fantasy aspect is in harmony with sex differences as well, at least if one considers classic Sword and Sorcery fiction.
Just because something is correct doesn't make it right. A hard life lesson plenty of us have had to learn.
by definition it does
The strength limits on female characters made sense, but the last female character in my campaign had Gauntlets of Ogre Power making her the strongest in the group, lol.
Nice! 😂
I really like the racial/sex/class level limitations. It made characters different. Players can have different experiences and challenges. It adds variety. I don't care at all thats its politically incorrect to the wierdos out there who think everyone is identical.
Do you really value "different experiences" if you instantly dismiss large groups of people as "weirdos?"
@@noneofyourbusiness4616 you think all characters should be identical?
@@stevenpavelski6035Two characters have exact stats don't mean they're played the same and saying they are shows your inability as a player or a DM.
@@user-ll9vk6mf1l so why roll stats?
@@user-ll9vk6mf1l why roll stats?
There should be differences between male and female characters, it makes it more fun.
The player can define that to me. No freebies, you roll 3d6 from the top. Anything else sounds too much like a build to me.
Since there are scientific physical and mental differences between men and women. I think these are useful rules.
Just like the scientific differences between orcs and half-orcs.
And the scientific differences between Dragons and Wyvrens?
or Halflings and Hill Giants. Oh, wait there is a difference between these two -- but yeah -- this is a make believe, fantasy game -- so yeah why not -- my halfling wearing a girdle of storm giant strength. 🤣
D&D phrenology edition.
@@noneofyourbusiness4616 Nope. More like the differences between human men and women in the real world. Translated into an abstract game term.
is what the origional writers did and continue to do is assume that female game players would play the game(s), in the same manner as male players, how wrong they are / were. By adding un-needed rulings for various aspects of the rules will always erk some players. Female players play differently anyway; in most novels (regardless of genre) female characters are not treated the same as males but there are no obvious rules and reasons presented.
Saying it is sexist is only from the stand point of a modern audience; and then as now if you do not like the rules, changes them!
Agreed!! I totally believe that today rules like that are unacceptable -- but back then times were different -- yeah, I played AD&D 1st Ed for 13 years and I sometimes forget those strength cap rules even exist -- because we never used them. Yes, change the rules -- house rule folks -- if you don't like the rules.
Part of the history of our hobby is to look at wonky old rulesets, try to see why they came to be and even try them out a bit. Our group sometimes likes to take out wonky old games like MERP or Metamorphosis Alpha or an old JG convention adventure to see how it could have worked. Sometimes you need to sit down and play it to figure things out. We learned that humans have a few hidden abilities in MA. On paper, they are weak and lack the cool mutant powers of non-humans. They can recruit a few goons, usually other humans from the same tribe or mutants they encounter. But then you notice that all technology on the Warden is made for humans. A robot won't necessarily recognise a mutant as an intelligent creature, but is unable to harm a human. Medical units know how to treat a human PC but not a plant-person.
Those rules were not in the original 3 booklets, which I still use today.. All kinds of silly optional rules were published in The Dragon, and other zines back then. I guess you can try to judge the whole generation of gamers by a couple of dumb articles in order to create some click bait, but this strategy will never work on me.
Thank you very much for commenting. Not sure if you had a chance to watch the video (or were interested) but I definitely don't think I came across as judging anyone. At least, I did not intend to. I think the article was in poor taste even back then, and history shows that the author was attacked pretty mercilessly by authors in the industry even at the time for having published it. I don't believe his intent was to be sexist (I say as much in the video) but it's still something I wanted to talk about.
The main reason for the so-called "click-bait" strategy was that I was covering *all* of the articles and many of the ads, and providing context of the writers and artists who created them, for two issues of Dragon Magazine (#2 and #3). I've found from past experience that a simple thumbnail and title that describes that gets far fewer views and comments. So, I tried something different this time by picking a specific article from these two issues that I assumed a lot of folks would have interest in and highlighting it. It seems to be working, as more folks are watching this video than many of my previous ones, and they are leaving comments to share their thoughts.
Where did he try to " judge the whole generation of gamers by a couple of dumb articles?"
I'll help you out: He didn't. Not once. Didn't even HINT at such a thing.
I mean, heck, he's OF that generation of gamers. That era is his roots!
He criticized one article. And it DESERVED the criticism. Not once did he direct that criticism to the rest of us gamers of the era, nor other creators, other games, and so on. Didn't judge anything but that article and what it presented. If this upset you, you might have some soul-searching to do.
Original D&d did not have separate rules for women. @@daddyrolleda1
It's the title that is misleading.
@@DavidMasters-nt7rm
I would like to point out, how many women in history were soldiers in the middle ages? Not very damn many, for a good reason.
I would like to point out, how many people in history were casting lightning bolts and fireballs in the middle ages? Not very damn many, for a good reason.
I would like to point out, how many people in history were destroying magically animated skeletons by holding out a holy symbol and praying really hard at them in the middle ages? Not very damn many, for a good reason.
I would like to point out, how many people in history were slaying dragons and stealing their hoards in the middle ages? Not very damn many, for a good reason.
This is a game with undead hordes, talking dragons, forest spirits, elves and dwarves, ooze creatures, gelatinous cubes, magic spells, treasure chests that come alive and east people, walking trees, demon gods, and the ability to resurrect the dead, among dozens and dozens of other such things.
Somehow, "women weren't soldiers in the middle ages" seems like a silly argument in that context, don't you think?
@@njp4321 One thing that is cool is that the new version of Pendragon has female knights!! So cool!! Yes, almost everyone gets it now -- this is a make believe game, so even in an Arthurian setting (which is really just another fantasy setting) TTRPG why can't there be female knights. Love that change!! And the back stories on the female knight pre-gens is so cool!
@@quantus5875 Pendragon was never about historical realism to me. It was Mort d'Arthur in a weird romantic Camelot. The sort of Camelot portrayed in nostalgic knight novels centuries afterwards.
You could play a female knights in old Pendragon too, as an option. You are still a knight, and the game rigidly defines what an arthurian knight is. You can't shoot people with a bow. You can hunt leopards. There is a magic system, but you won't touch it.
@@SusCalvin Yes, agreed you could play female knights as an "option". For people reading this post this is exactly how the option is stated in Pendragon 1e (1985) on page 23, "Your gamemaster might allow women knights in his Pendragon campaign. Always assume they are not allowed, then check with your gamemaster." I also agree with you I took an unrigid view of Arthurian fantasy -- after all it is still a fantasy game IMO -- not a game about historical realism.
I have always proniounced it as Reh-MORE-ahz. But Im from California, and we are weird. 😁
Also from CA, also always pronounced it that way. Can confirm the weirdness. 👍
@@njp4321 lol
@@njp4321 Me too!!