{"id":213,"date":"2018-05-29T18:12:04","date_gmt":"2018-05-29T23:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/?p=213"},"modified":"2018-05-29T18:12:04","modified_gmt":"2018-05-29T23:12:04","slug":"mike-mearls-still-doesnt-get-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/2018\/05\/29\/mike-mearls-still-doesnt-get-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Mearls Still Doesn\u2019t Get It"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reading through my copy of Goodman Games\u2019 Into The Borderlands<\/em> and I was genuinely surprised by Mike Mearls\u2019 introduction on page five.\u00a0 <\/span>Mike Mearls has made a name for himself with numerous tantrums on Twitter and isn\u2019t exactly a hero among the OSR community (I play D&D without his permission so he\u2019s probably not too sweet on me either).\u00a0 <\/span>Putting that aside, as head developer of the current Dungeons & Dragons line I would at least expect him to be familiar with the early days of the game.\u00a0 <\/span>Yet in his introduction his natural tendencies can\u2019t help but show through.<\/p>\n

In a short piece that is supposed to display his appreciation of the adventures The Keep on the Borderlands<\/em> and In Search of the Unknown<\/em> he can\u2019t help but complain about their shortcomings.\u00a0 <\/span>Such complaints about well-loved adventures decades after they\u2019ve proven their staying power can be overlooked but Mearls\u2019 ignorance can\u2019t.\u00a0 <\/span>The content of his complaints make it plain to all that he doesn\u2019t understand the early days of the first roleplaying game well at all.<\/p>\n

He writes \u201cThe Keep on the Borderlands<\/em> has its flaws.\u00a0 <\/span>The Keep\u2019s inhabitants lack names.\u00a0 <\/span>Having so many hostile monster groups live in close proximity strains credibility.\u00a0 <\/span>The Caves of Chaos are presented as a mysterious location, yet they are a short stroll from the Keep.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>I want to address each of these.<\/p>\n

First, the lack of names for NPCs.\u00a0 <\/span>In ages past, people were known more by their title than by their name.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cThe castellan\u201d or \u201cthe guard captain\u201d would be used by people much more than \u201cJohn\u201d or \u201cMr. Ulrich.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Many people in the Keep are likely to not even know the names of many of the people in positions of authority.\u00a0 <\/span>Furthermore, encouraging the dungeon master to come up with their own names is quick and simple for even young gamers.\u00a0 <\/span>Devising one\u2019s own names for the NPCs make the Keep more personalized and more adaptable to different settings.\u00a0 <\/span>When The Keep on the Borderlands<\/em> was first published it didn\u2019t belong to a larger setting.\u00a0 <\/span>Attaching names to the NPCs would have nailed it down to a particular culture.<\/p>\n

The Caves of Chaos being near the Keep doesn\u2019t strain credibility if you\u2019re paying attention.\u00a0 <\/span>Page B51 of Moldvay\u2019s D&D Basic Rulebook (from the same box, by the way) has this: \u201cInvestigating a Chaotic Outpost: This scenario has to do with a Chaotic invasion (either in progress or about to begin)\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>Dungeon Module B2 (The Keep on the Borderlands) is an example of this type of scenario.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>The trouble with the monstrous inhabitants of the Caves of Chaos either just started or hasn\u2019t started yet.\u00a0 <\/span>The monsters haven\u2019t been there long.\u00a0 <\/span>I believe it isn\u2019t a stretch at all to suppose the evil priest in area K has gathered the forces and maintains the uneasy peace among them until the invasion can start.<\/p>\n

The Caves of Chaos are nearby the Keep but I don\u2019t see that as an indication that they are a familiar spot.\u00a0 <\/span>The road that heads east and then north from the Keep leads to the Borderlands.\u00a0 <\/span>It is a wasteland and no civilized groups use it.\u00a0 <\/span>Forces from the Keep likely patrol it at intervals but they don\u2019t have reason to go far and don\u2019t spend long on it.\u00a0 <\/span>Notice how the clearing for the Caves of Chaos lies behind a dense line of trees.\u00a0 <\/span>I think it likely that the castellan and his forces don\u2019t know the clearing or the caves are even there.\u00a0 <\/span>Even if someone were to insist that they must know, they don\u2019t have the manpower to keep a full-time outpost there.\u00a0 <\/span>If the trouble with the monsters hasn\u2019t happened yet the Keep\u2019s forces wouldn\u2019t think to investigate.<\/p>\n

On another level, the Caves being so near the Keep was done intentionally.\u00a0 The Basic D&D games (as explained by Tim Kask) were created to make the game more accessible and more appealing for younger gamers.\u00a0 Placing the destinations so near the players’ home base made sense to Gary Gygax.\u00a0 Regular D&D was a game of resource management but this adventure was written for a young audience.\u00a0 Making travels short allowed Gygax to not only fit everything onto one map with a decent level of detail but it also made the resource management expected of wilderness forays unnecessary.<\/p>\n

Mike Mearls\u2019 involvement may have been necessary for Goodman Games to obtain permission to republish these two classic D&D adventures but it is distressing that the person currently in charge of Dungeons & Dragons knows so little about the game\u2019s early days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been reading through my copy of Goodman Games\u2019 Into The Borderlands and I was genuinely surprised by Mike Mearls\u2019 introduction on page five.\u00a0 Mike Mearls has made a name for himself with numerous tantrums on Twitter and isn\u2019t exactly a hero among the OSR community (I play D&D without […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214,"href":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions\/214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gearsonline.net\/fantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}