Thaevrizhax's Lair

 There are two ways of defining Chaos: 1: Pandemonium, that is to say a state of lawlessness and a breakdown of the order of society, the disarray creating injustice.  In other words, Evil. 2: Randomness, happenstance and luck determining various outcomes and events, neither inherently good nor inherently evil. Equally, there are two ways of defining Law: 1: The Law, as in natural law or the Law of God.  This being the order which the world has been set by the highest authority, it is Good and right to follow such a Law, as to do anything else would be to go against creation itself.  Humanity being part of creation, it would naturally be insane for any human to willingly go against such Law. 2: A Law: This could range from the law of the land, that is to say, the state, all the way to any set of morality which a person chooses to follow, no matter how justified or sadistic it may tend. OD&D In OD&D, the alignments of Lawful and Chaotic must either: 1: Refer...

After the ghost encounter , our heroes bribed two dragons to help them kill the stygian witches (The Weaver's of Star's Light), stealing a philosopher's stone from them, and using it to fix Dalzel's magical aging (he's still retired).  I'm sure nothing bad will come from that, but as for the rest, I'm now onto the next half of the dungeon . Still solo play, for clarification. The fifth real level of the dungeon is another randomized mess.  The most notable happening on this level was the Ancient Blue Dragon the party stumbled upon.  Munro decides on a full offensive, one third of the party charges, the rest flee in terror.  The dragon immediately opens up with lightning. Maroshi Tano (can you guess the class?) loses his left arm, but no worries, hew is equally effective at killing with his right leg! Speaking of legs, Holger Holgerson loses his right leg and right arm to the lightning as well.  Not to fear! He simply takes hold of an idol they found elsewher...

 Just as a follow up to yesterday's post : Once you understand the playstyle of the creators of D&D, you begin also to understand the mindset. I do not know for certain, but my impression is that, if you were to ask Gygax in the 70s how to run the game, any answer more in-depth than, "You referee between the players and the world," would not be forthcoming. My reasoning for this is that all of those individuals who were involved at its very conception were people who had grown up playing wargames, an d developing wargames.  To such people, there could be nothing more natural than the relatively easy task of refereeing.  Perhaps a complex task, but not impossible. It was only when people with different mindsets started to approach the game that misunderstandings started to crop up, that is, at least, in my mind. Different Mindsets Two new types of individuals, the first are those I would label as Powergamers, the second I would call Storygamers. Powergamers want to kno...

 I was reading an article from B/X Blackrazor, and realized something.  But first some background. I have begun to notice a certain obsession from many people, blogs, youtube channels... an obsession over 1e D&D and Gary Gygax.  The idea being one of two, either A. The way that people played back in the day (pre-1e) is the true way to play B. Gygax/1e is the true way to play  This, then connects from a recent, as of writing, video from Matt Colville (Say what you will, but he makes interesting videos) where he proffered the explanation, gleaned from  the book The Elusive Shift, that there was no true way that people played the game, at least in the 70s, until 1e came out.  In some ways I am forced to agree, such as how after 1e was released it did result in a more unified play-style.  However, I must argue, if only from conjecture and second-hand observation as I was not there, that there was indeed a set way in which the game was played by its or...