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<blockquote data-quote="Gus L" data-source="post: 9664850" data-attributes="member: 7045072">My own reading is that both Lake Geneva and the West Coast D&amp;D scene missed part of the point of OD&amp;D, because I do suspect that it was originally intended as a sort of mini-game to a larger Chainmail campaign - a sort of &quot;raid the castle for gold to build your army&quot; thing in a Castles &amp; Crusades society type deal.&nbsp; I don't think it lasted as that even through the development process and thus the RPG was born.&nbsp; A lot of the idiosyncrasies of OD&amp;D (the size of treasure hoards and corresponding XP limits or the numbers of monsters found in random encounters) make a lot more sense if the characters are expected to be funding warbands and domains... Given that though, the RPG clearly pops out of the wargame here and overtakes it. One can read about this sort of happening in First Fantasy Campaign, with the dungeon becoming more and more the game's focus. It happens in the rules as well I think - for example the alternate combat system is added to make things more character friendly and work at a smaller scale of combat. So while there may be some truth to the idea of OD&amp;D as wargame, it wasn't for very long or to a very great degree.Of course I find it more interesting to build a &quot;what if&quot; using the Chainmail Rules (or better skirmish game ones) and think about how one might run such games rather then proclaim any sort of connection to ur-D&amp;D and wave about the bloody shirt of nostalgia.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gus L, post: 9664850, member: 7045072"] My own reading is that both Lake Geneva and the West Coast D&D scene missed part of the point of OD&D, because I do suspect that it was originally intended as a sort of mini-game to a larger Chainmail campaign - a sort of "raid the castle for gold to build your army" thing in a Castles & Crusades society type deal. I don't think it lasted as that even through the development process and thus the RPG was born. A lot of the idiosyncrasies of OD&D (the size of treasure hoards and corresponding XP limits or the numbers of monsters found in random encounters) make a lot more sense if the characters are expected to be funding warbands and domains... Given that though, the RPG clearly pops out of the wargame here and overtakes it. One can read about this sort of happening in First Fantasy Campaign, with the dungeon becoming more and more the game's focus. It happens in the rules as well I think - for example the alternate combat system is added to make things more character friendly and work at a smaller scale of combat. So while there may be some truth to the idea of OD&D as wargame, it wasn't for very long or to a very great degree. Of course I find it more interesting to build a "what if" using the Chainmail Rules (or better skirmish game ones) and think about how one might run such games rather then proclaim any sort of connection to ur-D&D and wave about the bloody shirt of nostalgia. [/QUOTE]

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