As a matter of fact, I have a whole playlist of History and D&D! th-cam.com/play/PLX6jue56rzl0uAZIFwywJXIMXWVULmTqh.html More to come, too! Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Actually, in addition to the lame kit for clerics, monks were introduced in AD&D 2nd Edition, in the revision book Spells & Magic, along many other new classes. It was a priest with weird spell spheres, a free specialization in martial arts like a fighter, no armor but a base AC that became better with levels, resistance to mind affecting spells and powers, and other useful things. It wasn't bad. A lot of fun to play.
I played my first monk in D&D 1e in 1982-1983 through my senior year of high school. Over the years, I have come to think the Monk class was introduced to allow parties with paladins to have a thief-character along with them who was good and not a thief (i.e., evil). The paladin class was very restrictive in alignment (lawful good only) and could not hire or associate with less savory characters. The Monk basically had the same skill set as the Thief without the Pick Pockets ability. and monks had to be lawful, so lawful good with a paladin-containing party made sense as opposed to a thief who was recommended to be a non-good character (neutral or evil)
There is fairly strong evidence that Arneson wrote the Assassin class in the "Special Interests" section of the FFC. The text contains a list of all the D&D classes that were published to date by the the summer of 1975 - except thief - (Fighting-Man, Cleric, Magic-User, Ranger, Paladin) plus 3 more (Assassin, Merchant, Sage). Merchant and Sage are definite Blackmoor classes and so it appears is Assassin. Arneson wrote the manuscript for Supp II in the summer of 1975 and It is quite likely Imho that the Special Interest Section was material included in the mss. that got cut by Kask or the previous editor Brian Blume (who added Monk to the mix). Notably of the three added classes, the sage and assassin were included in Supp II.
Thank you very much for the additional context and comments. I have First Fantasy Campaign but hadn't thought to include it as a source in this video - I actually didn't know it was written in 1975; I only know of the publishing date of 1977 so I assumed he had written it a year or two after the publication of Blackmoor Supplement II. I read an old thread on the OD&D Message Boards that Dave Arneson, Greg Svenson and other old-times who played in the Blackmoor game contributed to (it was around 2008 just about a year before Dave passed away) that was an attempt to list the original players and their classes in Blackmoor. The list creator does mention that it's not complete, but it doesn't list anyone playing an Assassin, although it does list at least one Ranger, Paladin, Dwarf, Elf, Half-Elf, a few Mages, and even an Orc. Dave never added or deleted anything from the list but he did confirm that the names and classes listed were correct and he edited/corrected a few of the entries to make them clearer. The list also doesn't include any Sage or Merchant characters, although as you point out, they are listed as character types in the Special Interests section of First Fantasy Campaign (but without many details how to play them) and I have read several other sources indicating Dave did have those two classes as options in Blackmoor. I'd love to find more details on the mechanics of those classes if you happen to be able to point me in the right direction. I've only ever seen mention that the classes existed but not how to create one as a PC. Also, thanks for confirming that Brian Blume is the one who added the Monk class. As you saw (heard) I mention that in my video and I know Gygax mentioned Blume was the creator of the class in his preface to 1985's Oriental Adventures, but I've learned not to always trust Gary's "memory" as he tended to have ulterior motives for some of his comments about the origins of certain things in the game. Thanks again.
@@daddyrolleda1 For sure. To be clear, the FFC is a collection of materials Arneson had up to the time it was published. So they range in date from 1971 to 1976, lightly edited in 1977. So, for example the Coot Invasion list (2nd Invasion) are from the summer of 1972, whereas the stocking list of levels 1-6 of Blackmoor Dungeon were prepared in 1976. Dan Nicholoson played the Merchant and Dave Megarry played the scholor/sage.
@@danielboggs2013 Ah, that makes sense! I assumed Dave had written FFC "from scratch" sometime around 1976 or 1977 but it makes sense that it's more a collection of his Blackmoor stuff "in total." That would also speak to the (at least, to me) lack of organization of FFC. While sometimes "High Gygaxian" can be difficult to penetrate, I do find the stuff written by Gary to be easier to follow. I'd love to learn more about Dan Nicholson's Merchant and Dave Megarry's Scholar/Sage. I can't seem to find any details about them anywhere, in particular why/how those classes were created and also how the classes worked mechanically (class abilities, HD, etc.).
I had the opportunity to be a player in a light RPG (very roughly D&D) that Tim Kask ran at a local con a couple of years back. What an amazingly generous and accommodating guy. The session was super fun with Tim weaving crazy settings and scenarios around the silly things we submitted as prompts and the lunatic actions we were talking with our player characters.
Oh, wow! What a treat! I would love to sit down and game with some more folks like that! You may have seen that I played in game games at DaveCon this past April run by Dave Wesely (Braunstein) and Bill Hoyt (Blackmoor). Someday I hope to get to GaryCon and perhaps play with David Cook and/or other folks who attend!
This is a great series. I am super interested to find out more about the creation of psionics (1st Ed). Who made it? What was the inspiration for the names of the disciplines/Attack-Defense Modes, what did the creatures think of the mechanics (psionic combat is pretty crazy at the table), etc.
Thanks again for the great historical analysis. I appreciate the work that must go into making these videos. I enjoy the insight into the different Character Classes and their roles in the game. What a great way to spend a bit of time thinking about the OSR and how it remains relevant today.
(20:02) ... you are absolutely right, I recognize that page. That's the edition my relatives had. Never wanted to play the game with the youngster I was, but I was able to sneak the book and read it. Yes, thief feeling monk, no backstab, but instead everything else from the thief that seemed to matter. That's what I remember. By the time I actually played anything it was second edition. Explains why there's nothing like what I remember in the complete second edition omnibus. Things change with time. Course, these days a slow falling assassin with thief abilities would be something out of assassins creed... heh.
you can tell in 1e that Gygax really saw druids in an antagonistic way if you see their role in the Village of Hommlett, he has them siding wit the temple of elemental evil
For sure! I think for years there was a lot of cursory understanding and apocryphal stories being bandied about that people began to accept as gospel, but once you dig into it, it's much more complicated and muddy than we thought.
Another great video. Keep 'em coming! It's so much fun learning about the mishmash of references and influences, and the DIY spirit in these early days! It's a good reflection of what happens probably across all other types of art too. These were bright, creative, well-read people (knowledgeable about history and fantasy and so on), but ultimately were just nerd gamers like most of us. These rules were just their version that they hustled together. Just their version. And you could make one too!
This is such a great way of looking at it! I really like this approach. And it's true - they were cobbling stuff together from ideas they got from fiction, history, other games, from friends, from strangers, from conventions, and throwing it all in the blender to try to create something they thought would be fun and interesting and would add to the game. They weren't all going to be winners! Thank you for the compliment, and as always, for your support!
I appreciate that, and I'll take some good-natured ribbing over the Dodgers. I was afraid I'd take a lot more flak for it, but so far, you're the only one! Appreciate the compliment!
Just bought a copy of Elak of Atlantis, looking forward to reading it and seeing where some of these ideas come from. I always appreciate specific titles like that mentioned to read the same thing Gary and the others were inspired by. Three Hearts and Three Lions is the last one that I bought and read. A different video mentioned that book is where the idea of trolls regenerating and being weak to fire came from.
Yes! That is also what I've understand with regard to regenerating trolls and their weakness to fire. Reading through the Appendix N is a goal of mine at one point. I've read quite a few but there are tons I'm still missing. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
The last time I played 1e AD&D about 10 years ago I made a point of creating my new characters in the interesting classes of illusionist, monk and assassin. I think I remember my assassin was a secret identity. He operated as a vanilla fighter/rogue on the surface, while practicing his craft in secret. I also insisted on rolling up the assassin natural 3d6 and got just good enough scores. Being a Joe Sixpack rogue instead of a min-max superhero was part of his disguise.
This sounds like so much fun! I would totally play in a campaign like this. Thank you very much for watching and for commenting. I really appreciate it.
Attribute requirements was usually a way to keep all these special classes rare. If you rolled good enough to be a paladin you got to be one. But we have also fudged that during tests when we really want to give a wonky class a try. Same with bonus xp, but as a postive reinforcement. One of my friends insisted on no attribute limits in their game, and no bonus xp. They shifted all of that to race in their race-plus-class system. Humans in general gain +10% xp, an elf needs to have a certain Dex etc. Dwarfs can't be too Dextrous.
@@SusCalvin That was bad design. Imagine being such a buzzkill DM that you won't let your players ever create a character class unless they win a rare attribute lottery, which they probably never will. "HAHAHA, take THAT puny players!"
@@brooksrownd2275 It's not impossible, but you're probably not going to have an expedition fully staffed by paladins. I started to like race as class. Most are human bums, if you are a vampire or dwarf or shroom-man that is your class.
I found this interesting from Strategic Review #6, in discussing alignments, Gary writes: "Druids serve only themselves and nature, they occasionally make human sacrifice, but on the other hand they aid the folk in agriculture and animal husbandry. Druids are, therefore, neutral - although slightly predisposed towards evil actions." I'm not sure, as a DM, i would be comfortable with a player role-playing a human sacrifice.
Yeah, that is a bit odd, but Gary often has some odd-sounding quotes and thoughts like that, I've seen! I do have a nation ruled by fey-touched kings and their Druid advisors. It is the job of the grand druid, when the King is too old or weak to serve, to ritually sacrifice the king and then read the designs in the spilling of the entrails to determine who the next king should be. BUT... that's an NPC. A PC doing that would be strange to me.
It's entirely possible (and highly likely) that Gygax made the Druid as a monster originally drawing inspiration from Caesars' commentary on them. Players seeing a "monster" class with some really cool abilities wanted to play them which lead on to a playable class in the next publication of the rules. If the class had originated as a class first and THEN a monster, it could be argued Gygax got it from Weird Tales, but because it was a monster first, it's more likely the true source was Caesars Commentari de bella Galica.
That's certainly possible and makes sense. I just keep going back to wondering why that specific historical source? He was creating a swords and sorcery game, so it seems a bit random to pick an (at the time) obscure mention from an historical source that he didn't use to inform any of the other elements of the game he was designing. Meanwhile, the inspiration from sword and sorcery tales from the 1930s and after are found in liberal amounts throughout the early D&D designs, so for me, the coincidence of at least having been inspired by those Weird Tales stories (perhaps even subconsciously) is pretty strong. Thank you for watching and commenting! I appreciate it!
@@daddyrolleda1 my best guess is that he was looking for resources on Celtic/Gaulish/Gaelic culture/myth and happened upon the Caesar's commentari, I know it happened to me, although tangentially from histocrat's videos on the druids
Oh, absolutely! If I remember correctly, what I was trying to get across (and probably didn't articulate it well) is that for a time, one of the most well-known writings about them was Caesar's, and those writings would have been known to Gygax and the others. Today with the amount of research and scholarly writing that has been done on the Druids, as well as having the Internet, it's easier to get different points of view and information on them. But, back in the early 1970's, I think there was less widely-distributed information to use for research on the topic. Hopefully that makes sense. Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel!
I unfortunately never got to play the original set of rules back in the day. I started with Moldvay and didn't discover the idea of OD&D until I found a beat-up copy of Greyhawk Supplement I at a friend's house (not the one I show in the video; I got a nicer copy decades later). Shortly after that, I saw a copy of Blackmoor on the shelf at my LGS for only $5.00 (the one in the video) but I didn't get a full White Box set of rules until nearly 20 years later - a surprise birthday gift from my mom.
@@daddyrolleda1 That's a good Mom! When I first started playing we never even used the rulebooks except to buy equipment. Occasionally the DM might ask you to roll for something. But for the most part it was up to you to "roleplay" what you wanted to do for success. The real rolls came with combat which usually didn't end well for the early game players.
Yes, definitely! I felt like in the early days, combat was something to be avoided at all costs. If you could somehow get the treasure through trickery or some other means, that was much better and used far fewer resources.
Another great video! I always learn something I didn’t know from your videos even after doing a ton of research myself. The connection to Top Secret for the Assassin class blew my mind! I love the deep dive into the origin of the Druids. I want to read those stories in Weird Takes you mentioned. Can’t wait for your video on Vancian Magic!
Thank you so much! I thought the connection to "Top Secret" was pretty interesting myself, but you're the first one who really commented on it! Let me know if you read those Weird Tale stories! I think also that Paizo Publishing had a line of old pulp story reprints back around 2009 or so, and some of those stories were included. I've been working on my notes for Vancian magic. It'll drop sometime this coming week when I find time to record and edit it!
I've always seen D&D druids as similar to the Druedain in LOTR. Secretive, have an unmatched knowledge of plants and animals, and they have a unique mystical magic. They were also very rare and shunned civilisation, having said that I did play MERP, so that may have impacted my opinion. Great video again, I really enjoyed it, keep up the good work.
Thank you so much for this. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness and your support. That's such a great analogy about the Dunedain and the Druids! I'd not thought of that, but I can see it making sense. One of my favorite DMs was a huge fan of MERP and of Tolkien in general... decades later he ran a 3E game for us and was super cagey about the world ("I haven't drawn a map yet... I'll get to it...") and we played in that world for about three or four years of real world time before we figured out that we were adventuring in Middle Earth in the 4th Age, but in the East (which is why we didn't recognize place names and such). He used a ton of old MERP supplements and it was probably the best game I've ever been in as a player. Thanks again!
@@daddyrolleda1 That 3E game you played goes to show how much detail exists about Middle Earth. The reference material is a wonderful source of ideas and information that never appears in the main stories, so I can wholly understand how you could spend years roaming it, without realising where you were. I can also see why they would be one of your favourite DMs.
That game was amazing, partly because the DM was just a good DM in general, but also the way he snuck all this stuff into the game without us realizing. As just a small example: * In the east (where we were), there were two nations at war with one another and the war had kind of spilled out into the rest of the eastern part of this world. One country had flags and livery of dark blue, and the other had light blue. We eventually discovered these two nations had been founded by the two blue wizards who had "gone to the east" and Tolkien doesn't really ever get into what happened with them. This DM extrapolated that they may have ended up somewhat similar to Saruman, succumbing to base human desires and greed after centuries of not having fulfilled their original mission. They originally were working together, but came to be at odds with each other, and founded nations based on their new skewed ideals, and those nations were perpetually at war with one another. There's way more to it that that, but he was a big fan of trying to answer questions like, "Whatever happened to the Blue Wizards?" but doing it in a way that made it fun and "gameable." * To the west of us, in a desert area, was a city of white marble with five "tines" emanating from a central hub, called "Samar's Hand." It was one of the primary sources of all the world's wizards ("wizards" from a D&D standpoint of the class; he had told us that wizards were not available as a PC option, and we just went with it, without knowing why he said that, but we met a few wizard NPCs in our game). It seems obvious in hindsight once you know that we were gaming in Middle Earth, but we didn't know that at the time, but "Samar's Hand" was a city in that world that the DM decided had been founded by Saruman centuries (millennia?) before, and was originally called "Saruman's Hand" (hence the five-pointed "hand" shape of the city... "The White Hand of Saruman"). Over time, the name had just been corrupted and shortened to "Samar's Hand." Then the DM blew our mind by showing us a map of the earth overlaid on his map of our Middle Earth game - he had placed his city of "Samar's Hand" where the real world city of Samarkand is located. These are just two small examples of the level of detail he went to for this game, but he also was really good about incorporating stuff we as players wanted to do before we understood we were in Tolkien's Middle Earth. Thanks for your comment - and sorry for my long reply. I was getting all retrospective thinking about that game.
@@MrChasanDayve Ha! That cracked me up! Thanks for reading, and as always, I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you about all this stuff we love. Cheers!
I've yet to actually play D&D - I cut my teeth on CRPGs - but I find the real-world 'lore' of it (not to mention RPG design in general) fascinating. Thanks for your work and glad I found your channel.
Another nice one good sir. I had always heard that the monk was inspired by the novels of Remo Williams. I'm sure it's just a rumor, but that was my belief in the 90s.
No, I'm pretty sure that's correct. I mention all that in my video and Gygax name-drops the Destroyer books (where Remo Williams comes from) in the preface to Oriental Adventures, as I talk about in the video.
Disappointed to find out the Druid wasn't based on Getafix from the Asterix comics. Sad times. 😞 😅 On a serious note thank you for another great video. Perhaps Gygax took the Druid from Caesar's Gallic Wars because of his wargaming background? It wouldn't necessarily be the only thing - something had to explain all those wretched polearms...
It makes sense to have both druids and bards, even if they were separated from each other in-game. I'm speculating wildly here, but the 60s-70s generated interest in pagan revivals and, for those of British descent, ancient Celtic culture was a source or some fascination. Could be that merely having this topic in the zeitgeist helped to put those roles into the game.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it! While I started in 1981 with Moldvay B/X, we quickly began incorporating stuff from 1E AD&D (as we didn't quite get that they were two separate games) so all the material from that time period, whether Basic or Advanced, has a big spot in my heart. I'm running a B/X game for my 14yo daughter and her friends (started when they were about 10/11 years old) but I use stuff from 1E all the time. They're currently going through U1: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.
I'm so glad to hear that! Thank you so much for letting me know! I'm glad you like the content, and look forward to chatting with you in the comments. Make sure to tell your friends, too! And thanks for watching and commenting!
I play a lot of S&W by Matt Finch which is based off of OD&D. But I tweaked the Assassin in that ruleset to essentially be better at fighting, stealth, and backstabbing than the Thief. It's really worked out well while keeping each perspective class in its own lane.
Sounds like a great revision to the class. S&W is a fun game - I've not played it "as is" but I've read it for inspiration and ideas for the B/X game I run. Thanks for watching and commenting!
In this series, the beginning additions to original classes were more organic development from one to the other. Still, as they go, they become more and more deliberately made. There were so many classes by the time of 3.5 and 4e the new 5e model is very disciplined,
I always loved the Druid, but that might be because of my love for BECMI, and that edition couldnt stop releasing thr class. Druids, Shaman, Shamani, Druid Knights, creature shaman, and far magician tonsome extent.
There is a Druid in the BECMI "Companion" Set from 1984 with some additional rules and clarifications in the "Master Set" from 1985. They also added Paladins, Avengers (Chaotic-aligned Fighters, so kind of like an "Anti-Paladin") and a few others, like the Mystic (a martial-arts style class).
The Flying Monk sounds like a joke based on the Flying Nun rather than any kind of kung fu reference. The Flying Nun was a sitcom from the late 1960s - obscure now but people would have caught the reference in the 1970s.
That is a brilliant observation! I remember that show with Sally Field! It was in reruns when I was a kid. I suspect you might be right - I don't know why that never occurred to me! Thank you for watching and commenting.
Old D&D origin stories? Kind of interesting. Prep notes for daughter's game - look, Keep on the Borderlands, also could be interestiing. Discussion of IPA and jazz album that loomed in this videos backstory? Subscribed. Go Dodgers!
I love this comment, and I'm really glad you found my channel and liked all the different kinds of content. Thank you so much for your support and for subscribing. I really appreciate it. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Each of those things really resonated. At different times in my life, D&D 1e (and later 5e), beer, jazz, and the Dodgers were my #1 hobbies. I never played Keep but so many others did that I have heard about it often and it feels like a part of me. I also checked out the video about your daughter game and thought it was really thoughtful. Looking forrward to more of all of it.
That's right! I had forgotten about that! I have that book and had planned to do an overview of it at some point. Thank you so much for the reminder, and also for watching and commenting!
It could be worth mentioning that originally druids weren't able to shapeshift into animals untill relatively high levels (9 or something like this) so there's interesting shift in case of druids - form spellcasters with some limited shapeshift abilities to full non-casting shapeshifters (as seen in recent D&D movie, and probably next edition of D&D).
Yes, they have definitely changed away from being casters to focusing more on wild shape, as you mention. For the D&D movie, my assumption is that the producers/director pushed the wild-shape aspect not only for its visual appeal, but also to help differentiate the druid character from the sorcerer - if they had two spellcasting characters, but they were casting really different spells, folks who aren't familiar with the game may have gotten confused. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Thanks again for the videos. Just seeing that Top Secret box reminds me of how much I LOVED that game. Again, "most of the class gets repeated in the 1978 AD&D PH" ... but TSR actually tried to say "it's a completely different game" than D&D therefore Arneson gets nothing. LOL. It's a reminder that you can't take everything Gygax said at face value when he had an ulterior motive. Same with the "I wasn't influenced by Tolkien". Even more LOLOL. All the WOTC books are notorious for poor bindings.
Top Secret was such a fun game. I still have a sketch I made of one of my first characters, who *totally* did not look anything like a spy in his trench coat, Fedora, and sunglasses. He just blended right in. And yes, in my video on the history of D&D editions, I get into (VERY briefly) the whole "AD&D is a different game!" shenanigans. I get the impression just from reading things that, while Gary was definitely a gamer, his "public" persona was more of a business person and he was going to say or do the things he thought would help sell more D&D/TSR games and/or avoid criticisms. And that's related to my argument on Tolkien - I *do* think Gary liked other books/stories and types of fantasy better than Tolkien, but I also know that he included it and a lot of the stuff from it, like orcs, half-elves, ents, balrogs, hobbits/halfings, and on-and-on, from Tolkien's books because those stories were so popular at the time that it would've been dumb *not* to include them, and if he hadn't do so, someone else would have. So, I think we both agree that Gary was influenced by Tolkien to create a lot of the stuff in D&D. My viewpoint is that he did it more as a business/marketing decision versus a "this is cool!" standpoint. But, I could be wrong, of course. But yes, for him to later retcon it to say "I wasn't influenced by Tolkien" is disingenuous; the words "hobbit" and "balrog" haven't been used in other other fiction, as far as I know, so he had to gotten them from Tolkien!
@@daddyrolleda1 "anything like a spy in his trench coat, Fedora, and sunglasses. He just blended right in. " A real spy that dressed with a trench coat, fedora and sunglasses would last very long.
Interestingly enough both the Monk and Assassin appear as classes (more like powered up kits) in The Scarlett Brotherhood on page 72 for second edition. The classes are more akin to their 1st edition counterparts; I have long found this interesting as the 2 classes in Blackmoor were only carried over into 2nd edition by Gygax as part as one of his evil factions; it made me wonder if it was done on purpose as a thumb at Arneson or a tribute. After hearing what you had to say about how Blackmoor was little more than a collection of notes and others' contributions, I need to dig deeper and see if Gygax did pass up the opportunity to get credit in this instance but is reclaiming it via this book.
My understanding was there already was a Cleric Class and the ability to turn undead was tacked onto it. There was a bishop and priest in Braunstein as well.
In the context of 'Occidental Adventures' (a standard D&D setting) the Monk never made much sense. As a kid I was confused because I just assumed it would be a medieval monk or nun. It worked much better moving to Oriental Adventures. But surely they _were_ religious in some way. For characters like Caine in Kung Fu, ritual practices and philosophy are the foundation of their martial abilities, which to others seem so impressive as to be supernatural.
I agree as originally presented, the monk seemed out of place in a standard western fantasy campaign. I think the 2E products tried to address that with the "Fighting Monk" character kit for clerics that, to me, seemed more like a medieval monk but who was skilled at fisticuffs. As a kid, I, too, pictures in my head a Franciscan style monk! Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I stopped absorbing new rules around 2.0 so never took a proper look at kits, but will have to check that out. I can imagine monks would need some skill in repelling marauders. And I just now had a fun notion - a specialist fighting _nun_ kit drawn from lots of silly pop-culture. Nuns can sing, do basic mechanics, terrify with a stare or a scolding word, waft along as if they have no legs and, if they are light enough, actually fly. :)
Oh, and while I"m here. Some of the PVP stuff going back into D&D? A GM with two groups, in two seperate chats, and able to just echo the moves from one group to the other? Possibly three GM"S working together and only drawing the groups together if they act against eachother directly.
*nods* has to be remote, and has to be an odd number of GM's so there can be no partiality. Maybe even shuffle the GM's around now and then so none of them can be TOO partial. For REAL fun encourage backchannel comunication and for somebody to swap groups. Course, at this level we're talking a PAID project....
Assassins and Spies were available in Braunstein I want to say. I researched it and tried to run a game one time. It was more or less successful. Also in Burroughs Martian Series there were Assassins. They were more or less Duelist for hire. As for the Monk - I heard in playtest of Temple of the Frog one of the players wanted to use Judo and Kung Fu to take out some guards. The Druids - well it was mid seventies and the Modern Druid Religion was picking up. I just bet one of his players was involved with it.
I have to wonder what D&D would be like if it was first made today. Harry Potter, Pokemon, Naruto, all of these would have lead to a much different game if those were the main influence.
Oh, totally! If you watch any of my videos on my "Campaign Prep," I'm talking about the D&D campaign I'm currently running for my 14 year-old daughter and her friends. They were around 10/11 when we started, and I mentioned how one of the first things I asked them was what their familiarity with fantasy was. Instead of things like Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Conan, comic books, and Star Wars, they said things like Harry Potter, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and some Studio Ghibli films. It was a real eye-opener to what they considered "fantasy" versus my inspirations as a kid. A few years ago, someone did a fun experiment in which they re-designed Original D&D as though the source inspiration had been Greek Mythology instead of Sword-and-Sorcery fantasy fiction. The mechanics were the same, for the most part, but the game structure and of course classes and races were completely different. It was a fun idea. Thanks for watching and commenting.
I'm so glad you found it! I have a playlist for my campaign prep videos here: th-cam.com/play/PLX6jue56rzl2-VzZH19Ke2NU4r0IaJ7be.html They'll all for my daughter's campaign.
I would really like to see you cover the CalTech/MIT variant of D&D originally distributed over the ARPANET in the 70's called "Warlock," and was first published in "Spartan #9." Our group found it far superior to both OD&D and AD&D, and it was in my opinion, not exceeded until D&D 3.5.
I will add this to my list of potential topics. I live very close to CalTech (walkable) and have long been fascinated by its early contributions to the game, along with a wider array of Southern California folks such as the Aero Hobbies group in Santa Monica and Wee Warriors in El Segundo. That era you're referring to is a little before my time (I didn't start playing until 1981) but as I mentioned, I've found it an interesting topic. Thanks for the suggestion, and for watching and commenting.
@@daddyrolleda1 Besides initial distribution by ARPANet, there was also a Campaign World Server, possibly based at UC Santa Cruz Astronomy Department, where random encounter tables based on hex contents were updated with the combat results of individual D&D sessions. That is, if a group killed a Dragon, the distribution of monsters would change, and so the encounter tables would change. You might ask about Dan Dolata of UC Santa Cruz, who might have maintained it. This could be considered an ancestor of the MMO.
I'm currently reading Clark Ashton Smith's "Averoigne" cycle, and I have no idea how much his ideas of druids is informed by actual history, but the druids in his stories are brutal, even in some cases: horrifying. CAS, of course, is listed as an inspiration for D&D in the DMG, but I don't think any of the druid stuff came from Smith's stories, we can safely scratch that off as a possible source.
Oh, very interesting! I need to dig a bit more into CAS but, as you mention, he is listed as inspiration in Appendix N, so perhaps that is another potential source. I imagine it's a case of not being a single definitive source, but rather a case of a multitude of different mentions/inspirations that helped spur the creation of the class. Thanks so much! I appreciate you watching and commenting!
If you find audiobooks easier than written books, I am actually recording the Averoigne cycle right now. The story being published this very night (July 20 @ 8pm EDT) will include some druids in passing. From a D&D perspective, the most fun part of the Averoigne cycle is seeing all the bits that were incorporated into X2 in their original forms. It's interesting though that for listing Smith and Howard and Lovecraft and Dunsany and Derleth, he never mentions Arthur Machen. I'm happy I figured out on my own about him. That's another author you might consider adding to your reading list.
@@sststr This is AWESOME! I listen to all manner of audiobooks/stories during my morning walks (~3 miles Mon-Fri) and would be happy to listen to this. Is it on your YT or a different site/location? I loved X2 and know it's informed by CAS but it's been decades since I even looked at those stories. And thanks for the recommendation - I've not heard of Arthur Machen but will look him up. Thanks again!
I post here on youtube and on bitchute. Some of the 19th century American authors use a certain word I can't use here on youtube, so the versions here are censored, but I post uncensored versions on bitchute. That said, Smith doesn't have that problem, all his stories have been perfectly safe to post uncensored on YT. I've already done the Hyperborean cycle and Poseidonis cycle. I really liked Hyperborea, but Poseidonis didn't do much for me. Averoigne is pretty good so far! I'm currently recording the Colossus of Ylourgne and I like it.
I remember Top Secret.. good times. And if you're interested in the Gor books be aware they're also a BDSM lifestyle so be sure you search for the books.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! And yes, I've not read the Gor books but I read a few reviews to make me think they are probably not for me! But thanks for the warning!
@@daddyrolleda1 My library had one... How could I put this.. in the late 90s before the internet was really a thing and i was under 18 they were "Entertainment" for me.. *cough cough* But yeah, people base their actual BDSM lifestyles off those books. It leads to a lot of abusive stuff sadly.
@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah, well outside of the BDSM community it's not well known. Inside it, it's pretty infamous. I'm trying to keep this comment section from violating community guidelines though.
Personally I dislike all three of these classes, and each for their own reasons. In fact, until the Warlock became core, these were easily my three _least_ favorite player's handbook classes (including race-classes for the Elf, Dwarf, and --Hobbit-- Halfling locking each race into a single profession). For the Assassin, I don't think there's anything it is or does which isn't covered perfectly well by skill selection as a Thief; Climb Sheer Surfaces, Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, and double damage surprise attacks (or however it's handled from edition to edition). It's similar to the Thief-Acrobat for me; it just feels like a proscriptive rather than prescriptive build of one of many possible allocations of thief skill points. I feel there was no _conceptual_ nor _mechanical_ need for its existence. For the Druid, it feels like several unrelated things slapped together. Cleric of a neutral rather than strictly good, evil, lawful, or chaotic deity? Cleric of a broad group of nature spirits? Wizard with a growing and living things repertoire? Skin-changer? Wild Shape itself feels like it should be its own separate class running parallel to Druids, Rangers, and berserker Barbarians rather than the Druid's replacement for Turn Undead. For my part, I see the Druid as more wizardly than I do clerical. For the Monk, I feel the "martial arts master" is just another flavor of Fighter, as I do berserkers, swashbucklers, and archers. Either Fighter is too broad or things like Barbarian, Samurai, Monk, etc. are too narrow in their scope, and my tastes for tabletop games at least lean towards "rules light, elements as broadly applicable and open to interpretation as possible" end. At the same time, were I making a game where the four most basic classes (Fighter, Thief, Wizard, Cleric) combined, I'd peg the Monk as the conceptual intersection of Thief and Cleric, in which case rather than the "everything I saw done in a martial arts movie once" as baked in class features those various techniques would be explicit applications/worked examples of the Thief Skill Table and a curated list of clerical spells for the composite class. My three favorite classes are and ever have been Paladin, Ranger, and Bard. Fourth place varies a bit for me between Cleric or an inconsistently named warrior/wizard (the Elf class from old and basic D&D, the Bladesinger kit from 2nd Edition, Eldritch Knight from 5th Edition, Armamentalist from Dragon Quest, Samurai from the Wizardry videogames, Swordcerer and Edgelord from my own games). I like the broad applicability of classes, but when their roles are distinct my favorite character archetypes are jacks of all trades or blended combinations of two of them.
Thank you so much for watching, and also for this really great, detailed comment. I love comments like this, as I always enjoy chatting with folks about their experiences with the game and why they do or don't like or use certain things. Your comment about your favorite classes resonates with me, as I've always gravitated toward martial type characters. My first PC was a B/X Fighter, and my second was an AD&D Half-Elf Ranger (I *wanted* to make a Half-Elf multi-class Paladin/Illusionist but that was before I'd read the rules to see that class wasn't viable per the AD&D rules at the time). In general, these days I'm in favor of fewer classes but more options (mechanically light options) to make classes different. More and more I've come to like the *idea* of 2E Kits (before they started to get out of control). You want a Barbarian? You're a Fighter, but you get an AC bonus when wearing light armor and maybe some survival skills or something. As a penalty, you take a Reaction Roll penalty. You want a Martial Artist? You get a bonus to unarmed attacks and to unarmored AC. As a penalty, you can't use magic weapons or something. I haven't thought it out - I'm just riffing outloud here, but this is the direction I've been taking my TTRPG design and campaing prep work lately. Thanks again - great insights!
Assassins (or Spys or Scouts), always been a favouite of mine, the only class to get a good disguise skill, and / or bow armed with thief abillities, Elven assassins surprise 1 to 4, all different options... Should they realy be evil? I personally think not because of the other options they have, but they should not be good, lawfull means must be guild members, chaotic means a real loose canon, (by the same token thieves cannot be lawful, guild members must be neutral).... Druids: over the years and the many re-writings of the Arthurian legends the Character of Merlin has been re-moulded to the point it could (in D&D terms) be classed as Magic User, Cleric and / or Druid! (Or maybe Tom Bombadil; or Hern the Hunter...) All great stuff; next time multi classes?....
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I like your detailed comment with your thoughts on assassins and druids! I was never a huge fan of assassins from a player's standpoint but I always liked the disguise idea and even the poison use, which I think should just be folded into "Thief" as skills and then let the player pick which skills they want. I've heard the same thing with Merlin as far as the potential druid-connection. If I were to run an Arthurian campaign, I think I'd totally do that! The multi-class idea could be a fun one! I'll add it to the list!
The original D&D Monk was pretty lame. But the original Jazz Monk is incomparable. While we're at it, the term "epistrophe" (Ephistrophy to Monk) is a fascinating word, often compared to anaphora, but actually one of several similar words. I won't go into it. Look it up. It's got great implications for structure and design, particularly relating to repetition for dramatic effect. Also, ale.
This is such a fun comment because I honestly didn't intent to create a connection between the Monk character class and Thelonious Monk the jazz musician. I listen to him so often that it didn't even register with me. Thanks for bringing that to my attention! Now I want to try to match the album to the video in the future! Thanks for watching through that part... I know a lot of folks drop off before watching that, but I feel like it adds a bit of personality to my channel. Cheers!
Yeah, I've obviously never read them so I didn't know! But someone else pointed that out in the comments as well. Unfortunately there's no way to go back and edit the video once it's posted. I remember back in the 80's there was an article in Dragon Magazine about adapting books to D&D and one of the series they used as an example was the Gor books, and they didn't mention anything about that! That article was my only exposure to those books.
We had a guy that ALWAYS played assassins. He was quite disappointed when the class went away in 2nd edition, even after the kit came out in the Thieves Handbook (that kit was rather nerfed compared to the original class). He was CONSTANTLY trying to assassinate the BBEG in every fight.
@@thesonofdormammu5475 the class makes no sense to me. All you do is try to assassinate people, which is evil. Other than that, which anyone could try to do if they wanted to, you're just a below average Thief, and the Thief was a very weak character class to begin with. I've redesigned the Thief class, and called it a Rogue, which is a much better name than calling yourself a Thief. Would you go adventuring with a Thief? I wouldn't. Yes, a Rogue basically means the same thing, but the only thing worse than saying "I'm a Thief" would be "I'm an Assassin".
@@Lightmane Yeah, luckily when 2e came out he started playing all kinds of classes and eventually landed on playing mages and paladins, which is quite a switch from playing assassins.
I had a half-orc Cleric/Assassin back-up PC but I almost never used him back in the day. These days, I'd be much more likely to just take the bits I like from the Assassin class (namely, disguise, but I am also intrigued by the idea of poison use in certain situations, especially for a heavily political campaign) and folding those into the Thief as options to take (so they'd have to swap out other skills).
Nice to hear from you. I just address this a reply to another comment of yours, but essentially it was bad word choice and poor explaining on my part. I fully understand (and did so even before making this video) that Blackmoor was roleplaying.
Never had anyone play an assassin as there's just not a lot for them to contribute to a party on a traditional hex crawl. I guess they could work okay in a sort of political intrigue game. The monk never seemed to belong in the implied medieval fantasy setting. Works much better in Oriental Adventures.
Hundreds of years before the dawn of history
Lived a strange race of people, the Druids
No one knows who they were or what they were doing
Well done! Gotta love a Spinal Tap reference!
I just hope they know the difference between ' and ".
History meets DnD? Hell yes you should do more of these!
As a matter of fact, I have a whole playlist of History and D&D! th-cam.com/play/PLX6jue56rzl0uAZIFwywJXIMXWVULmTqh.html
More to come, too!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Actually, in addition to the lame kit for clerics, monks were introduced in AD&D 2nd Edition, in the revision book Spells & Magic, along many other new classes.
It was a priest with weird spell spheres, a free specialization in martial arts like a fighter, no armor but a base AC that became better with levels, resistance to mind affecting spells and powers, and other useful things.
It wasn't bad. A lot of fun to play.
Thanks for this! I appreciate you taking time to comment, and thanks for watching the video.
I played my first monk in D&D 1e in 1982-1983 through my senior year of high school. Over the years, I have come to think the Monk class was introduced to allow parties with paladins to have a thief-character along with them who was good and not a thief (i.e., evil). The paladin class was very restrictive in alignment (lawful good only) and could not hire or associate with less savory characters. The Monk basically had the same skill set as the Thief without the Pick Pockets ability. and monks had to be lawful, so lawful good with a paladin-containing party made sense as opposed to a thief who was recommended to be a non-good character (neutral or evil)
There is fairly strong evidence that Arneson wrote the Assassin class in the "Special Interests" section of the FFC. The text contains a list of all the D&D classes that were published to date by the the summer of 1975 - except thief - (Fighting-Man, Cleric, Magic-User, Ranger, Paladin) plus 3 more (Assassin, Merchant, Sage). Merchant and Sage are definite Blackmoor classes and so it appears is Assassin. Arneson wrote the manuscript for Supp II in the summer of 1975 and It is quite likely Imho that the Special Interest Section was material included in the mss. that got cut by Kask or the previous editor Brian Blume (who added Monk to the mix). Notably of the three added classes, the sage and assassin were included in Supp II.
Thank you very much for the additional context and comments. I have First Fantasy Campaign but hadn't thought to include it as a source in this video - I actually didn't know it was written in 1975; I only know of the publishing date of 1977 so I assumed he had written it a year or two after the publication of Blackmoor Supplement II.
I read an old thread on the OD&D Message Boards that Dave Arneson, Greg Svenson and other old-times who played in the Blackmoor game contributed to (it was around 2008 just about a year before Dave passed away) that was an attempt to list the original players and their classes in Blackmoor. The list creator does mention that it's not complete, but it doesn't list anyone playing an Assassin, although it does list at least one Ranger, Paladin, Dwarf, Elf, Half-Elf, a few Mages, and even an Orc. Dave never added or deleted anything from the list but he did confirm that the names and classes listed were correct and he edited/corrected a few of the entries to make them clearer.
The list also doesn't include any Sage or Merchant characters, although as you point out, they are listed as character types in the Special Interests section of First Fantasy Campaign (but without many details how to play them) and I have read several other sources indicating Dave did have those two classes as options in Blackmoor. I'd love to find more details on the mechanics of those classes if you happen to be able to point me in the right direction. I've only ever seen mention that the classes existed but not how to create one as a PC.
Also, thanks for confirming that Brian Blume is the one who added the Monk class. As you saw (heard) I mention that in my video and I know Gygax mentioned Blume was the creator of the class in his preface to 1985's Oriental Adventures, but I've learned not to always trust Gary's "memory" as he tended to have ulterior motives for some of his comments about the origins of certain things in the game.
Thanks again.
@@daddyrolleda1 For sure. To be clear, the FFC is a collection of materials Arneson had up to the time it was published. So they range in date from 1971 to 1976, lightly edited in 1977. So, for example the Coot Invasion list (2nd Invasion) are from the summer of 1972, whereas the stocking list of levels 1-6 of Blackmoor Dungeon were prepared in 1976. Dan Nicholoson played the Merchant and Dave Megarry played the scholor/sage.
@@danielboggs2013 Ah, that makes sense! I assumed Dave had written FFC "from scratch" sometime around 1976 or 1977 but it makes sense that it's more a collection of his Blackmoor stuff "in total." That would also speak to the (at least, to me) lack of organization of FFC. While sometimes "High Gygaxian" can be difficult to penetrate, I do find the stuff written by Gary to be easier to follow.
I'd love to learn more about Dan Nicholson's Merchant and Dave Megarry's Scholar/Sage. I can't seem to find any details about them anywhere, in particular why/how those classes were created and also how the classes worked mechanically (class abilities, HD, etc.).
I had the opportunity to be a player in a light RPG (very roughly D&D) that Tim Kask ran at a local con a couple of years back. What an amazingly generous and accommodating guy. The session was super fun with Tim weaving crazy settings and scenarios around the silly things we submitted as prompts and the lunatic actions we were talking with our player characters.
Oh, wow! What a treat! I would love to sit down and game with some more folks like that! You may have seen that I played in game games at DaveCon this past April run by Dave Wesely (Braunstein) and Bill Hoyt (Blackmoor). Someday I hope to get to GaryCon and perhaps play with David Cook and/or other folks who attend!
This is a great series. I am super interested to find out more about the creation of psionics (1st Ed). Who made it? What was the inspiration for the names of the disciplines/Attack-Defense Modes, what did the creatures think of the mechanics (psionic combat is pretty crazy at the table), etc.
Thanks again for the great historical analysis. I appreciate the work that must go into making these videos. I enjoy the insight into the different Character Classes and their roles in the game. What a great way to spend a bit of time thinking about the OSR and how it remains relevant today.
I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to watch and to leave a comment. Thank you so much! I'm glad you are enjoying the videos!
(20:02) ... you are absolutely right, I recognize that page. That's the edition my relatives had. Never wanted to play the game with the youngster I was, but I was able to sneak the book and read it. Yes, thief feeling monk, no backstab, but instead everything else from the thief that seemed to matter. That's what I remember.
By the time I actually played anything it was second edition. Explains why there's nothing like what I remember in the complete second edition omnibus. Things change with time.
Course, these days a slow falling assassin with thief abilities would be something out of assassins creed... heh.
you can tell in 1e that Gygax really saw druids in an antagonistic way if you see their role in the Village of Hommlett, he has them siding wit the temple of elemental evil
Oh, that's right! Thanks for watching and commenting!
I love that there is so much of the game’s history we actually don’t know.
For sure! I think for years there was a lot of cursory understanding and apocryphal stories being bandied about that people began to accept as gospel, but once you dig into it, it's much more complicated and muddy than we thought.
Another great video. Keep 'em coming!
It's so much fun learning about the mishmash of references and influences, and the DIY spirit in these early days! It's a good reflection of what happens probably across all other types of art too. These were bright, creative, well-read people (knowledgeable about history and fantasy and so on), but ultimately were just nerd gamers like most of us. These rules were just their version that they hustled together. Just their version. And you could make one too!
This is such a great way of looking at it! I really like this approach. And it's true - they were cobbling stuff together from ideas they got from fiction, history, other games, from friends, from strangers, from conventions, and throwing it all in the blender to try to create something they thought would be fun and interesting and would add to the game. They weren't all going to be winners!
Thank you for the compliment, and as always, for your support!
Just as a poke for subjecting me to that beer…
Matt Stairs’ home run still hasn’t landed.
Great video as always!
I appreciate that, and I'll take some good-natured ribbing over the Dodgers. I was afraid I'd take a lot more flak for it, but so far, you're the only one!
Appreciate the compliment!
@@daddyrolleda1 it’s kinda a requirement that I do it!
Just bought a copy of Elak of Atlantis, looking forward to reading it and seeing where some of these ideas come from. I always appreciate specific titles like that mentioned to read the same thing Gary and the others were inspired by. Three Hearts and Three Lions is the last one that I bought and read. A different video mentioned that book is where the idea of trolls regenerating and being weak to fire came from.
Yes! That is also what I've understand with regard to regenerating trolls and their weakness to fire. Reading through the Appendix N is a goal of mine at one point. I've read quite a few but there are tons I'm still missing.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
The Gor series is just great, highly recommended. Trying to find a copy can be tough, but it's worth it if you do.
The last time I played 1e AD&D about 10 years ago I made a point of creating my new characters in the interesting classes of illusionist, monk and assassin. I think I remember my assassin was a secret identity. He operated as a vanilla fighter/rogue on the surface, while practicing his craft in secret. I also insisted on rolling up the assassin natural 3d6 and got just good enough scores. Being a Joe Sixpack rogue instead of a min-max superhero was part of his disguise.
This sounds like so much fun! I would totally play in a campaign like this.
Thank you very much for watching and for commenting. I really appreciate it.
How did the Monk play? I only heard bad things about it in ADND 1e lol
Attribute requirements was usually a way to keep all these special classes rare. If you rolled good enough to be a paladin you got to be one. But we have also fudged that during tests when we really want to give a wonky class a try. Same with bonus xp, but as a postive reinforcement.
One of my friends insisted on no attribute limits in their game, and no bonus xp. They shifted all of that to race in their race-plus-class system. Humans in general gain +10% xp, an elf needs to have a certain Dex etc. Dwarfs can't be too Dextrous.
@@SusCalvin That was bad design. Imagine being such a buzzkill DM that you won't let your players ever create a character class unless they win a rare attribute lottery, which they probably never will. "HAHAHA, take THAT puny players!"
@@brooksrownd2275 It's not impossible, but you're probably not going to have an expedition fully staffed by paladins.
I started to like race as class. Most are human bums, if you are a vampire or dwarf or shroom-man that is your class.
This is exactly the kind of D&D content i find most interesting
Great video. I'm loving the history of the game that I dedicated so much of my time to in my youth.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate you taking the time to watch and to leave a comment. Cheers!
I found this interesting from Strategic Review #6, in discussing alignments, Gary writes:
"Druids serve only themselves and nature, they occasionally make
human sacrifice, but on the other hand they aid the folk in agriculture and animal
husbandry. Druids are, therefore, neutral - although slightly predisposed
towards evil actions."
I'm not sure, as a DM, i would be comfortable with a player role-playing a human sacrifice.
Yeah, that is a bit odd, but Gary often has some odd-sounding quotes and thoughts like that, I've seen!
I do have a nation ruled by fey-touched kings and their Druid advisors. It is the job of the grand druid, when the King is too old or weak to serve, to ritually sacrifice the king and then read the designs in the spilling of the entrails to determine who the next king should be. BUT... that's an NPC. A PC doing that would be strange to me.
It's entirely possible (and highly likely) that Gygax made the Druid as a monster originally drawing inspiration from Caesars' commentary on them. Players seeing a "monster" class with some really cool abilities wanted to play them which lead on to a playable class in the next publication of the rules. If the class had originated as a class first and THEN a monster, it could be argued Gygax got it from Weird Tales, but because it was a monster first, it's more likely the true source was Caesars Commentari de bella Galica.
That's certainly possible and makes sense. I just keep going back to wondering why that specific historical source? He was creating a swords and sorcery game, so it seems a bit random to pick an (at the time) obscure mention from an historical source that he didn't use to inform any of the other elements of the game he was designing. Meanwhile, the inspiration from sword and sorcery tales from the 1930s and after are found in liberal amounts throughout the early D&D designs, so for me, the coincidence of at least having been inspired by those Weird Tales stories (perhaps even subconsciously) is pretty strong.
Thank you for watching and commenting! I appreciate it!
@@daddyrolleda1 my best guess is that he was looking for resources on Celtic/Gaulish/Gaelic culture/myth and happened upon the Caesar's commentari, I know it happened to me, although tangentially from histocrat's videos on the druids
Druids have a larger historical context than only Julius Cesar's interpretation.
Oh, absolutely! If I remember correctly, what I was trying to get across (and probably didn't articulate it well) is that for a time, one of the most well-known writings about them was Caesar's, and those writings would have been known to Gygax and the others. Today with the amount of research and scholarly writing that has been done on the Druids, as well as having the Internet, it's easier to get different points of view and information on them. But, back in the early 1970's, I think there was less widely-distributed information to use for research on the topic. Hopefully that makes sense.
Thanks for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel!
Our main DM had a Blackmore Monk character that he played. We were still using the old box set back then.
I unfortunately never got to play the original set of rules back in the day. I started with Moldvay and didn't discover the idea of OD&D until I found a beat-up copy of Greyhawk Supplement I at a friend's house (not the one I show in the video; I got a nicer copy decades later). Shortly after that, I saw a copy of Blackmoor on the shelf at my LGS for only $5.00 (the one in the video) but I didn't get a full White Box set of rules until nearly 20 years later - a surprise birthday gift from my mom.
@@daddyrolleda1 That's a good Mom!
When I first started playing we never even used the rulebooks except to buy equipment. Occasionally the DM might ask you to roll for something. But for the most part it was up to you to "roleplay" what you wanted to do for success.
The real rolls came with combat which usually didn't end well for the early game players.
Yes, definitely! I felt like in the early days, combat was something to be avoided at all costs. If you could somehow get the treasure through trickery or some other means, that was much better and used far fewer resources.
Another great video! I always learn something I didn’t know from your videos even after doing a ton of research myself. The connection to Top Secret for the Assassin class blew my mind! I love the deep dive into the origin of the Druids. I want to read those stories in Weird Takes you mentioned. Can’t wait for your video on Vancian Magic!
Thank you so much! I thought the connection to "Top Secret" was pretty interesting myself, but you're the first one who really commented on it!
Let me know if you read those Weird Tale stories! I think also that Paizo Publishing had a line of old pulp story reprints back around 2009 or so, and some of those stories were included.
I've been working on my notes for Vancian magic. It'll drop sometime this coming week when I find time to record and edit it!
I've always seen D&D druids as similar to the Druedain in LOTR. Secretive, have an unmatched knowledge of plants and animals, and they have a unique mystical magic. They were also very rare and shunned civilisation, having said that I did play MERP, so that may have impacted my opinion. Great video again, I really enjoyed it, keep up the good work.
Thank you so much for this. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness and your support.
That's such a great analogy about the Dunedain and the Druids! I'd not thought of that, but I can see it making sense. One of my favorite DMs was a huge fan of MERP and of Tolkien in general... decades later he ran a 3E game for us and was super cagey about the world ("I haven't drawn a map yet... I'll get to it...") and we played in that world for about three or four years of real world time before we figured out that we were adventuring in Middle Earth in the 4th Age, but in the East (which is why we didn't recognize place names and such). He used a ton of old MERP supplements and it was probably the best game I've ever been in as a player.
Thanks again!
@@daddyrolleda1 That 3E game you played goes to show how much detail exists about Middle Earth. The reference material is a wonderful source of ideas and information that never appears in the main stories, so I can wholly understand how you could spend years roaming it, without realising where you were. I can also see why they would be one of your favourite DMs.
That game was amazing, partly because the DM was just a good DM in general, but also the way he snuck all this stuff into the game without us realizing. As just a small example:
* In the east (where we were), there were two nations at war with one another and the war had kind of spilled out into the rest of the eastern part of this world. One country had flags and livery of dark blue, and the other had light blue. We eventually discovered these two nations had been founded by the two blue wizards who had "gone to the east" and Tolkien doesn't really ever get into what happened with them. This DM extrapolated that they may have ended up somewhat similar to Saruman, succumbing to base human desires and greed after centuries of not having fulfilled their original mission. They originally were working together, but came to be at odds with each other, and founded nations based on their new skewed ideals, and those nations were perpetually at war with one another. There's way more to it that that, but he was a big fan of trying to answer questions like, "Whatever happened to the Blue Wizards?" but doing it in a way that made it fun and "gameable."
* To the west of us, in a desert area, was a city of white marble with five "tines" emanating from a central hub, called "Samar's Hand." It was one of the primary sources of all the world's wizards ("wizards" from a D&D standpoint of the class; he had told us that wizards were not available as a PC option, and we just went with it, without knowing why he said that, but we met a few wizard NPCs in our game). It seems obvious in hindsight once you know that we were gaming in Middle Earth, but we didn't know that at the time, but "Samar's Hand" was a city in that world that the DM decided had been founded by Saruman centuries (millennia?) before, and was originally called "Saruman's Hand" (hence the five-pointed "hand" shape of the city... "The White Hand of Saruman"). Over time, the name had just been corrupted and shortened to "Samar's Hand." Then the DM blew our mind by showing us a map of the earth overlaid on his map of our Middle Earth game - he had placed his city of "Samar's Hand" where the real world city of Samarkand is located.
These are just two small examples of the level of detail he went to for this game, but he also was really good about incorporating stuff we as players wanted to do before we understood we were in Tolkien's Middle Earth.
Thanks for your comment - and sorry for my long reply. I was getting all retrospective thinking about that game.
@@daddyrolleda1 Don't worry about expanding your reply, I'm old enough to have sent and received text messages longer than that:)
@@MrChasanDayve Ha! That cracked me up! Thanks for reading, and as always, I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you about all this stuff we love. Cheers!
I've yet to actually play D&D - I cut my teeth on CRPGs - but I find the real-world 'lore' of it (not to mention RPG design in general) fascinating. Thanks for your work and glad I found your channel.
Another nice one good sir. I had always heard that the monk was inspired by the novels of Remo Williams. I'm sure it's just a rumor, but that was my belief in the 90s.
No, I'm pretty sure that's correct. I mention all that in my video and Gygax name-drops the Destroyer books (where Remo Williams comes from) in the preface to Oriental Adventures, as I talk about in the video.
Disappointed to find out the Druid wasn't based on Getafix from the Asterix comics. Sad times. 😞 😅
On a serious note thank you for another great video. Perhaps Gygax took the Druid from Caesar's Gallic Wars because of his wargaming background? It wouldn't necessarily be the only thing - something had to explain all those wretched polearms...
It makes sense to have both druids and bards, even if they were separated from each other in-game. I'm speculating wildly here, but the 60s-70s generated interest in pagan revivals and, for those of British descent, ancient Celtic culture was a source or some fascination. Could be that merely having this topic in the zeitgeist helped to put those roles into the game.
Enjoying my class of history
I'm very glad to hear that!
Thank you for watching and commenting!
Great historical work, thanks. 1e remains my favourite it’s simple and feels right
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
While I started in 1981 with Moldvay B/X, we quickly began incorporating stuff from 1E AD&D (as we didn't quite get that they were two separate games) so all the material from that time period, whether Basic or Advanced, has a big spot in my heart. I'm running a B/X game for my 14yo daughter and her friends (started when they were about 10/11 years old) but I use stuff from 1E all the time. They're currently going through U1: Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh.
Just found your channel and I'm now binging your content. Great videos!
I'm so glad to hear that! Thank you so much for letting me know! I'm glad you like the content, and look forward to chatting with you in the comments. Make sure to tell your friends, too! And thanks for watching and commenting!
another good one
I appreciate that very much! Thank you for watching and commenting!
I play a lot of S&W by Matt Finch which is based off of OD&D. But I tweaked the Assassin in that ruleset to essentially be better at fighting, stealth, and backstabbing than the Thief. It's really worked out well while keeping each perspective class in its own lane.
Sounds like a great revision to the class. S&W is a fun game - I've not played it "as is" but I've read it for inspiration and ideas for the B/X game I run.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
In this series, the beginning additions to original classes were more organic development from one to the other. Still, as they go, they become more and more deliberately made. There were so many classes by the time of 3.5 and 4e the new 5e model is very disciplined,
I always loved the Druid, but that might be because of my love for BECMI, and that edition couldnt stop releasing thr class. Druids, Shaman, Shamani, Druid Knights, creature shaman, and far magician tonsome extent.
Say what? What Druid in BECMI?
There is a Druid in the BECMI "Companion" Set from 1984 with some additional rules and clarifications in the "Master Set" from 1985. They also added Paladins, Avengers (Chaotic-aligned Fighters, so kind of like an "Anti-Paladin") and a few others, like the Mystic (a martial-arts style class).
Great video!
Thank you very much! I really appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment. Cheers!
The Flying Monk sounds like a joke based on the Flying Nun rather than any kind of kung fu reference. The Flying Nun was a sitcom from the late 1960s - obscure now but people would have caught the reference in the 1970s.
That is a brilliant observation! I remember that show with Sally Field! It was in reruns when I was a kid. I suspect you might be right - I don't know why that never occurred to me!
Thank you for watching and commenting.
Old D&D origin stories? Kind of interesting. Prep notes for daughter's game - look, Keep on the Borderlands, also could be interestiing. Discussion of IPA and jazz album that loomed in this videos backstory? Subscribed. Go Dodgers!
I love this comment, and I'm really glad you found my channel and liked all the different kinds of content. Thank you so much for your support and for subscribing. I really appreciate it. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Each of those things really resonated. At different times in my life, D&D 1e (and later 5e), beer, jazz, and the Dodgers were my #1 hobbies. I never played Keep but so many others did that I have heard about it often and it feels like a part of me. I also checked out the video about your daughter game and thought it was really thoughtful. Looking forrward to more of all of it.
I'm so happy to hear that! I'm really glad you liked the video on my daughter's campaign. I will have another installment soon. Thanks again!
Al Hammack had an Assassin PC named Lassivren in the back of the first edition Rogues Gallery. I’m not sure in which campaign he was played.
That's right! I had forgotten about that! I have that book and had planned to do an overview of it at some point. Thank you so much for the reminder, and also for watching and commenting!
It could be worth mentioning that originally druids weren't able to shapeshift into animals untill relatively high levels (9 or something like this) so there's interesting shift in case of druids - form spellcasters with some limited shapeshift abilities to full non-casting shapeshifters (as seen in recent D&D movie, and probably next edition of D&D).
Yes, they have definitely changed away from being casters to focusing more on wild shape, as you mention. For the D&D movie, my assumption is that the producers/director pushed the wild-shape aspect not only for its visual appeal, but also to help differentiate the druid character from the sorcerer - if they had two spellcasting characters, but they were casting really different spells, folks who aren't familiar with the game may have gotten confused.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Thanks again for the videos.
Just seeing that Top Secret box reminds me of how much I LOVED that game.
Again, "most of the class gets repeated in the 1978 AD&D PH" ... but TSR actually tried to say "it's a completely different game" than D&D therefore Arneson gets nothing. LOL. It's a reminder that you can't take everything Gygax said at face value when he had an ulterior motive. Same with the "I wasn't influenced by Tolkien". Even more LOLOL.
All the WOTC books are notorious for poor bindings.
Top Secret was such a fun game. I still have a sketch I made of one of my first characters, who *totally* did not look anything like a spy in his trench coat, Fedora, and sunglasses. He just blended right in.
And yes, in my video on the history of D&D editions, I get into (VERY briefly) the whole "AD&D is a different game!" shenanigans.
I get the impression just from reading things that, while Gary was definitely a gamer, his "public" persona was more of a business person and he was going to say or do the things he thought would help sell more D&D/TSR games and/or avoid criticisms. And that's related to my argument on Tolkien - I *do* think Gary liked other books/stories and types of fantasy better than Tolkien, but I also know that he included it and a lot of the stuff from it, like orcs, half-elves, ents, balrogs, hobbits/halfings, and on-and-on, from Tolkien's books because those stories were so popular at the time that it would've been dumb *not* to include them, and if he hadn't do so, someone else would have. So, I think we both agree that Gary was influenced by Tolkien to create a lot of the stuff in D&D. My viewpoint is that he did it more as a business/marketing decision versus a "this is cool!" standpoint. But, I could be wrong, of course. But yes, for him to later retcon it to say "I wasn't influenced by Tolkien" is disingenuous; the words "hobbit" and "balrog" haven't been used in other other fiction, as far as I know, so he had to gotten them from Tolkien!
@@daddyrolleda1 "anything like a spy in his trench coat, Fedora, and sunglasses. He just blended right in. " A real spy that dressed with a trench coat, fedora and sunglasses would last very long.
Interestingly enough both the Monk and Assassin appear as classes (more like powered up kits) in The Scarlett Brotherhood on page 72 for second edition. The classes are more akin to their 1st edition counterparts; I have long found this interesting as the 2 classes in Blackmoor were only carried over into 2nd edition by Gygax as part as one of his evil factions; it made me wonder if it was done on purpose as a thumb at Arneson or a tribute.
After hearing what you had to say about how Blackmoor was little more than a collection of notes and others' contributions, I need to dig deeper and see if Gygax did pass up the opportunity to get credit in this instance but is reclaiming it via this book.
My understanding was there already was a Cleric Class and the ability to turn undead was tacked onto it. There was a bishop and priest in Braunstein as well.
That's possible. The history I've found and heard is that the cleric was specifically created to counteract Sir Fang the vampire.
Wow. Keep it up sir
Monks made the jump in AD&D 2E Player's Options: Spells & Magic.
In the context of 'Occidental Adventures' (a standard D&D setting) the Monk never made much sense. As a kid I was confused because I just assumed it would be a medieval monk or nun. It worked much better moving to Oriental Adventures. But surely they _were_ religious in some way. For characters like Caine in Kung Fu, ritual practices and philosophy are the foundation of their martial abilities, which to others seem so impressive as to be supernatural.
I agree as originally presented, the monk seemed out of place in a standard western fantasy campaign. I think the 2E products tried to address that with the "Fighting Monk" character kit for clerics that, to me, seemed more like a medieval monk but who was skilled at fisticuffs.
As a kid, I, too, pictures in my head a Franciscan style monk!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I stopped absorbing new rules around 2.0 so never took a proper look at kits, but will have to check that out. I can imagine monks would need some skill in repelling marauders.
And I just now had a fun notion - a specialist fighting _nun_ kit drawn from lots of silly pop-culture. Nuns can sing, do basic mechanics, terrify with a stare or a scolding word, waft along as if they have no legs and, if they are light enough, actually fly. :)
That sounds like it could be a lot of fun!
Oh, and while I"m here. Some of the PVP stuff going back into D&D? A GM with two groups, in two seperate chats, and able to just echo the moves from one group to the other? Possibly three GM"S working together and only drawing the groups together if they act against eachother directly.
I think that could be a lot of fun, depending on how it was handled!
*nods* has to be remote, and has to be an odd number of GM's so there can be no partiality.
Maybe even shuffle the GM's around now and then so none of them can be TOO partial.
For REAL fun encourage backchannel comunication and for somebody to swap groups.
Course, at this level we're talking a PAID project....
The pronunciation I learned in Cairo is (all 'a' being like 'ah') hash-SHASH-ee-yeen.
Assassins and Spies were available in Braunstein I want to say. I researched it and tried to run a game one time. It was more or less successful. Also in Burroughs Martian Series there were Assassins. They were more or less Duelist for hire. As for the Monk - I heard in playtest of Temple of the Frog one of the players wanted to use Judo and Kung Fu to take out some guards. The Druids - well it was mid seventies and the Modern Druid Religion was picking up. I just bet one of his players was involved with it.
Thanks for this - appreciate your comments and insights. Cheers!
I have to wonder what D&D would be like if it was first made today. Harry Potter, Pokemon, Naruto, all of these would have lead to a much different game if those were the main influence.
Oh, totally! If you watch any of my videos on my "Campaign Prep," I'm talking about the D&D campaign I'm currently running for my 14 year-old daughter and her friends. They were around 10/11 when we started, and I mentioned how one of the first things I asked them was what their familiarity with fantasy was. Instead of things like Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Conan, comic books, and Star Wars, they said things like Harry Potter, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and some Studio Ghibli films. It was a real eye-opener to what they considered "fantasy" versus my inspirations as a kid.
A few years ago, someone did a fun experiment in which they re-designed Original D&D as though the source inspiration had been Greek Mythology instead of Sword-and-Sorcery fantasy fiction. The mechanics were the same, for the most part, but the game structure and of course classes and races were completely different. It was a fun idea.
Thanks for watching and commenting.
I will have to watch those I just found your channel a few days ago@@daddyrolleda1
I'm so glad you found it! I have a playlist for my campaign prep videos here: th-cam.com/play/PLX6jue56rzl2-VzZH19Ke2NU4r0IaJ7be.html
They'll all for my daughter's campaign.
I would really like to see you cover the CalTech/MIT variant of D&D originally distributed over the ARPANET in the 70's called "Warlock," and was first published in "Spartan #9."
Our group found it far superior to both OD&D and AD&D, and it was in my opinion, not exceeded until D&D 3.5.
I will add this to my list of potential topics. I live very close to CalTech (walkable) and have long been fascinated by its early contributions to the game, along with a wider array of Southern California folks such as the Aero Hobbies group in Santa Monica and Wee Warriors in El Segundo. That era you're referring to is a little before my time (I didn't start playing until 1981) but as I mentioned, I've found it an interesting topic. Thanks for the suggestion, and for watching and commenting.
@@daddyrolleda1 Besides initial distribution by ARPANet, there was also a Campaign World Server, possibly based at UC Santa Cruz Astronomy Department, where random encounter tables based on hex contents were updated with the combat results of individual D&D sessions.
That is, if a group killed a Dragon, the distribution of monsters would change, and so the encounter tables would change. You might ask about Dan Dolata of UC Santa Cruz, who might have maintained it.
This could be considered an ancestor of the MMO.
I'm currently reading Clark Ashton Smith's "Averoigne" cycle, and I have no idea how much his ideas of druids is informed by actual history, but the druids in his stories are brutal, even in some cases: horrifying. CAS, of course, is listed as an inspiration for D&D in the DMG, but I don't think any of the druid stuff came from Smith's stories, we can safely scratch that off as a possible source.
Oh, very interesting! I need to dig a bit more into CAS but, as you mention, he is listed as inspiration in Appendix N, so perhaps that is another potential source. I imagine it's a case of not being a single definitive source, but rather a case of a multitude of different mentions/inspirations that helped spur the creation of the class.
Thanks so much! I appreciate you watching and commenting!
If you find audiobooks easier than written books, I am actually recording the Averoigne cycle right now. The story being published this very night (July 20 @ 8pm EDT) will include some druids in passing.
From a D&D perspective, the most fun part of the Averoigne cycle is seeing all the bits that were incorporated into X2 in their original forms.
It's interesting though that for listing Smith and Howard and Lovecraft and Dunsany and Derleth, he never mentions Arthur Machen. I'm happy I figured out on my own about him. That's another author you might consider adding to your reading list.
@@sststr This is AWESOME! I listen to all manner of audiobooks/stories during my morning walks (~3 miles Mon-Fri) and would be happy to listen to this. Is it on your YT or a different site/location?
I loved X2 and know it's informed by CAS but it's been decades since I even looked at those stories.
And thanks for the recommendation - I've not heard of Arthur Machen but will look him up.
Thanks again!
I post here on youtube and on bitchute. Some of the 19th century American authors use a certain word I can't use here on youtube, so the versions here are censored, but I post uncensored versions on bitchute. That said, Smith doesn't have that problem, all his stories have been perfectly safe to post uncensored on YT. I've already done the Hyperborean cycle and Poseidonis cycle. I really liked Hyperborea, but Poseidonis didn't do much for me. Averoigne is pretty good so far! I'm currently recording the Colossus of Ylourgne and I like it.
@@sststr Thank you! I subscribed to your channel and look forward to listening soon!
I remember Top Secret.. good times.
And if you're interested in the Gor books be aware they're also a BDSM lifestyle so be sure you search for the books.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
And yes, I've not read the Gor books but I read a few reviews to make me think they are probably not for me! But thanks for the warning!
@@daddyrolleda1 My library had one... How could I put this.. in the late 90s before the internet was really a thing and i was under 18 they were "Entertainment" for me.. *cough cough*
But yeah, people base their actual BDSM lifestyles off those books. It leads to a lot of abusive stuff sadly.
I was laughing a lot until I read your last comment. That's so awful - I had no idea!
@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah, well outside of the BDSM community it's not well known. Inside it, it's pretty infamous.
I'm trying to keep this comment section from violating community guidelines though.
Personally I dislike all three of these classes, and each for their own reasons. In fact, until the Warlock became core, these were easily my three _least_ favorite player's handbook classes (including race-classes for the Elf, Dwarf, and --Hobbit-- Halfling locking each race into a single profession).
For the Assassin, I don't think there's anything it is or does which isn't covered perfectly well by skill selection as a Thief; Climb Sheer Surfaces, Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, and double damage surprise attacks (or however it's handled from edition to edition). It's similar to the Thief-Acrobat for me; it just feels like a proscriptive rather than prescriptive build of one of many possible allocations of thief skill points. I feel there was no _conceptual_ nor _mechanical_ need for its existence.
For the Druid, it feels like several unrelated things slapped together. Cleric of a neutral rather than strictly good, evil, lawful, or chaotic deity? Cleric of a broad group of nature spirits? Wizard with a growing and living things repertoire? Skin-changer? Wild Shape itself feels like it should be its own separate class running parallel to Druids, Rangers, and berserker Barbarians rather than the Druid's replacement for Turn Undead. For my part, I see the Druid as more wizardly than I do clerical.
For the Monk, I feel the "martial arts master" is just another flavor of Fighter, as I do berserkers, swashbucklers, and archers. Either Fighter is too broad or things like Barbarian, Samurai, Monk, etc. are too narrow in their scope, and my tastes for tabletop games at least lean towards "rules light, elements as broadly applicable and open to interpretation as possible" end. At the same time, were I making a game where the four most basic classes (Fighter, Thief, Wizard, Cleric) combined, I'd peg the Monk as the conceptual intersection of Thief and Cleric, in which case rather than the "everything I saw done in a martial arts movie once" as baked in class features those various techniques would be explicit applications/worked examples of the Thief Skill Table and a curated list of clerical spells for the composite class.
My three favorite classes are and ever have been Paladin, Ranger, and Bard. Fourth place varies a bit for me between Cleric or an inconsistently named warrior/wizard (the Elf class from old and basic D&D, the Bladesinger kit from 2nd Edition, Eldritch Knight from 5th Edition, Armamentalist from Dragon Quest, Samurai from the Wizardry videogames, Swordcerer and Edgelord from my own games). I like the broad applicability of classes, but when their roles are distinct my favorite character archetypes are jacks of all trades or blended combinations of two of them.
Thank you so much for watching, and also for this really great, detailed comment. I love comments like this, as I always enjoy chatting with folks about their experiences with the game and why they do or don't like or use certain things.
Your comment about your favorite classes resonates with me, as I've always gravitated toward martial type characters. My first PC was a B/X Fighter, and my second was an AD&D Half-Elf Ranger (I *wanted* to make a Half-Elf multi-class Paladin/Illusionist but that was before I'd read the rules to see that class wasn't viable per the AD&D rules at the time).
In general, these days I'm in favor of fewer classes but more options (mechanically light options) to make classes different. More and more I've come to like the *idea* of 2E Kits (before they started to get out of control). You want a Barbarian? You're a Fighter, but you get an AC bonus when wearing light armor and maybe some survival skills or something. As a penalty, you take a Reaction Roll penalty. You want a Martial Artist? You get a bonus to unarmed attacks and to unarmored AC. As a penalty, you can't use magic weapons or something. I haven't thought it out - I'm just riffing outloud here, but this is the direction I've been taking my TTRPG design and campaing prep work lately.
Thanks again - great insights!
Assassins (or Spys or Scouts), always been a favouite of mine, the only class to get a good disguise skill, and / or bow armed with thief abillities, Elven assassins surprise 1 to 4, all different options... Should they realy be evil? I personally think not because of the other options they have, but they should not be good, lawfull means must be guild members, chaotic means a real loose canon, (by the same token thieves cannot be lawful, guild members must be neutral)....
Druids: over the years and the many re-writings of the Arthurian legends the Character of Merlin has been re-moulded to the point it could (in D&D terms) be classed as Magic User, Cleric and / or Druid! (Or maybe Tom Bombadil; or Hern the Hunter...)
All great stuff; next time multi classes?....
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I like your detailed comment with your thoughts on assassins and druids!
I was never a huge fan of assassins from a player's standpoint but I always liked the disguise idea and even the poison use, which I think should just be folded into "Thief" as skills and then let the player pick which skills they want.
I've heard the same thing with Merlin as far as the potential druid-connection. If I were to run an Arthurian campaign, I think I'd totally do that!
The multi-class idea could be a fun one! I'll add it to the list!
@@daddyrolleda1 if you do; half orc (only) Cleric / Assassin: Deadly.
It never failed in the first ed the power gamer just had to play the monk because it was very O.P. There was always one in every group...
The original D&D Monk was pretty lame. But the original Jazz Monk is incomparable.
While we're at it, the term "epistrophe" (Ephistrophy to Monk) is a fascinating word, often compared to anaphora, but actually one of several similar words. I won't go into it. Look it up. It's got great implications for structure and design, particularly relating to repetition for dramatic effect.
Also, ale.
This is such a fun comment because I honestly didn't intent to create a connection between the Monk character class and Thelonious Monk the jazz musician. I listen to him so often that it didn't even register with me. Thanks for bringing that to my attention! Now I want to try to match the album to the video in the future!
Thanks for watching through that part... I know a lot of folks drop off before watching that, but I feel like it adds a bit of personality to my channel. Cheers!
Gor books are also pretty grotesque BDSM slave-girl fantasy books. Might want to mention that. 😅
Yeah, I've obviously never read them so I didn't know! But someone else pointed that out in the comments as well. Unfortunately there's no way to go back and edit the video once it's posted.
I remember back in the 80's there was an article in Dragon Magazine about adapting books to D&D and one of the series they used as an example was the Gor books, and they didn't mention anything about that! That article was my only exposure to those books.
The Assassin character class never made any sense to me, and none of us ever played one in any of our games.
We had a guy that ALWAYS played assassins. He was quite disappointed when the class went away in 2nd edition, even after the kit came out in the Thieves Handbook (that kit was rather nerfed compared to the original class). He was CONSTANTLY trying to assassinate the BBEG in every fight.
@@thesonofdormammu5475 the class makes no sense to me. All you do is try to assassinate people, which is evil. Other than that, which anyone could try to do if they wanted to, you're just a below average Thief, and the Thief was a very weak character class to begin with. I've redesigned the Thief class, and called it a Rogue, which is a much better name than calling yourself a Thief. Would you go adventuring with a Thief? I wouldn't. Yes, a Rogue basically means the same thing, but the only thing worse than saying "I'm a Thief" would be "I'm an Assassin".
@@Lightmane Yeah, luckily when 2e came out he started playing all kinds of classes and eventually landed on playing mages and paladins, which is quite a switch from playing assassins.
I had a half-orc Cleric/Assassin back-up PC but I almost never used him back in the day.
These days, I'd be much more likely to just take the bits I like from the Assassin class (namely, disguise, but I am also intrigued by the idea of poison use in certain situations, especially for a heavily political campaign) and folding those into the Thief as options to take (so they'd have to swap out other skills).
@@daddyrolleda1A Half-Orc Cleric/Rogue who has skills in disguise and using poison, sounds very intriguing.
Protorole-playing? Hell no! They were full on role-playing games with David Arneson
Where the hell did you come up with that concept?
Nice to hear from you. I just address this a reply to another comment of yours, but essentially it was bad word choice and poor explaining on my part.
I fully understand (and did so even before making this video) that Blackmoor was roleplaying.
Never had anyone play an assassin as there's just not a lot for them to contribute to a party on a traditional hex crawl. I guess they could work okay in a sort of political intrigue game.
The monk never seemed to belong in the implied medieval fantasy setting. Works much better in Oriental Adventures.
I would love a video on the demi-humans races as a class video. That concept was always interesting to me