My Life As A Gamer: Putting Jeffro's Rediscoveries Together

Over the weekend, Jeffro Johnson appeared on Geek Gab to talk about his discovery of how D&D is meant to be played. This came about because he sat down with the rules, read them for comprehension, and implemented them as-written to see how the machine of the game's design actually worked in operation. No House Rules, no tinkering. Contrary to many, AD&D 1st Edition actually works as intended and as stated when you do so.

In short, what he found is that AD&D--and, by extention, all RPGs--are really wargames and have to be approached as such to achieve the promised results.

The key is what he's been talking about recently, which is the use of strict timekeeping--especially time away from the table--coupled with multiple PCs per player and the involvement of players in manners other than being at the table.

This works, summarized, as follows:

• One Real Life Day = One Campaign Day. No exceptions. Yes, even if "We're deep in the dungeon!" is where play at the table ends; this is the first hurdle most people to overcome, and they will balk if you don't make it crystal clear that this is how it is done.
• Play Continues Away From The Table. Back in the day this would be phone calls, casual talk away from the table over the week, snail mail correspondance (Play-By-Mail), and so on. Today you have email, Discord, Skype, text messages on multiple platforms, voicemail, and much more; a Discord server alone would be sufficient for most players now.
• Domain-Level Play Is Instantly Accessible. Jeffro calls this "Patron-level", and he's not wrong in his choice of terms as that is what Domain-level characters become, but this also includes NPCs that can perform the same functions. This is how those that want to participate in a campaign can do so without needing to be at the table. This is where a lot of AD&D classes actually shine, and where the wargame roots really shine through.
• Asychronus Gameplay Arises, Promoting Emergent Play. Bob the Fighter gets wrecked and retreats to town. He's out of action for a month to recover. Dick swaps to Harry the Thief if he wants to keep playing while Bob is out of action.

  Meanwhile, Jane can't be at the table because she's got a new baby, but her Magic-User is 9th level and wants to clear out some space to set up her MU's tower so she logs into Discord and drops a private message to the Dungeon Master.

  This turns into her playing the domain game, which gives Dick a shot to level up Harry due to Jane's MU needing to hire scouts and Tom--whose's deployed in Iraq--gets to run the Ogre chieftain who's put under threat by Jane's MU in various PBM wargame scenarios.

  This also means that logistics, aging, and other long-term matters actually come to the fore and matter in play.

• Players Entertain The DM. The DM need only breathe life into the campaign at the beginning. He doesn't need a published setting; he can start with a blank sheet of hex paper, fill in just one hex as "Town" and the surrounding hexes of wilderness, and GO.

  Tell the players explicitly that they need to get out there and look for stuff if they want it, and they will begin to drive events. The map doesn't expand until the players push the boundaries. The scope doesn't expand until the players widen it.

  However, because players are on different levels of play, what goes on at the Patron level shapes the field of individual PCs. e.g. Jane's MU completing the tower and establishing control of that territory means that newer PCs now have a steady source of work from Jane's MU because she will constantly need components and can't do it all herself.

  Power relations will shift, and Tom's Ogre tribe will change to conform to the new conditions one way or another- and all of this, being done by players, allows the DM to remain aloof, indifferent, and thus impartial in his adjudications.

I'll do what I can to explain this in more Normie-friendly terms going forward, because I think Jeffro hit upon how to (a) save the hobby from SJWs, (b) purge the pozzed actors (both social and commercial), (c) restore the genre and the hobby to its roots- roots that are far more Normie-friendly than you might think. This is why I say that we need to stop thinking in terms of "D&D", but instead in terms of "Greyhawk", "Waterdeep", "Tekumel", and "Trollopolus" because it is the campaign--and I mean that as one speaks of military and political campaigns--that matters and not the brand of the ruleset.