Tim Brown on Creativity Link

A very inspirational video that touches in part upon role-playing near the end.

Up on A Tree Stump #4: The Value of D&D's Early Creativity, Improvisation and Play

Up on a Tree Stump™

(or) All I Know about D&D™ I Learned From Life

The Value of D&D's Early Creativity, Improvisation and Play

©2010.  Robert J. Kuntz

{An edited first draft extracted from my combined essays}
…
There was an acute difference in game-rules being used in David Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign and in our corresponding Lake Geneva Campaign under the leadership of EGG and myself and their participants. As has been historically noted, each "Campaign" had different rules, those at first initiated by David and his players, then as revised and rewritten by EGG as we play tested the D&D game in its soon to be published form.

Though there is a distinction of how the adjudications evolved in each game group, there is a thread of similarity in both which ties them tightly together:  they both relied on improvisational and creative play.

As there were no rules, but only notes and whatever existed in the minds-eye of each creator (or DM), spontaneous play WAS the course served.

The (role)-play tests evolved to reform the rules as published, and to this day folks may still believe that this was necessarily the form we adhered to during these play tests. To that I will say:  yes and no.  Partial rules were always being implemented and added as the play tests discovered a new set of challenges and areas as yet uncovered, and this lead to a furtherance of the rules as written by EGG to cover these circumstances, until, one might say that he, sitting back, finally said:  "This is enough, this is the core of what we’ve experienced and what is needed for gamers to experience what we just played."

So, what we experienced during the play tests was the growing act of Being and Doing.  The play test was a promotion of ideas that had various forms given to it by the acts themselves that varied inside our group conception of interchange.  This of course continued to free us as the actors and designers within the play; and this, more importantly, allowed for a constant progression of creative and playful nuances to occur.

Let me pose a simplified example of what occurred many times in that manner. Imagine wanting to climb a wall and there are no rules for it, as there were none for accomplishing this in-game task then.  Let’s take a look at how we may have handled that circumstance then during the course of play (the following is a recreation only):

R:  1) "I want to climb the wall."  NOTE:  The need is established here but not the instrument (the rule is not yet understood, and that is in turn understood on the surface by the player, as their PC has no such ability but assumes that he may be able to accomplish the feat notwithstanding).  This may have been couched similarly: 2) "Can I climb the wall?"  Both instances beg the DM's adjudication.  The DM is the arbiter of this event as dictated by the inputs forthcoming in interchange...

G:  1) "How do you accomplish that?” NOTE: or 2) "Yes, you can try." This is the first input field.  This establishes "yes" it is possible, but not HOW, as we have not as yet deduced that from the inputs.

R:  1) “Well, I look for jutting spots on the escarpment to cling to as I climb and I shed my armor. I climb slowly and use the hammer to lodge spikes into the wall to create perches.  I proceed cautiously.  Before ascending I tie the rope about the armor and attach its free end securely about my waist.”

G:  “Okay.  What's your Dexterity?”

R:  “12.”

G:  NOTE:  This is where the DM makes adjustments (+1/-1 to the inputs).  As the escarpment has been described as 80' high and straight up with some protrusions, we now have a base for ascertaining an on the fly ruling.  Here the DM decides to use 2 six-sided dice to ascertain the difficulty range, though in different circumstances in the LG Campaign this choice was easily substituted for different types and numbers of dice to expand or contract the numerical ranges.

+0 for dex
-1 for length of climb (would have been higher if the PC had not noted that they were proceeding slowly and cautiously)
+0 for armor being shed.  This may have been an extremely high minus if it had not been shed

Thus a +1 input on 2 six-sided dice.

G:  “The base is 7 and you need an 8 or better on 2 six-sided dice.”

R:  Rolls:  “9.”

G:  “You make it to the top of the cliff, but your armor is still below, which I imagine you pull up.”

R:  “Yes.”

G:  “That takes a minute--there you go.  Well done.  Give yourself 100 experience points for good planning.”


Note that this probability sequence, once used and re-used, became second nature with us.  In this instancing exchanges occur quickly and deductions become normal in respect to inputs.  This progresses matters for which there are no steadfast rules, or in turn belays the use of books and their referencing, expediting in all cases the action of the event and the participation of the players (both DM and PC) on a primary level.  This creative improvising can be tracked from these first occurrences during play to their printed forms in the DMG’s many tables, but in my opinion, the latter provides an incomplete idea of how we in the LGC conducted such matters and to which EGG never totally adhered.

…The New D&D:  The Lessening of the Play Experience

The built in safety net in the newest RPGs only exemplifies what is already known in that regard: Even if the rigidity of form is adopted, as in numerical expressions and tables and endless charts for myriad events or perceived game driven engagements, even if the players "feel" that there is fair and equitable treatment being proposed, in the end, the DM, however rigid and defined the system may be, can always call upon the fantastic if he or she is unfair or unyielding or selfish, breaking all barriers of pretense with but one summoned monster from the ether which demolishes said party of PCs anyway.  Players may scream in the end about equality of CR levels or what not, but done is done.  In retrospect OD&D assumed a standard of fairness of adjudication as its core principle in DMing the game.  Thus I find that this sacrifice of play in the new D&D—and supposedly in answer to player demand or a perceived design need--has never held water with me; and it appears beneath the surface as a red herring implemented to justify new rules favoring a finite structure that in turn explode PC-dominant positions within the game.

In turn, this new RPG “safety net” creates and sustains a totally manufactured and assumptive way of imagining a player and thus their regulated environment, making sure that they are not over-wounded (disfavored) in the game.  This of course does not present a realistic portrayal of any event driven fiction (role) and its backlash is the need driven participation of the player to succeed time and time again.  When faced with challenges or loss, they can point back at “balance or fairness,” the very things that have in fact been worked out of the game play due to structuring it in this manner. In essence, the apparent reason for this conceptual deletion of value-driven accomplishment is due to marketing and grooming of the play environment to keep players, like in computer games, happy as larks with their perceived rewards and gains.

Now let's take a look at a different way of viewing this from the other end of the telescope.

Immersive play furthers creative thought.  When a player substitutes intuition and creativity for game mechanics only, they are not immersing themselves in a growing experience through which they become better decision makers or strategists.  This very lack summons a ground of clay that makes any stance for learning or achieving beyond a redundant and non-immersive pattern impossible. Such participants instead comfortably root to where and when they will choose to implement powers and repeatable set in stone strategies.  They may reach for dice with the knowledge that they have achieved a numerically advantageous position as they have before them all of the inputs in print to arrive at that calculation, so they are assured in most respects of a positive outcome.  This is like opening a door.  It takes little thought or planning.  It's like eating a bowl of noodles.  Some may dangle, but the fork can rearrange them.  It is in a word boring; but the consequences for those who limit play under such a premise is more than just boring, it's frightening.

If we attempted to construct a specific mechanic for each or any one of our real world actions and/or specify or attach relative times and other values for doing so based upon a multitude of raw and variable inputs, we would soon need a computer to arrive at such extrapolated deductions and also a wave of corresponding experience to make fair assessments in arriving at the derived principles.  That is not possible as we are not the sum of human knowledge and worldly existence, so we must seek comparative improvisation to reach expansiveness in play rather than seeking models with built in limits that bar such creative extrapolation.

The further one closes off their mind to experience, the less they participate and in turn the less value they derive from such experiences.  Only value-added achievements spur growth.  EGG used to welcome players at conventions to test their metal in Greyhawk Castle, especially those who claimed to have higher-leveled and well-appointed PCs. These types who were never challenged to produce efforts equal to gains in their DM's campaign soon found, much to their consternation, that their flimsy "strategies" were nullified in a DM's game where real thinking was involved.  This close-mindedness often, and unfortunately, always goes back to the DM, for it is he or she who sets the examples and difficulties for their players.

A closed, or oftentimes, routed mindset, allows very little expansion for abstract thinking.  The more one sides with a finite approach as opposed to an open-ended play environment the more one will become reliant upon a structure that codifies itself within a box.  This is fine with many game designs as all reach superimposed limits at some point, but when applied as a model on top of an RPG which in its conceptual range is based upon playing out broadly expanding fictional situations and forms, it is anathema and is in contradiction to the inherent honesty of design relating to the matter overall and on sundry understood levels.

Within an open model as OD&D presents, players and DMs can choose what they need and ignore or discard the rest. They may even change what they need from within the selections and even come back to those they did not think worthy at first to re-examine them.  There is always a creative flow at work within the mutable parts. Attempt to do that with closed models and their static forms are always broken if not challenged as their entire event and statistical stream must be re-imagined and re-codified.  Once an RPG loses a model of play oriented expansiveness it, in my estimation, becomes at best “role assumption,” as the PLAY in the most inclusive and creative use of the term is no longer considered important to its titular description.

Thus each game/rules form dictates the mode, the mode dictates the expression, and this as a combined cycle dictates the outcome. Within these there may be variances, such as what to add to any given sequence, but if these particles as a whole are on the front end designed in to perpetuate the ending cycle, then outcomes are assured no matter the available sources for input (re:  as in a computer program). This is true with all devised systems.  OD&D’s system was there to implement and to improvise as one experienced it. This remains its absolute strength to this day.

In summary one might break down the aspects of the D&D game in its initial stage, and then the D&D game in its current stage, thusly:

OD&D 1973 play test and forward: Play grows out of games and play-fiction.  War games>miniature games>parlor games>make believe>story-telling.  Rules mix with play but do not burden them.  Play becomes the focus, to the point where EGG discards major rules as published to concentrate on his home-brew style that we both adopted in the play test version. In bringing the game to consumers this aspect is stressed more than once as a fundamental theory as there is no way to "formally" adjudicate every instance of play as play is seen as forever open-ended. Through AD&D 2nd edition this finds purchase and is on many levels adopted, spurring creative implementation of home-brew rules even in the face of TSR's attempted rules codifications for IP reasons.

3rd Edition onward to present: The game goes through drastic changes producing a new rules structure and eliminating in-house rulings.  The play aspect is foreshortened, being replaced by skills and feats.  The creative aspect of playing and thinking is routed into a statistical mode of balance siding with the players.  The DM's use of rules improvisation is depleted as rules dependency becomes a reality due to overt, formal structuring.  We no longer have open-ended play but what is now a semblance of a computerized flow-chart implemented on the table.  Part miniatures game, part role-playing, but with no real extenuation of imaginative input as this is all deduced up front for the player and the DM.  We now have a formula-based RPG.  ADA has arrived.

Now....

I climb the wall.

Roll your dice...

I succeed.

OK, you're up.  And with your feat of quantum carrying, you did so with your armor on.

Don’t I get experience for negotiating that very deadly obstacle?  It says so here in the book.

Right.  Is 500 enough?...
…

…RJK (Somewhere near Betelgeuse)

Creative Play "IS" The "Thing": Boyd and Spolin

I am a firm advocate of no-holds-barred, creative and open play, imagine that...  But look here and at Viola Spolin's interview below, then assess what has been going on with computer games and other RPGs which imitate them.  The history of the disintegration of play in our recent society is mind-numbing.  All the more reason to stand firm in the trenches with what the earliest versions of Dungeons and Dragons promulgated and what is still the most expressive and imaginative form of play being engendered in RPG today.

Viola Spolin was the advocate of Neva Boyd's Theory of Play.  Below is a rare interview of her.  Note that this site and the papers and research contained there is a great resource on Boyd's modern evolution of play as then founded at the Hull House, Chicago, Illinois.  That this forward step then is now being challenged in our society today is not only a great leap backwards but threatens the very notion of intuitive growth in children, fore-ordaining them to prescriptions for the mind and limiting choice (sound familiar??)  Boyd's and Spolin's tenants:  Spontaneity, Heightened Awareness and Transformation. These are the very cornerstones of the open-ended OD&D mindset.  Take a look at her interview:

From the Original Campaign: Citadel of the Fire Lord

In between breaks from writing Castle El Raja Key and attending to other matters with the blog, research, etc. I actually get to organize various projects.  There are several in the works that keep me at the grindstone for the most part in various stages of completion and development. Andy Taylor is drawing some illustrations from items and monsters I had created back in the day for a high level adventure, "Citadel of the Fire Lord."

Here's an item--rough draft--from that upcoming adventure (sometime year 2010).  I also mocked up the cover from Andy's superb art.  Reference for this adventure can be found here.

The actual adventure maps were sold at auction many years ago but still exist as color, electronic files that will be re-rendered for the project.  Enjoy!

Hrugash's Familiar Brand (minor artifact)

This appears as a normal brand of some length (varying at first sight from 3-5 feet).  For all intents and purposes it is a largish torch, which when grasped, alights, and seemingly has no end to its flame.

Its primary magical power is to adopt the properties of other flames that it is touched to.  Thus, if it is wielded when a fireball strikes the user, the wielder is transfered the fireball's properties, in essence making him or her immune to that particular fire.  The immunity, once instituted, lasts 1-10 rounds and then dissipates.  During that time other fires can damage the wielder, for these cannot be assimilated into the magical matrix and transfered.  The immunity is useable indefinitely as long as the brand is held.

This item has some interesting nuances.  If touched to lava, for instance, this allows the wielder to walk across it unharmed, thus it confers a water-walking on lava ability as well.

If encountered by an Efreet, they will immediately attempt to bargain for the item, perhaps even granting a wish in trade (50% chance).  Failing this, they will always attack the wielder to secure it for themselves.

Red dragons become enraged in its presence and launch all of their attacks against the wielder until one or the other is slain.  Their chances to breath fire while so enraged are enhanced to 75% and such damage is always +20%.

Fire demons will "mark" the user, making him or her glow a fiery red for 1-24 days (no save).  This will alert other fire demons within sight of the wielder of his or her enmity with associated allies or clans; thereafter they will always pursue and attack the wielder to recover the item.

Salamanders flee from this item if it is brandished before them and will only fight if they are cornered and cannot retreat, and then at -1 to hit and -1 to damage.

Once a year the wielder can summon one of the aforementioned creatures if these were slain by use of the brand.  These spout forth as a fiery form and physically manifest in front of the wielder in 1-4 rounds.  They will obey the wielder, but will move no more than 300 feet from him or her, for turns equal to their total HP.  If forced out of the above range, they magically disappear in a gout of red flame.

The brand does 1-8 hp crushing damage plus a bonus of 1-6 fire damage when used as a melee weapon.

After 2 years of use the brand's flame will start to sputter and its immunity power will lessen to 50% thereafter until it is re-renergized in a volcano on the Plane of Elemental Fire (DMs must create this adventure).

All text and imagery content ©2010 Robert J. Kuntz

C. J. Cutliffe Hyne

For those interested in lost continents, here's a good one from the author of The Lost Continent.

Lost Continent Wiki.

Reading: Part de ONE

Sometimes I actually get to read things!  Actually I read a lot and much more than I post  of here, but these are some of my favorites right now, and all that I can do in chapters or sections, strung out over weeks.  Part de Two, later...

The Conan Grimoire (The Mirage Press) is top notch, with an introduction by Lin Carter, letters from REH to Clark  Ashton Smith, and various articles from AMRA, including one by John Boardman (of Diplomacy fame).  Edited by DeCamp and George Scithers, so far so good.  The book is a combination of many articles with great range, that is why I dug it out after so many years being stored away.  It has observations on Howard's style, an essay on Eddison, and so many others.  Worth more than a glimpse.  One of the essays actually gave me an idea for an REH-type adventure (Kullish), so Andy Taylor, so very busy working on some projects for me, will get another illustration list for this...  HB.  262 printed pages. 1972.  OOP.

Book of the Dead - Friends of Yesteryear: Fictioneers & Others (Arkham House).  Personal memories of the pulp fiction authors and editors (primarily those who wrote/worked for Weird Tales) by the famous fictioneer and pulp story historian, E. Hoffman Price.  Price met and knew all of the "Big Three" (Howard, Smith and Lovecraft) and just about everyone else from that era (Kuttner, Williamson, Bloch, Derleth, etc).  Each author gets a chapter devoted to them wherein EHP (yep that's right, he was the Evil High Priest, no, he was Buddhist, actually) delivers detailed and moving remembrances of his fellow fictioneers.  Extensive bibliography and index.  A treat, especially his noting CAS as being the best writer of the aforementioned trio (nice to know that Lovecraft and myself heartily agreed with him...). HB.  424 printed pages. 2001. Introduction by Jack Williamson.  Edited by Peter Ruber. $34.95.

Laughing off the Mondays

Read this.

Stevenson's Fables

Stevenson's Fables.

Well worth perusal, and do note that he penned a science-fiction story as well.  The illustrations by Ethyl King Martyn are superb.

Stevenson At Play

Stevenson At Play

H.G. Wells published the first commercial wargame rules (Little Wars, 1913).  Not everyone knows that Robert Louis Stevenson designed/played a miniatures war game. Reference:  Stevenson At Play, from Scribner's Magazine, December 1898, describes it:

    This game of tin soldiers, an intricate "kriegspiel," involving rules innumerable, prolonged arithmetical calculations, constant measuring with foot-rules, and the throwing of dice, sprang from the humblest beginnings — a row of soldiers on either side and a deadly marble. From such a start it grew in size and complexity until it became mimic war indeed, modelled closely upon real conditions and actual warfare, requiring, on Mr. Stevensons' part, the use of text-books and long conversations with military invalids; on mine, all the pocket-money derived from my publishing ventures as well as a considerable part of my printing stock in trade.

The article, with Introduction by Lloyd Osbourne, details Stevenson's continued fascination with "childhood" things, with an expanding interest in tin soldiers.  It appears that what started as the usual side vs. side continued to expand as he grew older and soon took upon proportions that included reading text-books and talking with military personnel as well as keeping an extensive note book that not only contained rules and formulas (as in Strategos-N by David Wesley) but actual detailed accounts of many running battles he had played.  The article is heartily recommended for those tracking the history of war games, and in it will be found, once again, a slight creep of RPG that cannot be entirely divorced from such proceedings.

Addendum.  Though research may prevail, a question arises:  Was this Stevenson's work alone, or was he influenced by Kriegspiel, Aldershot or Totten's Strategos (which has similarities)?

The original Scribner's article ends with this clever poem:

    For certain soldiers lately dead

    Our reverent dirge shall here be said.

    Them, when their martial leader called,

    No dread preparative appalled;

    But leaden-hearted, leaden-heeled,

    I marked them steadfast in the field.

    Death grimly sided with the foe,

    And smote each leaden hero low.

    Proudly they perished, one by one:

    The dread Pea-cannon's work was done!

    O not for them the tears we shed,

    Consigned to their congenial lead;

    But while unmoved their sleep they take,

    We mourn for their dear Captain's sake,

    For their dear Captain, who shall smart

    Both in his pocket and his heart,

    Who saw his heroes shed their gore

    And lacked a shilling to buy more!

A Very Interesting Article

A Perfect Planet

The Origins of War Gaming

The Origins of Wargaming.

A really nice piece at the Tacticalwargamer.com

...and while I'm at it, a link to a site with a take on "Old School War Gaming."

...and the Castle and Crusade Society article, with the Image (above) of the cover of Issue #13 of the Domesday Book, edited by myself.*

*Wiki article courtesy of Harami.

Using Bad Dice?

Take a look at this:

Lou Zocchi and the Science of Dice

Garycon 2, Right Around the Corner

Allan Grohe and I were exchanging emails today on good ole GARYCON 2 which is forthcoming in March.

Here's where it is being held.

Here are the directions.

And here is their website.

See you there! :)

Image Copyright, Garycon 2010.

Spin Cycle meets Spin Doctor

This is in part to a reaction to Cimmerian's question here.

The average person who now plays D&D does it from the perspective of when they were rooted in the time stream of that exchange.  If one started in the era of AD&D then they gravitate to that era.  If they did so in the latter or earlier times, then there is a greater proclivity for those eras to manifest in their overall expression, with expression here being a perceived standard of tools of information and participation within these.

While OD&D was for the most part in its entire time stream dependent upon no further source for playing it other than creating and "stocking" maps and/or similar scenarios, the advent of Basic+ and AD&D by contrast added the dimension of pre-made adventures.   This in fact split the D&D constituency then into easily recognizable camps--I list them as the "Creationists" (those who create their own material); the "Middlings," who create their own stuff and use some printed matter to complement their designs, and the "Dependents," those solely dependent upon pre-made (published) material to run (and in many cases, even fathom) their own games and/or game worlds.  As I have tracked over time, the dependents were the majority, and in that, they were those that moved on to support whole-heartedly newer forms of the game, such as 3E.  In as much as their camp later fractionalized into different percentages based upon this tri-concept of consumption and demand, it ranks even higher in its curve as its base was soundly rooted in the third category to begin with.  These consumers were easy adherents for a set-in-stone rules system and also for the d20 movement.  "Buy and dispose" syndrome as I name it.

Though the creation of new material has its merits and desires for and by those who 1) have no time in their schedules to create, or 2) are not very creative, and thus in both cases benefit in no small way from published material, this however creates a need-based way of publishing material and in turn promulgates a direct market> to> game style which dominates the other two categories for expression (for their individual information assimilation).  Thus we see (until the latter explosion of blogs and forums dedicated to such exchanges, such as DRAGONSFOOT, etc.) a lack in the printed area of theoretical-based game ideas, notwithstanding those articles in the Dragon magazine which were for the most part game-specific-driven and thus confined themselves to a structure as already realized and promoted on both sides.

Where is this leading?  Well, going ALL THE WAY back, we find correspondences to this in many games by Avalon Hill and others of the Historical Simulation age predating D&D.  But D&D actually broke that category.  Solidly broke it.  From it spawns tons of new ideas and RPGs (EN Garde by GDW is the most prevalent example of this, as it does not stay within the defined limits of RPG one-on-one combat but indeed sheds the preset emulation of a mechanical simulacrum present in both Avalon Hill  Games and in TSR RPGs by taking the role-playing concept to new and different exploratory levels).

Now, in as much as we are in a niche industry, TSR promulgated the industry in different forms and to different mind-sets of people.  Traditionally industries market to the greatest area of sales and with TSR that was no different.  People for the most part who come from that era and who are now in our niche were of course propagated from the 2nd sector of my tri-concept and thus represent most of whom support such companies as PPP and others in this reformed niche.  The ongoing indication is that people are solidly rooted from the AD&D era (making sense of course as this is the height of appeal as it was the height of TSR's growth and marketing world wide of the game).  That in itself foretells a lot of expression as is being seen in today's re-examining the history of the game.  There is a tendency to over value the things that individuals invest in, of course.  If I make a decision to buy a pen, for example, then of course it must have been to use it, and that in itself is worthy of the time and expression and of my continued attachment to the pen; and for the most part I will have nothing bad to say about said pen, for woe-is-me for having made a bad decision in purchasing and then using such an instrument.  Compare this to the dependent followers of many of WotC's games and you might get the gist of such psychology which is partially re-rooting in the "OS Movement".  And do note that this "syndrome" was not started by WotC, but of course by TSR as it marketed into the boom of adventure crafting.

This industry is in a self-perpetuating state, IMO.  Emulations of the past do not point to a single golden age but to separate rooted eras of individual expression only. D&D was and still is (NOTE) an ongoing and burgeoning concept which, unfortunately, and later, got rooted in marketing and expanding sales. It fast became an object of desire and of need, replacing self-made-enchantment and immersive participation on primary creative levels.

The quiet sadness of it all to me is just this:  It was meant to expand minds and not to contract them, or worse, to set them spinning in a circle.

Reverse Engineering D&D's Original Vision. -- Editorial

One might say today what with the numerous ways that one can play the D&D game that its base understanding and thus vision derived from 1972-1976 has been flattened to an all inclusive view of "that's what it is for us now."

Let's Track This Beasty--

1)  RPG is invented!  There are no books.  No modules.  Everything has to be created.  TSR Rules sells up to 10,000 copies of D&D and there are no adventures then, only what people (DMs) are creating--megadungeons, etc.

2)  Geomorphs are envisioned. Booklets of Monsters and Treasures. (Still keeping with the support approach to the original vision of self-created material, but with some published boosters to aid with that). A book of monsters is conceived! (Ever wonder why the Monster Manual preceded the PHB and DMG?)  Examine the mindset here.  It is rapidly shifting with a sudden realization curve taking effect, sometime after the release of "Palace of the Vampire Queen."  Judges Guild starts its rumblings, following suit.  More realization.  The sounds of cash registers ringing?  The hearty throngs coming to the voided well of creativity and moaning?  Their silent appeal being met?

3)  And then there were ALL. Diversity is good...  Now there are pre-made adventures, flying off the presses like pancakes.  Role Aids breeches the scene.  More for everyone...  Tourney adventures... AD&D and the RPGA.  And the band played on... (just a little out of step and out of tune)

4)  The visionaries leave the band...  TSR's marketing kicks in, doubling output.  Here, you editors, you write this.  We'll slap a fun picture on it and market it to death.  Random House will never know the truth....

5)  TSR markets itself into 30,000,000 dollars of debt while on its "publishing this and that merry-go-round".  WotC buys the band's songs and promises to re-release the album!

6)  WotC reinvents the wheel.  The songs are remixed and the band members are not invited to help, for how could they?  They are from the OLD 8-track and cassette age and this is the NEW CD/DVD mindset leading the way into the cash-cow future.  Very similar to the later TSR mindset, but with more bucks.

7) We'll do d20!  Dancey is blessed for the OGL.  Not to be outdone by Dancey's nefarious wizardry of D&D cause and effect, WOTC makes the new D&D an overnight success and before the BOOM goes BUST!!! sells to HASBRO.  In between, the too many uncreative types, now lead down the path of uncreativity by hundreds of releases perfectly sculpted for their perfect game, are inundated with thousands of dollars of choices and less to do with them!  Buy.  Dispose,  Buy.  Dispose.

8)  4th Edition.  Old School attrition.   Does the band play on?  One shall see.  Looks like a lot of adventures to me.... hmm.

9) Now that the original vision has been reverse engineered, now that everyone knows what "IT" was all about, let us tune in for the next event, such as, how to reverse engineer what was going on before it all went bust, and furthermore, how can this all make sense to the people who are still drawing maps and designing their "stuff" from the old days?  And what about those who actually itch to pick up a pen or pencil, and god forbid, draw or create something! Well, they are wearing head-sets now, so not all is lost...