It’s kind of funny, we spend all this time trying to figure out how to play TTRPGs, but I don’t think I ever asked myself, “I wonder how the game’s creator thought it should be done.” Maybe it's because I really didn’t get into playing D&D until 2012. My first experiences with TTRPGs were in the mid-90s, when Vampire and Cthulu filled the tables at my LGS, just outside the MTG area where I was slinging spells.
Returning to TTRPGs in the lull of the 4e era, I didn’t really get a regular group going again until the launch of 5e, where the energy at Gen Con that year convinced a lot of my Magic friends to give it a spin again. So maybe it just never occurred to me because the culture of play at that point had moved so far beyond the old TSR days. Even with roughly seven years of OSR play under my belt, it wasn’t until an old Questing Beast video popped back up in my feed that I thought to dig a little deeper. In it, Questing Beast references something he calls the Gygax '75 method, which is an article in an old wargaming zine called Europa. In fact, when the article resurfaced on the Internet Archive, some bloggers even decided to turn it into a five-week challenge to build their own campaigns. I remembered hearing about the challenge on Reddit a while back, but I never really paid it much attention, so I decided to dig up the article and read it for myself.
I was even able to find the preceding article where Gary talks about what D&D is and how it came about. What makes these articles spectacular is that they are from early in the game's evolution. This is a time when Gary was thinking with a gamer’s mindset, long before the realities of running a major corporation changed his tone to the promotional one often seen in Dragon Magazine. In the precursor, Gary promises to explain what goes into character creation, acquiring hirelings, equipping adventurers, and making adventures. But by the time that follow-up article is published, the focus has shifted from covering both the player and referee sides of the game to one that is overwhelmingly focused on world-building. Now I don’t know what changed over the three months from mid-January to April, but it does lead me to speculate. Did Gary know that the biggest hurdle to the game catching on was finding more GMs? Were people telling him that setting up a game was mystifying? Or was it just where his mind was at the time?
We may never truly know, but we are left with something else that’s pretty cool — the clearest picture of what Gary originally envisioned a game world would be like. With this article most likely written only a year after the original publication of D&D, it offers a window into the game's original design intent. Reading it speaks volumes about how he (and the others at the fledgling TSR) were thinking about the direction of the game.
So, what did Gary think? Well, let’s look. I’m going to post the article here, since the PDF scan is a little hard to read. (Author’s note: Sorry about the long windup; there is just something so fun about digging into the history of this game.)
How to Set Up Your Dungeons & Dragons Campaign — And Be Stuck Refereeing It Seven Days Per Week Until the Wee Hours of the Morning!
Part II of a Series by Gary Gygax (USA)
Let us assume that you have shelled out the requisits number of dollars to purchase all of the materials necessary for a D&D campaign — rules, dice, reams of various kinds of paper, pencils, and so forth. Several persons have expressed a desire to play the game, so all you really need now is the game! That’s right folks. The referee of the campaign must structure the game so as to have something to play. He must decide upon these things:
1) The overall setting of the campaign;
2) The countryside of the immediate area;
3) The location of the dungeon where most adventures will take place;
4) The layout and composition of the nearest large town; and
5) Eventually the entire world — and possibly other worlds, times, dimensions, and so forth must be structured, mapped and added.
This might seem to be too large a task, but it isn’t really IF you and your players are enjoying the game (and it is odds-on you will!). Furthermore, not all five things need not to be done BEFORE play commences. In fact, most of the fine referees I know of work continually on their campaign, adding, changing, and expanding various parts continually. A thorough discussion of each of the five areas of campaign play is necessary before considering how to go about involving players in the affair.
Step 1 is something you do in your head. Now fantasy/swords & sorcery games need not to have any fixed basis for the assumptions made by its referee (my own doesn’t) except those which embrace the whole of fantasy. This sort of campaign can mix any and all of the various bases which will be mentioned below — and then some. Regardless for what setting you opt, keep it secret from your players, or else they can study your sources and become immediately too knowledgeable, thus removing the charm of uncertainty. Settings based upon the limits (in one can speak of fantasy limits) can be very interesting in themselves providing the scope of the setting will allow the players relative free-reign to their imaginations. Typical settings are: Teutonic/Norse Mythology; Medieval European Folklore (including King Arthur, Holger the Dane, and so on); The “Hyborean Age” created by R E Howard; Fritz Leiber’s “Nehwon” with Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser; Indian Mythology; and Lost Continents such as Atlantis or Mu. Regardless of the setting you can have all taking place on an ‘alternative earth’ or a parallel world. In this way minor variations can easily be explained/justified. When the setting is decided upon some good books dealing with it should always be kept handy. The time has come to begin working on the campaign.
Step 2 requires sitting down with a large piece of hex ruled paper and drawing a large scale map. A map with a scale of 1 hex = 1 mile (or 2 kilometers for those of you who go in for recent faddish modes of measure)(yes, I often use rods, chains, furlongs, and leagues too!) will allow you to use your imagination to devise some interesting terrain and places, and it will be about right for player operations such as exploring, camping, adventuring, and eventually building their strongholds. Even such small things as a witch’s hut and side entrances to the dungeon can be shown on the map. The central features of the map must be the major town and the dungeon entrance.
Step 3 involves the decision aspect already mentioned and the actual work of sitting down and drawing dungeon levels. This is very difficult and time consuming. Each level should have a central theme and some distinguishing feature, i.e. a level with large open areas swarming with goblins, one where the basic pattern of corridores seems to repeat endlessly, one inhabited by nothing but fire-dwelling or fire-using monsters, etc.
As each level is finished the various means of getting to lower levels must be keyed and noted on the appropriate lower levels, so that if a room sinks four levels it will then be necessary to immediately show it on 4 sheets of graph paper numbered so as to indicate successively lower levels. A careful plan of what monsters and treasures will be found where on each level is also most necessary, and it can take as long to prepare as the level itself, for you may wish to include something UNUSUAL (a treasure, monster, and/or trick or trap not shown in D&D) on each level.
(Before the rules for D&D were published ‘Old Greyhawk Castle’ was 13 levels deep. The first level was a simple maze of rooms and corridores, for none of the participants had ever played such a game before. The second level had two unusual items, a Nixie pool and a fountain of snakes. The third featured a torture chamber and many small cells and prison rooms. The forth was a level of crypts and undead. The fifth was centered around a strange font of black fire and gargoyles. The sixth was a repeating maze with dozens of wild hogs (3 dice) in inconvinient spots, naturally backed up by appropriate numbers of Wereboars. The seventh was centered around a circular labyrinth and a street of masses of ogres. The eigth through tenth levels were caves and caverns featuring Trolls, giant insects, and a transporter nexus with an evil Wizard (with a number of tough associates) guarding it. The eleventh level was the home of the most powerful wizard in the castle. He had Balrogs as servants. The remained of the level was populated by Martian White Apes, except the sub-passage system underneath the corridores which was full of poisonous critters with no treasure. Level twelve was filled with Dragons. The bottom level, number thirteen, contained an inescapable slide which took the players ‘clear through to China’, from whence they had to return via ‘Outdoor Adventure’. It was quite possible to hourney downward to the bottom level by an insidious series of slanting passages which began on the second level, but the liklihood of following such a route unknowingly didn’t become too great until the seventh or eighth level. Of the dozens or so who played on a fairly regular basis, four made the lowest level and took the trip: Rob Kuntz, now a co-referee in the campaign went alone; and three of his friends managed to trace part of his route and blunder along the rest, so they followed him quickly to the Land of China. — Side levels included a barracks with Orcs, Hobgoblins, and Gnolls continuallying warring with eachother, a museum, a huge arena, an underground lake, a Giant’s home, and a garden of fungi.)
Step 4 should be handled concurrently with designing the first three or four dungeon levels. Here your players will find lodgings, buy equipment, hire mercenaries, seek magical and clerical aid, drink, gamble and wench. The town would do well to resemble some of those in Howard’s “Conan” series or Lieber’s city of “Lankhmar”. Strange towers, a thieves quarter, and temples of horrible deities add greater flavor to play. The ‘Thieves Guild’, a scoiety of evil clerics, a brotherhood of lawful men, and so on bring a bit more interest also. If a few warring nobles from the surrounding territory also send large parties of ment into the place occasionally some interesting brawls can occur. Honest and dishonest merchants should be indicated. Taverns which drug patrons should likewise be indicated, and so on. In any event be sure and leave room for additional things and expansion.
Step 5 is, as noted, something that you won’t immediately have to worry about; but it is a good idea to have a general plan in mind immediately. The general geography of the ‘world’ should be sketched out. If you plan to make it possible to visit other worlds, times or places the general outline of all such areas should also be sketched out. For example, you might wish to have the Moon an inhabitable (and inhabited) place which can be traveled to by means of a Flying Carpet. A description of this lunar world should be located somewhere as well as a means of getting there, but only AFTER you have something solid in the way of maps and the like.
Having accomplished those parts of the five steps which are immediately necessary (probably taking a week or so), you are ready to begin to play.
Let us further assume that there are four prospects. These players should begin together and for a time at least operate as a team if possible. Each in turn rolls three dice to record the various scores for the makeup of the character they are to play and how large an initial bankroll the character begin with. This accomplished, players decide what class of character they wish to play, the type (human, elf, etc), and the alignment of the character (the latter can be secretly told the referee, with an announced alignment being false). At this stage each player locates his base in some inn or the like, and then they can set forth to explore the town and purchase their adventuring equipment. Those that are careful and/or lucky might also be able to hire a few men-at-arms to accompany them also. The latter is particulary true if players pool their funds. In a short time the first dungeon expedition can be made, but that is the subject of Part III of this series, so we will return to it again later.
There is one further subject to be dealt with here, and that is selection of character type. It is pretty obvious that high base scores in the areas of Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Dexterity indicate that becoming a Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric or Thief (See the upcoming D&D Supplement “Grayhawk” to be released sometime before the summer of this year). But what about those players who roll just average (or worse) totals? They are the ones who should take advantage of the non-human types, for these have built-in abilities despite the general handicap of being unable to work up as high as humans. If the character is poor anyway, will he ever be worked up very high? Possibly, but the odds are against it as a human, but as an Elf, Dwarf, Hobbit, Half-Elf or even some other creature some interesting possibilities exist. It is up to the referee to help his players in this area by pointing out the advantage and disadvantages of each type. What do you do if a player opts to become a Golden Dragon? Agree, of course. Allow the player to adventure only with strictly Lawful players, and normal men-at-arms would never go near even a good dragon. He would be Very Young, size being determined by a die roll. Advancement in ability would function of game time (the dragon would normally take about four years to grow to its next level) and accumulated treasure — let us say that for every 100 000 pieces of gold (or its equivalent) the dragon in effect gains an extra year of growth, counting magical items which go into the horde as fairly high in gold value. While the player will be quite advanced at first, those who are playing more usual roles will surpass him rather quickly, and in this way you’ll not find a G.D. dominating.
Gary’s Follow-up Article
Or lack thereof. Gary admits early on in the third article in the series that he is going to “cop-out” and then turns to a long list of pronouncements and thinly veiled advertisements for forthcoming products. But hidden in the ramble are a few interesting nuggets. Most notably, where Gary suggests that the success of the game is not only the power of roleplaying but also the “constant challenge. A never-ending exercise in problem solving, with variable knowns and suddenly known unknowns.” and he clarifies by stating that the referee must “keep the players guessing and working hard to progress. Likewise, the players must try to solve the myriad new problems posed by the fiendish and clever referee.” A clear picture of Gary saying the game was designed to test players' skills.
So What Can We Draw From This?
Your interpretation may differ, but I was left with the following impression of Gary’s design intent for early D&D:
- The campaign world should test a player’s skill as much as it does a character’s ability.
- The campaign world should be defined to the minimum level necessary to start playing, since it must adapt to the characters' actions.
- Dungeons, as originally envisioned, were deep and chaotic places designed more for their ability to test a party’s merits and players’ skill than they were about storytelling (not to say it's impossible, just where the focus lies).
- Towns are places to lean into roleplay and make the world appear alive.
- Anything is possible, and so is going anywhere, even outer space or another realm. A player’s journey is only limited by their problem-solving and the GM’s creativity. Heavily implying that he saw the game as a massive sandbox — at all levels of detail.
I also think that buried in Gary’s five steps for building a world is a really practical guide for setting up your game world. He suggests it can be done in a week, but with the benefit of time and tools developed over the past 50 years, I think we can trim his advice and get it done in a day. How about we take the lazy approach?
My Lazy Approach to Gary’s Dungeon '75 Advice
- Grab a hex map and a random generator tool like Sandbox Generator and fill roughly half of the hexes with encounters.
- Pick a module with a mega dungeon and place it in an empty hex.
- Pick a supplement with a larger city and connect it via a road to the dungeon.
- Grab 3-4 lower-level modules and place them in hexes around the starting town.
- Create a list of rumors from the modules, and about the mega dungeon, for people in the town to talk about.
- Create some random encounters for travel.
- Forget the rest (for now, the world can be expanded later).
All in, this should take no more than a day, and get the GM to a playable world as originally envisioned by Gary. Is it the most unique approach? No, but we’ve had 50 years to innovate on Gary’s ideas. Will it empower you to run a fun game? Without a doubt. And you get the benefit of experiencing the game as the creator envisioned (to the best of our highly debated knowledge).
