I’m a bit reluctant to directly link to the article and have the author see that “hey your essay is being used as an example of something insufferable that needs to have an LLM edit it” if they check their referrer logs, but here were the original two paragraphs of the article I tested this on (changed sentences bolded):
The original Dungeons & Dragons may be the progenitor of modern roleplaying games, but it has very little actual roleplaying in it. Which isn’t to claim that I was alive back when it came out, but from reading through the original books you get the sense that it’s closer to Heroquest than, say, Fiasco. Not that there’s anything wrong with this—I like dungeon crawls too, when in the right mood, but the focus here wasn’t so much on the world or even the characters as it was the rules. How fast can a person walk in a turn? What is the difference between a 16 strength and a 17 strength? How good of a wizard can an elf be compared with how good of a cleric a dwarf can be? All of these questions are deeply stupid (and for some reason I’ve long found the class limits of pre-third edition D&D pretty insulting), but they’re where the game decided to put its original spotlight. Combine that with some distractingly bad artwork and constant assumptions that you have the Chainmail game system that the game was derived from makes first-edition D&D feel like a true relic of the past, which I don’t mean as a positive.
That being said, I don’t blame the game’s creators for this emphasis. They were into wargames, so of course the focus was on rules and numbers, especially since this was uncharted territory they were delving into. How much of a game should be spent on roleplaying and how much should be spent swinging axes at goblins? This type of balance was something they truly didn’t know, and in the best sense possible the original creators Gary Gygax and David Arneson were making it up as they went along, which more than anything is what the true spirit of the game is about. Even so, the level of worldbuilding in those 1970s books is woefully sparse, and even within the game’s two original settings, Blackmoor and Greyhawk, the focus isn’t so much on the world or characters as it is what spells you might cast. While some later roleplaying books would be almanacs, bestiaries, and simply collections of wondrous locations players might explore, it would be a long time before these aspects of the game would take center stage. In the meantime, it’s really all about those numbers. The game’s original settings were, basically, dungeons, and the big bad enemies you’d fight were in fact frequently dragons. Was there a world around the dungeon, or a motivation for the dragon? Who gives a fuck, let’s swing our swords and roll our D12’s until we kick their butts.
And here was Claude’s rewrite:
The original Dungeons & Dragons may be the progenitor of modern roleplaying games, but it has very little actual roleplaying in it. Which isn’t to claim that I was alive back when it came out, but from reading through the original books you get the sense that it’s closer to Heroquest than, say, Fiasco. Not that there’s anything wrong with this—I like dungeon crawls too, when in the right mood, but the focus here wasn’t so much on the world or even the characters as it was the rules. How fast can a person walk in a turn? What is the difference between a 16 strength and a 17 strength? How good of a wizard can an elf be compared with how good of a cleric a dwarf can be? These questions feel far removed from what we now think of as roleplaying (and the class limits of pre-third edition D&D have always struck me as oddly restrictive), but they’re where the game decided to put its original spotlight. Combine that with some rough artwork and constant assumptions that you have the Chainmail game system that the game was derived from, and first-edition D&D feels very much like a product of its time.
That being said, I don’t blame the game’s creators for this emphasis. They were into wargames, so of course the focus was on rules and numbers, especially since this was uncharted territory they were delving into. How much of a game should be spent on roleplaying and how much should be spent swinging axes at goblins? This type of balance was something they truly didn’t know, and in the best sense possible the original creators Gary Gygax and David Arneson were making it up as they went along, which more than anything is what the true spirit of the game is about. Even so, the level of worldbuilding in those 1970s books is pretty sparse, and even within the game’s two original settings, Blackmoor and Greyhawk, the focus isn’t so much on the world or characters as it is what spells you might cast. While some later roleplaying books would be almanacs, bestiaries, and simply collections of wondrous locations players might explore, it would be a long time before these aspects of the game would take center stage. In the meantime, it’s really all about those numbers. The game’s original settings were, basically, dungeons, and the big bad enemies you’d fight were in fact frequently dragons. Was there a world around the dungeon, or a motivation for the dragon? That wasn’t really the point—the point was swinging swords and rolling D12s.
The “All of these questions are deeply stupid” bit is what made me like the article and consider it worth reading, so mileage may vary if you smooth out all the stuff like that.
I’m a bit reluctant to directly link to the article and have the author see that “hey your essay is being used as an example of something insufferable that needs to have an LLM edit it” if they check their referrer logs, but here were the original two paragraphs of the article I tested this on (changed sentences bolded):
And here was Claude’s rewrite:
The “All of these questions are deeply stupid” bit is what made me like the article and consider it worth reading, so mileage may vary if you smooth out all the stuff like that.
Yeah I liked it too, personally.