Review: Orc Holocaust

From Slate.com, Posted Monday, March 10, 2008

Orc Holocaust is an entertaining article in Slate.com from a few years ago, written by self professed D&D geek Erik Sofge. I think it makes a very valid point, at least for me about D&D: 

The problem is most apparent in one of Gygax's central (and celebrated) innovations: "experience points".

Sofge goes on to explain further his issue with experience points:

Here's the narrative arithmetic that Gygax came up with: You come across a family of sleeping orcs, huddled around their overflowing chest of gold coins and magical weapons. Why do orcs and other monsters horde gold when they can't buy anything from the local "shoppes," or share a jug of mead in the tavern, or do anything but gnash their teeth in the darkness and wait for someone to show up and fight them? Who knows, but there they are, and you now have a choice. You can let sleeping orcs lie and get on with the task at hand—saving a damsel, recovering some ancient scepter, whatever. Or you can start slitting throats—after all, mercy doesn't have an experience point value in D&D. It's the kind of atrocity that commits itself.

Twenty years on, experience points are far less important to me than developing my character. Cathbad, a 20 year old character, has initiated a drinking problem. Yes, a drinking problem. What does that do to garner me experience points? Probably not  much.

I've always come from the more 'thinking' side of RPG'ing, even when I was a younger kid. Who, after all, when given the wide variety of professions that a PC could have, chooses to be a Used British Car salesman? Not even a new British car salesman. Tell me how many gangsters that character is going to take down?

It's an interesting read, if slightly deprecating towards Gygax and the D&D legacy. I'm not as versed in the history of the development of D&D, but this does seem on par with my experiences in many ways. I can appreciate far more the effort that our resident GM goes into making our experience a rich and fulfilling world, one where attacking those orcs might just lead to an international incident. Nothing happens in the DC world without an effect. Now where is my wand, I've got some orcs to blast with my magic missile...