What I've come here, today, to discuss is my belief that TSR actually cared more about player immersion than Wizards does.
My first, primary, and only example (I'm sure I'll find more) comes from the Forgotten Realms module "Ruins of Undermountain."
In 1991, Ed Wood wrote the following:
None of that is read-aloud text.This room is connected by tiny vent-shafts to certain shop-cellars in the city above. When first entered by the PCs, the room contains a rack, on which hangs a suit of bright silvery chain mail and a scabbarded long sword. Both glow with a strong blue-white aura.
Sitting on the floor in front of the rack are three armored orcs, playing at dice. Each has a cold, cooked whole rabbit on a
skewer, for a snack, and the three share a jug of bad "black" beer.
The orcs scramble up, with grunts and oaths, to defend themselves. They wear rusty, dirty, roughly-patched armor, and
each has a battle axe and a black-bladed scimitar.
The chain mail on the rack is finely made, but the magic on it only prevents rust, scrapes and dents and any dirtying from blood, dirt or the like from ever occurring. This magic, though not greatly useful for adventurerers other than fastidious priests of Sune, makes it glow constantly, equal in brightness to a light spell. It has no other magical properties. A dispel magic quells its glow for only 2-5 rounds.
The blade is a cursed sword -2; once touched, it always teleports into the wearer s hand, and cannot be made to stop
glowing. A wish or limited wish will leave it behind, as will severing the hand!
In 2005, Matthew Sernett decided to rehash Ruins of Undermountain through a series of Dungeon or Dragon, or just web-only, articles.
His take on the same room:
Look, Matthew, I don't care if you have the last 20 years of a monster's back story figured out if the players will probably never know about it (because, let's face it, they're going to kill the orcs and not ask questions. Because orcs.). Sweet, they were playing a dice game just like they were 14 years earlier, but the players aren't going to know that. Oh, they could question the orcs and discover a troll is wandering the halls? Yeah, not gonna happen, because no party of adventurers in the history of ever has walked into a room of weapon-bearing, snarling, orcs and thought "We should subdue these guys and ask questions about the rest of the dungeon. They obviously know what's up."Three orc warriors rest in this room. Their squad was on patrol in the northern part of level one of the dungeon when three trolls attacked it. These three fled through the tunnels along with two companions, and a troll stayed close on their heels. A trap claimed one orc, and the troll stopped to eat it. The remaining four orcs continued to flee, and they finally decided to rest in this room. Confused by their long flight through the dungeon, the orcs sent their least injured companion to scout and get their bearings. She hasn't returned. Now healed and ready to continue, the orcs are settling an argument about what to do by playing a game of knucklebones. One orc wants to set out together to find their tribe; another wants to find a way to flee to the surface, fearing that the tribe won't accept them after their cowardice and long absence; and the third wants to look for their scout.The floor about the door is strewn with caltrops, and the walls of this dusty room bear engravings of robed figures bearing staffs, wands, scrolls, spellbooks, and other symbols of arcane spellcasting. It also holds three snarling orcs warriors! Already on their feet when you enter, they draw their weapons and shout at you in their crude language.
Although eager for the outcome of their contest, the orcs are worried about being trapped in the room (they don't know about the secret door), and they keep an ear cocked for sounds outside their room. (DMs may want to allow the orcs to make Listen checks of their own.) If confronted by PCs who outnumber them, the orcs try to frighten them off, shouting in Orc and brandishing their weapons. The orcs attack wounded PCs or a number of PCs of equal or smaller number. In either case, the orcs attempt to flee if the fighting goes poorly, jumping over the caltrops and heading north and west.
And where's the cursed item? Where's the useless chain mail? Where's the damn flavor of knowing that this room, if you light a big enough fire, will cause some shop-cellars to smell like smoke?
So, in conclusion, I've come to this: I don't care about your back story if the players never have a reason to know it. In Ed's version, the players are still going to kill the orcs without a second thought, but they'll know that they were doing something other than waiting to spawn like a video game sprite. Ed's orcs have lived a fuller life than Matthew's, and people who have played through it can probably recount the time they came across three orcs playing dice and drinking in the room with the cursed longsword. No one will recount the time they walked in on a room with orcs ready to fight them.
/rant
