GROGNARDIA: AD&D's Most Enduring Rule

As a Moldvayian, 3d6 x 6 in order is fine with me.

Conflate stats with "survivability" at your peril in one of many games.

More controversy! Oh noooooooooo!

Blah blah blah durp fart.

So I guess some random self-loathing gamer guy is pissed because his anonymous friend tried to sell his (the friend's) anonymous product to anonymous "tabletop gamers" and failed because they (the gamers) are cantankerous doodyheads too busy having the temerity to question which products are actually worth buying to bother marketing to. Same old song and dance, new outrage.

So-called discussion rapidly devolves into whether it's okay to criticize WotC and their games in public or if this makes you a bad gamer who's harming "the hobby." No kidding.

Personally, I have to give credit to Corinth for his thread-winner of a post. I agree 100%. The ranter linked to in that thread's first post and the marketing woes of his mystery pal are not my concern. What I want is good stuff born of and presented with real passion by real gamers like me.

Where's my money going now? Fight On! Knockspell, The Dungeon Alphabet, Castle of the Mad Archmage, Stonehell Dungeon, Labyrinth Lord and so on.

That reminds me, there's a new FO issue now...

So forgive me for not being down with the devastating tag-team combination of bitter failed novelists churning-out White Wolf splatbooks for pennies on the word and douchebags with MBAs. Go ahead, guys: Don't make me any more B-movies, videogames, cartoon shows, iPhone aps, or transmedia thingamawhatzits based on (i.e. named after) my favorite RPGs. Really, don't. I'll be just fine. Better than fine, actually. I'll be having a blast. I'll not only have "nice things", I'll have far more than I can ever use!

On the other hand, this does serve as a great reminder of why I've ditched forums for blogs when it comes to my online RPG discussions.

"A Better Game?"

Game designer Sean Patrick Fannon admits that he "apparently touched on a somewhat controversial subject" in this week's installment of his "A Better Game" column for the DriveThruRPG.Com Newsletter.

Here's a quote that I think cuts to the heart of the matter:

The point is for a group of players to work together, via their characters, to achieve goals, overcome obstacles, and enjoy a shared story....

...So why is it so many GMs feel compelled to "make things fair" by penalizing players where experience is concerned?

Seriously, think about it. Your instinct may be that "it's not fair, since Jim's been playing from the beginning and has never missed a session, to let Kyle have the same XP" if Kyle's missed three sessions due to work.

Why isn't it fair? Is Kyle in competition with Jim? Is there really something to be gained by Jim's character having that much more advancement over Kyle's? Does it promote harmony or cooperation in the game? Is there a need to "punish" Kyle for missing the game?

And what about Julia, whose character died last session? Is she to be "punished" for that by having her character come in at half the experience of everyone else? Why? Does this make Jim feel better? I'd argue he might well feel uncomfortable, knowing Julia's already suffered for the loss of a character, and now has to struggle with one less capable than everyone else.

Then there's Matt. He's new to the group and has just joined the game with a new character. If you make him start at some level below everyone else, what does this tell him? That he's less valuable for being new? That the other players are more valued? That newbies are meant to suffer?

I like to think I'm fairly familiar with SPF and his work, as I'm the only person I know to own not just one, but both editions of his 1995 "Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible", which I consider to be a great introduction to the hobby and a fun read, too.

Still, what I'm going to be doing here is arguing (respectfully, I hope) that he's wrong, wrong, wrong, at least when it comes to classic D&D and other old-school games.

First, we'll start with Jim and Kyle. Is Jim in competition with Kyle? Yes! The philosophy of old-school gaming, so far as most can agree on it, encompasses the concepts of rewarding dedicated campaigning and player skill. The vast majority of the time, players who play both often and well will be rewarded by characters with more personal power and game world influence than those who play only intermittently and/or in a less skillful way that leads to their character's meeting untimely ends more often. This also encompasses Julia and her dead character, I think.

The players may not feel like they're in a serious competition with each other, beyond very successful players enjoying a few extra begging rights, but the notion that every individual player and his or her individual character are, to some degree "in the game for themselves" is a vital one, I think.

It's good to remember how many of D&D's formative adventures involving more accomplished characters were, in fact, solo affairs or involved small numbers of powerful PCs (with NPC henchmen being a wild card in either case). Erac's Cousin's sojourn to Barsoom is one example. Sir Robilar and Mordenkainen's journey to the City of the Gods is another. While it was certainly assumed that sizable groups of less powerful PCs banding together for mutual protection would be inevitable at the start, I don't feel it's correct to say that classic D&D didn't also involve an individualist ethic later on. "Gruppe uber alles" this game is simply not.

Is this fair to Jim? You tell me. If Jim misses three karate practices due to work and I don't, is it fair that I'm ranked a belt higher? I think it is. I think Jim would feel the same way, if he's remotely fair-minded himself.

Is this fair to Julia? Granted, there are a very few rare occasions where player skill doesn't matter in PC outcome. Maybe Julia's PC (being the heavily-armored fighter) was the natural choice to lead the group's marching order in the dungeon and she lost a surprise roll to the giant spider in the shadows and the spider made its subsequent attack roll and she lost the resulting poison save and died. This is a good example of being "killed by the dice" despite making no tactical errors. In these sorts of situations, maybe the DM does grant Julia a break with her next character as SPF suggests. That's fine with me.

More often than not, though, there's an element of player choice. Julia's party might encounter the giant spider and she decides that her fighter will step forward and engage it with his sword then the spider hits then the save fails then Julia is down one fighter.

So is the quoted scenario fair to Julia? Usually, yes, although there may be some rare exceptions.

Finally, we come to Matt. What does a new player learn from starting with a lower-level character? SPF outlines a few possibilities. Here are a few more: That a powerful character is something to be proud of because it must be earned by diligent and skillful campaigning. That playing a powerful character is just much more interesting when you've been with that character through his or her's whole journey. That getting there can be much more than half the fun.

So are you being fair to Matt? I think so, yes.

This is all not to imply that a game where the group is paramount, player skill is downplayed, and cooperative storytelling is the goal (as opposed to each individual player, sometimes working in concert with peers and sometimes not, guiding his or her PC to wealth and power through the vehicle of high adventure) can't or shouldn't exist. It is to say that that's not how the hobby started and more and more of us are discovering all the time that that's not the way it needs to be enjoyed today.

Lost gaming treasure!

I was searching through an old box yesterday that I haven't looked through in at least six or seven years and I found these:



Miniature AD&D rulebooks!

I bought them at a game store in San Angelo, Texas back in 2000 when they first came out. They quickly vanished from the market and are bigtime collectables now. They're unabridged and perfectly readable. Ideal for gaming on the go without a backpack full of heavy hardcovers.

Altogether, I have:

Dungeon Master's Guide
Player's Handbook
Oriental Adventures
Legends & Lore
Manual of the Planes

I completely forgot I had them and assumed that I sold them at some point. Nope!

Now I just need a mini Monster Manual...

Why the thief?

Internet blogs, website message boards, and FRPG fanzines have all been buzzing with some fairly harsh criticism of this venerable class.

The thief, it is said, is simply a bad fit with the rest of the game. Critics claim that making activities like picking pockets and hiding in shadows dedicated thief class abilities creates awkward situations where fighting men, clerics, and magic-users are de facto prohibited (or at least strongly discouraged) from attempting to perform the same feats. My first submission to Fight On!, "The Thief Skill As Saving Throw", was an effort to address just this mechanical dilemma.

That aside, the arguments of the anti-thief camp are quite compelling. It’s the proposed solutions that leave me cold. The most common prescription is either radical re-design of the entire class from the ground up or elimination of the thief class altogether.

What’s the problem with these options?

Well, you see, I like the standard thief. Lots of us do. This is because the class as written presents a unique challenge. A fighter that fails to sneak past an orc sentry can fall back on his considerable martial prowess to save his bacon. The magic-user has even more options due to his repertoire of spells, from the subtle (Charm the orc) to the simplistic (blast him with Magic Missiles). The potent cleric can draw on both brute force and arcane might!

The thief has no fallback options. He gets by with his wits and larcenous expertise or not at all. This unique approach (and challenge, as the thief is arguably the most difficult class to find success with) makes the thief a favorite of many, and it's precisely what I think a lot of the class' critics fail to appreciate. I, for one, am at a loss to explain how eliminating this singular way of confronting (A)D&D's many challenges could possibly benefit the game.

Thoughts?

The gold standard in demons and devils.

Wikipedia sez:

"The Dictionnaire Infernal (English: Infernal Dictionary) is a book on demonology, organized in hellish hierarchies. It was written by Jacques Auguste Simon Collin de Plancy and first published in 1818. There were several editions of the book, but perhaps the most famous is the edition of 1863, in which sixty-nine illustrations were added to the book. These illustrations are drawings which try to depict the descriptions of the appearance of several demons."



I first came across many of these awesome illustrations in the Time Life coffee table book Wizards and Witches, part of their Enchanted World series released in the 1980s. This was the heyday of paid tv advertising, and Time Life was famous for "get the first book in our new twenty part series free"-type offers. As a kid, I would always stay up late watching tv. Johnny Carson, original Star Trek reruns, Night Flight, and cheesy-sleazy horror and kung-fu movies were all favorites. During the commercial breaks, I'd be busy ordering whatever free crap I could. Including, at one time, a copy of the Book of Mormon. Hell, free is free!

Today, I found out that the Dictionnaire Infernal illustrations and English text are available online in PDF form here (very small download, about 2.8 MB).

If you've never experienced these, now is the time. These images and words will always be what comes immediately and vividly to my mind when the subject is demons or devils and if they can't inspire some epic old-school fantasy gaming encounters, I don't know what can.

New magic-user spell: Spellcheck

Yeah, I know, har har. Working title only, folks.

Anyway, this is just part of my recent musing on "counterspells" in (A)D&D.

Spellcheck
Arcane Enchantment/Charm
Level: Magic-User 3
Range: 120'
Duration: 1d3 rounds +1 round/two caster levels (round down)
Area of Effect: One spellcasting creature
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 3 segments
Saving Throw: Negates

The target of this spell must be a single spellcasting creature. "Spellcasting" in this case means that the target casts pre-memorized spells in the fashion of a cleric, magic-user, or other regular PC class. Innate spell-like abilities alone are not sufficient, nor is magic item use, and neither of these functions are impaired in any way by Spellcheck. If the initial saving throw versus spells fails, the target must roll another save versus spells each time spellcasting is attempted during the duration of Spellcheck. Failure indicates that the spell in question is not successfully cast and is instead expended without effect. This spell's suggested material component is an iron padlock, which can be any size (even downright miniature), so long as its design and workmship permits it to function. This item is consumed utterly upon casting of the spell.