A Game of What-if Pt 1

 It has always been on my mind, the familial bond between Chainmail and D&D. I have always been entranced by the OSR titles that explore that DNA. I have pondered my own take on how to meld the two, even to the point of devising my own half-baked attempt. The thing, though, is this: I have always looked at it from a standing start. In other words, I have approached the exercise as if D&D hadn't been written. Alternatively, I have approached it with more of a piece-meal attitude, intent on replacing certain aspects, such as the alternative combat system with that from Chainmail. Yet, in either event, in my mind, my starting point was that whatever I had was the origin point. So, in my design space, my conceit was that I was trying to merge the Chainmail combat system with D&D, and pretend that was the way it was when I opened the box.

I know that sounds weird. It would be difficult for me to express the influence that nostalgia has on my gaming. It informs so much of my gaming, from ordering old Avalon Hill games off Ebay, to how I approach developing ideas for D&D. I want to put my mind in 1976 and approach D&D from there. It may sound delusional at best, or a misguided effort doomed from inception at worst. But it's my time spent with my hobby, and I pursue it for relaxation. If spending some time in 1976 will relax me and bring me some edification, then it was well-spent.

This is intended to be a design log of yet another effort to reconcile Chainmail with D&D. This time is different though. This may be nuanced to the point of nothing more than semantics. It may be putting too fine of a point on it, but this time really is different. The perspective I am approaching from is this:

I've played Chainmail, even fighting battles with the fantasy supplement. Now, it's sometime in 1975 and I've gotten my hands on D&D. I love the ideas and potential I see in it, but I'm not thrilled with how it abandons so much of Chainmail. So, this design log will be all about how I take the finished product of D&D and retool aspects so that they draw more from Chainmail, rather than all-new systems created whole cloth.

In future posts I intend to explore the following:

Classes:

• Bring Fighting-Men more inline with the Heroes and Superheroes of Chainmail
• Give Magic Users more of the "fire at will" aspect of Chainmail wizards, while keeping Vancian casting, because it is flavorful and keeps magic users from dominating the campaign
• Examine Clerics more as members of militant religious orders, rather than priests.
• Thieves will be based more on the GPNL thief, which went on to inspire the Greyhawk thief.

Combat

• Reconcile the three combat subsystems into a seamless, integrated whole

Monsters

• Crack the "code" of the Fantasy Combat Table in order to plug "new" creatures  from M&T into the system.

Treasure

• Reconcile magic swords and armor with the D&D classes and Chainmail combat system.

It is my desire to divorce specific experience I have from my thinking on this project. In other words, there won't be any ascending AC, stat-based saves, or even single save numbers. I will only consider including things that were available as of my (admittedly arbitrary) start date. That will probably include Greyhaw, Strategic Review, and possibly Blackmoor and maybe early issues of the Dragon. That doesn't mean that anything from them will be included, I'll just consider them available.

So, there it is, the foundational philosophy of this project. As always, comments, advise, thoughts, and encouragement are always welcomed.

Combat Bonuses in OD&D

This is pretty off-the-cuff, so please be kind if you comment.

I was rummaging around in the Howling Tower, Steve Winter's blog. I forget the exact post, but he made the comment that characters from classic fantasy fiction are not defined by their magic weapons. That threw my mind into a spin. I like magic items, in general. A gold piece is a gold piece, and that's great, but nothing screams treasure like magic items. He has a point, though, and it lands squarely on an amorphous unease I've had for some time. I want characters to be competent, even dangerous, intrinsically, not because of a glowing sword. The glowing sword can certainly make them more dangerous. Imagine two thieves plotting to steal something from a fighter with a magic sword. If the sword defines the character, the conversation could go something like this:

"We need to separate him from that damnable sword of his. Should be pretty easy pickins if we can do that."

If the sword merely augments the fighter, the thieves' plotting could go something like this:

"We need to catch him away from that shiny sword of his."
"Are you mad? He killed five men with his bare hands just to get the sword."

I prefer a game where the second conversation is the one that happens. Seems easy enough, right? Just keep a tight reign on magic bonuses. Bam! Done.

In my mind it's not that easy. It never is. See, I do want magic weapons to mean something. I want the thieves above to shit themselves at the thought of facing the fighter with his sword. I also want them to know that if they face him without it they are in deep trouble, too. Balance that against the fact that said fighter can't be a total badass and tote a sword that makes him a total badass.

And that's the tricky part. Make the weapon something to be feared, but not something that will throw things completely out of whack when wielded by a character who is rightfully feared. Keeping weapon bonuses low doesn't do it for me. A sword that hits 5% more often isn't exactly fearsome, even though we are assured that a +1 bonus in OD&D is meaningful.  I have an idea, based in principle on Chainmail.

The notion that a +1 bonus is significant comes from Chainmail, where it is indeed significant. However, Chainmail is a considerably different animal than OD&D. A +1 in Chainmail would be applied in one of two ways, depending on the type of combat being prosecuted. In the 20:1 Troop system, magic weapons add an extra die per "+" (in a nutshell, you roll a certain number of d6, scoring a hit on 5-6, or 6, for the most part, and in that system a hit = kill). That's pretty potent, since it gives the opportunity to kill an additional opponent. In the Man-to-Man and Fantasy Combat it adds its "+" to the roll, which is 2d6. Modifying a 2d6 roll by even +1 is much more significant than modifying a d20 roll by +1, especially when fighting creatures that require a 10 or more on 2d6 to hit.

So, here's my thinking: if a character is a big enough badass to deal with "common" threats pretty reliably, then a badass magic weapon is just overkill. The badass fighter could deal with those thieves just fine without the sword. BUT. . . such a weapon in such capable hands allows said fighter to take on foes beyond the ken of normal men.

I am looking at Chainmail for the answer to this conundrum. I have a couple of ideas, but they require looking at the to-hit roll in a different way. In Chainmail, in the Troop and Man-to-Man systems, a hit is synonymous with a kill. When the term was ported to D&D it came to be (mis)understood as a singular "attack". The d20 roll "to-hit" does not represent an attack. It represents the chance that a combatant wounds his opponent. It is necessary to embrace this idea to process my proposals for magic weapons.  I have two proposals:

#1) Any character armed with a magic weapon of any sort rolls an additional number of d20's equal to the "+" of the weapon. The rolls themselves are not modified at all. Each roll that indicates a hit will do d6 damage. 

#2) Only a single attack roll is made, with a number of additional d6 for damage equal to the "+" of the weapon.

Obviously, the second option is more powerful, perhaps too much. I prefer the first option, myself.

This allows an interesting option for magic armor, as well. Using this, I would rule that magic armor negates one damage die per "+" of the armor. If an opponent has only one die of damage, the armor subtracts its "+" from the roll. So, if a character with no magic weapon hits an opponent wearing Plate +2, he rolls his normal d6 for damage and subtracts -2 from the roll. If he had a +1 sword, he would roll a d6 and subtract -1.

I would also rule that characters with a 15+ STR is granted a +1 to the damage roll, but this bonus will not negate any penalty due to magic armor.

So, there it is. Perhaps a bit disjointed, perhaps even confusing. I am a stream-of-consciousness kind of guy.

Chainmail Character Generation

Put the dice down, son

Alright, I'm about to commit a few major blasphemies. You've been warned. In this post I will propose generating characters:

• Whose stats are bonuses rather than traditional 3-18 stats
• Who do not have a Wisdom stat
• Who are generated with a point-buy (gasp!)

The first two shouldn't be a huge surprise to anyone that's read my ramblings. The third one, maybe a little surprising. It's definitely not old school, and I'll be the first to admit, I don't really like point-buy. In my opinion it either takes too long as the player tries to hit on the right combination, or it is over too fast because the player already knows what he wants to do and didn't give any thought to this particular character.

However, in this particular set of circumstances, it is the right tool for the job. Hopefully, that will be clear by the time I get done. By the way, this post only covers stats.

The Stats

There are still six: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Charisma, Intelligence, and Wizardry. The first five are as we all remember them. Wizardry is concerned with spell casting and other attempted manipulations of magical energy.

Starting stats range from -1 to +2. Players have 5 points with which to purchase their beginning stats. A +1 bonus costs 1 point, a +2 costs an additional 2 points, for a total of 3 points. You may take a -1 to one stat to garner another point to be spent elsewhere. This may only be done once. No stat may start higher than +2.

Usage

STR is used on the combat table. I don't want to go into detail now, because the term "Hit Dice" is can be as confusing in this set as the term "level" was for all of us in 1975.

CON essentially makes the character more durable.

DEX can make the character more difficult to hit, provided he isn't burdened with too much armor.

CHAR provides a morale/reaction modifier.

INT is used by wizards to expand their access to spells.

WIZ is also used by wizards, as a bonus to magical operations.

Those are the most obvious uses, but players are encouraged to always look for a way to use their character's strengths and abilities to overcome challenges and face difficult situations.

So, that's the gist of it. I'm thinking that there will be options to increase stats as the character progresses, but not more than 2 or 3 points, total. I am also thinking that, barring some powerful magic, stats will cap at +3 no matter how developed the character is.

Design Notes

I went with point-buy because I knew I wanted the stats to be the bonus with no number being generated in order to determine the stat. I also knew I wanted the stats relatively low, since so many of the player-related subsystems are based on 2d6. It was just too tricky to randomize such relatively low numbers and have a viable range, so it just made more sense to me to set a standard purchase pool and go point-buy.

Chainmail Magic Design Notes

Considering the rather terse introduction I gave to these house rules, I thought maybe a little more insight was in order.

My main goal was (and has been for a long time) to come up with a tweak of the magic system in Chainmail that was unpredictable, wide open, and carried an element of danger.

I started with the casting table straight from Chainmail. I took the numbers for a Seer casting a complexity I spell and added +1 to all the numbers. That was my baseline. The extra +1 to the numbers offsets the fact that most any character worthy of being called Wizard should have at least a +1 mod to the casting roll. Next, I looked at the spells-per-day table and plugged that baseline in whenever a new spell level was attained. So, for example, the baseline is used for Rank III spells for level 5 Wizards. Then, I just extrapolated the numbers up or down as needed for spells of higher or lower rank.

I could have just used some formula, but that requires math on the front-end, then more math at the table as mods are considered. Besides, tables are much more old-school. There was another reason, too. I wanted the raw number rolled to mean something when compared to the roll that was needed. Specifically, the chance to lose the spell and the chance to fail catastrophically. That becomes harder to track at the table when the casting roll is just based on pure math. Not terrible, but enough to slow things down.

Speaking of those raw rolls, with the 2d6 bell curve, keeping track of the original number needed was important. If your base chance to cast-with-delay was a 7-8, then you'll lose the spell on a roll of 7, which is roughly 16% of the time. If that was based on the modified roll, then bonuses would quickly make losing spells highly unlikely.

That's it for now. As many of you know, a Chainmail based game has been an elusive dream of mine for some time. That combat modification that I linked to at Howling Tower a few posts back really got me started back looking at it. Now that I have a magic system I like, the project is gaining critical mass. I have character generation ideas almost done (at least conceptually).

Taking those three components and mashing them up with whatever other subsystems I like will likely be the way to go with it, for now. I may or may not try to work up my own advancement, equipment, endgame, and other subs, but for now, I'm happy using my combat, magic, and character subs houseruled into other rulesets.

Chainmail based Magic

 Here we go. My magic rules for a more Chainmail based game. So far I really like the look of them, so, please be gentle.

Magic Use
In any discussion of magic, there are two things that must be understood:

1. Magic is special;
2. Magic is unpredictable

Any two-­bit conjurer of cheap tricks can light a candle or make a noise seem to originate from somewhere else. Then again, so can an innkeeper, by walking across the room, or a petty entertainer, by throwing his voice.

A Wizard can command flames to race across a battlefield and explode in the midst of his enemies. He can create the sounds of hordes of trolls crashing through the woods. He can command unseen forces and use them to do things beyond mortal capability.

To the common folk a person capable of casting even two or three spells is mysterious and powerful, worthy of fear and respect.

The Nature of Magic and Its Use

The term “spell” encompasses several different factors aligned to achieve a desired effect. No spell is ever cast exactly the same way each time it is cast, even by the same caster. The rituals required; the specific hand gestures, chants and phrases, and material components are all dependent on factors such as stellar alignment, the seasons, the caster's specific location, and many other
minute factors. The caster must commit to memory all of these intricate requirements in order to successfully cast a spell. Everything that powers and influences a spell is constantly in motion, motion that must be understood and accounted for.

This variability is accounted for by the Casting Table. Sometimes a spell will work perfectly, taking effect immediately. Sometimes the caster has to make adjustments during the casting. In this case, the spell is successfully cast, but doesn't go into effect until next turn. Then there are times dreaded by all wizards, when they are able to make on­-the­-fly adjustments, the spell is cast, but it is no longer usable until the wizard studies the spell anew, making certain adjustments for changes in  the ritual variables.

Spell Casting

Spell are grouped by relative power into Ranks. There are six ranks, successively more powerful. A caster can cast virtually any spell he knows, regardless of level and rank. There is a chance that if a wizard should attempt a spell too far beyond his ability, he could suffer greatly. He may cast any spell he knows as often as he wishes, until the Casting Roll indicates it must be
restudied.
A wizard may know a number of spells equal in rank to his level, plus his INT bonus. Thus, a 2nd level wizard with an INT bonus of +2 may know 4 ranks of spells. This could be a single 4th rank spell, two 2nd rank spells, or any combination he desires.

Wizards Command Magic

If the number of spells a wizard may know seems limiting, it should be remembered that wizards are more than capable of modifying the casting of their spells on the fly. Players and  referees should work together to keep wizards' use of magic flexible. If a wizard knows Fireball, for instance, he should be able to use it to light a candle across the room, start a campfire or fireplace, or anything that is not intrinsically more powerful than the Fireball spell itself.

Studying Spells

In order to learn a spell, to know it and be able to cast it, a wizard must spend time committing all the many intricacies of its casting to memory. This is a mentally taxing prospect, and very time consuming. It requires one day per rank to learn a spell. This may be reduced by the INT of the wizard, but never to less than one day.

If a wizard wishes to memorize a different spell than one already known, he must also spend time purging the unwanted spell from his mind. This requires meditation and mind-control to accomplish. It is not a simple matter of "forgetting" something that one puts so much effort into remembering. It requires one day per rank to purge a spell from the wizard's memory. This is not reduced by any faculty of the character.

Casting Spells

When a wizard wishes to cast a spell, the player rolls 2d6 on the Casting Table. There are three possible outcomes, with two potential variables. The spell may be cast successfully, taking effect either instantly, at the wizard's initiative point, or it may be delayed until the same point in the following turn. The spell may simply fail. The spell may succeed but become unusable. The spell may fail with catastrophic results.

Note that the effects of rolling a “red” number or a “2” for Catastrophic casting occur when the indicated number is rolled unmodified. For example, a 7th level wizard is casting a rank II spell, with a +2 bonus. The roll is a 4, with the bonus the casting roll is a 6, indicating that the spell takes effect immediately. However, the unmodified roll was a 4, which indicates that the spell may not be
cast again until restudied.

Chainmail (Yes, again)

It's all in the approach. Most people considering a Chainmail/D&D experience approach it from the perspective of adding Chainmail combat to D&D. What about taking the approach of adding certain D&D elements to Chainmail. There is a philosophy amongst the OSR that it is easier to house rule things in, rather than yank them out.

That being the case, the first thing that needs to be done is to clarify and clean up the Chainmail elements we will be using, namely combat, magic, how magic items function, and monster stats/descriptions. Secondly, the elements from D&D that will be needed have to be identified and retooled to conform to Chainmail. That's a bit of a two-sided sword. Most of D&D is written with the assumption that the reader owns and is familiar with Chainmail. So, some of the work is done. Unfortunately, the veil between Chainmail and D&D is rather nebulous and the voice of the rules slips back and forth without warning.

I've contemplated this on here before, but it never really gained critical mass because I just couldn't get my mind around how to integrate Chainmail's wargame combat into D&D's roleplay arena. Then I found these guidelines at Howling Tower (thanks, Steve). This was a major hurdle for me, and now that it is out of the way, maybe I can move forward. As always, I'll keep you posted.

What Are We Talking About, Really?

The Ultimate Duality?

My Gamer ADD has been in a fairly tight orbit lately. It has moved between titles, but stayed relatively close to the old school standard. Go Me!

So, I saw a couple of posts at Howling Tower concerning Chainmail combat, which is a favorite windmill for me to tilt at. The posts are excellent, if Chainmail combat is your thing. They definitely rekindled my desire to make it work.

Something new struck me about the whole thing, though. Chainmail is a set of wargaming rules, as we all know. Yet, the "rules" in them for roleplaying are incredibly sparse. In other words, roleplaying was a wide open frontier in those days. In fact, the only real rules were for combat and spell casting. Granted, some more guidelines for character advancement/development are desirable, but that's not the point.

The point is quite simple: D&D grew from wargaming roots and took a lot of heat from second-generation games for being too combat focused. Later editions, specifically 3.x and 4E, went to great lengths to sever the wargame ties and include rules for roleplaying. I find it ironic that the wargame that D&D came from imposes the least restrictions on roleplaying, and offers no rules governing the activity. The later editions that claimed to bring more support for roleplaying to the table actually added metric shitloads of tactical combat rules, and very strictly laid out the rules by which role playing could occur and be DMed.

I'm not trying to start an edition war or piss anybody off, and I sincerely apologize if I have. I'm not here to judge anyone's edition preference. I'm just saying that I find it amusing that the wargame that started it all offered some of the fastest combat and least adjudicated roleplaying of any edition. The wargame version of protoD&D was the least focused on combat of any edition. I find this duality fascinating, and made doubly so by the fact that it has been staring us in the face for 40 years. Amazing.

More on the Fighting-Man

Joshua raised some good points in his comment to my earlier post (Horns of a Dilemma). At first I was going to comment back, but the comment was getting involved, so I decided to make it a full-on post.

A point I failed to make clear is that the additional attacks I proposed at 4th and 8th levels in no way combine with the F-M's ability to make one attack per opponent if all opponents are 1HD or less. That ability, at first glance, seems to scale quite well as the F-M's levels increase. On closer inspection, and in a more realistic light, I don't think it really does.

My proposal is to increase  F-M's number of attacks at 4th level. Well, by 4th level most Fighting-Men have "outgrown" 1HD monsters. Their adventures and foes have gone beyond 1HD creatures, by and large. The treasure they carry is paltry compared to what 4th level adventurers can expect, and the XP for defeating them is only 1/4 listed value. So, not only are the 1HD creatures simply not encountered very often, they are undesirable as opponents when they are encountered. That is an "ability" that will see less and less use as the F-M rises in levels. That is a far cry from an ability that scales with level.

As the F-M goes up in level, I believe his ability to slay stronger foes should rise as well. By 4th level he will begin encountering creatures that deal more than just d6 damage, either with a bonus to damage, or with 2d6 damage. There aren't a lot of such creatures, but they are out there, and F-M need to be able to stand up to them. This ability needs to be represented by more than just an improvement in the attack tables. Since creature AC generally improves as the creatures get tougher, that's a wash anyway.

Another thing that I feel somewhat balances this issue is that the F-M is having to make two separate to-hit rolls, whereas the monsters that deal 2d6 do so with a single roll.

There was one other ability I would give Fighting-Men, that I forgot to mention in the other post. At 4th level they are able to hit opponents that require a +1 weapon to hit, and at 8th level they are able to hit opponents requiring +2 weapons. That comes from Chainmail, as well.

My Game

After last night, followed by much thought this morning, I'm going to continue developing the ideas I've had. Some will be ideas conceived of for the house rule project, others will be brand new, like the new class/advancement scheme I posted last night. I'm going to keep the name Crucible for this rules set. I'm going to change the subtitle/tagline to: Adventures Dark and Dangerous. Hopefully that won't be construed as straying too close to someone's trademark.

Design Goals

As much as possible, I'm only going to work with Chainmail. Obviously, it is nigh-impossible to simply ignore 35+ years of gaming experience, so nuggets from that experience will make their way in. My figurative goal, though, is to "pretend" Chainmail is all I have. It's the mid 70's, I've read the fantasy supplement to Chainmail and decided to flesh it out. I've never seen D&D, but I have read Brooks, Burroughs, Lieber, and Tolkein.

So, that's the gist of the project. By basing it Chainmail I can, in my own sordid little mind, free myself of the sacred cows of D&D. See, for all my edition-whore posturing, I am OCD about my OSR. If something is going to claim to give me the LBB experience, I don't want it polluted with a lot of house rules. I'm just an ass like that. What this does is give me the opportunity to make D&D from the ground up, for myself, with my ideas.

By the way, as I post development notes here, the subject will be "C:ADD: whatever", to aid in identifying the development posts.

Wish me luck.

Does it really matter?

I've been mulling over this attention deficit quagmire I find myself in. What I'm coming around to is this: Does it really matter?

Is it strictly necessary to know down to the percentile who the better horseman is? Not really. Is it going to doom the entire campaign to failure for all concerned if a player declares his character served as a mess chef during his mercenary days, and should be able to concoct a meal for the company of Bad Men holding him prisoner, and gain favor with them. Absolutely not.

So, I have a new idea to occupy my chaotic mind. Start with Chainmail. Two "classes", Warrior and Mage. Warriors fight, Mages work magic. There is a much more condensed power structure, reflecting that in Chainmail. Warriors progress in levels thus:

Warrior
Level    Title                XP         HD(d6+2)    Combat     Damage Dice (d6)
   1       Sellsword         0               1                   2                     1
   2       Hero            12,000          2                   3                     2
   3       Champion    60,000          3                   4                     3
   4       Lord            240,000         4                   6                     4

Most of it is self explanatory, except the last two. Combat is a total bonus that can be used to modify the character's chance to hit or modify his opponent's chance to hit. It can be split any way the player desires and applies to all opponents equally. Damage Dice is the number of dice of damage the character deals on a successful hit.

Warriors will have certain other abilities as they advance in levels, mostly related to heroically engaging their foes and being able to face more and more fantastic opponents.

Mages will advance thus:

Mage
Level     Title              XP         HD(d6-1)     Spells     Casting
   1        Seer               0               1                1              1
   2       Magician    15,000           2                 3             2
   3       Warlock     75,000           3                 5             3
   4       Sorcerer    300,000         4                 7             4
   5       Wizard       750,000         5                 9             5

Spells is the maximum number of spells a mage may have memorized at any given time. Casting is the bonus to the casting roll. Casting will follow the table given in Chainmail, basically, with Immediate, Deferred, and Negated results. Negated indicates that the spell was lost from memory and must be restudied before it may be cast again.

These are some pretty off-the-cuff ideas, unedited. So, what do you think? As for skills and so forth, if the outcome needs to be randomized, roll 2d6 for 9+, modified by circumstance, and a stat bonus, and/or level bonus, depending on the situation.