Misconception Monday: Subsystems

In the waning months of 1999 the world held its breath in anticipation of Y2K. Would computers around the world crash? Would power grids go dark, airline catastrophes dominate the news, and life as we knew it cease to be? January 1 came and went, with barely a ripple in the collective experience. The true cataclysm of 2000 wouldn't hit until August, and it would be heralded by an innocent moniker: d20.

d20 gave us a unified system mechanic. Sure, other games had unified mechanics. Good for them. D&D and AD&D never had, and that simple premise shook the foundations of our game. Roll a d20 for everything task-related. Always, always, roll high. Simple, to the point, and flavorless.

D&D gets picked on for its wealth of subsystems. Virtually every major game activity has its own system, none of them really function with similarity. Roll high on a d20 for attacks and saving throws. Roll d20 low for non-weapon proficiencies (when used). Roll d6 for opening doors. Percentile for thief skills. And so on . . .

The problem with this should be obvious. Remembering which die type to roll for which situation. Remembering if it is roll-high or roll-low. Since each roll and situation is unique, so are each of the modifiers. No light is -4 on to-hit rolls, for example. What about no light when a thief is searching for traps? Would it be -20%, since 4 points on a d20 roll equals 20%? What about initiative in the dark? Would it be modified at all? It's a d6 roll, so it can't have the same -4, and it doesn't translate as well as it would to a d100.

The thing about these "problems" is the same as it is with other problems: they are part of the charm. They are part of what makes it a D&D experience. I adore the subsystems. For me, unified mechanics make a lot of sense, but they don't really speak to me. As a referee, I like for the game to have a certain air of mystery about it. When it seems mysterious to the players, then I seem sort of, I don't know, almost like some sort of intermediary. I understand how things work, and without me acting as a sort of translator, their characters are lost. Kind of weird, I know, but it gets me in a good place to referee from.

A Question of Experience

I forget what I was doing, but the other day I directly compared the Fighter and Magic-User advancement schemes. We old schoolers were raised on the concept that magic-users start out weak and end up as the most powerful characters in the game. A quick glance at the table I've compiled reveals why this is. In almost every version of D&D, and the clones based on those versions, it requires fewer experience points to reach 9th level for a magic-user. In some cases, substantially less. In the LBBs, AD&D, and S&W Core a magic-user is well on his way to 11th level when the fighter crosses the threshold into 9th.

	9th Level
Source	Fighter	Magic-User
LBB	240,000	100,000
B/X	240,000	300,000
RC	240,000	450,000
AD&D	250,000	135,000
S&W WhiteBox	256,000	320,000
S&W Core	256,000	135,000
S&W Complete	256,000	100,000
BFRP	240,000	300,000
Labyrinth Lord	240,001	310,001
Advanced Edition Companion	240,001	310,001
Castles & Crusades	272,001	340,001
OSRIC	250,000	140,000

I'm unclear on the reasoning for this. The best answer I can come up with is that different designers/writers have different ideas on how magic-users should progress. They were all apparently pretty happy with the fighter's requirements from the beginning.

I simply can not fathom why the requirements for the magic-user were so lax in the LBB. Something to do with hit dice and a lack of armor, maybe? The only direct-damage spells they have in those books are Fireball and Lightning Bolt. Other than those, magic-user spells are utility, buffs, or just "magicky". So, maybe that's it. An OD&D magic-user winning the footrace to 9th level doesn't have nearly the impact it does when spells like Cloukill and Ice Storm are up for grabs. Not to mention that magic-users from those editions are well on their way to 11th level by the time the Fighter drags his sorry ass to 9th. That opens the door to Death Spell and Disintegrate (neither of which are available in the LBBs).

I guess that explains why it was that way in the LBBs, and by extension AD&D and clones based on those. It seems that other editions/clones woke up to the fact that with access to spell levels 7-9, not to mention many additional spells in levels 1-6, and that there are many more direct-damage spells. Magic-Users under those rules are much more potent and their progression to the strata that grants access to the newer spells should be slowed, otherwise they will definitely come to dominate the campaign, as well as the campaign world.

Armor and Spellcasters

I want to pose an open question to my readership. How do you handle spellcasters, particularly those casting magic-user spells, wearing armor? This problem can rear its ugly head in a couple of situations.

Classes gaining the ability to cast magic-user spells, such as the ranger;
Elves, multi-classed, and dual classed characters.

Personally, I don't care for the hand-wave of "enchanted armor is ok". I believe, and referee this way, that it is the encumbrance of the armor that is the culprit. There are movements required in spell casting that can be rather nuanced.

Fighters are practically born in armor. It isn't simply a matter of becoming accustomed to the weight. It is also a matter of learning to move, to perform mundane tasks, such as feeding oneself. Armor is surprising articulated, but it is still a heap of metal obstructing and interfering with joint function and range of movement. Fighters devote a lifetime to learning the subtleties of operating in armor.

Anyone not committing that level of dedication can't hope to do more than walk across a room. The intricacies of spell casting are far beyond their capacity while armored. Furthermore, even if eschewing spell casting, and attempting to don the armor to survive a pending attack, they will be woefully unable to take any advantage of the armor. Absorbing, deflecting, and blunting blows have not been their priorities, and simply encasing oneself in steel isn't enough to call oneself "armored".

So, for my money, no one can cast magic spells while armored. Even if their class allows "Any Armor and Shield". My only possible exception to this would be to allow Rangers to cast while wearing Leather armor. Maybe. If I was feeling really generous.

So, how about it? How do you guys deal with this?

The Hazards of House Rules

Preamble
In this post I am talking about my feelings on house rules. I am in a bit of a purist mood right now. What follows isn't a judgement or indictment of anyone else's style of playing or refereeing. I'm just examining my own feelings about this topic. It is not meant to be taken personally.

On with the show . . .

As you probably know, I was busily working on my house rules not long ago. Mr. Finch was kind enough to provide us with document files of S&W WhiteBox and Core, to allow us to seamlessly insert our idiosyncrasies into his most excellent games. So, I decided to take that route.

Then, I had the idea for Kalagris. I decided that I may as well rewrite class descriptions, racial descriptions, and so on, to directly reflect that setting. Somewhere during that process it occurred to me that I would enjoy finding and inserting art that I wanted to see, so I did that. At that point, I figured I may as well give it a name of my choosing. I fired up the GIMP and whipped up a cover. Then, reality hit me like an icy fish-slap:

This wasn't D&D anymore. Not in any form or fashion. I had changed too much. Of course, that isn't a deadly sin. It isn't even particularly a sin. Unless, that is, you truly want to be playing D&D. By the way, for my purposes here, S&W and D&D are pretty much interchangeable. Refer to this for insight into how that works.

I was changing things that ultimately made D&D into another game, one that addressed my unique desires. There's nothing wrong with that, it is done all the time and always has been. The word of the rules not only encourages it, the sparsity of the rules demands it. Back in my day, any referee that didn't house rule must have an underdeveloped imagination.

Then, of course, there's the argument that anyone playing Original D&D isn't really playing D&D at all. It demands so many house rules that it becomes specific to the table it's played on almost immediately, and thus, ceases being D&D. This was one of the reasons for AD&D in the first place; to get people all playing from the same book.

Whatever. I'm not against house rules, but I think there are only a few reasons to do them:

1) When there is something missing from the rules. If there is a situation that arises consistently, like exactly how much control a magic-user has over the subject of a Charm Person, it needs a house rule to keep it consistent.
2) To create a mechanical tie to the campaign world. Things like changing how magic works, or adding backgrounds that grant certain skills/abilities/bonuses fit into this category.
3) To clearly state any variants or alternative rules that may, or may not, be permissible.
4) Ignoring certain aspects, such as demi-human level limits.

Of those, #2 is the trickiest and has the most potential to turn a game into some bastard hybrid. There are certain things that are the very essence and charm of D&D. Love these or hate them, they are D&D. Things like Vancian magic, hit points, armor making you harder to hit, these are D&D and without them, you are playing something else. Which isn't really a problem . . .

Unless you want to be playing D&D. D&D is an experience, a shared experience. The whole is so much greater than the sum of the parts. It is full of clunky systems, numerous subsystems, and arbitrary balancers. Yet, at the end of a session, it is also fun, sometimes moving, and most often memorable. It is D&D and it is what I want to be playing.

Misconception Monday: d6 Weapon Damage

Good morning. I hope everyone had a good weekend.

OK, I was going to say this made me unhappy for a long time, or that it had this effect or that effect on my game. It never did. I have never played or refereed even one single minute of D&D with "all weapons do d6". Greyhawk was in the house when I started playing, so we smugly thumbed our noses at d6 in favor of the "realistic" variable weapon damage. Ah, the superiority of youth.

I'm not entirely sure if it was an intentional elegance of design, or more of a product of exploring uncharted waters. Either way, d6 weapon damage ends up being a fairly elegant way of handling things. This rule, like most of the LBBs, was ported from Chainmail. That game was all about the d6, so I suspect that the assumption that most D&D players would be coming from Chainmail made the choice for weapon damage rather simple.

Whether it was intentional or not, d6 weapon damage turned out to be somewhat elegant. It allows weapon choice to be purely a role-playing selection. Whatever you envision your character using to crack heads, you can play with. This also allows a referee to dispense with weapon limitations on classes. This in itself does open a certain can of worms.

With the original three classes of the LBBs, Fighting-Men were differentiated by being the only class capable of wielding magical swords. Make no mistake, in the LBBs, magical swords were king. They all possess Intelligence, and 50% of them have additional powers, ranging from various Detection abilities to things like Teleportation, Flying, and Healing. If any class can use any weapon, one of the Fighting-Man's unique abilities isn't so unique anymore. But that's a topic for another post.

On the surface d6 damage seems sort of vanilla. It is, but it makes much more sense when you consider that D&D models results not means. A normal man or monster (1HD) can be killed with a single blow. That was the standard. It works in that sense, because you can sneak up on a lookout and shank him with a dagger, just like in the movies.

In my opinion, the variable weapon damage was one of the foundations of power creep. Think about this: all hit dice are d6, all weapons do d6. One hit, one kill was possible with 1HD beings. Enter variable weapon damage and all of a sudden a single swing of a sword by a 1st level Fighter could slay a 2HD monster. Solution: give all monsters a d8 for hit dice. So, now all monsters are tougher, not just for Fighters, they are tougher for everybody. Other classes had to be tougher to survive this paradigm shift, and we were off to the races. The power curve went into orbit. Of course, there were many factors, but I believe variable weapon damage, while not the most potent, was one of the very first.

Enough digression. I'll wrap this up by saying that I really like d6 damage. It empowers role playing by not forcing mechanical considerations on characters. It also plays perfectly with the Fighting-Man's ability to make one "to-hit" roll for each opponent of 1HD or less. If you've never considered the virtues of d6 damage, give it another look. You may not use it, but perhaps a new appreciation of it will give you new ideas.

An Embarrassment of Riches

I'm like a kid in a candy store (a really old kid). I am just all tore up over which system to devote my attention to. They are all awesome in their own right, and for their own reasons.

First up is D&D. Most especially Greyhawk. Like I've said, RPGs for me started with my best friend John's hand-copies of the LBBs. But, we very quickly acquired an actual xerox (it's what we called copies back then) of Greyhawk. In those days it was probably more expensive to copy those 70 pages than it would have been to order it, but we could copy it a few pages at a time. So, Greyhawk was the first D&D book that I "owned", and I spent hours studying every single page (when it wasn't with John). I love the original AD&D PHB cover, but nothing says D&D to me like the Greyhawk cover, and contents. The image of each page, taken as a whole, is burned into my brain, indelible and iconic. When I see those pages, my heart yearns for the old adventures like a hound straining at the leash.

When I found Swords & Wizardry, it was like finding D&D all over again. I really should qualify that just a bit. WhiteBox specifically gave me that feeling. It still does. When I look at the cover (the Pete Mullen piece with the giants raining pain down on a colorful little party), I get that Christmas morning thrill I got when D&D was new and each thought of it was pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming. Even though they are very nearly identical, I never get that rush from Core, for some reason.

Then there's S&W Complete. This one ties me up in knots. I want to play D&D from the D&D books, the LBBs plus Greyhawk and a smattering of Eldritch Wizardry (best Supplement name ever, bar none). I wouldn't have noticed if Blackmoor had never been published. Sorry, no disrespect intended. Just not a fan of Assassins, Monks, aquatic adventuring, or toady temples. Complete has everything I want in my D&D (plus a dash of what I don't) all between two covers.

Lastly, there is my Crucible house rules document. I'll get back to it one day. Maybe. I was going too far with it, and when I finished it wouldn't really be D&D anymore. I'm going to do a post on just what went astray with that project later this week.

Now that we understand the riches, here's the embarrassment. With the exception of Crucible, I can't focus on one of these for any meaningful amount of time because one leads me into another. I'll be studying the LBBs and find something confusing, so look in WhiteBox to see if it offers more clarity. As soon as I see that cover . . . BAM! . . . Then I start thinking about adding a class or two, so I think I'll just lift them from Complete . . . BOOM! . . . So, I'm flipping through Complete when I want to see how Greyhawk handled the Thief's progression . . . and the cycle is back at start. What a fantastic fix to find oneself in.

New Link

I've updated the link associated with the OSR logo to the right --->

The new link is an excellent write-up/graphic depiction of what several retroclones are actually cloning. I found it to be a very good intro when I first discovered the OSR, then I lost track of it. Now that I've "found" it, I am happy to share it with my readers. Thanks, Rockjaw, for such a cool, informative break-down.

Also, for the convenience of anyone interested, I have uploaded a copy the Old School Primer by Matt Finch. It's on my GoogleDocs (link at bottom of page). It is freely available, and does a fine job of describing what it means to play "old school". Definitely worth a read, even if you started with the old school games a million years ago, like me. Years of bad habits and games can obscure the essence of what made gaming fun to start with. I found this little document a fine reminder.