More Troll Questions Answered

Because I like it (and don't like things like the 30-day challenge), I'm answering Top Ten Troll Questions Part Two.

(1). Should level drain take away one level of experience points from the character? Yes or No? If no, what should level drain do?

Yes. It should be reversible with some spell though.

(2). Should the oil used in lanterns do significant damage (more than 1 hp in damage) if thrown on an opponent and set on fire? Yes or No? If yes, how much damage should it do?

I prefer Holmes's rule of 1d8 on the first turn, and 2d8 on the second. It does a lot for a group's tactics to have the fire option.

(3). Should poison give a save or die roll, with a fail rolled indicated instant death? Yes or No? If no, how should game mechanics relating to poison work?

Poison is save or die unless specified otherwise. Specifying otherwise is good.

(4). Do characters die when they reach 0 hit points? Yes or No? If no, then at what point is a character dead?

I prefer that characters die when killed. I do sometimes use a d6 to determine how many rounds dying takes; if a character is taken below 0 hit points, the "negative" HP are factored into the die roll (i.e. at -2 HP you take d6-2 rounds to die). Magical healing is possible while dying, but no "I bind their wounds" - it's a mortal wound.

(5). Does the primary spell mechanic for a magic user consist of a "memorize and forget system" (aka Vancian)? Yes or No? If no, what alternative do you use?

Yes. Though I like the Holmes scroll rules, as I've discussed here multiple times.

(6). Should all weapons do 1d6 damage or should different weapons have varying dice (1d4, 1d8, etc...) for damage?

I go back and forth on this, because I mainly prefer OD&D and Holmes, but I also like different dice. If I'm running straight-up OD&D or Holmes, I use d6; when running Moldvay or S&W, I use variable damage dice.

(7). Should a character that has a high ability score in their prime requisite receive an experience point bonus? Yes or No?

Yes.

(8). Should a character with an strength of 18 constitution get a +3 bonus to hit points, or a +2 bonus to hit points, or a +1 bonus to hit points or no bonus to hit points? And should other ability scores grant similar bonuses to other game mechanics?

Holmes and Moldvay agree: 18 Constitution gives +3 per hit die. My ideal is that Strength gives +1 to hit for 13 or higher (-1 at 8 or lower), and Wisdom gives similar bonus/penalty on save vs. spells. Intelligence gives you languages, and if you read this blog you should know I think that's a terrific ability.

(9). Should a character have 1 unified saving throw number, or 3 saving throw types based on ability scores (reflex, fortitude, will), or 5 types based on potential game effects (magic wand, poison attacks)? or something else?

The third most popular post in this blog's history doesn't lie: Save vs. Death Ray!

So on that basis alone, 5 saves, as long as one is Death Ray.

(10). Should a cleric get (A) 1 spell at 1st level (B) no spells at 1st level (C) more than 1 spell at 1st level?

B, no spells at 1st level. Clerics in older D&D should be gaining levels quickly. It also reduces the feeling that they are "heal-bots" that you get in AD&D, and makes their healing magic more of a valuable resource.

Historical versus Pseudo-Historical Settings

I've started working on an idea for a sandbox and multi-level dungeon. The inspiration is from old Roman catacombs (there are some pretty amazing maps out there) beneath an old abandoned Roman city near a backwater modern village. I'm thinking that Glanum in the South of France as an inspiration for place, and possibly using the Albigensian Crusade as a setting to have some high-level drama with a local component (heresy and all that).

Which is all well and good. Where I'm a bit torn is whether this module should be set in the actual Languedoc or in a fictional analog. James Raggi stuck his Better Than Any Man in historical Germany during the Thirty Years' War, and I think it works fairly well as a module. But there is an automatic feeling from "we're in historical Europe" in games I've run there that I'm not sure I want to evoke in this particular sandbox (which I am hoping to eventually get into shape as a proper module).

Some excellent fantasy literature has managed to be set directly on earth. Adept's Gambit is a novella set during the Seleucid rule of Tyre, rather than in the traditional Lankhmar of Fafhrd and the Mouser. C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry and Clark Ashton Smith's Averoigne stories take place in medieval France just as my sandbox, complete with fictitious towns and provinces.

It has certain advantages, as I discussed in the "Dark Age Dungeons" article in the second issue of Dungeon Crawl. You get the richness of medieval Christianity, although that is sometimes a step too far for some people. There's a whole world of culture that you can draw from, although it also restricts you from being able to freely make up as much.

What I'm wondering is whether a thin veneer of pseudo-history might better serve the overarching goal of a flavorful setting while avoiding getting bogged down in details about reality. For instance, because it's inspired by an area that spoke Occitan (sometimes known by the name of one of its dialects, Provençal), French names would be wildly historically wrong in a real-world setting, but in a fantasy analog of France, I can use French names which would give it a much more recognizable flavor.

Simply for my own running, being able to make up churches (and a conflict similar to the Albigensian Crusade but different) would be a major bonus. Too much Christianity is a bit off to me, and the devil-worshiping goat-men could also be a race of demon-worshippers. It lets us detach a bit and insert a good amount of extra "fantasy" into this process.

I also think this is easier to fit into another fantasy setting. Languedoc is specific, whereas my pseudo-France will be much more ready to slip into an already established world. The labels easier to change, the references less baked in by nature.

Now, if I could only figure out which version of D&D I want to run this in...

The Uniqueness of Things

One pronounced philosophical trend I have seen in OSR circles is a general attitude in favor of what I would call the uniqueness of things. By this I mean the idea of downplaying (even radically so) the standard list of monsters and magic items, in favor of making each of them unique. For instance, in Lamentations of the Flame Princess, James Raggi purposefully omitted the standard catalog of monsters. And Jeff Rients has put out a call (which I contributed to) for unique artifacts and oddments to replace many of the "standard" magic items. But it's had me thinking.

Personally I will admit to feeling cramped by the number and variety of monsters usually available in Dungeons & Dragons. I've always been a fan of new monster collections, and of products like Raggi's Random Esoteric Creature Generator, which help to spice things up beyond the very plain set of creatures you normally see. I also agree with the sentiment that monsters should be monstrous, and not familiar.

But...certain things seem iconic to me, too much so to let go. To say it's D&D with no orcs, and no swords + 1, may be true but it's a somehow diminished D&D. It's like running without clerics or something - you can do it, and it may be great for flavor, but it's a difference. At the same time, there is shock value in the new, but I think it can wear out more easily than people have given it credit for. If things are always unique, then uniqueness itself isn't as special - it becomes the new normal.

So I see merit in both keeping our traditional approaches, and to varying it up. Which, to be honest, 3rd edition had by the bucket-load. DMs complained through the 3.x era that single encounters took longer to stat out than they did to run - and these didn't exactly fly by. I think that we have to learn from that, the lesson that making every monster totally variable simply takes too long to actually make it a practical solution to the problem of monsters being one-note. Templates, statistics, feats and so on are simply an overload for something that is at best a single usage.

All of these factors suggest, almost naturally, a solution. Unlike 3.x, which reveled in adding layer after layer to monsters, the old school does things straightforwardly. Most creatures don't have ability scores of any kind, or rankings beyond HD, AC, and their methods of attacks. A solution that I think really embraces this is to make monsters different in one dimension. This can be radically varied; a tribe of orcs may take half damage from fire, or an ogre may have a plague of rats at its command, or the giant rats might have wings, or a lizardman may have acidic blood that corrodes or destroys weapons that hit it. The thing to take away is one variation per monster, for most of the standard creatures that will be encountered. Big ones could use the "Random Esoteric Creature Generator" or similar; smaller foes can be traditional but with a twist.

Of course, this pretty much sets up how the book with the trap charts is going to develop - into a whole big book of stuff for your old school Dungeons & Dragons game. We'll see how it goes. Any thoughts on directions to go with this would be greatly appreciated.

The Direction of Old School Gaming

This post said a lot that I have been wanting to say for a while. I've read Alarums & Excursions from as far back as they go, and people were...using Greyhawk, modding the living crap out of the rules, and doing things that they keep on doing down to this day. People wanted different levels of crunch and detail, and they improvised as necessary. Tunnels & Trolls and Chivalry & Sorcery – that's about as yin and yang as you can get - both came out before AD&D.

At the heart of what I think is the problem is that the old school movement has, for a while, been trying to adjust expectations in a certain direction, one embodied in the slogan "rulings, not rules." It's not about the objective quality of rules, it's meant to break people out of the assumption that you really need a 3e-style single, unified mechanic and rules for every occasion (one roll to rule them all...).

And it works. The old school style is a success. Combats in OD&D go lightning fast, because there's nothing to worry about in terms of complicating factors. It's a matter of imagining it and having the rules match quickly. Dungeon delving is more fun when it's about problem-solving and trial and error instead of every trap and trick being a roll-off between the thief and the DM. Ability scores barely matter, and determine a couple of key factors.

For some people, that's enough. The core of the game holds together for them just fine, and they enjoy playing with it as is. That's great. But other people don't have the same enchantment with the bare basics. For me, what has really hampered things is the relative limits of creature design you have in by the book OD&D. There isn't much you can do for different creatures' attacks; a bonus is a pretty big thing, not dished out lightly. Two dice even moreso. I don't think it's an accident that D&D never went back to "everything is a d6" – monster diversity just works better with the minor complications that ensue. And the thing is, very few gamers really played like that. Gygax didn't. Don't know about Arneson. But the reality is, people wanting simpler combat mechanics at the time were more likely to go to Tunnels & Trolls, where the whole thing is two big die rolls. It's a great little game, which I like a lot for the solo adventure concept, but not what I'd want for my day to day. That takes nothing away from it.

This is the kind of thing that I think old-school gamers have started to hit up against. For some, the extreme varieties of "rules light" was just a step in getting to a further path. For others, it was the end of the journey. It leaves a much bigger problem: where do we go from here?

Well, by way of answering, I think there's a little more clear view of what could be published. Probably the easiest thing to do is lots of dungeon modules. These are something we know how to do fairly well, how to craft and publish and use a printed module. And that's going to be part of what our next step is. But then there's the whole rest of the story: creating material that works for people regardless of what step of their own crazy journey they're on. Stuff that works if you're doing OD&D, B/X D&D, AD&D, RC D&D, S&W, BFRPG, LL, microlite74, OSRIC or some combination up to and including "all of the above."

Personally, I think our biggest successes thus far have pointed in the right direction. Fight On! has had a ton of "drop this in your game" type of articles which are awesome, and Green Devil Face is an idea whose time is gladly here. Monsters of Myth, another collaborative effort, is another highlight of the Old School Renaissance so far. And I think there's ample room for another kind of project, which I've talked about before: the old school miscellany. Thing is, I'm not sure I want to come up with enough material to put something out on my own. It's going to wind up being filler, at least in part, and I don't want to put out something I can't be proud of. So I'm going to open this idea up for discussion: who else would be interested in contributing to such a project? I'm not talking about a fanzine, but a book of stuff that is usable to drop into your games or reference when you need a chart, or some flavor, or some variants to get things going. Would anyone be willing to commit some contribution to such an effort?

Thoughts on Arduin

Geoffrey McKinney's recent post on the OD&D forum (read it here) talks about some of the strangest and most infamous of old-school games, the original Arduin trilogy. I've had the books for months and read them off and on, and I occasionally get the desire to just rip off big chunks and run with them in D&D. I still have the sort of eyes that read the reduced typeface of the original trilogy, although I may be tempted by the allure of a single hardcover volume (available here) in the future.

Arduin was marketed as its own game, to a certain extent, but fundamentally it was David Hargrave's house rules for the original D&D game. It's interesting to look through it, almost to the point where I think it should be required reading for people talking about OD&D in this day and age. Like most gamers at the time, Hargrave cheerfully embraced the OD&D supplements, hacking and modifying away at bits of them rather than taking the very modern stance of embracing "just the original 3 rulebooks." It's also rather accurate as a snapshot of the kind of thing that gamers, at least the sort who wrote in to Alarums & Excursions, were doing at the time: there are charts for character special abilities, critical hits, a mana point system, and concerns about all those areas where OD&D wasn't really clear.

But beyond that, Arduin reflects certain realities about the time that OD&D was out that weren't true about the subsequent period. Hargrave was very conscious that he wasn't writing eternal rules down to the ages. His tone is constantly that of one participant in the larger conversation about how to do things – albeit a participant who'd gotten himself a bully pulpit by publishing his rules as a supplement. And this was the reality of the gaming scene at the time: TSR was regarded as having a great product, but nobody was poring through the works of Gygax for hidden pearls of wisdom; his ideas were regarded as nothing more than one way to do things. What I think people miss is that this is the context of the publication of AD&D as we know it. Into this volatile stew of gamers taking D&D off in varied and colorful directions, in which Tunnels & Trolls was considered about as good as the "real thing", Gygax launched a set of hardbound rule books that really solidified a lot of the play culture to come afterward. But the AD&D books have every mark of being birthed in this ongoing milieu; the game was then wrenched out of it by sudden fad status, and the idea of a set in stone "D&D" replaced it.

Arduin, because it's back in print, serves as a living reminder that the game wasn't always that way. Even if you don't embrace a single thing from its rules (although how anyone can pass up air sharks is beyond me), the more important thing is to look at the original D&D game as it was seen in its early days. Sometimes I think that the best thing we can do in the old-school renaissance is to create a dozen or two Arduins, reinterpretations of D&D that expand on the wild possibilities in the game rather than constraining ourselves to trying to understand and appreciate what Gygax managed to put into the first three D&D books ever published.

Gygax and the old school

In the very first issue of the APAzine Alarums & Excursions, Mark Swanson wrote that he subscribed to a simple slogan — "D&D is too important to leave to Gary Gygax." A&E started in June 1975, the very infancy of the hobby, before even The Dragon made an appearance. Swanson was describing his differences with the way spells worked in the OD&D rules as described by Gygax, but he definitely hit on one of the points I want to explore.

For the curious, Gygax responded to Swanson in a letter published in A&E #2, and quite heartily agreed. It's important to remember that Gygax was not held in the kind of regard that he has been by latter-day followers; he was a designer who had released a game, and while other hobbyists were enthusiastic about it, they were also frequently perplexed by or in outright disapproval of the rules as originally presented in the "three little booklets". On the whole, Gygax's treatment of magic seemed to garner the most controversy. Very few contributors to A&E responded positively to the quasi-Vancian system presented in OD&D, or any of its possible permutations.

In a broader sense, I think that Gygax needs to be taken with a healthy grain of salt in the old school community. Obviously we owe the man a tremendous debt of gratitude for his design, and I think his philosophy of dungeon exploration games contains a lot of things that are worth taking to heart. But there are two caveats here. First, Gygax's interpretation is just one take — whether it's in the 1974 OD&D rules set or not. Second, he was a normal person and his interpretations changed a lot over the years, like anyone's ought to. The more imperious Gygax of the 1979 DMG and the years to follow was not exactly the same as the one who had been just another gamer a few years earlier, and when he explained his philosophy and ran games for people in his twilight years (certainly too few) they reflected a different level of maturity and perspective. In the very early days, most gamers knew little about Gygax's intent beyond the sketches presented in OD&D and Supplement I: Greyhawk.

For these reasons, I think it's important to consider Gygax's approach to gaming less as the gospel truth and more as one of several valid approaches that exist for gamers interested in the old school. While there is a definite tendency in the old school community today to stress Gygax's work and approach, I think it should be taken like any other part of D&D history — the good should be used for what it is and the bad left behind, with "good" and "bad" being what's good for your game. If Gygax happened to have a few more hits and a few less misses than most designers, all the better. But nothing Gary Gygax ever said should stand in the way of you running your game the way you best see fit. And Gary would've stood behind that statement all the way.