Solutions? The monolith owes you none

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Image from LotFP store

Let’s talk about agency and horror. A big part of horror is not being in control, and perhaps being in situations that don’t make sense. Horror movies use all kinds of techniques in an attempt to achieve this effect, from dissonance in music to odd camera angles. The general trajectory of a horror story usually goes from mundane reality to twisted reality, and then back to mundane reality after the denouement, though sometimes in a way that things can never be the same again (the is a common trope of Lovecraft, due to possession of some forbidden cosmic knowledge).

Agency is, in some ways, the exact opposite of this, and undermines horror to the extent that you have it. True agency implies that the world around you is understandable, is amenable to problem solving, and that ultimately the choices that you make matter. Agency is also what much old school gaming philosophy is based around. It’s the why nonlinear dungeons are prized, and why the sandbox is held up as the setting ideal. On the one hand, roleplaying as a medium is uniquely suited to horror, because the player identifies with the PC in a direct way that is almost impossible to achieve in other forms. On the other hand, choices that matter undermine the sense of helplessness that is intrinsic to horror.

The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time is thus in a tricky place, trying to straddle the somewhat incongruent genres of cosmic horror and gaming that preserves agency. At its best, Monolith presents some truly wonderful vignettes, set pieces, and innovative mechanics that can be used with any traditional fantasy roleplaying game. It also contains some absurdities, however, ostensibly in an effort to evoke the sense of paradox and impossibility of Lovecraftian horror. A few brief notes about the presentation of the module before I continue to talk about the content. The illustrations by Aeron Alfrey are wonderful and unique, and fit the mood perfectly (the lightsurfing invaders image is a particular favorite of mine). The layout is also clear and lacks distracting background images that compete with the text (a problem that has marred some past Lamentations releases). This is the best looking Lamentations module to date, in my opinion.

It’s impossible to talk about this module intelligently without giving anything away, so consider this a spoiler warning. You can jump down to the paragraph that begins “This module is a welcome reminder” if you want to totally avoid spoilers. Despite the hedged praise I have above, there are number of encounters and aspects of Monolith that just don’t seem like they would work very well in a roleplaying context, mostly because of predetermined endings.

Consider, for example, the Owls’ Service encounter (this is beautifully written, by the way, and works much better as a short story than it does as an encounter). In it, the players encounter a clearing with some large owl statues and a skeleton which are surrounded by tangled vegetation. There is no way out, and just to make that clear, here is the advice that the referee is given (page 14):

Slicing through the plants slowly drains HP through sheer exhaustion: 1 point per hour, or whatever is necessary to deliver the message. Parties or players desperately interested in prolonged, miserable combat with an unkillable foe too wet to burn and too deeply rooted to extract should be rewarded: suitably crawly wandering creatures, down where the plants hide them, begin striking for heroes’ Achilles tendons. Meanwhile, sap takes the polish off metal or lacquer surfaces as vines entangle straps and buckles holding armor on. The kindly Referee can provide a fighter’s corpse, pinned by thousands of plant roots and vines, the body slowly becoming the thing that killed it. If players seem particularly slow to get the point, the fighter wears ruined armor just like one player’s, down to the same maker and year stamped on a rivet or vambrace: armor now a useless, scummed-over basin for more plants. Moving back toward the clearing is considerably easier: the plant barrier effect seems directional.

The real meat of the encounter is similarly meaningless in terms of gaming content. There is no way to learn about it, defeat it through skillful play, or even avoid it. It is merely a way to inflict a tragic fate upon a PC. As Raggi writes:

Solutions? Explanations? The Monolith owes you none.

The Owls’ Service is a great story, but a terrible encounter. Inescapable tragedy is horrific (it is the source of the horror in the Oedipus cycle, for example), but I’m not sure it has any place in a roleplaying game, at least when applied to PCs. There may be exceptions for games with a very limited objective. Paranoia, perhaps? Or Call of Cthulhu? I don’t really have experience with either. In any case, I think that Monolith is marketed to games interested in weird fantasy, not inescapable fate. Also, many of the consequences of this module only flower in the context of a campaign that continues; it doesn’t really deliver its payload as a one-shot (the same thing is true of Death Love Doom, the other recent Raggi module, which I will probably cover in a future post).

The plateau encounter is another example of a “screw you” encounter that is impossible to avoid. The characters suddenly find themselves on a plateau and “turning around and going back is not an option” (page 15). Any attempt to descend the cliff safely results in damage as if they fell the entire distance, but jumping off the cliff is completely safe, and there’s not really any way to determine this from the player’s perspective. Further (same page):

If a character jumps off the edge in despair with the serious intent of committing suicide (Referee judgment), the character of course does not die, and they get to reroll all of their ability scores, keeping any results that are greater than the original values.

I consider this encounter to be a total failure from the design perspective, though it has potential to be interesting with a bit more infrastructure, especially if the hazard is also a shortcut of some kind. That would provide an interesting choice.

Here are a lot of things things that I liked, too. The mist encounter. Why should geography always work as expected in a fantasy world? Does anyone remember the enchanted forests from some of the Zelda games? This effect is similar, though I also believe it could use some clues. The community of hedonists is well crafted, if you like moral dilemmas (and this one is much more interesting than the standard “monster babies” dilemma). The great weapon whose wielder is also its sheath.

There is a fascinating bit of agency inversion at work in this module, though it does not live up to its promise. PCs have almost no agency at all while in the valley (most of the valley encounters force the players to engage with them, and don’t allow players to affect the outcome in meaningful ways). However, once they get inside the monolith, there is no physical layout at all. Expressing a desire for something causes it to manifest. If you desire the exit, it appears before you. If you desire something to fight, that triggers an encounter with monolith denizens. There are many other examples of locations keyed to player desire rather than game world spacial relationship (and it is worth noting that the module has no maps). There is something really interesting about going from no agency to absolute agency, which might actually work if the lead-in encounters weren’t quite so crude in their drive to force players to experience the referee’s cool thing no matter what they do.

Despite these seemingly harsh criticisms, this module is a welcome reminder that these games are what we make them; there are no limits. Why not make dungeons where certain aspects can be mentally adjusted by the PCs? Why not mess with time? Who cares if the economy of the starting village is upended by loot from the dungeon? The consequences of these things are the stuff that memorable games are made of. As referees, we are often too cautious, not wanting to rock the boat for fear of “unbalancing” a campaign. To quote Heath Ledger’s Joker again:

Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I’m an agent of chaos. Oh and you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It’s fair.

That is, in the end, the rub, and the reason that I can’t wholeheartedly recommend Monolith. There are parts of it that are not fair. There are no clues to many of the tricks within, which would be required for an agency-preserving game. Exactly what fair means in the context of a tabletop RPG deserves a more thorough treatment that is beyond the scope of this post, but I would be curious if anyone else who is familiar with the contents of this module would argue that it is fair.

OSRCon 2

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That’s me in the black t-shirt, sort of in the middle (source)

I spent saturday morning at OSRCon exploring Dwimmermount with fellow blogger Ram (and several others). James M. was referee. I rolled up a second level magic-user named Eknuv and we proceeded to explore the dungeon. It felt like we were very successful (though who knows what all we missed), as we avoided a poison gas trap, defeated several groups of monsters, and discovered a hidden treasure room worth 10,000 GP. Along with other experience, this was enough to promote all of our characters to level 3, which we did. After that, we explored part of dungeon level 2 as well. Overall, this was a great example of how to get a lot done in a limited time, even with many players, and Zak’s suggestion about starting games where players can do things right away holds just as much for in person games as it does in G+ games.

In addition, delving Dwimmermount highlighted the value of small details. You really don’t need a paragraph of description to make a room interesting. One or two features is enough. For example, there was one room that was empty save for small metal rings set into the stone floor making up a pattern. We didn’t figure out what those rings were for, if anything, but the lingering mystery in and of itself is intriguing. This is a good reminder, being in the process of developing a megadungeon of my own. There were many other rooms with similar details, such as columns made of different elements. I’m sure some of those relate to puzzles that we did not solve.

Ed Greenwood running a Forgotten Realms setting (source)

I also played in a Labyrinth Lord game run by Carter Soles (from The Lands of Ara blog). I played Zephyr the cowardly fighter (whose character sheet I unfortunately did not retain, as I needed to leave the game early). That game was basically a commando assault against what seemed to be a haunted keep. As proper adventurers, of course we went in through the roof. There were undead sheep.

The conference as a whole was a lot of fun, though small. I got to play part of a Tunnels & Trolls game run by its creator, which was totally new to me. I also got to watch Ed Greenwood run a session in his Forgotten Realms. In hindsight, I wish I would have made more of an effort to exchange contact info with local OSR gamers or others that I might only know from blogs (for example, I now know that Akrasia was there, though I didn’t meet him). So, if any other readers just happened to be there, leave a comment! Maybe we can get some local Toronto OSR action going, at least semi-regularly.

Level Drain

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D&D wraith (source)

In my OD&D session this past monday, one of the PCs was hit by a wight and lost a level. Miraculously, four first level characters with a few zero level retainers defeated a group of 5 wights (3 HD creatures with numerous invulnerabilities and the fearsome energy drain). Thus, I had to clarify how level drain was going to work.

Talysman posted this interpretation of level drain back in January. When levels are drained, experience points are not decreased, though all level-associated characteristics (hit dice, spell progression, attack rank, turning undead, etc) are adjusted down. Assuming the character survives the ordeal, the lost levels can be regained. This separates the idea of experience points from the idea of level in this limited case, but I don’t think that will cause any major problems.

In Talysman’s example, gaining a single experience point is enough to recover a level, but no more than one level can be regained per session. So, in essence, a drained level forces a PC to be run at below strength for one or more sessions. This is a bit less final than permanently losing all that XP, but still costs the player time. I can see how this would make sense in game world terms, too. An encounter with undead should be a harrowing experience, and characters need some time to recover their confidence and abilities afterwards. I don’t think this weakens level drain too much, as the wickedest aspect of level drain remains: PCs killed and reduced to level zero rise again, adding to the ranks of the undead.

The basic idea works particularly well for Vaults of Pahvelorn, as HP is rerolled every session in any case. So there is no hassle about remembering the previous hit dice rolls. However, it does require a few minor adjustments to fit my other rules. For example, I award XP when treasure is spent, so by Talysman’s rules a surviving PC that has been level drained would immediately regain a level following the session (assuming they had some treasure to spend). I think that PCs should be required to run at least one session at the lower level for the drain to have impact. Thus, rather than regaining lost levels after accumulating more XP, one lost level will return per following session survived. Practically speaking, this is almost the same thing, as it is a rare session that results in zero XP.

Types of Preparation

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Download a draft PDF of my session document

What makes up the work that a referee does when preparing to run an RPG? Here is a taxonomy that I find useful for evaluating the utility of published products, and also for deciding how to spend my own limited time. I cover the categories from the general to the specific.

ATMOSPHERE

Atmosphere includes the kind of things that will define a setting at the highest level. Preparation at the this level is like basic scientific research. It is necessary if you don’t want stagnation, but is not very useful when the rubber meets the road in actual play. Luckily or unluckily, the vast majority of published RPG material is atmosphere. For example, most published tabletop RPG settings fit here. They are very far from being play-ready, though they might have some good ideas. Most game entities (the contents of “splatbooks”) also fit here, and include things like monsters, treasure, and spells. Even most modules are better situated here. Fun pleasure reading, interesting ideas, but often not so good at the table. I don’t want to denigrate atmosphere too much; you need to get your ideas from somewhere. But reading a module or game setting is often at the same level as watching a movie or reading a novel.

SETTING

At some point, you need to start deciding where things exist in the campaign world. In the simplest case, you don’t need to do much work here; a town and a dungeon are enough for traditional D&D. Genre expectations (e.g.: generic Tolkienized medieval fantasy, Gotham City) can do much of the work for you, assuming that you don’t require your setting to be unique. The standard tradeoff here is approachability versus specialness (the same tradeoff exists for base rules and house rules). This level, for me, is no longer about general info (that would go above in the atmosphere category); the point of this is stuff that PCs might interact with at a macro level, both in spacial and relationship terms (e.g.: north of the kingdom are mountains, the guild of thieves seeks to steal the secrets from the council of magicians). There are few examples of published setting material under this definition. Most published “settings” are 90% atmosphere with 10% actionable setting info mixed within. I’m still not sure what the best way to store and reference setting info is, especially for use during the game. Character generation rules (or creation of pre-gens), selection of base system, and house rules all also fit here, practically speaking.

ADVENTURE
In an old school style game, this will likely be a site to explore, but it could also be something like an NPC relationship map. It must allow players to make low-level tactical decisions. In terms of published RPG material, the module is the most obvious analogue, but I’m coming to believe that the one page dungeon is a better model. Unfortunately, historically most published examples have been flawed by verbosity and linear story-based presentation that do not allow player choice to have much influence over how the game plays out. Verbose modules can still be valuable, but as atmosphere as described above.
SESSION
This phase doesn’t have a published analogue that I have seen (pointers welcome!), and so it gets far less attention than it deserves. For many people (myself included, until relatively recently), this phase entails a few hastily scrawled notes, maybe a map, and perhaps some refresher cram-memorization if running a module. However, I find that I have been able to run games much more effectively given a slightly more structured approach. Specifically, I need to be able to track time and monster health. To assist with this, I roll up a set of encounters and hit dice beforehand (inspired by Jim’s DM prep posts over at Carjacked Seraphim and Courtney’s session tracker over at Hack & Slash). Turn sequence and hit dice are randomized before every session. This means that during play, I only need to check things off. It is surprisingly freeing to have this info predetermined, and I highly recommend it. Before I did this, I was unable to reliably track time. Afterwards, it became trivial. In addition to this tool, I sometimes create a list of more complicated encounters, compile a list of names to use for improvised NPCs, and have a section to note down treasure or “important things” discovered. This document is still a work in progress though, and I assume it will continue to evolve.

Magic-Users are awesome

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JB has a post up about how the traditional D&D magic-user class sucks. I’m not putting words in his mouth, either:

So when I say, MAGIC-USERS SUCK, I’m only talking about the magic-using class, as used by player characters. And my astute observation (that they suck) comes from a careful review of the rules as written and their actual use in-play. My concern is about the “fun factor” of the class, both for the player who actually plays the character, the other players in the party, and the DM running the adventure.

In contrast, I think the magic-user as written is great, one spell slot at first level and all. First I’ll tell you why, and then I’ll address a few of the points he raises directly.

Eknuv the magic-user, tamer of hobgoblins

Eknuv the magic-user, tamer of hobgoblins

This morning I played a magic-user in Dwimmermount at OSRCon, and never once did I feel like I had nothing to do. We started at second level, but this still only gave me two prepared first level spells, a scroll, and two hit dice (which was 5 HP, as it turned out). Still in danger of being killed in one hit. I had AC 9, two daggers, and a small collection of adventuring gear. I had sleep, charm person, and a scroll of shield (which I never used). The sleep got us past a group of hobgoblins, and the charm person got me a hobgoblin henchman. But I didn’t feel the need to use any spells until fairly deep into the dungeon, on the second level.

Let’s also look at the list of first level spells. I’ll stick to the 3 LBBs here, because I think they encapsulate the essence of the class best. Later editions dilute the list by adding direct damage spells like magic missile too early, but the essence still remains if you look.

  1. detect magic
  2. hold portal
  3. read magic
  4. read languages
  5. protection from evil
  6. light
  7. charm person
  8. sleep

All of these spells are solutions to common dungeon problems. Detect magic can tell you which treasure is most valuable, or what aspect of a complex puzzle you should focus on (or avoid). Read magic allows you to use scrolls that you find without needing to retreat to the surface or potentially identify some magic items, if there are inscriptions. Read languages allows you to decipher maps or clues (I wished that I would have memorized read languages today when I was exploring Dwimmermount). Protection from evil prevents enchanted monsters from getting near you (like level-draining undead). Light is a failsafe in case you lose your main light source, or need to light an area that can’t be well lighted by torches or lanterns (like under water, in within magical darkness). Charm person gets you a retainer. Sleep allows you to avoid one direct confrontation. You get one of these potential wildcards in addition to everything else you can do as a person with two arms, two legs, a brain, and exploration equipment.

How much of a character’s capabilities should be located in the class “extras” and how much should be player creativity and interaction with the environment? I see the second category as primary, and the first as secondary. Everyone is an adventurer. Fighters get a small advantage in terms of combat (a bit more HP, better weapon selection, etc); thieves can climb and have a small advantage in some dungeoneering activities; clerics get to turn undead (and no spell at first level!); magic-users get a spell and the ability to use magic items and scrolls.

Which brings us to scrolls. How could JB have forgotten to mention scrolls? Scrolls allow magic-users to carry a potentially limitless number of utility and attack spells. If using the Holmes rules, they can be scribed for 100 GP per spell level, and if not using those rules DMs can place them as treasure or make them available for purchase (doing so is part of the class design, not a house rule). Even more spectacularly, depending on your edition of choice, you may be able to cast spells above your level from a scroll (I believe AD&D gives a chance of failure, but OD&D and B/X allow magic-users to cast spells of any level if they are on a scroll). In addition to scrolls, there are, of course, other magic items, most of which cannot be used by any other class. Even a small amount of adventuring will provide a fledgling magic-user with plenty of resources and options.

Now to individual points. Quotes are from JB’s post linked above.

The existence of house rules in many, many campaigns to change or increase magic-user effectiveness.

People house-rule many things. The most common house-rule I have seen in TSR D&D (and its simulacra) is full HP at first level. This is something I don’t think is necessary, is usually not specific to the magic-user, and even if implemented still leaves the magic-user often dead after one hit.

The modification and tweaking of the class and its abilities over-time and across editions, expressing dissatisfaction with the class as conceived in prior/earlier editions.

This has happened to all the classes, not just the magic-user. The humble fighter has probably come in for the most revision (due to some people not liking the lack of “awesome things to do” written on the character sheet), but every single class has been targeted at one time or another. The thief takes away skills from other characters, the cleric is a healbot, or is out of place in swords & sorcery settings, etc, etc. I do play commonly with several house rules about weapons and armor, but this is because I don’t care for weapons restrictions in general, not because I think that the magic-user class needs more weapons. Also, the OD&D method of using d6 for both hit dice and damage solves the same problem.

Instead, they’ll be skulking around the back of the pack, or whining that they need to retreat the dungeon to re-memorize their sleep spell(s), or bitterly complaining that they “can’t do anything.” Or all of the above.

Retreat is a strategy that is often available to PCs. There is nothing wrong with this; it will have advantages and disadvantages like any other choice. I don’t understand the complaint about the 15 minute workday. By all means, retreat if you think it will benefit you! This is only a problem if you have a planned sequence of events that your players must experience in order. Also, can’t do anything? How about holding the light source, flinging oil, reloading missile weapons, or any number of other helpful things?

Another house rule I often use is to give magic-users a chance to retain spells after casting them by succeeding at a save versus spells. But the same house-rule also provides for spell fumbles if you roll a 1 on the save (the point was not to give the magic-user more utility, but to make magic less reliable and more flavorful).

In Praise of Modules

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Hating on modules seems to be a common thing. Not just specific modules, but the abstract idea of them. I agree that many modules have problems. Many modules are so poorly laid out for actual use that it almost makes more sense to build something from scratch than to try using them at the table. Many classic AD&D modules fall into this category for me, with their huge wall-of-text room descriptions. However, even hard to use modules can also be read like literature and mined for ideas. Additionally, there is the benefit of getting out of your own head, at least to some degree:

Anybody can make maps and stock them with monsters and treasure. You can even do it randomly. Off-the-cuff refereeing is a skill that indeed requires no outside support, be it commercial or free. But I know when I buy an adventure, I am seeking in-depth descriptions that make the map and the contents of the location come alive, and hopefully in a way that I would never have done on my own. When I run someone else’s adventure, it’s because I want the challenge of running something different, to present my group with something different. Changed names to integrate a work into my setting aside, I don’t want to make an adventure “my own.” The whole point is to escape that for a bit and to charge my own creative batteries by basking in someone else’s creative light.

(From the introduction to Hammers of the God)

I would add a few more practical considerations that favor modules. The first is that it’s almost always easier to learn from examples than it is to learn from manuals. Any programmer will vouch for that insight. The second is that modules provide communal shared experiences. The third is that time is limited. It’s not hard to bake bread, but I still often defer to the baker.

City of the Beast

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Image from Paizo’s page

I just finished reading City of the Beast (also known as Warriors of Mars), Moorcock’s tribute to the planetary romance of Barsoom. I picked this up during Paizo’s recent sale. It is indeed highly derivative, and even eschews Moorcock’s standard problematic hero in favor of a chivalrous John Carter clone (though Michael Kane hails from the 1960s, and fought in Vietnam rather than the US civil war).

Almost needless to say, I didn’t care about a single one of the extremely simple characters, but there are still some interesting setting ideas here. The humans of Mars (or Vashu, as the inhabitants call it) have a well established civilization of graceful, tall buildings of white stone and blue marble with golden traceries. They also possess much lost technology from an ancient race called the Sheev (page 32):

They are very great and few of them still live. They are remote and of an older race than any on Vashu. Our philosophers speculate on their origin, but we know little about them.

And (page 39):

We are content simply to use the things of the Sheev. We were warned in the far past never to tamper with their gifts since it might result in disaster for us! Their mighty civilization once suffered a disaster, but we have only a few legends which speak of it and they are bound up in talk of supernatural entities in whom we no longer believe.

These artifacts include mind-crowns that allow people who don’t speak the same languages to communicate (how convenient), flying ships, light sources which “had once burned much brighter” (nice!), “ethercraft” (space ships), and laser sidearms. Repairing and recharging these items is beyond the knowledge of Vashu’s people, which makes them perfect “magic item” treasures for a tabletop RPG.

Also briefly mentioned in passing are the Yaksha, “ancient enemies of the Sheev but originally of the same race” (page 116). The Yaksha left ancient ruins spread over vast plains covered in black mud and stunted, sinister shrubs.

By the way, despite the cover image, the blue dudes are supposed to be 8 to 10 feet tall (not 20 feet or more). They are called Argzoon and are standins for the noble savage Tharks of Barsoom, though they live in an underground cavern city located in the Caves of Darkness.

Attack Ranks as Attack Bonuses

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Following on my discussion of OD&D AC yesterday, here is how to use OD&D attack ranks with the d20 SRD armor system (which uses armor class as target number, also known as ascending AC).

Attack Ranks
Rank Weak (Magic-user) Average (Cleric, Thief) Strong (Fighter) Attack Bonus
1
levels 1-5
levels 1-4
levels 1-3
+0
2
levels 6-10
levels 5-8
levels 4-6
+2
3
levels 11+
levels 9-12
levels 7-9
+5
4
levels 13+
levels 10-12
+7
5
levels 13-15
+9
6
levels 16+
+12

NOTES

Read the table like: clerics of levels 9 through 12 have attained attack rank 3 and have a base attack bonus of +5.

Again we see the power of three at work here. Weak, average, and strong fighting capabilities are enough to distinguish the classes from each other. Other than a category for not progressing at all, I can’t see any finer granularity adding much value to gameplay.

I have capped the progression of the weak and average classes. It should be obvious how to extrapolate the progression if you want it to be unlimited for all classes. I prefer that the pinacle of fighter combat achievement be higher than other classes.

Yes, it’s a table lookup, but it’s offline, not during the game, so who cares?

Simplified d20 SRD armor bonuses:

Armor Bonuses (Simplified)
Armor AC Bonus Penalty Exploration Tactical
light (leather)
+2
0
120′
40′
medium (chain)
+4
-4 (-20%)
90′
30′
heavy (plate)
+6
-6 (-30%)
60′
20′
shield
+1
-1 (-5%)
N/A
N/A

The really cool thing about this is that there are only 24 different possibilities to remember, and all of them are distinct. So players could potentially use whatever interface they prefer, and it would be all the same to me. So, all are equivalent: I hit plate, or I hit AC 3, or I hit AC 16 (my notes generally use the “AC as plate” form).

The penalty is for ability checks and thief abilities. This is taken directly from the d20 SRD, but the numbers work with the original game, so why not? The movement rates are the same as in this encumbrance system, just presented in a slightly different form.

Armor Equivalencies
Armor Descending AC Ascending AC
Unarmored
9
10
Shield
8
11
Leather
7
12
Leather & shield
6
13
Chain
5
14
Chain & shield
4
15
Plate
3
16
Plate & shield
2
17

I’m sure you have seen similar tables to this before, but I include this one here to show the minimum knowledge I need to keep in my head. You’ll also notice that the ascending AC column above is identical to the first OD&D combat rank.

THAC2, OD&D AC, and Combat Ranks

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In OD&D, there are only 8 armor classes. AC 9 is the worst (unarmored) and AC 2 is the best (plate & shield). Each number maps reliably back to a given armor type. So, presented with AC 5, you know that means chain armor (or medium armor, if you’re abstracting it).

Probably medium armor, depending on your setting (source)
  1. Plate & shield
  2. Plate
  3. Chain & shield
  4. Chain
  5. Leather & shield
  6. Leather
  7. Shield
  8. Unarmored

There are no other armor classes in the whole world. If you roll well enough on your starting gold, you can begin at first level with the best armor class in the game (plate armor and a shield cost 60 GP, well below the expected value of 3d6 * 10 starting GP, which is 105 GP). Contrast this with the cost of full plate in Second Edition: 4000 – 10000 GP.

Magic armor does not modify AC, but rather penalizes the attack roll, and the most potent magic armor in Men & Magic is rated +2. By the book, magic shields only help one third of the time, and only if the magical bonus of the shield is greater than that of the armor (i.e., they don’t stack). That requires an extra die roll per combat (extra fiddly), and so will almost certainly be something I jettison. Maybe I’ll house rule magic shields to an additional flat penalty of 1 to the attacker’s roll, along with the full magic bonus for certain saving throws (like dragon breath). I’ve always liked the idea if shields being extra good against dragon breath. [Edit: see here for a clever way from Talysman to handle the shield chance without resorting to another die roll.]

In addition to this form of fixed descending AC, OD&D uses something that I referred to in a previous post as a matrix of combat ranks (my words, not from the book) rather than THAC0 or attack bonus. All classes move through the same ranks, but fighters move through them faster (advancing to the second rank at level 4, when attaining the “hero” title). From Men & Magic, page 19:

Magic-users advance in steps based on five levels/group (1-5, 6-10, etc.), and Clerics in steps based on four levels/group (1-4, 5-8, etc.). Normal men equal 1st level fighters.

I actually like this staggered progression (which is preserved in Moldvay Basic), because it means that PCs need to survive by their wits for a while before they get any mechanical advancement (though I can see why some people might like a smoother progression, and in fact using Target 20 with a smoothly advancing attack bonus seems to be one of the more common OD&D house rules).

Attack Matrix 1

The OD&D approach does have some drawbacks compared to both THAC0 and armor class as target number (more commonly known as ascending armor class). THAC0 is easier to reason with than attack matrices, and direct target numbers don’t require any math (other than situational bonuses and penalties, though in practice those modifiers can end up being rather complicated in 3E).

In the end, all these systems are about the same level of complexity, and all require writing the same amount of numbers on the character sheet. In OD&D, you write down your attack rank column (which is a list of target numbers). In 2E, you write down your THAC0 (and probably derive your other target numbers from that). In 3E, you write your base attack bonus adjusted by all the other modifiers next to every weapon (if you are efficient).

However, the matrix approach does have some benefits, the main one being that anchoring AC helps prevent absurd bonus inflation (especially coupled with the simplicity of ability scores in OD&D). This helps make it clear that while mechanical combat advancement is part of the game, it is not the biggest part of the reward structure. Also, simple AC categories may help make weapon versus AC possible (though you do have to deal with rulings about monster hide being similar to what kind of armor).

This is one reason why I don’t care for the extra d20 SRD armor types that managed to creep into Labyrinth Lord. They break the elegant simplicity of the light, medium, or heavy armor types (modified by a potential shield) present in OD&D and Basic D&D. Obviously there are more types of armor than leather, chain, and plate; however, it does not seem useful to make a distinction regarding armor class past that threefold categorization (other differences can be handled by ruling; for example, chain mail could be used as a crude filter, something that it would be difficult to do with hide armor).

D&D Phase Shifts

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JB over at Blackrazor has been writing (one, two, three, four, five) about the phases of D&D (dungeon delving, wilderness exploration, and domain endgame) and how the traditional D&D incentive structure works well for the first, okay for the second, and not so well at all for the third. I more or less agree with his overall analysis. New incentives need to be discovered for domain play, and not just collecting taxes (because that is boring).

As idle thought experiments, here are two variations on the traditional phase-based D&D game. In the first variation, you tell the story backwards. You already have a lord or wizard with a stronghold and followers, and the game is to figure out how they got there. Unlike standard D&D, final death can’t be a danger because you already know that your character makes it to name level. Also unlike standard D&D, the game would end when you reach first level or 0 XP, rather than potentially going on indefinitely.

Would there be a way to make D&D played backwards interesting? I’m not sure, maybe 1d3 adventures per level, with each “death” leading to some sort of complication that would draw out the particular adventure. So getting from name level back to the beginning with the fewest complications would be the achievement. I feel like there is some connection here to the idea of planning out build options up to high levels like is sometimes done in 3E and 4E.

Now for the second variation. What if players started out with a stronghold? Either one per player or collectively. I feel like this would probably feel very different from D&D, despite the fact that all the rules would be identical for things like classes and spells. I’m not sure exactly why this would be the case, except perhaps that in the standard dungeon to wilderness to domain play (assuming a relatively deadly and impartial referee), everything is earned, whereas in this proposed structure you get everything for free. Also, people would not be as attached to their individual characters and thus perhaps not care as much about their advancement.

I imagine such a game progressing by first setting a basic stage (surroundings, stronghold capabilities, followers) and then advancing domain turns (probably one month per turn) to see what happens, based on some series of event tables. Scope could be zoomed in or out as necessary, so for wilderness expeditions, the players would zoom down to the perspective of questing knights and their squires (or magic-users with warders seeking rare spell components).

What would the overall motivation be to keep playing? Perhaps, like Dwarf Fortress, to see how many domain turns you can keep the whole thing going before being overwhelmed by an orc invasion or releasing some nameless menace from a long-sealed tomb? Individual characters need not gain levels (knights could just be level 4 fighters, for example) but I could see gaining powerful magic items still functioning as a reward of sorts. Does this just turn into a war game? Perhaps, but I’m not sure; especially if there are not opposing player-controlled sides.

Beginning complexity would also be higher than traditional D&D (and thus character/domain generation requirements would be heavier), but since there would be multiple characters (a lord, knights, spies, dungeoneers), lethality would not be problematic like it is in heavy chargen systems that make you put all your eggs in one basket. Such a basket is easily sent to the grave with a bad save versus poison roll.

Part of the tension here might be that when playing D&D, people want (or at least expect) to play an individual, whereas the domain level game is really less about individuals and more about collectives. This is why the incentives at the individual level don’t seem to make as much sense. Thus, maybe Game of Thrones style intrigue from the beginning just doesn’t work as well in a game, or at least not in the compulsively obsessive way D&D does.