5E's Biggest Fail: Experience and Advancement. (And a Poll)

Character advancement has been an underlying objective in Dungeons & Dragons since the beginning.  The players maneuver their characters on adventures, they accumulate "experience points", and the characters gain levels and become more powerful.  It's a strong incentive model and a big part of D&D's enduring appeal.  Regardless of the "story" elements present in any individual campaign, character advancement is a default goal that informs the action at the table.  Unfortunately, the experience system is the weakest part of Fifth Edition and my least favorite thing in the new edition.

Traditional D&D awarded experience points primarily for treasure, with a fraction of the experience awarded for defeating monsters.  Depending on the edition, 75% or 80% of the player's experience was gained by recovering treasure.  "Treasure as XP" had profound implications for how players and referees approached old school D&D games.  Dungeon Masters established their campaigns to involve significant exploration, with dungeons, lairs, and hex crawls as popular structures for organizing campaign information and presenting challenges to the players.  (We use the term sandbox play to describe this overall method of presenting a ready-made setting seeded with adventure opportunities; in the video game realm I've seen the term "open world").

The sandbox approach has implications for the players.  Information is their currency to proactively plan their adventures, balancing the perceived risk and reward and making choices regarding which opportunities to pursue.  As players cleared lairs and dungeons, their characters earn experience points by successfully returning to town with treasure.  Treasure is an easy-to-use abstraction for keeping score, since it it's assumed the players explored, overcame traps, used their magic, and outsmarted or defeated monsters through combat or stealth in order to win the day.  Treasure provides transparency that enables player planning.  D&D is a game, after all.

Fast forward to 5E.  I've seen it affectionately called a "nostalgia edition", but the experience system actually hinders the type of game play I described.  By the book, 5E only incentives players to fight and kill monsters, gaining experience solely through combat.  Whereas old school D&D rewarded smart play through exploration and planning, 5E rewards killing everything in sight. Sneaking, stealth, and carefully avoiding fights is actively discouraged by the advancement system.  It is not generally in the player's interest to avoid combats.  Why is "kill them all, let god sort them out" style of gaming the default?

Alternatively, many referees have adopted an arbitrary approach called "milestone experience" (and since I've been running some of the official hardcover adventures in Adventurer's League, I've become a reluctant co-conspirator in the milestone travesty).  Milestone experience is somewhere between a "participation award" for showing up, and outright manipulation - do what I want you to do, little puppets, and I'll give you your cookie.

The reason this topic is important is I'm trying to figure out how I want to move forward with developing homebrew adventures in the land of the 5th.  The lure of returning to proper OSR games is strong.  But 5E is the game system my local players enjoy; they play it at conventions, they own the books, they like the powerful PC's and the unusual races.  There's a crazy number of people that play at the local Adventurer's League nights in the area.  I don't know if my readers are OSR people or 5E people or somewhere in between, but the popularity of "New Dungeons & Dragons" is through the roof.  These are all good reasons to stay the course and figure out how to bend, fold, and mutilate 5E to support a more satisfying play experience.  I honestly don't think of myself as one of those "get off my lawn damn kids" grognard types, clinging to the old ways like a reactionary 1950's apologist, but maybe there is an actual generational thing at work regarding my antipathy towards storytelling and milestones - newer gamers may not mind being told what to do and how to conform to someone else's plan.

I've done some poking around, it doesn't look like any internet brethren have made a good way to replicate treasure as experience points and implemented an old school style sandbox with the 5E; there are some tries.  I believe the vitriol driving this screed is that I'm not terribly interested in rewriting the experience system; the game as written should support the styles of play that made D&D amazing.  Complaining and then claiming to be too lazy to do anything about is not a good look, granted.  I own my turpitude.

Of the 10 or so published adventures, a few of them do present open worlds built on a hex crawl or megadungeon premise.  They expect the players to kill everything in sight.  For instance, Dungeon of the Mad Mage provides just enough experience for a party of four (four!) to advance if they clear the entire level.  Picture a group of "heroes" tromping through the dungeon corridors like The Terminator, blasting monsters from behind.  Suffer not an orc to live.  Wipe them out, all of them.  Exterminate.

Nonetheless, in the next post I'll take a look at the 5E sandbox books (Tomb of Annihilation, Curse of Strahd, Dungeon of the Mad Mage) and discuss their approaches to XP.  Maybe it's not as bleak as I'm presenting and I need to embrace the ultraviolence.  I've been using an unofficial XP system for my Chult game called "Three Pillars" (from Unearthed Arcana), so I'll talk about how that's been going, too.

In the meantime, I am curious - if you stop by the blog from time to time, do you play 5E or older versions of The Game?  I've posted a poll on the right - let me know!

Sea Dogs, Buccaneers, and Pirates

The idea behind combining D&D with piracy is pretty simple… pure old school D&D rewards bold plans that lead to lots of treasure - the paradigm of the game is XP for gold, by hook or by crook.  Furthermore, by placing adventures within reach of a ship, you introduce the resource planning and mobility from a sister game like Traveller - your dungeon crawlers become sea rovers.  It's a peanut butter and chocolate kind of marriage (if you like the Reese's cups, as I do).

I envision many of the adventures in such a campaign still featuring traditional D&D style delves once a given destination is reached - buried treasures in caves, ruined forts and monasteries abandoned by the Spanish, lost colonies, forbidden islands, ancient ruins of the Maya or Aztecs, and a healthy mix of mythological sites and artifacts. Plus, you know, acting like pirates once in a while and plundering.

The Caribbean changed a lot over the two centuries of Spanish colonization, and the kinds of raiders that pillaged those warm waters included French corsairs, Elizabethan sea dogs, Dutch freebooters, English buccaneers, French filibusters, and eventually pirates (after 1690 or so).

I'd rule out placing the setting in the 16th century, as most of the raiders were privateers working long distance out of European or English ports, and I think the region is much more interesting in the 17th or early 18th centuries when there are foreign colonies and local outposts competing with the Spanish.  Outlaw towns like Tortuga and Port Royal during the buccaneer period offer the kind of "adventuring home base" you need for gathering rumors, picking up crew, and setting out on the next jaunt.  For the pirates of the later period, there are new home bases like New Providence in the Bahamas, or mythical Libertaria in the Indian Ocean.

This is a bit of a history nerd question, but do readers have opinions on which period would work better for adventuring?  1690-1720 is considered the golden age of piracy; since most privateering was outlawed or strictly controlled by then, sea rovers during that time had no choice but to work outside any conventional law.  During the earlier periods, it was much more likely one governor or another could sponsor a ship, giving the raiders a façade of legality in one port or another.

There are other differences too - buccaneers tended to raid Spanish shipping and ports, hauling away the pieces of eight and gold doubloons of pirate lore, and they had their loose code as "Brethren of the Coast".  The Jolly Roger of pirate fame was an artifact of the later age, and the pirates of the golden age typically captured prosaic merchant goods instead of coin-filled chests of booty (although some of the treasure hauls of the Indian Ocean were massive).

I suppose a third approach is to go unhistorical and dump all the ingredients into the soup at the same time; for instance, in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, the time is later (1720 or so) when the East India company and navy are cracking down on piracy; however, the movies use Port Royal as a base (30 years or so after it sank into the ocean, in the real world), and Tortuga is still a pirate haven in the films, 60 years or so after it diminished in significance.  There's a cogent argument to be made that once you add undead monkeys, ghost ships, pagan gods, and dark magic to any milieu, there's no use crying over a bit of mixed up history.

Seems like a good time for a poll, buckos.  Cast a weather eye over to yon right hand column, if you will, and please be leaving your mark on me latest inquiry.


The image is Howard Pyle's painting, The Buccaneer was a Picturesque Fellow

Charlemagne vs King Arthur

Both of these legendary kings feature prominently in the medieval romances and tales of adventure as related in the Matters of Britain and France; and in both sets of stories, the realm of Fairy and the influences of enchantresses are keenly felt.

In the stories of Charlemagne, there is a clear frontier beyond which dwells barbarians and pagans; this is the Saxon frontier, and the peers of the realm campaign across the Rhine with Charlemagne for a period of almost 20 years.  For D&D purposes, it sets up a fantastic borderlands and wilderness, clearly demarcating the realms of Law from the realms of Chaos - there's a visceral sense of crossing a no-man's land when the Franks leave civilization behind and enter the pagan realm.  In Three Hearts and Three Lions, the frontier is further mystified by placing the Twilight Realm there, the  land of Fairy from which the forces of Chaos contrive to return the world to eternal gloom, banishing the sun.

Arthur's land of England has no such frontier of evil; there are conflicts with Saxons, the Orkneys, and Cornwalls, on the fringes, but encounters with magical realms happen nigh anywhere on a quest, usually when a knight is deep in a forest, or conveyed by boat to a strange place across water.  Chaos is very much where you find it, as if commonplace and ordinary woods and lakes can transform overnight, thrusting a questing knight into contact with the numinous or the enchanted.

So here's a fine question for a Friday - in which legendary realm would you rather place your D&D style adventures?  The enchanted forests of 5th century Britain, last haunts of the druids, or the dark, brooding woods past the Rhineland, home to pagan barbarians beyond the very frontier of civilization?

Grinding the Axe

I mostly stopped paying attention to message boards when I began blogging, although perhaps that was a hasty choice - entertainment springs aplenty on them.  I was drawn into reading a laborious thread over on the RPG site when Tenkar posted a link to a rant (the Osric guy rails against ACKS).  After a few years away, the acerbic dialogue generated a bit of nostalgia for the good old days of boards.

Sprinkled liberally amongst the complaints about the Dwimmermount kickstarter were charges levied against the ACKS system by various folks, most of them fairly pedantic or priggish - like, was the right population density factor and historical sources used for determining the economic assumptions - or because the game included a chapter on campaign rules, doesn't that mean it's completely abandoned dungeons and wilderness for bookkeeping?  In the aftermath, a few bloggers took up the call to discuss "How much reality simulation do you want in a fantasy game, anyway?"  (I'm a little pressed for time, so I'll see if I can get some links - but I know Noisms had one of those posts:  Medieval England did not have dragons...).

One of the complaints that's actually kind of interesting is that ACKS borrows too much from modern versions of D&D, like 3rd edition, by implementing a proficiency system that's reminiscent of 3rd edition's feat system.  Although the authors all play or run old school campaigns as well, it's clear they've had their feet in the waters of 3E as designers, players, and writers.  A handful of bloggers are running ACKS campaigns, but board discussion for ACKS seems to center on the big purple and Enworld, sites with more resonance amongst new schoolers, rather than old school hubs like K&K or Dragonsfoot.

The last poll I conducted out here is still on the pane to the right - 88% of the folks visiting the blog identified themselves as DMs.  This corresponds to the prior poll, where the majority of folks indicated they didn't need mechanics to differentiate their characters.  I wondering how much correlation there was between mechanics-light as a DM value, vs mechanic-heavy as a player value.

So how about this for a Friday theses; Folks that hang out on old school message boards and blogs are heavily skewed towards DM's that want to run lighter versions of D&D, without a lot of mechanical bits for player characters, whereas players generally would prefer a system with more player-facing toys.  There's nothing too revelatory in that statement; in my own current campaign, The Black City, my players have been clamoring for us to switch to ACKS, whereas I've been fairly content running it using the stripped down and lower-powered LOTFP rules.  I just think it's interesting to consider how we , players and DMs, come to the table with different expectations and agendas that need to be balanced.  (I did tell my players we'd run an ACKs trial for The Black City in the near future and try it on for size - there's plenty I like about the system, and I certainly expect to feature it heavily in my Asian themed setting.)

Game Master or Player?

You read gaming blogs, so here's a simple question:  Are you a game master or player?  I've added a new poll to the right.

I was talking to my players about a recent topic out here, 'The importance of game mechanics', and how the poll came in nearly 75% of the folks saying mechanics weren't that important for character differentiation.  The poll asked if the classic D&D fighter class could properly represent a knight, samurai, musketeer, horse archer, Roman legionaire, and so on, without any mechanical differentiaton like prestige classes, special abilities, feats, and so on.  I'm wondering how much the results represent a gap between how players and DM's view the question, or new school vs old school players.  Full disclosure:  I'm a DM, I run a lot of old school D&D, and I'm comfortable representing those fighting man archetypes in the game without any specialized game mechanics.  But since 2E AD&D, a sizable portion of the published works is dedicated to providing those little mechanical bits to support players that want that kind of stuff.

The Importance of Mechanics

For purposes of D&D, what's the difference between a Norman knight, a viking, a samurai, a Roman centurion?  What if we throw a muskeeter in the mix, a Mongolian horse archer, and a Hospitaler?

Is there something that prevents a player from being "knightly" because both the knight and the viking are represented by the fighter class?

I love this question with regards to the fighter, because the convergence of technology and tactics has created great variations in the fighting men of world history, and the differences are so easy for us to visualize.  The evolution of D&D from its original vision has involved a long line of add-ons and extensions to create mechanical differentiation among character classes - new classes and sub-classes, secondary skills, kits, feats, prestige classes, and so on.

It's a topical question for me - I'm thinking over what a game in an Oriental Adventures setting would look like using a BX style of rules, and I have a pretty good idea how I'd handle archetypes like the samurai, the bushi, the kensai, the warrior monk:  you're all fighters.  You wear different armor, use different weapons, but at the end of the day, you all get paid to slug it out with the other guy.  My work here is done.

And yet... if we run an Asian themed game using LOTFP, it has that nifty d6-based skill system, it'd be so easy to add some skills to reinforce the in-game flavor.  If we ran it with ACKS, the upcoming player's guide is filled with class-building guidelines; one could probably convert the contents of Oriental Adventures to classes balanced with ACKS.  It's so easy to start sliding down that slope - "story elements should be supported mechanically so players feel like their character can do something different or exclusive".

I'm just using the fighter as an accessible example, you can do the same thing with every class.  Is the illusionist necessary?  Isn't an assassin just a guy that kills people for money?  Does the wu-jen really need a separate spell list?  And so on.

Seems like a good time for a new poll:  How important are game mechanics versus flavor?

Poll Results Round Up

Polls from the past few months included how people use Cthulhoid monsters in their games, how high do you like your D&D games to go, and how do bloggers keep up with their favorite blogs.

HOW DO YOU MAINLY USE THE MONSTERS OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS IN YOUR GAME?
Alien terrors in a horror game (58%) Monsters in a fantasy game (41%)

Monsters from the Mythos show up in a wide range of stories, from Lovecraft's bleak fiction in the 1920's to the weird fantasy stories of Clark Ashton Smith and RE Howard; its natural that gamers would use them in a blend of horror games and fantasy games.  I like pulling in Cthulhuoid monsters into fantasy whenever I want the D&D game to take a turn towards horror as a change of pace.

WHAT ARE THE HIGHEST LEVELS YOU LIKE TO SEE IN YOUR D&D GAMES?
Level 6 (OD&D, S&W) (17%), Levels 10-14 (until killed by the Tomb of Horrors) (38%), Levels 14 (BX) (12%), Level 20 (3.X, 1E, LL) (12%), Level 30 (4E) (0%), Level 36 (BECMI) (2%), Until godly ascension (4%), D&D never ends, fool! (11%).

More often than not, we play BX or similar systems that end by level 14, so that's probably where I voted, but I have to believe the majority of folks that voted D&D continues until the high level characters are killed by the Tomb of Horrors are the right-thinkers in the bunch.  It creates a funny mental image, high level characters besotted with ennui, marching off to the Tomb of Horrors to either end their tiresome existence or win the ultimate prize.  Honorable mention goes to "D&D never ends, fool!"

HOW DO YOU KEEP UP WITH YOUR FAVORITE BLOGS?
Google Reader (34%) G+ Stream (0%) A Blogroll (34%) RSS or feedreader (5%) Bookmark (16%) Search Engine (4%) Something else (5%)

I use Google Reader quite a bit, it's a good way to keep up with Wordpress blogs, but I learned from the comments that quite a few folks use their blogger dashboard to browse blogspot blogs in the stream.

I was surprised how many folks use blogrolls to keep up on their favorite blogs - that motivated me to make sure my favorite Wordpress blogs get added to my blogrolls.

One good thing I learned was that no one uses their G+ stream as a primary way of keeping up with blogs, so there's no major reason for merging your G+ and blogger accounts.

How Much Improvisation?

Yesterday I reviewed The Armitage Files, a Trail of Cthulhu campaign setting that supports improvised horror investigations.  The idea behind the book is revolutionary to me, because the investigation and horror genre, with its intricate mysteries and clues, is usually so scripted and plotted.  But it did get me thinking about improvisation and gaming and the curious fault lines I see in the gaming community.

All dungeon masters and referees have to do an amount of improvisation every game session - even a fully scripted adventure requires the game master to take on the personae of the NPC's and antagonists in the scenario and pull dialogue, mannerisms, and narration out of the creative void.

But choosing to portray a scripted character a certain way is quite a bit different than randomly generating game content on the fly and embellishing a wide range of details.  Let's say the party moves to an unmapped section of the setting and the DM consults his or her big book of random tables and starts rolling for inspiration, then quickly cobbles together what it is the group is encountering.  Contrast the approach of the referee that makes stuff up using dice for inspiration, to the DM that just makes stuff up as they go along, completely winging it without the tables.  We're not as far apart in spirit as we are in practice.

Then there's improvisation that happens on the other side of the screen.  Do you allow your players any co-creation in the setting?  A simple way is incorporating elements of a character's background into the campaign - like letting the player create details for their home village, and then making those details important to the ongoing narrative.  Many newer games systematize ways for the players to seize control and enhance the setting with their own additions.  For example, many games might have an "underworld contacts" skill or point spend option, so when the group arrives in a new place, the shady character in the group might already have a fence or a connection to the local black market, and be able to define that contact on the fly.

Using the common D&D sandbox, consider the differences between these three examples - first, the group enters a new hex, the Dungeon Master consults the hex key, and begins describing the village of Thought-Up-Yesterday.  In someone else's campaign, the referee rolls a bunch of dice, consults their random hex content generators, sees that it results in a village, and begins quickly jotting down details for the village of Just-Made-Up, perhaps using his or her village content tables for elaboration.

Consider  a more extreme example:  "As you guys walk through the woods, you start to smell chimney fires and see a small village down in the glen…"  The referee turns to the elf player, whose character is from the area.  "Can you go ahead and let us know the details of this village?"  In this case, the ref completely turns the control over to the player to define a setting element;  "Ah yes", the player says, "this is the village of Just-Made-Up, inhabited by smelly, shoeless, pig-riding halflings.  The reason the elves put up with them this close to the beloved Homewood, is because they look like small, sad children.  Smelly children."

There's another technique of improvisation, too, when the referee is listening to the players and (secretly) incorporates their ideas into the game whenever he or she thinks the player's ideas are more interesting than the original plan.  The bad guy in the adventure is the rich mayor, but the players are convinced it's really the timid butler, and they go through elaborate measures to spy on the butler, to explain how the butler committed the crime, to identify him as the secret power behind everything.  The referee decides that recasting the butler as an international criminal in disguise, is a lot more interesting, and the players pat themselves on the back for ferreting out the ref's "real" story.

The question of how much improvisation you use at the table seems dependent on group expectations - it's a  what-do-we-expect-out-of-gaming kind of question.  Are the players expecting an immersive world to explore?  Knowing that content is generated on the fly or improvised can impair immersion or belief in the setting.  Are the players creative types that see the campaign as a joint venture, and want the opportunity to put their stamp on the story?  The village of Just-Made-Up, with its pig-riding smelly halflings, might become a lasting fixture in the campaign and the butt of ongoing jokes, enjoyed by the group for years later.

There are cross cutting concerns with improvisation, like its effect on player agency or whether it leads to illusionism, or a rail road.  These concerns are orthogonal ; improvisation is a tool, and like any other tool, it can be misused or misapplied.  For instance, I won't fudge dice in dramatic situations, but I have no problem improvising non-player characters and then incorporating them into the ongoing campaign.

Seems like a good time for a new gamer poll - how do you use improvisation in your games?  There's a new gadget in the upper right with the poll questions.

Weapon Specialization Poll and More Fighter Ideas

Back when we started our AD&D experiment a month or so ago, I asked the readers whether they use Weapon Specialization or not in their AD&D games.  Here's what said about it:

DO YOU USE WEAPON SPECIALIZATION IN YOUR AD&D GAME?

Yes; Love it - (30%). No; Unearthed Arcana was the devil - (50%). What? - (18%).

I'm not a big fan of 1E's Unearthed Arcana, where weapon specialization appeared, so maybe those 18% of folks that said "What?" have the right of it, never having cracked open a copy of UA (along with the 50% of UA haters, where I tend to sit).  So far we are soldiering on without specialization; however, I don't mind beefing up fighters and have the impression (still to be tested) that they get left behind at higher levels compared to the other classes, and we intend to run this game through to high levels.  But I don't like what specialization does to limit weapon use .  If we were to implement that particular rule option, I would let someone specialize in a coarse-grained class of weapons, like all bow weapons, all two-handed weapons, or all one-handed weapons.

One of the commenters (Peter) mentioned that Dragon 104 had a good analysis of specialization, and it was a good read.  Len Lakofka's column runs the numbers and shows how a 2nd level fighter with specialization takes out a 4th level fighter without specialization, and has a good shot at besting a 5th level fighter without specialization, too.  That's a big jump in power - like gaining 2-3 levels by specializing.  If you consider the fighter is similar in base line power to a monster of the same level, that means your 2nd level specialized fighter is nearly a match for an ogre.

I don't think the door is totally closed for us, though.  Specialization was in base AD&D 2E, and one of the clones I like (ACKS) beefs up the fighter by giving all fighters a "cleave" ability - basically a free attack anytime you down a foe.  The nice thing about the ACKS cleave is that it applies equally to monsters; if a monster downs a PC, it gets to cleave too.  I also appreciate the LOTFP approach, where the fighter is the expert on to-hit rolls and is the only class that advances in fighting ability.  The point is, newer designs (post-AD&D and classic) have all done something to give the fighter a stronger combat presence.

Prior to our AD&D conversion, we were using "weapon by class", where magic users did a d4, all other classes a d6, fighters and dwarves did a d8 for damage or d10 for 2-handed.  That did a good job of giving the fighters a decent niche without major rules surgery.  But with the move to AD&D we're back using the quirky "damage by weapon type" along with S-M/L damage dice - that's too big a part of the 1E experience to omit!  If we don't do a form of coarse-grained specialization, the next easiest thing would be to reimplement cleave for fighters and monsters.

How Do You Read Blogs?

I find that I am split between identities - I've been blogging as "Beedo", an old avatar name from time spent on discussion boards in distant years.  But G+ uses my regular name.  It seems that when you link your blog to your G+ account, the accounts merge and your blogger profile disappears.  Must Beedo die for my G+ account to fully live?

Here's a more serious question - how do you keep up with your favorite blogs these days?  The common options seem to be using Google reader or a similar feed reader- either by subscribing or following a blog; watching your G+ stream for posts; going to the blogroll of one of your favorite bloggers and clicking on blogroll links; bookmarking your favorites; doing a Google search when you feel like checking up on a place.

Before I push the shiny red button and explode Beedo into a cloud of electrons, it seemed like a good time for a poll - let me know how you keep up with your favorite blogs.  Thanks!

Oh - as for me, I tend to use Google Reader.  I urge folks that use blogger to go into their settings under feeds and allow full feeds; many times I can't click through to your place if I'm at the office, but I can still stay in touch with the feed.  Why limit your ability to be read and enjoyed?

The Popularity of Cthulhu Gaming

I made a decision coming into this year to do more Cthulhu blogging - I've long been an admirer of Call of Cthulhu and Trail of Cthulhu, I try to run some one-shots each year or so, and there really doesn't seem to be a lot of blogging about those games - it's a fraction of the coverage that D&D gets.

I ran a poll a month or so back, "What kind of experience do you have with Cthulhu gaming?", and here were the results:

• 17% actively play
• 40% play from time to time and still like the game
• 32% are interested
• 9% either didn't like it or aren't interested

That's quite a bit of overlap in the readership between the two types of games!  91% either play, have played, or are at least interested in the horror gaming; I'll just assume you 9%ers aren't interested YET.  I tend to agree there's a lot of overlap; many of the adventure ideas are directly portable from horror gaming into fantasy, and if you go for Weird Fantasy (especially LOTFP style), the horror gaming is like a close cousin.

Cthulhu gaming can be a bit bleak, so maybe it's an acquired taste playing ordinary or mundane folks trying to stop occult horrors, when compared to the accessible power fantasy gaming experienced in the beloved D&D.  On the other hand, pulp fantasists like Clark Ashton Smith and RE Howard put Lovecraftian horrors in plenty of their fantasy stories, too, so the chocolate and peanut butter gets mixed up in the source literature.

That raises an important question - how do you like to use the Cthulhu Mythos in your games? As monsters in a fantasy setting, or alien terrors in a horror game?  I have added a new poll to catalog the results of this important question!  The world must know.

I'll keep up with the weekly Cthulhu posts and occasional reviews, mixing chocolate in the peanut butter and vice versa.  It keeps things interesting for me.  Bon appétit!


*Image is from the cover of Call of Cthulhu's 5th Edition

Recent Poll Results

I'm off to "the Big City" today, so not much time for a deep thought post.  How about we take a look at how things went with some recent polls?

THE LOCATION FOR THE ADVENTURE LIES BEYOND TREACHEROUS WATERS. CAN THE PLAYER'S SHIP SINK ALONG THE WAY, KILLING EVERYONE?

Yes - If it happens, time to roll new guys (31%), No - The story would be over before it began (69%).

See - I tricked you - I put in the words "story" in the second answer, a clear tip off that making rulings to fit some notion of a predetermined story is the wrong answer, prima facie.  By now you should realize story is irrelevant; no player characters have plot immunity.  If they choose to hop in a boat and head into unsafe waters without precautions, of course the ship can sink.  Blub blub.  That all being said, I appreciate the well-thought out comments in the post - many folks were fine with raining havoc down on players that sailed unwisely into ice-berg laden northern waters, but rather than making a sinking ship equal instant death, they advocated a wide range of complications - ship damage, lost cargoes, lost resources, man overboard, forced to abandon ship to a lifeboat, tons of options that still get the point across.  I'll be a wiser judge with all your useful suggestions in hand.

WHAT'S YOUR PREFERRED METHOD FOR ABILITY SCORE GENERATION?

3d6 in order, no adjustment (44%), 3d6, rearrange and adjust (14%), 4d6, rearrange and adjust (12%), Modern point buy (7%), Something else (21%).

3d6 in one form or another was the popular choice in my circles; from the comments, I got the sense the folks that picked "something else" were doing 3d6 with the adjustment scheme from Moldvay BX, and I probably needed to call that out specifically - BX called for 3d6 in order, limited adjustments, but no rearranging.   From previous polls, I get the sense by-the-book AD&D sits around 10-15% in terms of active play so the 4d6 result makes sense.  I see a lot of Advanced Edition Companion in use with classic D&D versions.

Do you hear The Call… of Cthulhu? A New Poll.

A simple question for a Sunday, before I head out to do some chores and then settle in for the late afternoon football game.  D&D was the primary fantasy game I played in my youth, but we messed around with Gamma World, Traveller, and Call of Cthulhu.  Besides D&D, I kept up with Call of Cthulhu, and played a fair number of campaigns in the 90's and early 2000's.

There's a significant intersection between Weird Horror D&D and Call of Cthulhu, so it's natural I've been thinking a lot lately about Call of Cthulhu and its relations (Trail of Cthulhu, Realms of Cthulhu).  What kind of experience do you have with Cthulhu gaming?  There's a new poll over to the right, and feel free to drop a comment.

I'm off to chainsaw some logs and split wood with a wedge and  maul - fun stuff.

Man or Superman?

Why would I ever play a *human* in a game? I get to be a crappy human every day at work.  The whole point of gaming is escape; when I game I want to kick major ass.
-Paul, 3.5 gamer

A few weeks ago, I spent some time looking at a series of AD&D rules that were controversial to gamers playing versions of D&D older than 1E - there was an interesting poll (dubious AD&D rules) that inquired after who actually uses those AD&D rules.  Despite the controversial title, I ultimately came out defending most of them on the grounds of creating interesting tactical or logistical choices.  However, one thing I skipped at the time was ability score inflation and race/class sprawl.

It's fair to state that one reason you're still playing an older version of the game is some distaste for characters that are described as "half-dragon elemental lord sorcerer artillery, optimized for area damage".  But the sentiment expressed by my buddy Paul above isn't wrong; wish fulfillment and power gaming sells books and is a big draw for the later edition crowds.  Playing a scrappy "ordinary guy" that straps on armor and descends into the dungeon is an acquired taste, if you didn't grow up playing that way.

The AD&D 1E DMG purports to be a human-centric game, but by the time 1.5 rolls around (the Unearthed Arcana stuff) there are tons of race variants, all with nifty new abilities, ability score generation methods that are off the chart, and power creep classes like the cavalier and barbarian.  This became clear when my son came running downstairs a few weeks ago with Unearthed Arcana.  "Awesome!  When do I get to be a Drow?  Drow are awesome!"  He's been wanting to read the Drizzt books for inspiration for his future Drow; I'm certainly not going to discourage him from any reading at his age (9).  He's already called dibs on making a Drow Ranger if the opportunity arises.  So would a Dragonborn or Tiefling be that far out of place in the milieu of Unearthed Arcana?

I'm firmly in the 3d6-in-order camp for ability score generation, and prefer the simpler classes and races in classic or basic D&D.  It supports emergent character concepts and avoids the dump stat mentality.  Emergent characters means this:  the combination of random generation, decisions in play, and survival, ultimately leads to a more interesting character than if the player scripted everything out via a point buy or rearrangement of the ability scores.  Emergent character is about discovering the character organically through play, and overcoming deficiencies; modern character generation is about creating a tactical build and then measuring if it performs as expected through empirical observation.

Which brings me to an issue I have with the 4d6 methods in AD&D and later - if you're going to swap scores around and do the whole min-max thing to get the character just right, why not just use an old school point buy and be done with it?

Seems like a good time for a poll, since ability score generation is one of those oft-house-ruled procedures that splits the community, and I doubt the 3d6 in order method is the most popular.  So drop a vote on the right or leave a comment.

AD&D Rules and the Voting Public

A few weeks back I had a poll running regarding many of the complexities that were added to AD&D that were left out of Holmes and Moldvay BX; one thing I've noticed in the blogosphere is there's way more energy behind OD&D and BX (or Swords & Wizardry / Labyrinth Lord) than AD&D or OSRIC.  Smarter folks have certainly pointed that out too - DIY is more inline with the simpler games, rather than AD&D's " don't do it yourself, we've added all the house rules already".

With that in mind, how did the polling public respond regarding the use of AD&D's sub systems?  124 visitors responded; the original questions were phrased "How many of the following AD&D rules do you ignore, or modify with House Rules? "  For purposes of the results, I switched the percentages around, so what we're seeing is the percentage of respondents that use the rules without changes - that's a bit easier to parse.

AD&D's premise might have been to do away with DIY, but one thing is clear; we like to change around the rules.  Here's how folks voted:

Combat Related Rules
Weapon vs AC (20%), Weapon Speed Factors (25%), Melee Segments (42%), Firing Missiles into Melee (68%), Helmets in Melee (38%), Unarmed Combat (42%)

Weapon vs AC is one of those great ideas that could have been awesome if it was integrated into the system from the beginning - for instance, if the armor types were simplified (none, leather, scale, chain, etc) and if monsters were given armor types as part of their descriptions.  The vampire has AC 1 or 2, but is treated as no armor for weapon vs AC purposes - that kind of stuff.  As it is, no wonder only 20% of the folks use it when playing AD&D.  The only other surprise here to me was the 42% response for using AD&D's unarmed combat rules; it's the one combat subsystem I loathe.

Overall though, these are the types of rules you'd expect in an advanced version of the game, and I've previously argued that they add complexity to player choice, which is valuable, even if they don't work very well as a simulation.

Magic Rules
Spell Components (43%), Casting Times (59%),  Magic Resistance (84%)

84% of the voters use Magic Resistance; makes sense, as it gives the more dangerous monsters some teeth.  My view of spell components has changed over time, and I'd definitely use them if we go "advanced"; they're valuable as quest items and player motivation in a sandbox, and also regulate the use of certain spells (creating an unofficial rarity based on the difficulty of getting the components).

The abandonment of spell components in the player base seems to be one of those things that resulted from overuse of tournament style modules with little downtime or chance to resupply during an extended adventure - it's just easier to hand wave them away and keep the action moving.  Avoids the book-keeping too.

Alignment
Alignment (67%)

The AD&D alignment system is fairly well ingrained, and it makes sense 2/3rds of the folks claim to use it (though I doubt they use all of the whacky implications).  "What's that dribble coming out of your brother's mouth?  Oh crap, he's gone Chaotic Good on us and forgotten his Lawful Neutral…  I knew he shouldn't have started dating that hippy half elf from down at the bar."

Part of the fun of trying to run a by-the-book AD&D campaign would be figuring out how alignment, alignment penalties and lost experience, penance, alignment languages, and the entities of the outer planes, would interact with the world if the DM extended it to its logical conclusions.

In retrospect, it would have been interesting to split out the alignment sub rules - alignment languages, experience penalties for changing alignment, and penance for fixing your alignment.

NPCs
 Morale and NPC reactions (66%)

The BX morale and reaction system is so much easier to use, this is one I usually house rule.  2/3rds of you disagree.  Its one of those things where I'd probably get used to it if I bit the bullet and forced myself to keep all those percentage factors handy.

Experience
Training Costs (31%), Training Times (30%), XP for Magic Items (67%)

XP for Magic Items is a key differentiator that lets AD&D characters do some power-leveling compared to their OD&D brethren; selling items for gold and XP, or claiming the items for XP, is quite a bit different.  I'd use it when playing AD&D by-the-book, but selling items for gold seems to cross over into implied-setting; not every world has magic items shops or auctions, but AD&D clearly expects some level of magic market.

I'm thinking the low adoption of training and training times goes back to the prevalence of tournament modules; I can remember many of them implying that "for this module, ignore the training rules and let folks level up during the adventure".  Great precedent, TSR, no wonder they're so heavily ignored.  I'd use them; they ensure the passage of time in the campaign, giving it sweep and gravitas and making leveling momentous, as well as function as a money drain.

Psionics
Psionics (29%)

29% of the folks use the psionics system?  Wow - rock on you crazy mo fo's, and watch out for those Thought Leeches and Intellect Devourers.  Body Weapon for the win.

I do tend to allow psionics when we play AD&D, but disallow them at 1st level; players get their psionics roll the first time the character has a death experience or similar trauma (raised from the dead), so if psionics show up to warp the game, it's in the mid-levels when everyone is a bit more powerful, and psionic monsters are interesting opponents.

Classes
The Bard (54%), The Monk (70%), Demi-Human Level Limits (70%)

The Monk and Demi-Human results make sense - about 30% of the folks change them up, but most use the rules as written.  However, 54% of the respondents use the AD&D bard!  That's got to be a wink wink vote - the whole conception of the bard as fighter, thief, and then bard doesn't seem practical considering the short life span of a typical campaign.  The 1E Bard is out of here.

Polls of the People

I had a bunch of completed polls queuing up.  Sit back and enjoy the collective opinions of those opinionated readers that choose to reply.  (There was a recent AD&D rules poll, too, but those results warrant their own post).

HAVE YOU DRAWN A CARD FROM THE DECK OF MANY THINGS?

Hell yeah! I'd draw a card right now!  (58%), Only as a last resort. (10%) I would not, could not draw a card.  (3%)   It's never come up in a game.(27%)

Let's ignore the poor 27% of disadvantaged gamers that never encountered The Deck.  Here's some advice - go chastise your DM's for depriving you.  Of the remainder, 82% of you would draw a card - gamers like to gamble!  Then again, I have one of those 3% percent folks that would never draw a card, sitting in my home game.

DO YOU NERF TURN UNDEAD IN YOUR GAME?

We use it as is; clerics are awesome(40%).  We use mixed groups of high and low undead(24%).  I limit its daily use (like LOTFP)(21%).  We don't use clerics(7%).  House rules - see comments(6%).

The cleric is the best class in D&D, and Turn Undead puts it over the top.  I like the LOTFP approach - converting it into a 1st level spell -  but in the current game we're running mostly AD&D style and clerics get to be totally awesome and dominant.  The AD&D optional rule of mixing undead levels is a good way around the high level clerics.

HOW DO USE LEVEL DRAIN IN YOUR D&D GAME?

We use energy drain as written (44%).  We use it, but undead are rare (4%).  We use alternate abilities instead of energy drain(20%).  We've applied a house rule(22%).  We've made Restoration easier to get(4%).  Something else (see comments)(6%) .

Considering how many folks complain about energy drain, it's interesting to see 44% use it as written.  Blog readers seem heavily skewed towards DMs.  I'm in the group that's applied a House Rule (characters can "heal" drained levels with sufficient rest) but it's actually not a great rule for players, so I'll give them a vote to remove it.

WHAT LEVEL CAN NEW PLAYERS JOIN THE GAME?

Always as first level.  (16%).  A few levels below the other guys.  (8%)  One level below the lowest party member.  (41%)  At the average party level.  (25%)  Same as the highest level guys.  (0%)  Something different.  (8%)

I'm firmly in the "majority", such as it is - the 41% that start folks a level below everyone else.  Areas like this, where the DMG doesn't give a hard and fast rule, tend to have the most spread in the results as folks figure out what works for their table.  A more nuanced approach is something like "during levels 1-3, new guys always start at 1st level, but once the lowest group member is level 4, new guys start a level below the lowest party member".

AD&D's Most Dubious Rules

I've gotten a little swamped with work and home the past few days and haven't had the chance to continue the dialogue about the wide area sandbox and the Monster Manual; hopefully tonight I'll get back to it.

In the meantime, some lighter fare for discussion; AD&D is oft criticized for rules that add complexity without making the game better; it's the rare grognard that plays AD&D 100% by-the-book.  I learned D&D with the Moldvay red box, so I mostly ran Moldvay rules with AD&D classes and monsters.

With that in mind, there's a new poll up on the right hand side - I've tried to list the rules that generate the most grief.  How many of the following AD&D rules do you ignore or modify with house rules?  Feel free to add more in the comments if I've missed one that is commonly ignored or overruled.

• Weapon vs AC
• Weapon Speed Factors
• Melee Segments
• Spell Components
• Casting Times
• Alignment
• Firing Missiles into Melee
• Helmets in Melee
• Unarmed Combat
• Morale and NPC reactions
• Training Costs
• Training Times
• Psionics
• The Bard
• The Monk
• Demi-Human Level Limits
• XP for Magic Items
• Magic Resistance

Energy Drain and the Modern Player

Oh October, how I love the month long countdown to Halloween.  In between posts discussing the wide area sandbox, I'll get back to writing about some appropriate monsters (Mythic Monday style) and post more ideas on putting seasonal cheer into your D&D game - and by 'seasonal cheer', I mean fear and horror.  Let's start with a quick discussion on that blight on players everywhere, the Energy Drain.

In most old school games, the dangerous undead drain one or more energy levels with a successful attack.  This reduces the character's experience total to the mid-point of the next lowest level, with a corresponding reduction in abilities and hit points.  It's nasty.  As a result, it's the one common monster ability that players hate the most, and it succeeds in generating a fear reaction whenever an energy draining undead shows up.  The other thing that's totally excellent about energy drain is its complete lack of subtlety.  In fast-moving abstract combat, a monster needs to be able to do its trick quickly and make an impression before it explodes in a shower of XP.  Even if an energy-draining undead is quickly dispatched, each attack has the ability to leave a lasting mark on the characters.

But there's another side to the energy drain argument; a lot of us are in an aging demographic with limits being placed on our time due to work and family; the days of 10 hour D&D marathons on a weekend are long gone.  Weekly games are becoming bi-weekly and monthly.  I have vague memories of playing D&D every day after school in the 80's when MTV was also cool.  People play D&D for entertainment; if a game element proves to be so demoralizing as to remove all fun from the game, you risk losing players, and losing months of real-world effort building up a character is demoralizing.  There's just not enough players out there for the DM to unequivocally turn a deaf ear to all complaints.  I'm just being pragmatic.

And so out come the house rules and the discussions.  The ones I usually see involve alternate abilities for the undead (like replacing energy drain with ability score damage), or changing the level and availability of  the Restoration spell - as in, why is Raise Dead a 5th level spell but Restoration is 7th level?  You're better off dying than getting energy drained.  3.5 style D&D gives you a saving throw against energy drain, and I've seen that discussed as an option as well.

I do love the energy drain for its fear effect, but I also want to see the players return each week; early in the campaign we agreed on a house rule that meets both objectives.  A level lost through energy drain will return for each week of rest in between adventures.

It's been an interesting house rule; psychologically, the players think of the energy drain as being only temporary even though they're carrying it around for a longer period of time - the drained levels don't come back until they take weeks of rest.  In the current game, Forlorn is level 1 (should be 5); Grumble is temporarily 3 from 5; Shy the Fighter is 3 from 6; Starkweather had been drained down to 1 but was then killed by the Banshee.  Week in and week out, the group is actively heading back to Castle Ravenloft to clear out the remaining undead while they have momentum, so there's been no chance to take weeks of downtime - they're starting to accumulate a lot of missing levels.

I tend to think the old approach might have been better for the players, since they've earned enough experience to get those drained levels back.  We'll have to discuss if the "player-friendly" house rule is really better for them - if adventures are short, with long periods of downtime between adventures, it's clearly better for the players to 'heal' energy drains.  Grinding out the crypts of Castle Ravenloft, with its large and varied population of undead, hasn't allowed that rest and downtime and they've carried energy drains longer.

The Nerf Turn Undead poll is over so it's time for a new one - let's hear about Energy Drain; how do you use Energy Drain in your game?

The poll is on the right.

Death Systems, and Long Live D&D

These are observations about some recently completed polls - one about which set of rules people use at the table, the other about death and dying.

DO YOU (USE) ORIGINAL RULES ONLY, HOUSE RULES, A RETRO CLONE, A SEQUEL, OR A MASH-UP?

D&D or AD&D Original Rules  (3%), Original Rules w/ House Rules  (17%), I run a Clone (OSRIC, LL, S&W) (17%), I run a Sequel (LOTFP, ACKS)  (10%), Frankenstein (mix of the above)  (50%).

There are a few interesting numbers here:  Only 3% of us use a printed version of the rules as written, without any house rules.  That's surprising.  50% of folks that are now cherry picking across rules sets and house rules to truly run the game they want at the table.  How awesome is that!  Long live D&D.

I used to hang around D&D message boards more, and it seemed there was more bias against clones, house rules, and combining bits and pieces across editions - or the system purists were just more vocal in those places.  I'd say the big reason for the 50% vote in favor of mash-ups is the DIY attitude in the blogosphere.

HOW DO YOU HANDLE DEATH, DYING, AND ZERO HIT POINTS?

Dead at zero or lower (31%),  Dead below zero (3%), Dead below the character's level (13%), Dead at -10 (27%), House rule - see comments (24%).

Most D&D systems use death at zero or lower - 31% folks use the official rules - although Gary's house rule (unconscious at zero, dead at negative = character level) was built into Swords & Wizardry and comes in at 13%.  The long shadow of AD&D is also seen, with it's rule of dead at -10 gaining 27%.

For myself, I always thought the -10 rule was the norm for *all* D&D systems, so it was a revelation that I was carrying around the AD&D rule as mental baggage and just using it in OD&D systems.  I like the house rule suggestion to make dead = 0 hit points or lower, but give a death saving throw to be unconscious instead.  However, my players are in revolt!  Years and years of using the -10 rule has them feeling anguish about the proposed change; I'm considering using the Swords & Wizardry approach to get the group used to less of a death cushion.

Here's the Swords & Wizardry rule:
"When hit points reach 0, the character is unconscious. The character actually dies if he reaches negative hit points equal to his level. In other words, a fifth level character only actually dies at -5 hit points."

I like the S&W rule quite a bit.  I don't have to worry about zero-level men or low level characters hanging on until -10, but it also gives higher level guys a better chance of being unconscious and able to be saved; seems like a good compromise between -10 and death at zero while my players get more adjusted to old school play.

ACKS has an interesting approach to the problem of death and dying - I need to get around to previewing it, after seeing it in action at a playtest last weekend.

Turn Undead, Meet the Nerf Bat

As a Dungeon Master, there are few abilities I loathe more than Turn Undead.  It's the one ability that neuters an entire class of encounters; in the post-zombie hype world, it turns an entire style of campaign - the undead zombie apocalypse - into a non-starter.  After 30 years of D&D, Turn Undead is a fairly iconic power of the cleric, but other than Hammer Horror films, it doesn't have a strong literary tradition.  (Clerics turning fairies is another matter…)

There are some options.  A DM could accept the status quo, and just use lots of other monster types - default D&D is fairly "wahoo" and full of monsters; when undead are encountered, the cleric just racks up auto-wins for the party.  When an undead is important to the adventure, the DM makes sure it's a much higher level, hurting the chances it gets affected by the "I Win" power of the cleric.

Apparently Gary Gygax had issues with the ease that clerics Turn low level undead, seeing as even the introductory adventure,  Keep on the Borderlands, features a cave full of undead each with an amulet making it harder to turn.  There's an important lesson there; when the DM doesn't like a power the players have, it's okay to cheat and nerf it.  No - I'm lying - that's a horrible solution, especially coming from the author of the rules.

In AD&D, the DMG presents an optional way to nerf the power - if the undead are in a group, the DM may opt to make the undead unable to be turned unless the strongest undead can be turned.  It's a variation on the option above - don't let the Cleric be awesome by making sure the threat is outside of his range - but now it extends an umbrella to the minions, too.

If you're playing a low magic setting modeled after the pulp fiction, monsters are rare and undead feature heavily in those types of settings; a zombie or skeleton would be an unnerving experience in such a setting.  But not if there's a level 1 or 2 cleric nearby - Turn Undead is a deal breaker.  I like the approach Raggi took in LOTFP, converting Turn Undead into a level 1 spell.  It's still a "I Win" power, but now it brings the ability into the realm of strategic and tactical choices, as well as resource management.  Turn Undead becomes more like a Sleep spell - potentially decisive, but requiring a meaningful choice.  I like that approach better than the artificial patches - constantly equipping the undead with "Amulets of Protection from Turning" or jiggering the "important" undead encounters to overload the cleric.

But maybe that's just me - seems like a good time for a new poll - posted up to the right.  Do you nerf* Turn Undead in your game?

• We use it as is; clerics are awesome
• We use mixed groups of high and low undead
• I limit its daily use (like LOTFP)
• We don't use clerics
• House rules - see comments

*Nerf:  reducing the effectiveness of a game element (named after the popular foam toys...)  I figure most gamers know the term, but you never know...