My Magic (Part 2)

Magic-users are, of course, a completely different story.

If you read over Ye Old blog, you'll find numerous examples of bitching and moaning about MUs not being "magical enough" or designed well enough or balanced enough or (even) viable for play as written. Hogwash...absolute hogwash, all of it. Despite all my complaints and proposed fixes, house rules, etc.the magic-user AS WRITTEN is a fine and viable and plenty playable.

I've both run AND played magic-users in MOST editions of D&D: OD&D, B/X, Holmes, RC/BECMI, 1E, and 3E. In the days of my youth, I never played magic-users, but I saw some pretty good ones (generally played by my friend Scott) get up to some pretty high levels. In my teenage years, I ran an NPC magic-user as a companion/henchman to a small (three player) campaign that would peter out sometime around G3 (Hall of the Fire Giant King)...that guy went from 1st to 12th level or so over the span of his career. When I first acquired the OD&D books (back in the late-80s/early-90s) I did some solo gaming to test them, running a magic-user named Barack the Half-Handed (based on a character from an old Lythande story). 

[interesting...to me at any rate...that I would recycle that name and character concept for two separate Ars Magica campaigns (one PC, one NPC) that I would play/run in my 20s]

In recent years, however, I've had the opportunity to play low-level MUs as a player in other DMs' campaigns. This is unusual, for a couple reasons. First off, unless we're playing a game like Ars Magica (where being a wizard is kind of "the thing"), my tendency is to gravitate towards fighter characters (or MAYBE a beefy cleric). I'm the type of dude that prefers to lead...and probably charge...confronting threats in direct, head-on fashion. Oh, I can be sneaky and cautious at times, but that's not my default setting...consequently I like a character that's a bit sturdier than your standard magic-user. Better survivability with my preferred play style.

Which leads me to the OTHER reason it's unusual for me to play magic-users: I don't trust other DMs. You can call me paranoid or elitist or whatever, but I simply prefer to be the guy in the driver seat when playing RPGs because, well, I trust my ability to be fair and scrupulously honest. With other DMs, you never know what you're going to get. Which is admittedly ridiculous stance to have (I've experienced MAYBE one or two "bad apple" GMs over 40 years and dozens of different gaming tables)...but I'm a ridiculous guy that has some "control issues." And playing a magic-user with no armor, 3-4 hit points, and a single spell makes me feel a little too vulnerable.

Fortunately, I've relaxed a bit the last decade or so, and been able to kick off my shoes (and armor) and put on the pointy hat. The first By The Book magic-user I played was a Holmesian one at a convention. The game was a blast, and I enjoyed myself immensely...there's a bit of a thrill living on the edge with only a couple hit points, and the game forces you to be both creative and a "team player." That's neat!

[mmm...I now recall that my FIRST player character MU was actually a wizard in 3E campaign that lasted all of one session...but that dude was one of those very few "bad" GMs I've had the misfortune of meeting...]

Most recently, I've been playing a magic-user in my son's AD&D (1E) campaign. The character ("Barnaby") has worked his way up to 5th or 6th level at this point...I can't recall because it's been several months since our last game. Diego is running a very By The Book campaign with a couple exceptions: he runs clerical magic the same as I do, and he doesn't charge training costs. But everything else (as much as a smart 12 year old can remember/manage) is BTB. 

And...I've found the class a bit boring. Most of my PC's experience came from plumbing the Caves of Chaos in B2 (modified for AD&D) and while THAT was actually a pretty fun series of adventures (it's very tactically interesting if you choose NOT to work the faction angle), the BTB magic-user made the whole thing...a little too easy?

It helped that I got some good spells from my random roll (find familiar is a godsend for any low level sorcerer-in-training). But the ability to stockpile spells in one's spell book (giving you a wide range to draw from) and the ability to memorize multiples of the same spell (sleep, for example) lends to tactical play that can feel very same-same.

Which is why that...for the last 3-4 years (even since BEFORE I was playing AD&D again), I stopped running magic-users BTB. I know, I know...shame on me.

Here is how I run magic-users at my table:

1. Read magic isn't a thing. Magic-users can read magic-user scrolls just like clerics can read clerical scrolls. Magic-users automatically speak/read the "magical language" as part of their class training.
2. No stockpiling spells. The number of spells you can cast is the number of spells you have in your spell book. You don't get to (nor have to) find and add new spells to your book. This is, by the way, the same as RAW B/X (BECMI/RC differs however).
3. No multiple spell memorization. Each spell may be used once per day. This is adapted from OD&D (Book 1), and while others may quibble over my interpretation of the wording in the first paragraph of page 19, in practice I find it works very well.
4. Each first level magic-user begins with three spells, rolled randomly from the tables in the DMG (p. 39). Yes, this means that MUs in my campaign can cast three spells at 1st level, instead of one. I really like the one offense,  one defense, and one miscellaneous spell paradigm, and I don't force the player to choose which of the three to memorize. Later on, as they progress in level, they can choose whether to specialize in offense or utility or whatever...at first level, they are armed with the spells their master gave them. 
5. Upon advancement, the magic-user chooses additional spells up to the amount that they're able to cast for the day. Chance to Know (based on INT) is checked as normal. 1st level spells known are read as the number +2 (because of the additional spells learned at 1st level, of course). Minimum/Maximum Known (based on INT) remains the same.

AND...that's pretty much it. The magic-user is otherwise as written, though some spells have been modified in my game. 

Please understand: the character class as designed (at least, in OD&D, Holmes, B/X, and 1E) works JUST FINE using the rules as written. I've run BTB magic-users over the years and have played the class (By The Book) in multiple systems/games and managed to both survive and thrive. You can run a MU using RAW in any of those pre-1989 works (probably 2E as well) and NOT be hamstrung despite the slight variations and idiosyncrasies in each edition...they all work.

Well then, JB (I hear the hard-liners asking), if the game WORKS why would you bother to change it? The mantra should be "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," right?

Yeah. That's right. But I have reasons.

• Removal of read magic resolves a lot of problematic questions arising from that spell like: Why can other spell casters read scrolls without such magic? Why can thieves read scrolls without using a spell? How does the spell interact with the writings in a spell book? Etc. It also helps foil Gygax's attempt at DMv.PC antagonism (I ignore most of the EGG's rules with regard to "fading" scrolls, etc. pressures designed to PUSH players into hasty decisions in order to trigger curses). F that noise. I'm not trying to "trip up" players (they make plenty of mistakes all on their own), and I don't want every scroll tube found to become an exercise in following a 5-point, best practice plan avoiding risk. No. MU spell scrolls are simply specially prepared, one-shot magic items useable only by magic-users (and some higher level thieves and illusionists).
• Spells being limited to what can be cast (e.g. I can cast three 2nd level spells, and I only know three 2nd level spells) cuts down on dithering on what to choose and whether or not to end a delve early (because the PCs need to retreat to memorize different spells, etc.) and allows a group to simply get on with the game. The fighter on an expedition doesn't worry about his weapon load-out every morning: he straps it on one time and then chooses the right tool for the job as the need arises. Same for the MU and his/her spells. With a set battery of dweomers, the mage starts to understand and develop tactics (and, from there, creative tactics) based on experience and usage...which I like.
• Similarly, the prohibition on memorizing multiple spells of the same type creates more variety of tactics and prompts the PC to make interesting choices: do I use my magic missile spell now (since I don't have it memorized thrice?)? When is the best time to cast shield? Etc. For me, this makes the magician character more interesting and models much of the pulp fiction that inspired D&D in the first place (seldom does one see a sorcerer use the same spell twice in fiction). 
• The three random spells is BTB AD&D (minus the read magic spell that would be part of every 1st level magic-user's inventory), but it functions EXTREMELY well in tandem with the "spells known = spells cast" house rule. As a result of the combo of house rules, I have seen creative and effective use of those 'oft overlooked spells' that would otherwise be left off the daily memorization schedule. Spells like ventriloquism, jump, push, mending, message, and spider climb have all seen great use as part of the regular rotation, and some spells (feather fall and jump) have been real life savers. Spider climb is just a damn useful spell by the way, aiding my BTB wizard immensely in cleaning out the Caves of Chaos. 
• Allowing 1st level magic-users to use three magic spells per day from the get-go also seems to be the "sweet spot" of making the class seem more magical. I was doing something similar towards the end of my B/X gaming (giving MUs +1 spell for INT 15 and +2 spells for INT 17), but having three spells just feels...mm..."magical." I know not everyone will agree and, as I wrote, I've played MUs with a single spell and (in tandem with companion party members) survived just fine. But I enjoy seeing how my players will use their three spells in early adventures...it's always entertaining!

Finally, with regard to the automatic acquisition of spells...well, this needs a bit of elaboration.

Spell acquisition is an interesting subject. In B/X it's one of the few true "money sinks," since PCs over a certain level are left with no alternative than to conduct spell research to learn their new spells (although, without other associated upkeep costs, the time component isn't as harsh as it could be). But in AD&D, the BTB acquisition of spells is quite draconian: the "gain 1 spell per level" is so stingy that wizards (beginning at mid-levels) are left with little recourse than to beg, borrow, and steal spells, especially given the costs of conducting spell research along with all the additional expenses heaped upon the heads of advanced PCs.

The overall effect...which I have observed in multiple long-term campaigns...is something I refer to as "the Raistlin Effect." Any of you out there familiar with the Dragonlance novels? Read the first trilogy with an eye focused on the actions of the Raistlin character and you will get a glimpse of the typical 1E wizard's path. The guy will go to any lengths to find a scroll, or an old spell book, or a library of ancient tomes...lying, cheating, betraying his friends, changing his alignment, whatever it takes. In some ways, the quest for more magic is good adventure fodder: you need a scroll with stone to flesh or mass charm? Check out the abandoned Tower of So-and-So or the ancient Tomb of Whatshisname. 

But it's...mm...'not great' when the campaign starts to be influenced by one (or more) player's drive to acquire power. And yet, if that drive is stifled (by the DM or the other players at the table)...well, that can have negative repercussions, too. Resentments and recriminations...yeah, I've seen 'em. Both ways. Nobody wants one player character to become the focus of the campaign. 

And, sure, a good DM can prevent this by placing plenty of scrolls and spell books and whatnot in the party's path (or an "appropriate amount," whatever that means). But my house rule neatly sidesteps the entire issue and allows the PCs to get down to what it is they came here for: exploring the campaign world. No side-quests (to get the mage-types their spells) needed. Better, in my opinion, to have the party focused, together, on the task at hand, whatever that might be (plumbing a dungeon, defeating an antagonist, embarking on a money-making venture, looking for trouble...whatever). I prefer that the advantages that come with level advancement...better thief percentages, special war horses, more weapon proficiencies, etc....to simply come automatically. 

And for magic-users, that includes spell acquisition. 

Because, really, the magi's role is challenging enough, isn't it? No armor, few weapons, poor attack capability, low hit points. And their best spells, even when acquired (always have to make that INT check!), often have expensive spell component costs or severe penalties (like aging or possible insanity). The magic-using profession is hard, and rightly so (a fair trade-off considering the amazing marvels they can work). Best to let them simply get to it, rather than forcing them to jump through more hoops.

Full Circle

Yesterday, Maceo (another elvish assassin) was able to rejoin our campaign for a four-hour session (one more backpack to fill with loot!)...surprisingly, we were able to get him to join rather plausibly by simply having him follow the trail of bodies and destruction through the castle (we said his character had slept till noon and hadn't got up to the place till 2) all the way to the belfry/treasure chamber. Even more surprisingly, they decided to continue their explorations, eventually defeating three harpies (elvish blood), a flock of blood hawks, a nest of 37ish giant rats, a 5th level illusionist (color spray!), and a mother-f'ing banshee. The clock has just struck 5pm, there is four hours of daylight left, and the party keeps trudging up to tower roofs in their search for the Countess, figuring a vampire must be sleeping upside down somewhere like a giant bat.

*sigh* This is what comes from children not being allowed to watch vampire movies anymore. At least both Mace and Diego leveled up (4th and 5th respectively). Everyone is still alive, but the ranger was driven hopelessly insane following his perusal of a libram of ineffable evil. So it goes.

A couple folks (most recently Stacktrace) have brought up the the subject of my transition from being one of the "leading proponents" of the B/X system of D&D to now being chest-deep in AD&D. Since I've got a couple-four hours to spare, I figured I'd take the time to chronicle my personal history (as best I can) for readers interested in "the Evolution of JB." Not sure that's really enough time, but here goes:

Circa 1981 (age 8, 2nd grade): while at a Fred Meyer store, I see the Dungeon! board game on display and plead with my mother to buy it, citing the fact that it says its for children of 8+ years and I am old enough. Surprisingly, she does so (a fact that surprises me to this day: my mother was never one to cave to a begging/pleading child back in the day). I am somewhat disappointed by what I find inside...I had intended to purchase Dungeons & Dragons having already learned of this game from the playground at my school (and being, by this time, familiar with the terms "class," "fighter," "magic-user," "assassin," "magic missile," "Demogorgon," and "Blackrazor"). Still, the game provides an education into the very rudiments of D&D concepts (dungeons, monsters, treasure, secret doors, expendable spells, green slime, etc.). It contains a pair of green, plastic D6s with numbers etched on them (instead of dots)...the first I've ever seen. I still own this game today...my children have played it extensively.

Circa 1982 (age 8 or 9, 3rd grade): I discover the Moldvay edited Basic D&D box set at J.C. Penny in the toy section, and (again) talk my mother into acquiring it, perhaps explaining that this was the game I originally sought out. Again (surprisingly) this works, though this may have been in November and the idea was that this would be a birthday present for Yours Truly. I have detailed my delight and discovery of the wonders of this set in other blog posts. I read it cover-to-cover, struggle with the module, and instead create my own "dungeon" (a castle map, no doubt based on B2's Keep, that players must besiege).

Shortly Thereafter: my parents host a caucus at our house for local Democrats. I am upstairs in my room running my adventure for my younger brother. One Dem has brought her daughter, Jocelyn (a year older than myself) to the caucus, and my mother asks if she can join our game. I give her a halfling to play. When it is time for her to finally leave, my brother has been killed two or three times, and Jocelyn has infiltrated the castle, avoided all guards and is making for the castle treasury/armory. This is my introduction to a girl who will become my best friend, later co-DM.

3rd grade: I play D&D mainly with my brother and my best friend, Jason. Jason runs a thief named Sneakshadow. Jason is good friends with Scott (they both have single parents...moms...so they share time with each other). Jason's mom is our soccer coach.

Summer of 1983: I meet Matt during the summer during Little League baseball.

1983 (4th Grade): Matt has joined our school; we become friends. Circa November, I receive the Cook/Marsh Expert set, probably as a birthday gift. At a sleepover at Matt's house (I can pinpoint this to December, as I remember watching the Eurythmics video "Here Comes the Rain Again" on MTV), we make him a high level cleric to try the Expert set rules (giving him fanatic followers and sending him into the desert on a quest to find a blue dragon). Matt owns the Dark Tower board game, which I play long into the night after everyone else has gone to sleep. He also has a vinyl album with Conan the Barbarian stories. In later years, we will dive deep into his older brother's stack of Heavy Metal magazines and share a love of Thieves World books.

December 1983: Jocelyn gets me the AD&D Monster Manual as a Christmas gift. It is incorporated into our games, though a lot of it is difficult to parse as we are still using B/X as our rule base.

1984: We play D&D. Sometime in this year, Jocelyn discovers a copy of the DMG at the bottom of chest of old stuff belonging to her youngest brother Lacey (11 years her senior). I am allowed to borrow it on occasion...much of it is difficult to parse or completely alien. However, we begin to use the combat matrices (which seem to line up with the MM) and incorporate the expansive magic item list, especially the artifacts and relics. Some of the effects are waaay over my head (satyriasis? nymphomania?) but sex-change magic is always good for a laugh when your players include both boys and girls. Jocelyn's character, Bladehawk, has become the premier fighter of the campaign and is legendary for escaping death traps. At Jocelyn's home I run a game for four(?) players including my brother, Jocelyn, Jason (I think) and Jocelyn's friend Brian Hackett. Brian has a high level cleric with the blade barrier spell (also a hammer of thunderbolts) which, because we cannot find it in my rulebooks, I disallow. Years later, I will encounter Brian in high school (he was a junior when I was a freshman) and he will remember me respectfully as "The Dungeon Master."

Fall of 1984 (age 10, 5th grade): at soccer practice, Matt brings me a copy of N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God, asking if I can run it for our group. While at first I am put off by the low-level of the adventure (our B/X characters have reached lofty heights), I begin to notice various strains of weirdness in the adventure: single class elves, "longswords," "ring mail," etc. Reading the cover ("for ADVANCED D&D game") and seeing the level range (1st to 3rd) it finally dawns on me that "Advanced" does not equate to "Expert" and that the MM and DMG must be for this other, mystery game. The key turns in the lock, the veil falls from our eyes, and all is revealed.

The start of 
my AD&D career.

November 1984 (age 11, 5th grade): I receive a copy of the AD&D Players Handbook for my birthday, the only thing I wanted. Now, with my copy of the MM and Jocelyn's copy of the DMG, we can begin playing proper AD&D. I make a high level magic-user character for my (now) friend Scott, both to make use of the new rules (intelligence factor! new spells!) and to put him on par with other long-running PCs Bladehawk, Sneakshadow, and Sunstarr (Matt's cleric). His wizard is named Lucky Drake after a character in a Choose Your Own Adventure book. This will be the core of our group for the next several years.

[EDIT: I now believe that the PHB was a Christmas gift, not a birthday  gift. I still believe I received my first DMG slightly later]

December 1984/Winter 1985: my aunt's boyfriend, a DragonQuest player, gifts me with my very own AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide. No longer forced to borrow Jocelyn's (as she doesn't attend the same school as the rest of us, I don't see her often enough), I can delve the thing and really learn the rules.

Winter 1985: Matt picks up a copy of AD&D Deities & Demigods (cleric guy, remember?) and we immediately incorporate it into our game. Sneakshadow fights Thor and kills him.

Spring of 1985: I discover the appendices in the back of the PHB after trying to figure out references to the psionics and bards in the DMG combat tables (previously I hadn't finished reading my PHB as I assumed it was just "all spells" after the mid-point). I immediately make my own character: a half-elf bard with psionics named Landon Weiguard. I show him to Jocelyn. Jocelyn expresses interest in doing some DMing.

Circa Fall of 1985 (age 11, 6th grade): Jason leaves our school. In addition, his family become Born Again Christians and his mother no longer allows him to play D&D. I see him only a handful of times after this. Jocelyn and I decide to blow up our original campaign and re-start the whole thing (all 1st level characters!) as strictly AD&D. She and I alternate as Dungeon Masters. 

November 1985 (age 12): my brother gives me the Unearthed Arcana for my 12th birthday. Jocelyn already has her copy (and incorporated comeliness and all the rest into our new campaign). I believe I receive my copy of Legends & Lore in December, perhaps as a Christmas gift. This will be the bulk of our "canon" going forward, only occasionally adding bits here-and-there from Dragon magazine or the Mentzer Companion set (which Jocelyn owned). 

1985 to 1988: we play AD&D. DMing duty is split between Jocelyn and myself. When I run, I tend to run AD&D adventure modules, rather than original material. Jocelyn runs a couple pre-packaged adventures including (Ravenloft...though I wasn't present for that) and Castle Greyhawk. At some point we re-boot the campaign a second time (we now distinguish "eras" of play by campaign: the Original Campaign, the First (AD&D) Campaign, and the New Campaign), again beginning characters at 1st level. When we do this, we use the World of Greyhawk map, but add our own material (factions, politics, etc.). We have some DragonLance modules (we are fans of the novels) but only use them for the maps, judging the adventures themselves to be "terrible." As time goes on, Jocelyn does more of the heavy lifting of campaign management...I am (mostly) content to just play. We also venture into other RPGs: we play Marvel extensively, BattleTech, some Star Frontiers. We dabble in James Bond and Twilight 2000; get our first taste of Warhammer 40,000 (the book...none of us acquire minis). AD&D remains our main game, however.

Spring/Summer 1988 (age 14): Jocelyn and I have a falling out. Kids fall out with each other: that's a part of life. Often times, over the years, Jason or Scott or Matt would be "on the outs" with the group, but we would always (eventually, somehow) bring 'em back into the fold. As we were transitioning to high school (the boys...Jocelyn at 15 and already in high school) I was the one that got kicked...and the group never recovered. We all ended up at different high schools, going separate ways.

1988-1991 (high school): I make new friends, some of whom play AD&D. I do not play AD&D with them...instead I play Palladium games (Heroes Unlimited, TMNT, Rifts), Stormbringer, or (later) Vampire the Masquerade. I still collect old AD&D modules when I find them, including White Plume Mountain and Against the Giants. For about a year, I run my brother and his best friend Brandon in an AD&D campaign, up till about level 12. I do this mostly to try modules I've never previously run (including the Desert of Desolation series I3, I4, and I5) and to try re-capturing the magic of my earlier campaigns. It doesn't work and I quit playing AD&D.

1991-1995 (university): I do some gaming, mostly White Wolf stuff (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Ars Magica 3E). Towards the end of university, one of my buddies (Joel) suggests we start up an AD&D campaign; I agree only on the condition that it is 1st edition, none of this crap 2E stuff. While he consents, nothing ever comes of the conversation (no chargen, nothing).

1996 (after graduation): while living with a non-gamer girlfriend, I get heavy into WH40K. Fact is, our relationship was heading south (it would be very up-and-down for another year, up through 10/1997) and getting into some kind of gaming felt necessary for my sanity. A game shop close to our apartment ran 40K tournaments. We would break up (and I moved out) before she moved to New Mexico for grad school.

1997-1999: no real gaming, though I meet some guys (Kris, James, Alex) who played D&D in their youth. In 1998 I will run an aborted session or two, and play in James's (single session) attempt to start a 2E game. All of these ended in disaster. The weed probably didn't help.

March 1998: I meet my wife. Having grown up in Mexico, she has never heard of D&D before meeting me.

2000-2002: 3E is released. I acquire copies and run some games, mainly for my friend Kris and a couple randoms whose names escape me. By 2002, I am done. I am still collecting BECMI edition D&D (the Mentzer sets, the Mystara Gazetteers, the Rules Cyclopedia, Wrath of the Immortals) feeling it is the most "complete" version of D&D. I do a lot of solo stuff with it. In 2007 some stuff I wrote about the Greek Gods will get uploaded to Vault of Pandius. Mostly, I end up finding the BECMI edition to be (both) too staid and too childish for my tastes.

2003-2007: sometime in this period, I make the acquaintance of The Forge and indie gaming and start studying game design. I get the idea to write the Great American Indie RPG (trademark pending!). This is all crap, but it starts me down the road of taking RPGs (and my love of them) more seriously. I do not play D&D during this period, though I collect and read a LOT of other RPGs. As far as I can recall, I didn't play any RPGs at this time (some light indie stuff...Capes, InSpectres...with my nephews perhaps). Sometime towards the end of this period, a person posts an Actual Play report on The Forge about how they tried playing an old game of Basic D&D "by the book" and it was actually fun.

Circa 2008: While reading an interview with indie-game designer Kenneth Hite, I am made aware of James Maliszewski's Grognardia and fall down the rabbit hole of Old School D&D blogs. This leads me to a number of sites, the most influential of which is Pat Armstrong's Ode to Black Dougal. Having the fires of nostalgia stoked by memories of my first RPG, I decide to go "back to the beginning," where my love for the hobby first started.

June 2009: I write down a quick list of 100 possible blog posts (to make sure I can generate content) and start the B/X Blackrazor blog. 

2009-2011: I play B/X D&D regularly, mostly off-line (face-to-face), sometimes running up to nine or ten players at my local bar. This three year period more-or-less matches the time I spent playing B/X at the beginning of my gaming career (1983-1985). I write (B/X) books during this time that are still selling today.

January 19th, 2011: my son Diego is born.

2012: I start developing other games: Cry Dark Future (2012), Five Ancient Kingdoms (2013), various indie type games and other genre games using the B/X Chassis. At the time, if I'd been asked, I probably would have said I was showing the versatility of the game (or writing my own fantasy heartbreaker with regard to 5AK). However, I now believe I was beginning to run up against the limitations of the B/X system...I was growing bored. And I was becoming tired of writing my own "support" for the system.

2013-2016: I am in Paraguay until August 2016. During this time, I do not play D&D.  I reflect on it, read about it, blog about it, work on a couple different "new" heartbreakers. There was a lot going on for me (mentally, emotionally) and my gaming thoughts were pretty random. A lot of good reading on the subject of D&D care of Alexis's books...but I had difficulty grokking some of the concepts he was trying to communicate.

April 21st, 2014: my daughter Sofia is born.

2016-2018: no gaming. Back from Paraguay but too busy with new children in a new school and transitioning to that "stay-at-home-American-dad-thing." Blog posts from this time are depressing...reading through a couple makes me think of a dude who is in need of help but doesn't know how to cry for help because he is unaware of how helpless he is. The blog was treading water just to assuage the ego with "relevance." Ugh. 

August 2019 (age 45): I hit rock bottom while attending a Dragonflight Convention; a convention at which I had the opportunity to play four Basic (three B/X!) game sessions with four different DMs. I was done with B/X as my "go-to-game-of-choice." It is still...and always will be...a fine teaching tool for learning the basics of Dungeons & Dragons.

Circa August 2019: I discover Anthony Huso's blog.

Circa 2019-2020: I discover (and start tuning into) the rather amusing GrogTalk podcast. Because they moderate their language, I sometimes listen to the podcast with my son (especially when it's just the two of us on long soccer drives). 

October 2019: I decide that the only way I will ever be satisfied with D&D again is to commit myself wholeheartedly to running a campaign, rather than one-off sessions. Just like I hadn't done since the age of 17.

February 2020 (age 46): I run my children through their first B/X adventure.

March 2020: the COVID 19 pandemic hits in full force. Schools (and most everything else) close down.

April 2020: I decide to go back to the LBBs and play OD&D with my kids, feeling I can simply add to the game (from supplements, house rules, etc.) whatever is needed for the campaign. At this point, I still feel "tinkering with rules" is the thing that will get me to the game I wanted. Ridiculous. This lasted a month or so before I shut it down. I play no D&D for the next six months.

November 2020 (age 47): I begin running AD&D for my children, teaching them the Advanced game.

February 2021: Taking advantage of a Total Party Kill, I start the AD&D campaign over from scratch using Washington State (and the Pac Northwest generally) as my campaign setting. My world has been in existence for 17 months now...longer than ANY "B/X campaign" I ran back in my Baranof days. 

June 30, 2022 (today, age 48): I've now been running AD&D exclusively for nearly two years; we've only barely begun to scratch the surface of play. The system is so robust...and so deep...that I don't anticipate exhausting its possibilities any time soon. Fact is, unless I get sick of my world (which is hard to see happening, considering its "mine" and I can remake any particle of it, any time I choose), I don't see how the game would ever end. It can only grow larger and more developed with time.

Currently, the AD&D books are available both digitally an in Print-on-Demand form from DriveThruRPG. I recommend every D&D player who doesn't already own a set acquire copies of the PHB, DMG, MM, and Fiend Folio. The MM2, DDG, and UA have useful elements, but are not strictly necessary for play. 

All right, that's all for today. 

High Level D&D

For men, there're few things more juvenile than comparing the size of one's penis as a method of bragging to (or belittling) friends and rivals alike. Most guys with a modicum of maturity of course realize this, and any banter is likely to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But I think it's safe to say that any man in a healthy relationship with a satisfied partner cares little about the size of his cock; the fact that it functions is a far more important matter to his confidence and sense self-worth.

There's a lot of correlation between comparing character level (in a D&D game) and comparing the size of one's dick. What really matters is whether or not you're playing at all; whether or not you're enjoying yourself.

And yet, back in the day, there was more than a bit of this kind of thing. "Oo, my character is level 15." "Oh, yeah? Well, mine is level 19." "HA! The characters in our campaign are all 24th level!" There's nothing quite so nerdy as nerds nerding out over some nerd hobby, but it is (perhaps) human nature. Or at least the nature of boys (it's rare I've heard this specific type of bragging from female gamers, except as a matter of shutting up some mouthy kid). Coming from mature male gamers (i.e. "old geezers") boasting of character level isn't really a thing...it lacks class, I suppose, though it may just be the shift in perspective that comes with age lends itself to a different type of bragging ("Back in my day, we had to walk 20 miles and fight a dragon in the snow for a bag of silver pieces...and we were damn thankful to get it!"). 

Yeah, it's probably just a male thing. Like comparing dicks.

In response to yesterday's post in which I reflected on "old school" level advancement (as discussed in Gygax's article from issue #7 of The Strategic Review), Scott wrote:

Ok leveling. 18th level or whatever always struck me a silly. The sweet spot for d&d, at least in 3E and beyond, is about level 3-6. You can take on 10th level opponents like dragons with planning and luck, and that’s thrilling. Once you get a handful of 4th level spells, it stops resembling the source fiction. 

 In my own home game, 10th level is a great achievement. We’ve played about 50 sessions and the highest level guys are 6 and 7. And that’s a little slow, but it’s okay because the threats can stay at an imaginable level and there’s always something out there that can kill you with a snap of its fingers.

Scott comments here frequently (which is nice...thanks!) but this is the first time I remember feeling riled up by something he wrote. Maybe. Let me try to articulate my thoughts in a coherent, constructive manner.

First off: 3rd edition...and 4th edition and 5th edition...can all go to hell. If those are your editions of choice, that's great: love them, play them, play the heck out of them, introduce new people to "D&D" using them...whatever. At this time, my reflections and writings are unconcerned with late edition versions of the game...I just cannot care less. Had a very nice conversation with a very nice gentleman yesterday about 5E and comparing it to older editions. I was patient and listened, but there was nothing he could say that had me the slightest bit interested. Until further notice, I am done with any post-2000 rulesets. If you can find something in my posts that work for your later edition game: great! But if you don't: eh. No skin off my nose.

OKay...moving right along: what Scott wrote is something I've heard before, more than once. I've heard it from AD&D players, I've heard it from folks in my B/X games, I've heard it from dudes who play those editions for which I give not a shit. Something along the lines of "the best play of the game (D&D) is somewhere in the mid-levels." The notorious "sweet spot" after which games simply become "silly." That high level play seems downright super heroic (as in, comic book superheroes) compared to the grubby, By Crom, low-powered pulp adventure action that comprises low to mid-level play.

Bullshit, says I.  But that's the TL;DR answer...the real answer is a little complicated.

Gygax's "silly" character.

While I'll agree with the early writers of the game (Gygax and others) that levels in the 30s and 40s (and up) are patently ridiculous and pretty much outside the scope of play as intended, there is plenty of good, solid play that can occur for characters of "high level;" say levels 14-24. There are some threats/opponents that just can't be approached by characters under the 16th level or so, and certain adventures that I consider pure "pulp literary fantasy" (like those involving extraplanar travel) are all-but-inaccessible to characters of low level.

What IS silly is the way many (most) of us "old geezers" played as kids when we first got our hands on the game: dishing out millions of coins worth of treasure (not worrying about how one would carry it), suits of +5 armor, vorpal artifacts, and dragon mounts, if only so that we could pit our players against Demogorgon, Asmodeus, and all the legions of hell. Was it fun? Yes, of course. Was it silly? Absolutely. Was it satisfying play? In the long run, NO...not for most of us (there are some people, of course, who continue to enjoy this kind of play), but I would argue that it was (and is) a necessary form of play for newcomers to the game.

And not just because we had to "get it out of our system!" Playing ridiculous games of that nature allow you (the players and the DMs) to try out all the various rules of the game. You get to experiment with things like magic resistance and gating demons; you get to see how the benign and malevolent effects of artifacts work. You get to try all those high level spells and powerful items, and see how a battle with the Tarrasque might go down. This kind of gaming forces you to read and learn the rules of the game...it helps you explore the possibilities of D&D while having a wa-hoo good time. Yes, it's absurd and ridiculous and we can all laugh at our Monty Haul-isms...but it still teaches players and DMs alike.

Though, as I said, for most of us it isn't satisfying long-term, and once we get tired of pummeling Odin, most of us settle down and start over with a 1st level campaign and try to run something a bit more serious and sincere. I know I did...and that was when the "real gaming" for me and my players began...the serious (if not particularly sophisticated) gaming.

Now here's the thing: playing D&D with a "serious mind" (regardless of one's particular sophistication) allows magic to happen at the gaming table. In my experience, it allows the game to take over and consume individuals. It's what causes players to have emotional attachments to their characters; it's what pushes DMs to exert their creativity to its utmost, fiendish limits. It's what drives gamers to incorporate all the minutia and side rules they can find (and create their own to boot); it's what changes a simple tabletop game into an obsessive pastime. It's what drives people to argue about stupid things (like whether or not a PC wearing a ring of free action that jumps in the ocean crashes to the bottom, taking full "falling damage"...as if the ocean's pressure wouldn't do the character in by itself). It can turn the casual participant into a lifelong lover of the hobby. It can create powerful, intimate experiences and deep friendships (as well as bitter rivalries).

In that type of environment - one played with a measured amount of "serious mindfulness" - characters of high level aren't silly at all. Getting to a high level in a serious game is a good thing, as it opens up serious, high level challenges and adventures for the players at the table.  Earning your high level in such a campaign is something to take pride in...especially if the DM is willing to "play hard" with the participants at the table.

My best character started as a 1st level half-elf ranger in my co-DM's first "serious" campaign. He advanced to become an 8th level ranger / 9th level thief-acrobat /15th level bard before we retired the campaign. My friend's magic-user went from 1st to approximately 14th-16th level. Another player had a cleric that was at least 16th level. This was all after a couple-three years of solid, serious play. Strongholds were built, outer planes were explored, vendettas fought, children sired. The characters from earlier "wild and woolly campaigns" were simply legends...heroes from a Golden Age of Myth that might never have been (save that it was).  And while my bard did (for a time) possess a pegasus mount (with a topaz embedded in its forehead...can't remember what that was all about), our campaign was treated with the utmost strictness and seriousness. Yes, we used speed factor and casting time, "weapon vs. AC" adjustments and disease/infection rules. About the only thing we ignored was the "training time factor" rules from the DMG, and that was probably because we were playing all the time (when we could) rather than recordable, weekly sessions. And those characters NEVER encountered anything so powerful as a Demon Prince or Duke of Hell (no Tarrasques, either).

My brother's best character (played in a campaign I ran during high school) was a human fighter that reached approximately 12th level, and was probably the only time he ever played the game "seriously." With the aid of his buddy's cleric (also 12th level) and a couple NPCs (a magic-user and a thief) he was able to take on the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, perhaps even making it a bit further in the G-series (the memory escapes me). It helped immensely that he was armed with Blackrazor, which his character had recovered from White Plume Mountain. His fighter might have been as high as 15th level by the time he finished the giants.

I had a group of friends who ran their own AD&D campaign in the era of the "supermodule." They started with the Temple of Elemental Evil and moved on to the H (Bloodstone) series, eventually completing the entire thing (H4 is for levels 20-100...I believe their characters were in their mid-20s by the time they finished). I wasn't part of their game, but they put in some marathon sessions over the course of a couple years to slog through all that (and, to my knowledge, none of them have played D&D since, save for a one-off game here or there). I received many play reports their games over lunch in the cafeteria.

Anyway, back to the comments: I find nothing inherently "silly" about 18th level characters, not even those gifted to a player by an over-generous DM (as I did for my buddy Scott, circa 1984...hey, I'd just got my first PHB; we needed to try out those 9th level spells!). Finding ways to challenge such characters can be quite a task for the DM, especially if the characters were truly "earned" through exceptional, long-term play...the players of such characters are likely to be wily, experienced, and blessed with an inordinate amount of luck. But the D&D game, especially the Advanced version, provides many tools and ideas that can help build adventures of suitable challenge for such characters (should we choose to use them)...and it should go without saying that the DM who advanced the characters in the first place should have learned something from the experience herself (or himself). Saying the game works best at intermediate levels (5th to 9th) is, in my opinion, a highly inaccurate statement. For me, that's when the game first starts to really open up.

[of course, as the guy who wrote the B/X Companion for high level play, I might be slightly biased on this subject]

Class Proliferation

Just continuing from where we left off...

First off, let me say that, aside from the reasons I noted in my previous post, there's no special reason you need to have a "class system" in your role-playing game. Traveller doesn't need a class system. Neither does Pendragon or original Gamma World. There are some systems like Vampire the Masquerade that actually confuse their own design purposes by including a class system (see "clan"), though VtM does demonstrate yet another reason class systems are expedient: they limit what might otherwise be a baffling number of choices/options to a manageable number.

[I hear some folks might saying, HEY! Gamma World has classes: humanoids, mutant animals, and pure strain humans! To be clear, original GW only offers two choices: a PC with mutations or a PC without. If you choose the latter, you get some bennies when it comes to interacting with ancient technology. I don't see a "class" distinction when there's no real, mechanical difference between choices]

I'm not a stupid man (usually), but I just don't have the patience to wade through some of the character creation systems out there. I've played FATE games on multiple occasions (at conventions) and had a good time using "lite" streamlined chargen (once) or pregen characters. I own a couple-three FATE games. But I haven't run them...haven't even finished reading the rules. My eyes just start to glaze over when I start skimming the aspects and stunts and skill lists (skills! why are there always skills!). I have a much easier time managing a "light" class-less system (say Over The Edge) than something so robust...I don't want to "build" a game with a toolbox, I want to PLAY.

It may simply be that Dungeons & Dragons spoiled me a long time ago. The expedience of its class system with its distinct, recognizable archetypes just proves to be such a useful working template for fantasy adventure games that it's hard to get away from it...whenever I pick up an RPG that has  "quick-start" characters or archetypes (like Hollow Earth Expedition or Shadowrun or Deadlands), I always find myself asking 'Why didn't they just make this a class-based system? Wouldn't that have been easier?'

However, it's not always wine and roses in the world of classes. Class proliferation, the expansion of the choice list to fill an ever greater number of niche interests, can eventually lead to wrecking the joint...especially in games where the classes cease to be recognizable and/or the distinctions get muddied or outright buried. Palladium's RIFTS is probably "Exhibit A" for class proliferation leading to a loss of expedience due to proliferation: the original core book contains 28 distinct classes (or more if you count each "dragon RCC" separately) and each supplemental "World" or "Dimension"  sourcebook (more than 50 of which exist) add another half-dozen...or more!...new classes to the mix, many of which are no more than slight variations of others. Do you really need to include six variations of the juicer? For that matter, do you really need juicers and crazies and borgs? Aren't they all just enhanced/altered fighters with different downsides?

In the world of Dungeons & Dragons, class proliferation isn't nearly as extreme, but it IS present, and has been for decades. The original Little Brown Books had only three classes in 1974, increasing to five with the release of Greyhawk (1975), seven with Blackmoor (later in 1975), and nine (including the psionic variation which "drained" existing class abilities in exchange for psionic ones) with Eldritch Wizardry in 1976. That's nine classes if you're not counting each multi-class or race-class combo separately. By 1978 the AD&D Players Handbook had eleven classes available to players, with a character's race providing only slight variation (though many-many multi-class options).

While this was only officially increased to fourteen with the advent of Unearthed Arcana in 1985, the time between 1978 and 1985 saw the appearance of a number of classes in Dragon magazine, many of which were used in peoples' home campaigns (we used at least two or three, and I'm sure we would have included anti-paladins, if we'd had that copy of Dragon).

So how many classes do you really need? How many classes are "too many?"

It's pretty clear that most folks feel you need more than three (unless the capabilities of those three are so minimal in distinction that a race variation can make one feel "heavily modified;" see OD&D). But is 4th edition's 22 (spread across three PHBs), each possessing four "paragon" options (4E's equivalent of "prestige classes") that become accessible at 11th level, too many? I would certainly say, "yes," but it's possible I'm in the minority.

Classes (and class-race combos) are certainly something that can be tailored for each individual's campaign; in fact, in some games (like Rifts) I'm not sure a campaign can really function without a strong editing hand. But what a particular gaming group can stand with regard to class quantity is up for debate.

Back in D&D's "primordial ooze" days, new classes (and class options) were added in dribs and drabs until a saturation point was reached round about 1979. My evidence for this? The very unscientific fact that TSR was happy to stand pat with its "official" class list till 1985. While I realize that other things were keeping the company's main designers busy (lawsuits and finding new ways to spend their wealth), I have to think that if there'd been a real clamoring for new classes, the company would have found some way to put out a new or updated or modified PHB; heck, just a "revised edition" that included a handful of extra pages.

[by the way, this falls into the "more evidence" drawer when it comes to my idea that subsequent editions are written MAINLY for returning, experienced players. Once you've added a bunch of classes over time, veteran players come to a new edition with an EXPECTATION of being able to play with their favorite shiny bauble. It's why there's so little "pruning" that occurs between editions, despite the fact that a dozen plus classes is probably excessive for a new player]

So what, JB? Having classes is fun! Having more classes just means more options which means more fun! You just said that groups are going to vary in opinion over "how many is too many."

That's right; I did say that. I said that limits are going to vary depending on groups...but there reaches a point, with ALL campaigns, when the proliferation of classes is going to be too many. When the number of class options is so many that game play is no longer expedited. That number may vary from table to table, but each table has a number. And I think that knowing that number...or, rather, finding that number...can be useful.

I've delved into this a little bit in the past when I was reminiscing over the gaming group of my youth. While it lasted only seven or eight years, it represented a substantial investment of time (in hours spent) back before my friends and I had much in the way of responsibilities or distractions. I would estimate that we spent at least three times as much time on Dungeons & Dragons as on ANY year I've spent regularly playing as an adult, the equivalent of a 20+ year (adult) campaign. Which is about right for the power level we were often playing at.

[to be clear, we ran...roughly...three full campaigns during this time period, taking characters from 1st level up to (what would be) a retirement-worthy high level]

Most of this was played with 1st edition AD&D; our group disbanded shortly before 2nd edition was released. Including the Unearthed Arcana (we never used Oriental Adventures), here's our breakdown of classes:

Cavalier (subclass: Paladin): never used. Never ever ever. It wasn't that they weren't cool, or that we couldn't roll up characters with high enough ability scores. No one wanted to be strait-jacketed by their codes and alignment restrictions. Plus, what good is a horse in a dungeon?

Cleric (subclass: Druid): we saw several clerics over the years, though the first PC cleric did not appear until we picked up the Expert set (circa 1982) and the followers that came with high levels outweighed the lack of "oomph" at low levels. My friend Matt's longest running PC was a cleric of Athena. A visiting player brought his high level cleric to one of our game sessions (another cleric of Athena? Maybe). There were also two Drow clerics of Lloth at later points (one male, one female, both played by different players at different times); one of these (female) was multi-classed. We never had a PC druid (I rolled one up, a female half-elf with the oh-so-original name "Galadriel;" she never saw play time). One half-elf "converted" (mechanically and religiously) to a cleric of Artemis. There was also one "healer" PC, based on the NPC class published in Dragon magazine; "Fr. Cornelius" was Chaotic Evil and insane and lasted all of one session before being castrated and left for dead by his fellow party members.

Fighter (subclass: Ranger, Barbarian): my co-DM (Jocelyn) 's second oldest PC was a straight B/X fighter, and probably the most badass character to ever roam our campaign; she deserves her own post. My brother played a dwarf fighter/thief; another player (Crystal) played a 6'3" female human fighter fighter who sported about 50 weapons including a man-catcher ("to catch me a man") and exceptional (%) strength. My brother played a barbarian also ("Bork") who was killed at least once in an intra-party feud. There were a couple 1E bards who started in the ranger class (one was mine) but we never had any dedicated rangers. One of the earliest character sheets I still have stashed is a level one elf (B/X) named "Silver Fox;" no idea whose it was. Jocelyn's oldest character was a 1st level (B/X) halfling that I gave her when she randomly showed up to the first adventure I ever ran and needed a character...it is the only "halfling fighter" I remember anyone ever playing back in the day. Matt also ran a half-elf "archer," though I can't remember if this was taken from Bard Games' The Compleat Adventurer, a Dragon magazine, or was some kit-bashed combination.

Magic-User (subclass: Illusionist): quite a few of these, though most were played by one guy (Scott); his longest running PC was a straight MU named "Lucky Drake" (later "Lucius Draco"). He also ran an illusionist (who adventured through D1: Descent to the Depths of the Earth), and a (male) Drow magic-user/assassin with house-ruled pyrokinetic (psionic) ability. Also seen: a half-elven fighter/magic-user and a female (wild?) elven magic-user with red hair and a penchant for fire/arson. Now that I think of it, fire and arson were fairly common proclivities of magic-users in our games. Not Lucky, though...he was a strict lightning bolt type of mage.

Thief (subclass: Acrobat, Assassin): quite a few of ALL of these. Jason's longest running PC was a thief, grandfathered into AD&D from B/X. Matt had an assassin. Scott had the aforementioned magic-user/assassin. After the UA's release, most thieves (at least three, maybe four) chose to become thief-acrobats upon reaching 6th level (two bards did). In one campaign, my bard took assassin as his second class (instead of thief...no, this was not the guy who started as a ranger). My brother's halfling thief-acrobat was the kind of douchebag only an annoying younger brother can run. A couple of (prominent) halfling thief henchmen/NPCs. Scott ran a female half-elf thief who was brutalized and killed by a tribe of bullywugs (I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City) in what may have been the lowest point of our many year campaign...a campaign that had MANY low points (see Matt's healer character above).

Monk: I created a monk character with the name "Soft Treader" (because I suck, okay?) who wore a cape with a hood that looked a bit like Moon Knight (not really an inspiration) and, as far as I remember never used his hand-to-hand attacks; had a crossbow and "jo sticks" instead and made it to about 2nd level before being abandoned (or killed...I honestly don't remember). Pretty sure he was Lawful Neutral, which didn't fit in all that great with the (usually Chaotic) party we were running.

Bard: three of these, though one (mine) really had three iterations across the years: first as a fighter-thief-bard, then as a ranger-acrobat-bard, and finally as a fighter-assassin-bard. The other two were both female; one (another half-elf ranger-acrobat) was a prominent NPC. The other was a crazy-ass mix of storm giant/human/elf that (I think) was of the "standard" fighter-thief variety...albeit one with a bunch of crazy air elemental type powers (this was NOT my character; another long post).

A few years after this group disbanded, I did have the opportunity to run a short (maybe three month?) AD&D campaign for my brother and some friends. They were in high school at the time and were tired of me maiming their PCs with Chaosium game systems (ElfQuest, Stormbringer, etc.). The group consisted of a fighter, a couple clerics, and an evil magic-user or two. Oh, and another (1E) bard who was sacrificed pretty early on in order to power The Machine of Lum the Mad. Since that time, I've really only run/played BECMI or B/X...at least as far as anything resembling a "campaign."

So what's the breakdown? How many different classes are we talking? Well, that's really only about EIGHT classes, plus multi-class combos and racial variation. I mean, the monk? I can hardly call a class played in one or two sessions by a single player (probably one just "trying out" the new rules) as really viable class. Other than the thief, most single-class characters were a "main" class: fighter, cleric, or magic-user. Subclasses were something to be shoehorned into a multi-class character (or bard) or left for NPCs. The thief subclasses were the exception for us, and I'd guess this was due mostly to them all being "thief PLUS" type classes: they had all the abilities of a thief, plus extra abilities. And UN-like other subclasses (paladins, rangers, barbarians, etc.) there were no behavioral restrictions mandated by their class. Any rule that restricted us with regard to who we could loot and what we could carry (treasure-wise) was enough to render classes undesirable and untouchable.

Getting crowded in here...

If we had played without behavior restrictions, would we have made use of more classes? Possibly. Certainly the cavalier's "boost ability score over time" looks like the kind of tasty exploit we would have lapped up. But it's hard to say: the original four B/X classes (fighter, magic-user, cleric, and thief) were so straightforward in how they worked. A class like illusionist seemed pretty easy to add, because it was (mainly) just about swapping out the spell list. And you can do a LOT with four classes, a handful of races, and an ability to combine the two (or more) elements.

Which, unfortunately, doesn't really answer my question.

I just want to add a couple-three more thoughts (as I wrap up an already-too-long post): one is that my remembering of my old campaigns' classes is probably not accounting how much of our enthusiasm or affinity for a particular class was due to level restrictions. No one played dwarves (for example) because they max level was capped in all but the thief class (and who wanted to play a dwarf thief? He can't even climb walls!). This was a major consideration for us "back in the day."

Secondly, regarding 3rd edition (and 3.5 and, by extension, Pathfinder): I've played this brand of D&D and despite it only having only 11 "core classes" (we won't count the later "Complete" line of 3.5 that added at least 12 additional "core classes" to the mix), it was TOO MANY for my taste, simply because of the lack of restriction in combination. I suppose there's nothing "wrong" with a gnome or half-orc ranger...in some ways, that's a nice option to have, an example of "outside-the-box" thinking, casting against type, etc. But there IS something about allowing (for example) ANY race to become a paladin, or a monk, or whatever that makes a class that once felt special and privileged to be "less special." And the open-ended multi-classing? That defeats the whole purpose (and advantages) of having a class-based system; instead you're doing a class-less system, just not one as robust as other "point-buy" RPGs (like GURPS).

In the original AD&D PHB, there were a total of 56 race-class combinations available to player characters (58 in games that allowed the human and half-elf bard options). 22 of these were specific, demihuman multi-classes, almost all of which were composed of primary classes (not subclasses). 50 is probably more than one will see in a long-running game (mine used less than half this number, and we enjoyed trying out new things and tinkering)...but I can see wanting to have 150% to 200% more available than what one would expect to find over the life of a campaign. For me, based on my past experience, 40 would feel like a pretty safe maximum.

Besides, I could always add more if some player really REALLY wanted to have something unusual (a half-giant pyrokinetic archer, for example).
; )

Don't Sass an Assassin (Part 1)

I know I've been waxing nostalgic about AD&D lately. This post might well have a bit more of that.

I've posted before how far back in time my relationship with the assassin class goes...way back to my primordial beginnings on the playground (circa age 7 or 8)...long before I ever laid eyes on a D&D book or rolled a single strange-shaped dice. In the realm of elementary school recess, when we "played D&D" (i.e. "played pretend") there were only ever three character "classes:" the fighter, the magic-user, and the assassin. That was OUR Big Three, thank you very much, and nary a cleric in sight (well, other than the nuns and priests of my Catholic elementary school, but that was, of course, different).

However, I wouldn't lay my hands on a copy of the AD&D Player's Handbook till age 11 or so. And as it was only 2010 that I laid hold of Supplement II, age 11 was my first introduction to the official assassin class.

[interestingly, we had been using the DMG and the MM for close to two years, in conjunction with the B/X rule sets. Imagine our surprise at multi-class characters, bards, psionics, druids, etc. Hell, previously we'd had a ton of frustration whenever trying to use a monster that had some spell-like ability NOT detailed in the B/X books. Crazy!]

Anyway...by the time we actually picked up the PHB, no one really wanted to play an assassin. Jocelyn's main character was a fighter. Matt had a cleric. Scott always played magic-users. And Jason had a long established Thief. While my younger brother often played with us, he was generally relegated to a "shorty" role like dwarf or halfling (later his penchant would change to barbarians). No one was interested in a class that maxed out at level 15 while other (human) classes stretched onto infinity.

No one but me, that is...but I was usually the group's designated Dungeon Master.

And even when I DID get to play (when we started trading off the roll of DM in the campaign), I spent the bulk of my playing time as a bard...in those days of "high level" play, I would never have settled for a character that was limited to 15 levels.

[yes, high level...once you reach a certain level in the game, death becomes a fairly moot point given the access to wishes and resurrection-type magic. The real problem with sustaining high level play is giving players something to play for...which came for us because we were heavily invested in the campaign world, i.e. that play that happens AFTER one achieves the "end game" conditions in D&D]

But the assassin class was always fascinating to me. To many of us, really. There was no "ban" on evil characters in our campaign and most of us ran characters on the darker side of Chaotic Neutral anyway. In fact, now that I'm reminiscing there were a couple-three assassin characters in the campaign, though they were all "secondary" characters to a player's "main" PC.

There was Shadowspawn (yes, named for the Thieves World character), played by Matt. Matt's main character was a lawful good cleric of Athena, but he was a big TW fan, and Shadowspawn was based heavily on his namesake, wearing black leathers and carrying knives in every conceivable location.

Then there was Dark Flame ("Darkflame?"), played by Scott. Scott's characters were almost all wizards of some sort, and DF was no exception, being a Drow multiclass magic-user/assassin. He had a reversible cloak/outfit and would generally portray himself as an elven magic-user so as not to get thrown in the hoosegow. As if anyone would F with a drow anyway.

Even one of my bard characters incorporated a bit of assassin, being a fighter-assassin-bard mix (you can blame Gygax for that one, as his character Gellor in the Gord series was a ranger-thief-bard; once we read that we ruled sub-classes were okay for bard advancement if Gary said it was okay).

Oh, yeah...and my little brother played an assassin (briefly) named "Dirty Harry."

All of these characters were, of course, capital-E "evil" as per the alignment requirements of the PHB...but being cold-blooded killers didn't mean they necessarily went out of their way to be disgusting assholes...they just didn't have much love in their hearts. And while they were capable of murder for pay (what adventurer isn't?) they still found a way to interact with their fellow player characters without their career choice getting in the way (probably helped that no one ever played a paladin in our games).

And yet, I don't recall a single "assassination" ever taking place.

I was reading Alexis's post on assassins the other day (natch, since it directly pertains to the character I am currently running in his AD&D campaign...more on that later), and while I grokked his point, it was far and away outside my experience as a player.

I'm reading the PHB right now, and I can see that an assassin is allowed an assassination attempt if he (or she) achieves surprise. But I honestly don't remember ever simply allowing an "assassination attempt" (and it wasn't very often an assassin, working solo, achieved surprise...especially in a dungeon or "marching order" type setting). Our guide was more of the blurb in the DMG (page 75) about achieving "optimum conditions" - gaining "absolute trust" from a target, attacking someone asleep, or drunk and unguarded. It also says:

If the assassination is being attempted by or in [sic] behalf of a player character, a complete plan of how the deed is to be done should be prepared by the player involved, and the precautions, if any, of the target should be compared against the plan.

See, no one ever took the time to prepare a PLAN of assassination...and just happening to surprise a guard or monster doesn't mean you have time to formulate "a complete plan;" you get one or two segments of surprise, period! In our campaigns, if an assassin was lucky enough to achieve surprise, he'd generally just try to backstab the opponent in such a spur of the moment circumstance.

So, no, we didn't have any "magical" assassinations. Even though we were playing AD&D in the age range of 11-15, we could still read the books, and we took the rules as canon (the same reason we incorporated speed factor and other minutia into our game).

Likewise, while there were assassins guilds (we had a rather infamous one in the town of Willip in the Greyhawk campaign), none of our assassins were members of one. Per the PHB (page 29) player characters did not have to be members of a guild...and since we didn't want to be beholden to anyone, we chose not to belong.

Which meant there were never any "assassination assignments" and never any "fees for assassination" paid out. Duh!

In practice the idea, or concept, of the assassin was cooler than the practicality of playing one...that is, unless you were really interested in working the concept. And because assassins in our campaign were secondary to our main character (or, in my PC's case, secondary to the prime role of "bard"), none of us dug deep into what it meant to be an assassin: seeking clients, earning a reputation, jockeying for guild status. None of the assassins in our campaigns ever got higher than 9th or 10th level so the issue of challenging guild masters (for higher level advancement) never came up.

In review, I feel there was never an issue of "playing the class right," but there was a missed opportunity for exploration of an interesting character concept. And as I'm older and (somewhat) more mature, I find myself having some regrets that I didn't "take the plunge" and run with it.

Which is the main part of the reason I've decided to play an assassin in Alexis's AD&D campaign.

; )

[I find I have more to say on the subject of assassins, so it appears this might develop into a series of posts; oh, boy!]

Riding that Nostalgia Train

I can only take a certain amount of Aerosmith. 

I’m back at the Baranof, knocking back a stiff martini, and have Wolfmother piped into my headphones as I type. Why? Because Janie’s Got A Gun was just calling up bad memories. Not even memories really (there were no images attached); just weird-ass, hinky feelings. That song was popular at a time when…well, I don’t remember exactly what was going on at the time, but it couldn’t have been all that great, as I’ve apparently blocked it out. Let’s see: per wikipedia it was released in 1989 with Pump. Yes, I remember that. Peaked at #4 on Billboard in 1990 and was probably on extensive radio airplay the same year. In 1990 I was 17…that was the year my father left my family. (*sigh*) 

High school was not a fantastic time (for a lot o folks it ain’t; that’s nothing special). There were certainly some high points to go with the lows, and things actually started up-swinging for me in a lot of ways with 1991 so I won’t complain (plus I still have a pretty positive, if distant, relationship with my Dad, which is more than a few o my friends can say). But I was definitely pining for Dungeons & Dragons in 1990, that’s for sure. I stopped playing the game, pretty much cold turkey, sometime around 1987 or ’88. Shortly before the release of 2nd edition, which happened around that time. No, it had nothing to do with 2nd edition D&D; if I’d still been playing when 2E was released, I probably would have jumped on the bandwagon and bought into the Forgotten Realms and all that nonsense. No, my reason was both more simple and more complicated…I didn’t have any players. At least not the players I wanted. 

In high school, I did play role-playing games…a number of them, many of the Palladium or White Wolf or Chaosium variety (how’s that for a “grab bag?”). Hell, I made some pretty good friends in high school, some of whom lasted through college and beyond, and who did indeed play (1st edition) AD&D, even in high school. Plus my younger brother still played for awhile (as did his best friend or two) and I acted as a 1E DM for them on multiple occasions (as I’ve talked about before in this blog). But my little brother and his buddies…and even my peers who were in the same age and class as myself…were not “my type” of gamers. I really don’t know how to talk about this without sounding insulting or snobby, but I’ll give it an (admittedly half-assed) shot: none of ‘em were mature enough to play MY brand of AD&D. 

Prior to high school, I had spent…oh, let’s say five or so years playing hardcore with a small group of friends. Five years is an eternity to a kid who’s 14…more than a third of his life. I’m 38 now…I haven’t even been married for a third of my life, and I’ve been married for more than 11 years. Five years is a shitload of time for a kid that age. And consider how much time we spent on the game of D&D. Sure we had sports, we did Boy Scouts or family activities, and school (of course). But we played at school…the same way people “play” on the internet when they’re supposed to be working at their jobs. And we didn’t have jobs or careers…no soul-crushing 8 hours torn from our waking hours. Hell, we could talk D&D on our “commute” (to and from school, via foot and/or dirt bike) as we wanted. We could talk on the phone after school. We could see each other on the weekends. The only relationships we were bent on maintaining were our friendships…and those imaginary ones created in the game. 

My little circle of friends tired of dungeon-crawling pretty fast, as I’ve discussed recently. After that, it was more about creating a real, living and breathing (if imaginary) world. A world in which we were the “movers and shakers.” Our characters had loves and hates, likes and dislikes, friends, allies, and enemies. Hell, we had “turn-on’s and turn-off’s”…all noted on our (rather extensive) character sheets. All aimed at trying to flesh out the imaginary avatar. Give it life, the way authors do their characters. 

Crazy kids. 

AD&D was our jump board to a “higher state” of role-playing. You may disagree that there’s anything “higher” about it (just “different”), but I’ll stick with the term for a moment. We were still “going on adventures” but the adventures had more to do with the characters themselves than with anything insidious in the virtual environment. And little had to do with “backstory.” 

For example, one girl (yes, members of the opposite sex like RPGs) who played with us, Crystal, created a female fighter named “Tangina.” By virtue of random rolls from the DMG, we discovered Tangina was pretty goddamn strong and over 6’ tall…an f’ing amazon, if you will. Tangina also had plenty of gold to equip herself and spent it on half-a-dozen plus weapons, including both a two-handed sword and a man-catcher (“in case I need to catch me a man!”). Typical low-level character derived from random generation. Her “backstory” was pretty short…her family had tried to marry her off to a minor noble who was an asshole (or she just didn’t want to get married, I forget), and she fled to pursue an adventuring life. No one got killed, there were rumors that her ex- was still “searching for her” but I don’t recall a single appearance by him or his henchpeople. Mainly, she was just a wanderer with a simple story explaining why she wasn’t a medieval (very tall) housewife. She had a Halfling henchman named Shorty who was none too bright (in our games, halflings were always NPC comic relief, never as heroic player characters…I don’t think any of us had ever read Tolkien at that point). The point is, with minimal “characterization,” Crystal was able to drop into an imaginary life completely alien to her 13 (maybe 14 or 15?) year old self. Interacting with NPCs (not just killing orcs), looking to make a good (if imaginary) life for herself and NOT worried just about “gaining XP and leveling up.” 

And Crystal was a very minor player in our circle. There’s a lot of talk (at times) in the Old School realm about “D&D’s endgame:” build a castle, gain a dominion, settle down. See, for us, that wasn’t the end of the game but something around the mid-point. Getting the castle and the followers put you on a footing to interact with other landholders (kings and barons and such). It opened up other “adventures,” more interesting than simply “going down the hole looking for loot.” Political machinations and alliances, romances and marriages and betrayals, power and land grabs, revenge and vendetta…not to mention the quest for godhood (a personal favorite, none of this silly “quest for immortality” schtick from Mentzer…I’m talking about displacing Olympians in the celestial pantheon through right of conquest or occult subterfuge). 

These were the games I played as a kid. This was the type of campaign (and we had several) that we adapted to the AD&D vehicle. This was the kind of campaign I was running as a DM (or running IN, as a player), form circa 1983-1987. And I started playing the game in ’81 or ’82. But I lost those friends when I went to high school: Matt, Scott, Jocelyn, even Jason and Rob. It doesn’t matter terribly why our circle ended…I’ve kept in contact with those folks (off and on) over the years…but we did stop gaming together. 

And while I continued gaming, finding new folks that wanted to game, they weren’t interested in the same things I was. They wanted to go into that hole in the ground looking for loot. They wanted to fight through 20 levels of The Temple of Elemental Evil. They wanted to set-up simulacrums of their high level magic-users, blissfully constructing magic items on other planes for fun and profit. Role-playing was still fun…but when you played AD&D, it all came down to who had the biggest sword. 

And I didn’t want to play that. So when I did game with them, we played other RPGs. Sometimes incoherent, poorly designed games…but at least it wasn’t AD&D. Because I couldn’t bear to play a poor excuse for something that had previously lived and breathed and transported me…as both a player and as a DM. 

And why do I bother to write all this tripe? Who cares, right? Stop living in the past and get on with the good gaming available now…people who care (like me) know AD&D is a pretty crap system as is. [and, yes, I still think that to a great degree] But I’ve started playing in Alexis’s AD&D campaign, and its quickly becoming obvious the guy cares a great deal about the game world he presents…more than anyone I’ve met since those friends from my childhood. His approach is different from mine…more logical, more reasonable, more intelligent…but underneath, driving it, is a very similar passion. 

Look, I am very happy to be living in the time and place and real world that I am. I would not prefer to have been born in a medieval-type world with magic and dragons…I like electricity and running water and not needing to carry a sword on my way to work in case there are highwaymen about. I don’t go to RenFairs; I don’t belong to the SCA. 

[I DO own a real (non-replica) sword…but then, I was a fencer for a number of years and when you’re in Toledo, you owe it to yourself to pick up a piece of Spanish steel when presented with the opportunity]

I am NOT saying that I prefer fantasy to reality. What I’m saying is I greatly enjoy and appreciate a chance to dissolve into fantasy as an escape every now and then. And on a regular basis, if at all possible. And in order to do that, you have to have a certain level of “buy in” that meets your personal expectations. Mine are high. Alexis’s are off the fucking chart. I dig on that. 

All right, that’s enough for now. I’m just glad I’m getting a chance to play AD&D with some like-minded folks after so many years (you should see how these players get into character…and there are no funny voices or accents involved. Nice). Can't wait to get me some land grants and titles.

; )

Shadow Run – Old “New School”

I miss 1st edition Shadowrun. More on this in a moment.

I know that the line between what is “Old School” and “New School” in role-playing games can seem pretty hazy depending on the blog you happen to be reading; “subjective” may be the most apt term. For a lot of people “old school” represents a particular state of mind, or perhaps a childhood nostalgia. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this (i.e. that the line is subjective or one of nostalgia)…but then, my main interest is in game design (particularly good or “coherent” game design), and some of the design choices made by “old school” authors (consciously or not) have real merit and (I feel) applicability to present day design.

So when I talk Old School, I usually mean “pre-1986” (i.e. back when Cliff Burton was still making music). Yes, there was a definite “personality change” that occurred around 1983 over at TSR (as evidenced by the kid-friendliness of BECMI), but I see the first major changes in DESIGN theory beginning around1986. That’s when GURPS comes out and folks start thinking “hey, maybe this RPG I’ve been writing should model everything from the get-go, rather than tacking on sourcebook after sourcebook (a la AD&D).”

By “everything” I mean “every possible occurrence in the game world” and by “model” I mean “create game mechanics that can be used to address the issue.” After 1986 the only two real questions on which game designers may differ are:

a) Should the game include a metagame mechanic…or not?

And

b) Should personality/social mechanics be modeled with objective rules…or left to individual “role-playing?”

Other than those questions, most post-1986 RPGs are functioning about the same, regardless of which particular dice you want to use to resolve your “skill roll.”

I find nothing particularly innovative about Shadowrun, though perhaps my sense of RPG history may be lapsing here…was SR the first game to have a set “health track” for all characters? As opposed to variable “hit points?” I know Car Wars and FASA’s BattleTech both provided the same number of “hits” to individual pilots, but Shadowrun may be the first RPG I know that distinguished individual toughness via how well a character RESISTS damage rather than how much damage he or she can take.

[now, of course, many games use the former mechanic, including White Wolf games, D6, and most “rules light” generic or adapted systems]

Well, anyway, regardless of whether the SR damage track is “innovative” or not, it’s still just another resource pool to manage…as is the “mental damage” track used for both stunning attacks and spell fatigue.

Anyway…blah, blah, blah. Forget “design” for now.

I was first introduced to Shadowrun by my friend Scott back when the game first came out. Wikipedia assures me this was 1989, but I was already in high school in 1989 and I thought Scott and I had come to a “parting of ways” by then. Perhaps we had a brief reconciliation at the time.

[I lost contact with most of my gaming buddies from middle school upon entry to high school, though I later (in college and after) reconnected with most of ‘em. However, none of us game together anymore…]

My first character was created from the Elven Decker archetype…and yet I don’t remember Scott actually running a game for me…maybe the Stuffer Shack scenario, though if so, I’m sure my guy would’ve been quickly smoked. I just thought the character concept was cool…not to mention the fact that I started with a motorcycle (a Yamaha Rapier!) and had a cool outfit.

But I don’t remember ever playing Shadowrun as a player. I RAN SR as the GM later in high school (circa 1990 or so) and had a blast with adventure modules like Demon in a Bottle and Queen Euphoria (as well as the aforementioned Stuffer Shack). Even without sourcebooks, the game was pretty much complete in and of itself, though I ran it with the Street Samurai handbook and (later) the Grimoire.

But that’s really all you needed. The Sprawl Sites book was great for generating random adventures, and the Seattle Sourcebook was cool because, you know, SEATTLE and all. But if you wanted to run D&D with guns, the 1st edition of Shadowrun was pretty much the ideal game in a nutshell. Later on, during those “crazy mid-20s,” I ended up selling all my Shadowrun stuff because I figured I’d never play it again. Why not? Well, though it was a little “rules heavy” for a pick-up game (the only type of games I was playing at the time), mainly it was the embarrassingly cheesiness of the game setting.

Really. No matter how “dark” the designers intended the game or how “realistic” their justifications for the game setting, the fact remains that to play Shadowrun required you to find a group of players who enjoyed A) fantasy role-playing, B) cyberpunk role-playing, and C) mixing the two. YOU try asking some newly minted buddy, “Hey, you want to pretend to be a dwarf with bionics?” let alone a troll wizard with an SMG.

I felt embarrassed just having the thing on my shelf…it was all the more embarrassing because I tried so hard to have “serious” games; ones with “dark” or “mature” themes and “adult situations,” you know? Role-playing was more than simply firing up the table-top version of WoW and “going on a raid;” I was one of those poor suckers who fell hook-line-and-sinker for White Wolves spiel about “telling stories.”

Later, my love of all things cyborg prompted me to pick up Man & Machine for the cover alone, which led me to buying the 3rd edition of Shadowrun as well as the 3rd edition Cannon Companion…and there my collection stood, unmolested (and un-played) on a dark corner of my shelf until this last week when, inspired Ryan's recent posts, I dug deep into the Shadowrun world and started picking up a ton of used books. Oh, yeah…and I re-read the 1st novel (Never Deal with a Dragon) and started re-reading the 2nd, all in the last four or five days. Here’s what I’ve acquired (and re-acquired):

- Magic in the Shadows, 3rd edition GM screen (with paranormal critters guide), Queen Euphoria, Demon in a Bottle, Street Samurai Catalogue (2nd Edition), Sprawl Sites, Seattle Sourcebook, first three Shadowrun novels. This is all in addition to Man & Machine, Cannon Companion, and the 3rd edition of the game.

Yeah, quite a bit. But there is an almost total lack of 1st edition stuff available (no core book for example), or else I would have acquired more…THAT’s the shit!

I checked out the 4th edition, and I’ve read the reviews…hell, I read ALL the 3rd and 4th edition reviews on RPG.net. And what I’ve read confirmed my own impressions from skimming the new materials: I want none of it. The 3rd edition is very nice and except for its lack of completeness (compared to the 1st edition: No starter adventure! No critter catalogue!) and the over-kill of its sourcebooks (I would probably only use half the material found in CC, M&M, or MitS) I would probably prefer it over the 1st edition stuff. Probably.

But there sure is a lot to recommend those earlier books…especially the Timothy Bradstreet artwork in those early Shadowrun adventures. Damn…that guy is a Beast, to use a popular football euphemism. He can make you want to run the wankiest little street mage just by drawing the illo all shadowy and badass…and the real tough guys (like Lone Star cop Grissim or lion shaman Pride) are just soooo full of character and menace thanks to Bradstreet’s work…I should probably just buy up all the old modules to which he contributed.

However, artwork isn’t the main reason I went out and got these books, nor is it nostalgia,nor “historical value.” I went out and picked up this Shadowrun stuff so that I could PLAY Shadowrun…or at least dummy up a B/X version that would be more streamlined to play.

Why has the game gone from “embarrassing” to “playable” over night? Well now, THAT is an excellent question. The short answer: I’ve figured out what Shadowrun IS. The answer is two-fold:

1) Shadowrun is D&D with guns. This is the kind of thing Chicago Wiz is doing with his “modern OD&D.” Someone asked: why can’t I have elves and dwarves and wizards with machine pistols and sawed-off shotguns? Voila! Shadowrun was born!

You still have “scurrilous rogues.” Characters are still “going on adventures” (i.e. “missions”). You still have the basic character types: fighters and wizards and rogues and priest (um…shamans). You still have elves and dwarves. People still hang out(and get hired) in taverns. People still are mainly concerned with ca$h. Like Old School D&D you’re often rewarded for using your brains over your brawn…but combat is a big part of the game. This is D&D…but D&D of the near Earth future. All the “setting stuff” is just flavor…this is cyber-D&D-punk…which really is no more nor less cheesy than D&D.

2) Shadowrun can appeal to a couple different types of people: youngsters (like teenagers and early 20s military dudes) who could care less about “cheesiness,” and oldsters (like me) who can either A) not take themselves so seriously, and/or B) are loose enough to commit to the mindless mayhem and madness.

Now that I have a son, I have a feeling HE might like to play an elf with a cool motorcycle and submachine gun. Who am I to deny him the chance to do so? Come on, Dad…ya’ wuss!

: )