L is for Limits

[over the course of the month of April, I shall be posting a topic for each letter of the alphabet, sequentially, every day of the week except Sunday. Our topic for the month is Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: how to approach it, how to run it, how to enjoy a system that deserves to be played NOW, nearly 50 years after its inception. Consider this a 'crash course' in the subject]

L is for Limits...and believe it or not, we really, really like limits in our Dungeons & Dragons game.

Limits are what makes a game a game...at least a game worthy of play. When you play basketball with your friends, you don't score a point just for touching the ball...to score a point you must put the ball through an elevated hoop, suspended higher than (most) people can jump. It is a simple game, but it is a challenging game, and the challenge is a large part of what compels people to play and enjoy it.

AD&D has LOTS of limits built into its rules. There are limits to what classes a given species can play. There are limits to what level a given class-species combination can achieve. There are limits to ability scores based on species and gender (we'll talk about that one in a second). There are limits to how a character may advance and how experience points are acquired. There are limits to what may be carried, limits to resources (arrows, oil, torches, potions, spells). Limits to the number of hit points of damage a character may sustain before winding up dead-dead-dead. Heck, there are even limits to WHICH characters are eligible to be raised from death by magic (sorry to all the elves and orcs!).

All these limits provide boundaries that shape the look and feel and play of the game. They all provide challenges to the participants' desire to do "anything they want," despite ad copy claims to the contrary ("...a game of limitless imagination!"). 

And challenge is what makes it a game worth playing.

FOR EXAMPLE: the character is the player's tool and vehicle for exploring the game world; however, that "tool" is only as effective as the limits of its level. A 1st level character is VERY limited in effectiveness, compared to a 10th level character...even if the two were equipped in similar fashion (equipment and magic items tend to act as a "force multiplier;" they do not (usually) "make" the character). Advancing in level requires the player to earn experience points. Experience points are earned through finding and recovering treasure (these are adventurous treasure-hunters, after all) OR...more minimally...by defeating opponents in combat (valid, given that much of a character's effectiveness is measured in combat ability).  However, engaging opponents in combat COSTS RESOURCES...players lose time, lose hit points, lose consumable equipment, lose spells...and this cost must be weighed against the potential gain.  Because depletion of resources means a reduction in the RANGE at which the player can operate.

[if I spend an hour of my four-hour game session locked in a large combat, I'm using up a quarter of my real world game time in a single encounter, leaving LESS time for more exploration/adventuring. If I lose a large amount of hit points (or fellow player characters) or spells and resources in this large encounter, that leaves me with a decreased amount for further exploration/adventuring. The question becomes: was the battle WORTH it? If pursing this large combat resulted in a large treasure, or opened access to a large treasure, or provided a clue for finding a large treasure...then, maybe. If not, that large combat may end up being a Pyrrhic victory. Assuming it results in victory at all]

But that is the challenge of game play...it is what makes AD&D the game it is. In the present D&D culture, it is a common practice to NOT award experience points but simply to "level up" players at arbitrary chosen places as a reward for accomplishing story goals set by the DM. This is pretty much the opposite of "player agency." Players must jump through the hoops specified by their DM in order to get their cookie. And since the award is subjective and arbitrary (the DM can choose to award a level whenever they "feel like it") nothing the players actually DO or accomplish in the game matters in the slightest. It only matters how generous the DM is feeling on a particular day (which may ranged from "overly generous" to "downright stingy").

Some of us prefer our actions to matter. Some of us prefer to have agency.

HOW ABOUT ANOTHER EXAMPLE: when creating their character in the game, players are LIMITED by two factors: 1) the ability scores they roll, and 2) the class-race combinations that are allowed. Since ability scores are randomly determined, this tends to create a broader swath of "humanity" (including demi-humanity) among the players in some semblance (verisimilitude...again!) of "real life." Not everyone has what it takes to be a paladin, or a ranger, or a monk, or a bard. And so those classes appear with less frequency than simple fighters and clerics and magic-users and thieves...as they should. Likewise, not every species trains the same type of profession. Elves are not particularly religious (perhaps because they cannot be raised from the dead?) and there are no adventuring clerics among their number (their priests are all "stay-at-home" types and limited to NPCs)...this is implied world/setting material as well as a LIMIT on what players can choose.

While the non-humans have limits of choice when it comes to their profession, they also have limits to their maximum achievable effectiveness. 8th level might seem to be an impossibly lofty rank to low-level sloggers of OSR "lite" games, but it's barely more than "mid" for an AD&D campaign...my players can hit 8th pretty easily within a year of play (even with level draining undead). As one might expect, this means the bulk of long-term characters...especially fighter types...are going to end up as humans (who have no level restrictions). The trade-off? Humans gain none of the special abilities of the non-human species (and there's a LOT, especially for dwarves, elves, and halflings), nor do humans have the ability to multi-class (advance in two classes simultaneously) which is a decided advantage of the non-humans, especially at the low-mid levels of play.

Again, we can contrast this with present day (5E) game culture where any character can be any species-class and can achieve any level. Without boundaries, there is no particular challenge save, perhaps the challenge of playing something "original" in a world where all is permitted. However, that by itself (for me) breaks any semblance of verisimilitude as such a world of half-orc bards and halfling paladins, where the greatest fighter in the land can be a gnome and the greatest wizard a dwarf, is just a little too "gonzo" for my taste. I like my fantasy grounded in an accessible world of SOME naturalism, not the cartoon anti-logic of the wildest anime-come-to-screen. There are other RPGs for anime play.

ONE FINAL EXAMPLE: and here I'll talk about the ability score discrepancies between males and females. AD&D places limits on ability scores based on species and that is fine...I have no issue with one species being less agile than another, or less educated, or not built as robustly as another. These are issues of culture (setting/world building) and fantasy physiology. However, with regard to the STRENGTH ability score, AD&D places limits based on female strength in comparison to male strength for each individual species. It looks like this:

• Halfling (M/F)       Max: 17 / 14      +1/+1 or 0/0
• Gnome (M/D)        Max: 18(50) / 15     +1/+3 or 0/0
• Elf (M/F)               Max:  18(75) / 16    +2/+3 or 0/+1
• Half-Elf (M/F)       Max: 18(90) / 17    +2/+4 or +1/+1
• Dwarf (M/F)          Max: 18(99) / 17    +2/+5 or +1/+1
• Half-Orc (M/F)      Max: 18(99) / 18(75)   +2/+5 or +2/+3
• Human (M/F)         Max: 18(00) / 18(50)   +3/+6 or +1/+3

For those who are new to AD&D, understand that the strength ability score goes from 3 to 18, but fighters (including rangers and paladins) with an 18 score roll percentile dice to achieve a "bonus" score of 01 to 00 ("100"). High strength scores provide a bonus to melee combat (very important for sword-swinging fantasy, doubly important for fighter types), as well as a +10% bonus to experience points for fighters with a score of 16+ in strength. Consequently, even though the a max STR male halfling is only getting a +1/+1 to attack/damage rolls versus his female counterpart, the female halfling will be earning less x.p. (as a fighter) because her STR is capped at 14. With this in mind, female gnomes and halflings should probably not even consider fighter as a class.

In my youth, we just rolled with these, as is. Our group included two girls (one my co-DM), both of whom played fighters, and it was never an issue (as in, it simply never came up). There may have been one or two complaints from BOYS in our group (who occasionally played female characters), but we'd simply say "them's the rules, fella." Any player was allowed to play any gender, and we stuck by the rules as written. These days, I'm of a different mind. 

For one thing, while combat issues the major part of STR, in AD&D the issue only starts to get crazy with fighter percentiles...all non-fighters are limited to a max 18 STR, and that's never giving you more bonus than +1/+2. In other words, not much bonus. However, the real issue for me is the added weight allowance, in which any character with STR greater than 11 gets additional carrying capacity. ENCUMBERANCE is one of the limits we LOVE, as it keeps the game firmly grounded in pseudo-reality, rather than the "Minecraft mentality" of unlimited inventory.

Real world carrying capacity is tied to BODY WEIGHT. Yes, men (on average) have a more upper body strength than women, but their ability to carry loads over distance is pretty much the same percentages: 20-30% of body weight for sustainable load over distance; 10-20% of body weight is optimal for speed and endurance, 30-35% sharp drop off in pace with fatigue/injury risk...this latter amount would be a military-style "heavy" load. Military and trekking studies show that women can average 15-25% of their body weight for sustained movement, while men average 20-30% and that fitness and experience matter more than gender for carrying capacity.

It's a fascinating thing to study...and once you do you start seeing the STR chart in the PHB is INSANE. A +300# weight allowance? Even the +100# of a woman limited to 18/50 STR seems outrageous...unless these were additions to the maximum encumbered (staggering around) load. However, it is explicit that this amount is added to the unencumbered rate of movement. Probably because it's a fantasy game and some rules are written for the sake of expedience.

And if it's a fantasy game, then it doesn't matter to me whether the the women-folk are equally strong as the men-folk. As such, in my campaign all members of a species (male, female, and...I suppose...non-binary) use the same maximum STR score (i.e. they all use the number listed for the "male" of their species). 

I guess we only really, really like MOST limits.

; )

Getting' Down To It

We have to have a confrontation with our housekeeper today over a pile of missing cash, which I'm not looking forward to. It's a situation really outside my realm of experience...I never had "servants" growing up (nor do I back in Seattle), and I'm not used to working with cash so much that I have bunches of it laying around (or, rather, "squirreled away") at home. But Paraguay and developing countries are different...it's very "old timey" when it comes to having hired help and a cash-n-carry economy.

*sigh* I now understand why people have safes in their homes. I'm probably going to have to buy one, too.

Anyway...I get to put that off for the moment, however, so I might as well get to writing. The knowledge of the upcoming confrontation kept me up a while last night, and I had quite a few brain-thoughts about Pendragon and my adaptation of it.

First off: I went back over my abbreviated skill list, and analyzed it in light of the actual systems they cover. I see now why the game authors made flirtation and romance two separate skills, and got a closer look at how they're used, not to mention the whole concept of "the romantic knight" and its associated Glory. And I've decided I need to just axe the whole thing from the game. The skills, the ambition, the system for love affairs...gone.

I know that longtime fans of the Pendragon game might think ill of me, but the fact is this isn't going to be a Pendragon game. This is not a fairytale, 6th century England with an enchanting queen creating a tradition of fine amor. This is A Song of Ice and Fire...and romance, sex, and love just don't work like that in the setting. Marriages between nobles are arranged affairs, for wealth and politics, not love affairs. There ARE love affairs...and the consummation of those affairs...but there's no waiting around for years, mooning over each other, and bringing gifts. When people have an attraction, they jump in the sack and do it. It ain't Guenever's idealized world.

[and while there ARE instances of romantic longing in Martin's books...Petyr Baelish for Catelyn Stark, Brienne for Renly, etc...they are all of the "unrequited" variety, never culminating in anything, and simply ending when one party dies]

Anything that appears to be fine amor (i.e. "courtly love") is simply a sham...it's the stuff of Westeros fairy tales. If there's an attraction, there's an invitation extended, and either accepted or rejected. After the proverbial "roll in the hay" folks might develop a bond of love...see Tyrion, Lysa Arryn (on her part, at least), the Stark brothers, Dany, for example...at least as the characters are portrayed in the television program. But the "attraction" part needs a different system.

[maybe something akin to "recognition" in another Chaosium game: ElfQuest]

In the books, there are nobles who marry for love, rather than political alliance...the children of Aegon V, for example. But that happens after they've been betrothed for political alliance and often ends up starting wars/rebellions...these are exceptions that lead to adventure hooks. No, we don't need a system for exceptions...and we don't need flirting and Glory for romantic knights.

Besides, the whole "romantic knight" thing really only works in one direction (male to female), and as I've stated before, part of the reason for using this setting is that it's more inclusive. If you want to play a female knight...or a homosexual knight (like Ser Loras Tyrell)...you should have the same chances at Glory as anyone else. And it's difficult (if not impossible) to make the "courtly love" thing work if it ain't strictly Arthurian.

"What's your feeling on beards?"

Nope...axing it. As well as any "seduction" skill I was thinking of adding. There's intrigue (used differently...to find out secrets and what people want) and there's marrying and there's attraction (based on traits and APP)...my game doesn't need these extra skill rolls.

[Pendragon, for those who don't know, already has a system for producing arranged marriages: within, below, and above one's social class. They involve courtesy skill checks with your Lord (since the Lord is the one who needs to arrange-approve the marriage match) and works just fine as is. Anything else should come down to role-playing...probably involving personality traits like "lustful" and "reckless"]

The other major change is that I've decided to add a sixth statistic after all: Intelligence (INT). I can't see any way around it, as it's just too useful a measure. For one thing, it can be used (as DEX is) as a catch-all check for mental pursuits: in place of recognition (another Pendragon skill that I axed), or for opposition to an intrigue roll in a one-on-one conversation (the same way an animal's avoidance check is used in opposition to a hunting roll). Intelligence will have an impact on the number of starting skills a character has, and set maximums for those skills...but only with regard to non-combat skills. Being stupid doesn't affect one's ability to fight...that's a lot of practice, repetitive muscle memory, and combat experience.

Plus, these are knights we're talking about.

Tywin: cunning AND evil.

For a point-buy method of character creation, this will give PCs an extra 12 points to spend (72 total). It allows for a little extra distinction between characters, highlighting the difference between cunning types (like Tywin Lannister) and brutal meatheads (like the Cleganes).

Okay, that's it for the moment. My next post(s) should have the step-by-step of chargen for the Crowns of Blood campaign. Hope-hope!
; )

Fighting Women

[in which JB starts down the road to crucifixion]

Forget Robert E. Howard's Conan character for a moment. Or Karl Wagner's Kane character. Protagonists that are uber-strong, super-cunning, catlike in their speed, steely-thewed, and charismatic "leaders of men." In other words, forget the characters that (if modeled in D&D) would not only have a high level and (perhaps) multiple classes, but exceptionally high ability scores across the board. Forget that.We used to see the occasional character like that back when we used the ability score tables from the 1E Unearthed Arcana (Type VI method of generating abilities? I think that's what it was called), but since then I've seen very few uber-statted character's rolled up at my B/X sessions. Maybe one (named Farnsworth). And he ended up down four levels to a vampire and fleeing for his life, so I'd hardly compare the dude to "Conan."

Heroes in fiction are known for being exceptional...usually in one or two ways...but for me, the best heroes aren't exceptional in every regard. They have some normalcy that we can relate to (if not outright weakness). Superheroes are fun and all, but if they are infallible godlings most of the time...well, they can get boring.

In the new FHB ("fantasy heartbreaker") I'm writing, I have players (mostly) roll 2D6+6 for their ability scores  (this is something I've started to incorporate in all my "B/X based" designs lately. Um...a total of three, at the moment). This gives a range of 8 to 18 for player character ability scores with an average rating of 13. Since the normal human range of ability is still 3 to 18 (average 10-11) this makes the heroic player characters a "cut above" the average slappy.

Mechanical bonuses for ability scores start at 13. Exceptional range of abilities is 15 to 18. Since a player would need to roll a 9 or better on 2D6 to hit 15 (a 28% chance), most PCs on average will have one or two "exceptional" attributes...like the fictional heroes I prefer.

Please note: there is no mechanical disadvantage for a low ability score. The game doesn't even have a "roll under ability" mechanic, so there's really no penalty for having a low score. You just don't receive any bonus.

Now, I did said "mostly." As I wrote in yesterday's post the exception to this is female characters (not players) who roll 2D6+3 for their strength (STR) score. This is done with the purpose of reducing the average strength of a female character (from 13 to 10) and capping a female character's maximum strength at 15. Now there is some recompense for this...female heroes have learned to compensate for their lesser muscle mass in other ways, and receive 3 bonus points to distribute among their ability scores (which is pretty good since each point increase above 12 is it's own "breakpoint").

Why would I do this? And no, I don't just mean, "why would I open myself to criticism" (I can be something of a masochist at times). Instead, I mean:

"Why bother to write sex-specific game mechanics in a day and age when we are striving for inclusivity and working hard not to be part of the problem by carrying forward old fashioned stereotypes into fantasy tropes...especially given a fantasy setting with magic and dragons, etc.?"

[notice, I said "sex-specific," not "gender-specific." Spent half a day yesterday researching transgender lingo to make sure I've got my brain on straight when it comes to sensitivity. "Sex" is considered distinct from "gender" because the former is a product of biology and the latter is a mental-societal construct and, thus, open for interpretation: see Uruguay for the logical reinterpretation of this census datapoint. Regarding my game mechanic: it doesn't matter what gender the player or the character consider himself/herself to be, the mechanic is tied to the biological status of the character's sex: male or female]

*ahem* Where was I? Oh, yeah...why would I do this? Well, two reasons: one good and one bad.

The Bad: I hate Wizards of the Coast. Well, "hate" is probably too strong a word, but they have been rubbing me the wrong way for years now. And their abstract ability scores that (in 3rd-4th edition) went "to infinity an beyond" with no real rhyme or reason or justification just bugs the hell out of me. What does it mean that a 16th level elf girl fighter has a strength of 22 (for example) and a burly half-orc dude has a strength of 17? Not a blessed thing. It's just abstract numbers giving you a mechanical bonus that makes ability scores O So Important for killing folks and collecting those XPs.

[yes, I realize ability scores are capped in the new 5E rules]

So given a choice between being like WotC and "doing something different," I usually opt for the latter (usually...I'm totally stealing the advantage/disadvantage mechanic for Cry Dark Future). I want ability scores to represent something...and if a character can have a strength of 20-30, just what does that represent? By my game's definition of the Strength ability score, that would be "one big honking brick shithouse of a person." Which leads me to my better reason...

The Good (or, at least, "Justifiable in My Mind"): I'm trying to model something specific. 

No, no, not that "women are the weaker sex." Even if that is a biological reality (across most of the animal species on planet Earth), we're still talking about a fantasy game. There's no reason to say that women (or for that matter, men) of a certain subset can't grow to a size and muscle mass of equal proportion to any NFL linebacker. Call them the "titan" sub race of humanity. I can even picture them: they are all (male and female) around 7' tall with big hair (80's style), anime-fantasy garb, and sporting two-handed great swords in back sheaths that "normal" humans couldn't even lift. They only live in the southeastern part of the continent, but some have emigrated to other portions of the game world where they mix and mingle freely with other humans. People with strength over 15 are presumed to have at least some "titan blood" in their ancestry.

See how easy that is? Easy-shmeezy.

What I'm trying to model is what I see in fantasy fiction: the heroic female adventurer. They're there, though sometimes it can be hard to find them. Teres in Wagner's Bloodstone. Jirel of Joiry. Howard's Dark Agnes de Chastillon and Red Sonya of Rogatino (and their directly inspired Red Sonja...she really deserves her own post) as well as his character Valeria from Red Nails. Eowyn. Lythande and (many) other characters by MZB. Aspirin's character Tananda (from the Myth series). Kildee Wu (from Steve Perry's otherwise fairly bland Black Steel novel; I haven't read the other Matador books, but they appear to feature female assassins as protagonists). "Harry" from Robin Kinley's The Blue Sword (and Aerin Dragon-Killer from the prequel-sequel). And, sure, Brienne of Tarth.

Ride, Harry, Ride!

These are all "warrior women" of some form or another. There are other female sorcerers and thieves and minor "adventurer" characters scattered through fantasy literature (Cythera from David Chandler's Ancient Blades trilogy comes to mind as a good one), but right now I'm just talking about good fighters in fantasy fiction...fighters that happen to be female.

Some are exceptionally clever, some are fairly ignorant and uneducated. Some are charming seductresses, some are awkward with potential partners. Some are lesbians, though not the majority. Some use magic or sport "psychic powers." All are deadly combatants in hand-to-hand.

None of them are iron-thewed, 'roided-out monsters.

But then, my new fantasy heartbreaker doesn't require a character to have a high strength to be deadly in combat. "Fighting skill" (that is, one's capability in mortal combat) is a product of the character's experience...i.e. the character's level. And remember, a character that gets a better "roll over" result on his or her attack is going to score more damage. Strength does not add to one's attack roll (though a character with "exceptional" (15+) agility does receive a +1 bonus); instead, it simply increases the maximum damage the weapon can do. You still need to hit...and hit well...to do that damage.

My purpose here is to model the types of female adventurers one finds in fantasy fiction. Outside of video games and the superhero genre, I don't generally see super strong or brawny heroines. Instead, I see highly capable women who use their other attributes...brains, fighting spirit, whatever...to make up for any "deficiencies" their lack of muscle might cost them. And that's what I want to represent. Not all male adventurers are "brawny" types either (see Elric, for example)...but then, that's why all players have the option to swap an ability score to better fit their character concept, right?

But perhaps, perhaps, perhaps I am being insensitive here or marginalizing female players by having sex-specific creation mechanics. Because even though a male or female player can choose to play a character of either sex, real live people reading the game book are going to say, "O look...girls are so weak!" and we will have all sorts of mayhem ensue because of it.

If that's the case, um...sorry? Should I put in some sort of disclaimer in the book? Or essay? Or apology? Because I really, really don't want to change the mechanic. I have another B/X game (a more pulpy action game) that doesn't even have a "strength" score because, you know, who cares how much Indiana Jones can bench press? Fitness and physical prowess are better ability scores for that type of genre...and in such a game, biological sex really doesn't matter.

Okay...gotta' go. Please comment as I'd like to hear folks thoughts. Thanks!

Sex and D&D

Just so folks don't think I've totally got my head in the sand regarding stuff flying around the blog-o-sphere...

You can see my thoughts on the subject of sex at the gaming table in this previously written series of posts from May of 2010:

Sex and D&D (Part 1)
Sex and D&D (Part 2)
Sex and D&D (Part 3)
Sex and D&D (Part 4)

My thoughts and feelings on the subject haven't changed much, except perhaps to solidify. Folks who've purchased my fantasy adventure Five Ancient Kingdoms will see it includes rules for romance, a strong element of most fantasy adventure stories.

Now can I please get back to my series on fighters? Jeez!

Sex and D&D (Part 4)

In Summation...

Hmmm, actually there’s not much I want to “sum up.” I really just wanted to open up a conversation through my usual method of reminiscing about my old D&D (or in this case, AD&D) campaigns. I would like to note that no character EVER received a single XP for a “sexual conquest” (even in my youth, it was understood that adventuring XP was not gained for that type of “adventure”).

Was it important to our games to have “sex” show up in them? Mmm…that’s hard to say. Maybe. Maybe it was necessary. Perhaps it was part of what kept the campaign going into the higher levels. I don’t know this for sure, but it’s possible that high level “ass kicking” would have gotten boring without the additional drama caused by the inclusion of sex and the consequential soap opera that follows it.

I know this: I had a different trio of friends that played an AD&D campaign from 1st level up into the 20s, but first running the T1-4: Temple of Elemental Evil super-module and then completing a couple of the Bloodstone Mines series. And while I happily listened to their exploits it felt, well…"tedious" is NOT the word I’d use since they obviously had fun and it sounded like fun. But maybe “superficial?” I don’t know if they included the whole sub-plot with the Baron’s daughter as a love interest, but besides being a railroad-y plot element, I can’t see them doing much more than glossing over it…after all, they had ass-kicking to get to! What’s with this namby-pamby romance stuff?

I don’t know…all I DO know is that my friends and I used sex (and its corollaries) in our AD&D games. To me, it appears this is supported by the rules, by the source material, by the Gygax penned modules and the TSR-published literature. It worked in our games and made for memorable experiences…ones that we wanted to continue to revisit with various twists across different campaigns and through different generations.

Would it work with today’s gamers? Hell, would it work with today’s games? Who knows!

Am I the only one that experienced campaigns like this? Somehow I doubt it. Perhaps it wasn’t as explored in as great o depth by other gamers, but SEX is present in AD&D for those with eyes to see it.

I had this conversation with Kris the other day:

“Hey, Doc, can I ask you a semi-sensitive question?” Um, yeah. “But you may not answer?” Right. “How old were you when you started playing AD&D?” Around middle school. “Was there sex in your games?” What? “Sex, was there SEX in your D&D games…like characters having sex with other characters, even if they were only NPCs?” Yeah. “Ok, thanks…that’s all I needed to know.”

And really, that’s all I do need to know.

A few last, final notes:

While I started conceptualizing this series of posts a week ago (I was considering it for Friday, the day of Venus, but got distracted by the sunny weekend), it wasn’t until a day or two ago that I came across Ron Edwards article Naked Went the Gamer on his Adept Press web site.

[yes, shame on me…I have yet to buy a single copy of Fight On!]

In general, I agree with an awful lot of the stuff Mr. Edwards has to say. In this particular instance, I can’t relate quite the same since my gaming did NOT begin in the 1970s but rather the early 80s. We DID have VCRs, superhero comics were ubiquitous, and my friends and I were all Just Saying No to drugs with Nancy. However we were still playing the Old School, 70’s era AD&D in an admirably visceral style. I agree with the sentiment that somewhere along the way the hobby took a huge wrong turn (the “collective flinch” RE talks about), but I certainly don’t think it’s too late to get back to authenticity in gaming. And that starts with being a little honest about our gaming...what it is, what it was, what it was not.

My intention in sharing my experiences (and my ideas regarding Sex and D&D) has been an attempt to open some honest discussion…that’s about it.

NOT to point to any particular moral high ground. Not to denigrate anyone’s style of play (though I stand by my statement that latter editions of D&D have been “neutered”). Certainly I’m not trying to lead anyone down any particular path.

Well…and maybe I wanted to pry the lid off others’ games…I AM one of those "prying Scorpio types," after all.

Maybe writing about my own experiences will give others the space they need to discuss their own take on the subject of “Sex and D&D.” There are probably some people that have negative feelings on the subject, depending on their own history (especially if there were problems with abuses of power, in-game or out). Perhaps our sharing will help germinate ideas in others’ heads that will allow for a greater depth of role-playing in their games; perhaps it will help us mature a bit…or at least look at the game a little differently.

Okay, that’s enough on the subject for now (at least from me). Thanks for reading folks.

[this link will take you back to Part 1]

Sex and D&D (Part 3)

AKA “You Kids All Right in There?”


I can only speculate why other bloggers don’t write about sex in their D&D campaigns. Maybe people really DON’T do “Sex and D&D” anymore. Maybe they never did, and my gaming group was a bunch of super-perverted adolescents. Maybe they feel that this kind of “role-playing” is private and need not be discussed in the blog-o-sphere. Leave that for those Indie gamer guys that are so “in your face” about role-playing their emotional content anyway.

Or maybe, like myself, folks are kind of/somewhat embarrassed to even bring it up.

I mean, it’s hard to imagine now the games I played as a 12-14 year old kid. I’ve played with other kids in the 12-15 year old range over the course of the last year (acting as DM) and they seemed pretty immature to play the kind of games I used to play, “way back when.” Then again, what do I know? In general the kids always minded their P’s and Q’s around Uncle JB, and I know that at their age I was swearing like a sailor. Who’s to say what kind of game they’d be interested in, if they were hanging with their peers?

Perhaps we all tend to forget how fast we grow up as children. Not that we know everything (God forbid…I was immensely stupid, even in my 20s, and still am about a variety of things!), but kids aren’t nearly as infantile as we assume they are for as long as we assume they are.

Or maybe they are. Hell, my friends and I were reading well above our own grade level at the time (thanks for the education, TSR!)…I think I was tested as have reading skills equal to college freshman when I was still in the 8th grade. So maybe we were “forcing” our games into more mature realms, even as we did so using a game.

A game for ADULTS, at least originally.

So what then, exactly, did our games involve? How did “Sex and D&D” look in-game so to speak? Are we just talking about buying drinks for the resident harlot at the local inn or what?

Well, sure, “wenching” was a part of the game, as might be expected from young adolescents privy to pulp fiction/comics and B Fantasy films. I think a lot of young male players from way back can probably relate to this kind of action. Later on, Comeliness played a good sized role in this.

Character back-story was another place sex showed up…especially the heredity/ancestry of humans and semi-humans. Demihumans, of which there were very few player characters, were left pretty much alone as a kind of “alien” species…practically immortal and inhuman, they could care less about things our mere mortals worried about (i.e. breeding and dying). Halflings (especially post-Dragon Lance) were generally played like kender (after all, every f’ing Halfling in AD&D is an f’ing THIEF), a basically sexless race if ever there was one. Sorry Bilbo, you old batchelor, you!

However, character back-story (which for us, fed directly into the direction our sandbox campaign moved) wasn’t just limited to who was a bastard or who grew up an orphan. We had broken marriages, widows (and widowers), characters fleeing arranged marriages, at least one semi-incestuous sibling pair (well, maybe not, but the brother sure was over-protective of his sister). Virgins and virginity was a semi-big deal and we did tie it a bit to alignment (Chaotic types being much more “free love” than Lawful characters, and treating a sexual partner badly was sure to draw you closer to the Evil side of the alignment tree). Not that anyone ever faced an XP penalty (or divine “Bolt from the Blue”) for any particular sexual episode (well, with perhaps one particularly memorable sleazy Halfling whose player will remain nameless), but it WAS an influence it how we interpreted character alignment and personality.

As far as actual “sex scenes” being narrated, generally we made good use of “curtains/veils” as described by Ron Edwards. Saying, ‘ok you guys go to bed together,’ or even ‘you screw each other’s brains out and fall asleep’ is not particularly graphic, in my opinion. That’s not to say that a character or two wasn’t interrupted “in the act” (especially finding their spouse/lover in bed with someone else), but we weren’t being overly gross or detailed about it.

Hell, we were 13! What the heck did we know about sex anyway? We weren’t having any! And the idea of doing anything “live action” never crossed our (dirty little) minds…at least not mine. We didn’t even gesture or pantomime (well, not much anyway). In general we were as depraved as good, clean kids from nice homes and non-abusive families can be…which might still be pretty filthy, but it was only 1986. Wow, would you look at what’s on TV today? Even basic cable!

So in addition to “back-story” and “wenching” we actually did have romantic relationships (sexual and non-sexual) between player characters and prominent NPCs. In one campaign, one of these relationships was a driving force, involving multiple PCs (there was a “love quadrangle”) and NPCs, one of whom was especially prone to jealous rages of murderous force. However, in the end the girl chose THAT GUY (perhaps out of fear…for herself or others), and an elaborate plot was hatched to take the asshole out. Unfortunately, despite having a skilled archer with an Arrow of Slaying (the illegitimate bastard son of the intended victim…from a prior relationship!) the ambush went horribly wrong and the bride-to-be ended up slain. It was a sordid, messy affair…though one that will probably be remembered by all of us that took part in the campaign.

What else? Oh, yeah…how about offspring? The usual outcome of sex in a world without birth control (you’d think some magic-user would invent a spell…) we had to come up with random chances of pregnancy (I think it ended up being 1 in 8), especially as the campaign had fairly long-lived, high level characters (half-elves and longevity potions, yo). We even started one whole new secondary campaign composed of just the adult children of our primary characters…which of course meant determining who everyone’s parents were…which then got incorporated (or at least talked about) in the primary campaign.

That idea came straight from Pepsi (“the choice of a NEW generation”) even though we refused to drink anything other than Coca-Cola.

So now some interested parties may ask, “How the hell do you even START incorporating this kind of stuff into your D&D campaign? Do you just roll up a harlot in random city encounter and go from there?” Um, no.

For us, I think it started with trust first and foremost. As a group, we’d been playing for years together (shit, we were growing up together!) and since none us were huge assholes, people had the space to develop these ideas in-game…and the ideas were supported by the source material (1st edition AD&D and the surrounding literature and supplements).

For another thing, I think it was important that we had a good male-female player dynamic. No…males playing female characters does NOT count towards this (what is it about Libras always having to play “both sides of the fence,” anyway?).

[hmmm, it occurs to me I may have just offended a bunch of Libra folks. Sorry; just my experience, please give me the benefit of the doubt. I won’t even talk about my experience with Gemini types]

Trying to introduce sex or sex-related issues into an all male group can be…awkward, to say the least, as occurred with my first Vampire the Masquerade saga (“okay, so, I’m not gay or anything, but…”). Ugh!

Having both male and female players in our group, even though it never got better than a 3 to 2 ratio, provided a degree of balance to the game. I mean we WERE friends after all, so we did listen to each other’s feelings and generally didn’t try to make each other uncomfortable or squeamish (basic Social Contract stuff…we learned it without being taught).

On the other hand, it may have helped that none of us were in a true romantic relationship with anyone else. Rivalries of friendship (which at times reared an ugly head) were bad enough. Keeping our real lives platonic allowed us to be more intimate in-game…which made us a closer and more intimate group of friends in general. While I’ve pretty much lost touch with all these people over the years, I still consider them the best collective group of friends I ever had.

Yeah…like that line from Stand By Me.

To be concluded here...

Sex and D&D (Part 2)

AKA “Did Gary Make You Touch Yourself?”

Full disclosure alert: I have NEVER masturbated to a single nude (or semi-nude) illustration in an RPG book or supplement, Dungeons & Dragons or otherwise.

I’m just being honest here, and wanted to get that out of the way, in case anyone was wondering. There was plenty of other “fantasy related inspiration” to be found outside of officially licensed game product in the early 1980s.

I’m sure that some people will find this whole subject more than a little distasteful. What kind of pervert would want to include sex or sexual situations (or sexual scenarios) in a game about kicking in doors, killing monsters, and looting treasure? JB must be one those gamers that helped play-test Erotic D20 or something.

Hey, people, I’m just going with the literary inspirations here.

I stopped reading TSR published novels prior to the release of 2nd edition AD&D, so I’ve never read a Forgotten Realms tale or any of the adventures of Drizzit the Drow (or however you spell his name)…so I really can’t say what those books are like. However, I DID read the first six Dragon Lance books (Chronicles and Legends) and the first two Greyhawk novels (featuring Gord the Gutless…er, the Rogue).

Anyone that read those first few novels by Weiss and Hickman will see an interesting (to me) phenomenon…they get dramatically better over time. Really, I have to say that the first book (Dragons of an Autumn Twilight) is almost un-readably bad (in my opinion), but the quality becomes noticeably better as the series continues. The way I look at it is this: Weiss and Hickman started their careers as adventure module writers, and it shows. Things in that 1st book sound like they’re straight out of an AD&D module (right down to detailed equipment lists)…albeit one with an interesting premise (hey, good modules have interesting premises, too!). The second half of the book is better than the first half as the authors depart more and more from standard D&Disms and simply work on writing a novel and the following two books (Dragons of a Winter Night and Dragons of a Spring Dawning) are much better even as they radically depart from D&D and “the rules of the game,” instead becoming real fantasy stories. But of course the books are better for it…because literature is a different artistic medium than role-playing.

And, man, do those books have a lot of sex in ‘em!

Certainly not in the softcore, romance novel type way (what my old friend Jocelyn liked to call “smut books”)…there are no passages regarding Caramon’s “quivering, purple-headed warrior” or anything. But there is plenty of literal sex and sexual conflict that occurs that is integral to the plot…especially the love triangle of Tanis and Laurana and Kitiara, but also the relationship between Gilthanas and the (polymorphed) silver dragon, Sturm and the Silvanesti elf woman, Caramon and Tika, and Kitiara and her various Dragon Lord lovers.

The second trilogy almost completely revolves around the romance of Raistlin and Crysania and, although they never consummate the relationship, it drives most of the story. Also Kitiara (again) and Dalmar have plenty of steamy moments, under-lacing their eventual conflict with heightened tension and meaning.

To my friends and I, this kind of thing only made sense…after all, we were already playing D&D like this. Love triangles, sexual tension, unrequited love…these things were part of the fabric of the campaign: the relationships between player characters as well as important (and not so important) non-player characters. Dragon Lance was only modeling what we were already doing.

At least, what we were doing by 1985 or so; certainly prior to the release of Gary Gygax’s first Gord novel, Saga of Old City, which I bought as soon as I saw it at the local B. Dalton’s. Hell, having the word Greyhawk on the cover was exciting enough, but being authored by The Great One himself? Oh, boy!

No one could have been more surprised than me when I opened the book and the first line of dialogue on page 1 was “Shiteater!”

I know I felt a bit weird about THAT. Mainly due to the disjointedness of a modern, thoroughly American expletive in what (one might assume) would still contain the pseudo-medieval fantasy tone of Dragon Lance, or even Tolkien. But no, there is plenty of choice expletives sprinkled throughout the text (phrases one won’t find in the DMG, that’s for sure!), which I suppose simply emboldened the way we played D&D. After all, if The Master was using such terminology in his own campaign world, who were we to not do so?

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Likewise, there was plenty of sex, sexual scenarios, and sexually driven conflicts/tensions in Mr. Gygax’s book as well. Perhaps not as steamy as the Dragon Lance novels (themselves, as I said, merely lukewarm) , but definitely present, definitely integral to what made the protagonist tick, something that drove the character Gord towards adventure at least as regularly as the lure of easy treasure.

Which is as it should be. As I said in my last post, the human condition is more than just the acquisition of wealth (well, for the average person), and Dungeons & Dragons allows you to explore that human condition in a fantasy setting. That’s the potential anyway…I don’t know that people are still doing it that much anymore.

But let’s get back to “sexual inspiration.”

Even if one isn’t reading these early published novels specifically referencing Dungeons & Dragons, certainly the “inspirational reading lists” of the DMG's Appendix N (even the bibliography in Moldvay's basic set!) are rife with "adult" (i.e. sexual) situations.

But even without fantasy literature (game inspired or not)…which we recognize as a different medium than role-playing…even without books with “characters” and “plots,” and whatnot…look at the early adventure modules.

The Drow…from their first appearance in G3 up through Q1 in 1981...are sleazy, sexual creatures. Sex and its ramifications are deeply imperative to the Drow culture, right down to in-game effectiveness based on gender-specific attributes. A matriarchal society, the Drow are most often encountered in male-female (mated?) pairs, working in combination.

And every depiction of NPC Drow dwellings and quarters are uniformly described as lurid, lewd, and obscenely decorated. There’s no way I’m inclined to interpret that besides being “sexual” in nature. Drow like sex! With each other, with other races (review the D3 description of half-Drow), with demons (the vamp Drow and his succubus consort, also in D3)…probably all manner of other critters.

Not to mention Igwilvv and Graz’zt and Iuz and cambion demons in general. You don’t get half-demons except by having sex with a demon.

I wrote earlier that AD&D has an implied, specific setting, with setting specific classes, spells, magic items, and monsters. Well, that implied, specific setting has an implied sexuality to it as well: creatures mate with each other and form half-human monsters that found kingdoms and stir up trouble. If that kind of deviancy ain’t to your taste, you may want to be playing something other than AD&D.

My friends and I wanted to play AD&D…and our games had sex in ‘em. Coming up in Part 3, I’ll try to give y’all some examples of the hot and heavy!

Sex and D&D (Part 1)

AKA How 2nd Edition Neutered AD&D

I now embark on a journey exploring what is probably a delicate subject…one that I will no doubt probably stomp all over. I can’t recall having ever been described as “gentle” or “delicate,” so I’ll apologize in advance as I crush my way through what will be a three part series of posts.

Mmm…how even to start?

Phil Foglio’s comic strip What’s New With Phil & Dixie ran in Dragon Magazine for several years ending with the April 1984 issue, shortly before I ever started collecting Dragon. As such, while I later knew Foglio’s art from the Robert Aspirin MythAdventure novels (not to mention Buck Godot), it probably wasn’t till the 1990s or later that I had a chance to read some of the old What’s New strips in back issues I picked up here and there. Fortunately, one can get them on-line now, and I’ve had the opportunity to read ‘em all.

Interesting the long-running gag regarding “Sex and D&D” in these comics, only eventually “resolved” long after Foglio’s exodus from Dragon.

Welp, I want to talk about sex and D&D now myself.

Maybe I’m reading the wrong blogs or something, but it just doesn’t seem to be a subject that’s been addressed in any particular depth…hell, not even really in passing. I started thinking about this a couple weeks ago when I read someone’s blog post regarding how surprised he was to hear that “rape” had appeared in some folks’ D&D games.

[no, I do NOT equate sex with rape; they are two extremely different things]

What got me thinking were the comments I saw from other posters that seemed to imply (or from which I inferred) that people had been running games completely devoid of anything intercourse-related (consensual or not)…which got me thinking of the differences between different editions of Dungeons & Dragons…which led me to some interesting thoughts I hadn’t previously considered.

SEX and sexuality is implicit within the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game. This, more than anything else, is what has been removed from the 2nd (and later) editions.

I have written before, here and elsewhere, how I feel 2nd edition has “no balls.” I didn’t realize till now how literal that castration was. I’ve said before that I consider earlier editions of D&D to be “more mature.” I did not consider till now a literal lack of maturation (i.e. puberty/adulthood) in the 2nd and later editions of D&D.

And no, I am not just talking about the lack of nipples in illustrations.

There is sexuality implied in the original AD&D manuals. Girdles of masculinity/femininity, philters of love, artifacts and relics that instill individuals with satyriasis (the male equivalent of the better known term “nymphomania”) or kill their sexual desire, diseases to "generative organs," random prostitute encounter tables…and let’s not forget the cutting of the half-orc from the 2nd edition. Oh a half-elf may represent two loving, beautiful people of compatible stock joined in Lawful matrimony…what the hell does a half-orc represent? Someone that wants to get down and dirty with a goblinoid (or giant-kin as the ranger description might call it…shades of Lilith and Biblical naughtiness)? Or, of course, the possibility of rape (orc on human or human on orc…either way it’s a pretty foul way to procreate).

Even the Unearthed Arcana did its part in the name of attraction and (sexual) relationships, in the form of the Comeliness attribute (because apparently, Charisma wasn’t enough) and the random tables to determine not only social class, but MARITAL STATUS of one’s parents.

Because these things MATTER…in a game that is about more than “kick in the door, kill the monster, take the treasure.”

I don’t know how Gygax ran HIS games (I’ve got some guesses), but I can tell you how we (my friends and I) ran OUR games back in the day, and SEX and personal relationships were a big part of it. I’ll delve into that in a bit.

Taken by itself (this is important), 2nd edition AD&D seems to me to be little more than an over-complicated “child’s fantasy adventure game.” And 3rd edition is much the same. And I’m guessing (since I haven’t read it) that 4th edition continues this eunuch tradition. Which perhaps is why these latter editions seem (to me) so childish. Yes, yes describe all the blood-letting you wish…you can get that in any Rated M video game these days. If all you’re doing is defeating challenges and collecting points (XPs, GPs)…well, in my opinion that’s under-utilizing the potential of the RPG medium.

Because one of the beauties of the medium is that it is only limited by one’s imagination. Monopoly pieces don’t unite their empires through marital unions. No one ever pulls a peg out of the plastic car in Life because someone was having an affair with someone else (maybe with an orc!). You might say I’m comparing apples to watermelons and that’s EXACTLY my point: though D&D and Monopoly are both games (really! That’s what it is!), D&D is on a completely different playing field from any board game.

Unless you make it about moving tokens around little squares on a battle mat.

Sex and issues related to sex (family, children, parents, partners, spouses, heredity, inheritance, alliances, trust, betrayal, jealousy, etc.) are part of our human condition. We don’t just get up and go to work and make money and come home and eat a meal with the money we made and sleep and eventually die. There is more to life than that. And Dungeons & Dragons (and role-playing games in general) gives us the ability to model a FANTASY life. To play for a while as a warrior or a wizard or a thief or a king. And incorporating real life issues into one’s fantasy game can make for a richer experience.

At least that’s been my experience.

But I grew up playing AD&D. Oh, I started with B/X as a little kid, but the hardcore play didn’t begin until we got our hands on those 1st edition hardcovers, after which our world was consumed with the soap opera of our fantasy simulation. And it was hella’ fun! AND as far as I’m aware it did not turn any of us into miscreants (I don’t know about my friend Jason after he was removed from our circle of friends due to his mom finding a new religion).

Because if I had to guess, I would imagine that the neutering of AD&D took place in direct response to the outcry against D&D. There is little that I can find in the game that would appear to promote the often-cited “devil worship” danger of Dungeons & Dragons, but there is definitely an implicit sexuality to the game that might offend the puritanical Christian Right.

Welp, I am here to tell you I got straight A’s in school, was an active member of my church (including being an altar boy), ended up going to college (unlike my parents) without trying to jump from a rooftop (thanks, Tom Hanks), and I seem to be successfully living a (moderate) version of the American Dream without a criminal record or illegal drug habit…and I NEVER capitulated in my Dungeons & Dragons play and had gaming sessions before the age of 13 that would burn the ears of most Christian fundamentalists and probably damn me straight to Hell (in their opinion).

Fuck that noise. It’s a game.

Coming up! Part 2 in which I explain our inspiration to get “down and dirty” in Dungeons & Dragons. Yes, I wanted to play a half-ogre character…but I wanted my original character to father it himself! Woo-hoo!