Chintzy Magic Items (And a Game Con!)

 Tomorrow (Saturday, June 7th), Flynn and I are headed up to Daegu for their One-Shot Extravaganza TTRPG event. It actually starts this evening and goes through Sunday afternoon. But honestly, the games we wanted to get in the most were Saturday morning and afternoon. So we'll drive up tomorrow morning (about an hour's drive on the expressway) and come back tomorrow evening after the games. 

 Flynn prefers sci-fi to fantasy, so he's got a Traveller game in the morning (called "Death Station" and honestly, this was my first pick for this time slot as well), and in the afternoon will be playing Cyberpunk Red. He's been playing the Cyberpunk 2077 PC game, and loves it, so he's hyped for this game. 

In the morning, I'll be playing in what looks to be a sorta whimsical D&D 5E game. The DM seems much more focused on "telling a story" than running an adventure...but more on this in a bit. In the afternoon, I'll finally get a chance to try out Dragonbane (my first pick, Cyberpunk being my #2). I've been curious about it for a while now. The DM for this game sent a list of pre-gens, and I'm torn between the shifty human wizard and the wolf-man monster hunter. There's also a duck-man knight that could be interesting, but may be too similar to my morning character so I'll try to get one of the above two PCs. 

 For the 5E game, the DM has some pre-gens, but said we could also make characters and submit them for approval. I considered playing a Sorcerer, which along with the Warlock are the two classes in 5E that I've never tried to play. Or a Druid, which I did try once, and had fun with. But in the end, I went with a classic Dwarf Fighter, Level 3 (Battle Master archetype). Since it's a custom point-buy system, of course his physical abilities are really good (although I didn't go so far as to give myself a 20 in Strength...merely an 18). He's got the Noble background, and I had fun filling out a short list of titles he bears that would make Lwaxana Troi proud. And that's why I'll try to avoid the Sir Duck character in the Dragonbane game.

The DM said we each have 250gp to spend, so plenty of normal gear or a small magic item or two. But looking through 5E's selection, I was reminded of just how chintzy a lot of the magic is in 5E. Many of the cheap magic items listed online seem to be mostly cosmetic. And the few useful ones mostly refer to spells, which reminded me of just how unimpressive a lot of magic is in 5E. 

A potion of growth in old school D&D makes you giant and doubles your damage (I just checked 1E, though, and it only makes you big, no damage bonus...)! In 5E, it makes you giant and gives you +1d4 damage on your attacks. Helpful, but not impressive. 

A potion of climbing in old school D&D gives a 95% chance to climb sheer surfaces (99% in 1E!), but in 5E it only gives advantage on your climb checks and lets you move at full speed. 

And I'm sure I don't need to rehash how many magic effects that used to be instant effect (sleep), save-or-die, or at least save-or-be-out-of-combat in old school games are now make-a-save-each-round-until-you-escape-it. 

Old school magic users may not get as many spells, but it sure is a lot more fun to play one when the spells you do prepare pack a punch!  

Anyway, to end on a positive note: I'm looking forward to my first face-to-face game convention. And I'll be taking notes to see how easy it will be for me and a few friends to put on one here in Busan.  

OD&D As a DM Instruction Manual

I've never really read through the OD&D books thoroughly. I only have them in PDF, and I've mostly just looked at sections here or there as a reference. I've referenced Men & Magic and Monsters & Treasure a lot more than I have The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. So today, I went through that fabled 3rd volume and took some notes on what it covers, and how. This is in regard to my previous post, suggesting that I take a look at how well each edition acts as an instructional guide for new DMs. 

Organization: 

Dungeon Design -- notes on how to create your megadungeon, including lots of examples of ways to screw over players and make it a true labyrinth. 

Distributing Monsters & Treasure -- fairly similar to later editions, with notes on how to restock/expand/modify your megadungeon to keep things fresh.

Movement -- The exploration rules: movement and resting, finding secret doors, dealing with regular doors, traps, listening, and vision/light. 

Underworld Monsters -- rules for encounters: distance, surprise, wandering monsters, avoiding encounters (most monsters usually attack, but reaction rolls for intelligent ones).

Example of Dungeon Play

Wilderness -- the map needs castles, ruins, the Dungeon, a home town. Town adventures briefly mentioned.

Outdoor Survival -- explanation of how to use that map for unplanned/impromptu wilderness adventures, Castle Encounters explained in much more detail than in BX/BECMI/RC.

Referee's Map -- explanation that you can make your own map (but no advice on how), which can be useful for domain game play, and rules for hex-crawling and filling in a blank player map while exploring.

Movement -- all movement rates by hex (later listed as assumed 5 miles vertex to vertex!) per day, terrain penalties from Outdoor Survival. 

Wilderness Monsters -- rules for encounter distance, surprise, getting lost (a bit out of place), wandering monsters. Name level NPC wandering monsters are given more detail than in BX/BECMI. 

Evasion -- pretty similar to what's in BX/BECMI

Castle Construction -- not so different from BX/BECMI, but there is a note suggesting adventures defending a stronghold from incursions by monsters/enemies. 

Specialist NPCs -- what you'd expect, types, job descriptions, prices

Rumors, Information, Legends -- suggestions for developing rumors, and rules for players paying to find more information

PC Upkeep -- 1% of XP (per month I assume) needs to be spent on daily living. 

Baronies -- No more upkeep, now you get income. It suggests 2-8 villages within 20 mile radius of stronghold. There are notes on making improvements that may bring in more income/population, but no rules on how to manage that. 

Angry Villagers Rule -- because torches and pitchforks are fun!

Other Worlds -- go crazy with the campaign world

Land Combat -- AKA mass combat, use Chainmail

Aerial Combat -- use counters/minis on map, modified Chainmail rules, pretty extensive!

Naval Combat -- while this also has Chainmail suggested for man-to-man action, the ship combat rules in BX/BECMI derived from this, but this is more extensive. Includes swimming/drowning rules, water monsters, etc.

Healing Wounds -- natural healing at 1 hp per day, but not on the 1st day of rest!

Time -- keeping time for the campaign: assume 1 week per dungeon delve (including prep/recovery time), 1 day per turn wilderness exploring, 1 week real time is 1 week game time for 'downtime activities' or inactive PCs. 

Instructional Value: 

While I did learn a few things, and get some ideas for incorporating a bit more complexity to TS&R by reading through this (something I should have done years ago!), I don't know how well this booklet does at explaining how to run a game. It does give plenty of details for preparing the dungeon (less so for preparing the wilderness or town/city adventures, and even less for high level domain play). It explains some systems in detail, others are just glossed over or hinted as possible. 

There isn't much philosophy or explanation of the Why of game play, just a focus on the How. There is also zero guidance on actually putting together a group to play, dealing with problem players, etc. Maybe Gygax assumed experienced wargamers didn't need this sort of advice. 

My take is that if I had been given this box set as a kid, with the preparation to game I'd gotten from things like Choose Your Own Adventure books and things like the D&D cartoon, I could have made some decent dungeon adventures. But without Chainmail and Outdoor Survival, much of the rest would have been fairly useless to me. 

Still, it's not as obtuse as many people claim it to be. Most of the rules confusion I think comes from various vagaries in Men & Magic, or incomplete notes in Monsters & Treasure that again assume you have Chainmail. I found The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures to cover most of what's needed, if explanation is a bit short in many areas, and the organization is pretty good overall. 

I can definitely see why TSR thought that the various Classic D&D box sets and AD&D were needed to help explain the game better, though. The rules as written assume experienced wargamers, not newbies. As such, it's a decent rule reference but not a great instructional text.

Game Mastering: Theory and Practice

I am back from my trip to the U.S. My son is really happy to be attending an American high school rather than a Korean one. I had a good visit with my parents and got to meet some old family friends, and just get a little refresher of Midwest life. But I'm happy to be back in Korea. And without further ado, on to gaming discussion. 

Recently, discussion on BX Blackrazor and The Tao of D&D has focused on how to teach someone to be a good Dungeon Master. I've been to busy with non-gaming stuff to get in on the conversation, but I'm definitely interested, since I'm nearing completion of the first draft of my TS&R GM book. 

Before I left for the states, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to do a comparison of several different editions/games, including what I'm doing with my TS&R book. I had started to look through the advice in the 5E book, and in my opinion, it may be fine for experienced DMs moving to 5E from another edition or other RPG, but for a novice, it's got the organization of the information all wrong. It starts off with all of these big picture campaign setting discussions, like what sorts of deities exist in the world. Definitely NOT where a new DM should begin. 

The writers obviously expect that the "game play mechanics" should be obvious from the PHB, so all the DM needs to do is create a campaign world. But even then, I wouldn't start with that sort of stuff. I think it's better to teach the new DM about how to run the game, why certain things are done the way they are, and how to manage the group. 

Back in grad school, one of my professors titled every single class she taught as [Insert Course Content Here]: Theory into Practice. While I found it amusing at the time, it's not a bad strategy for teaching. Start by explaining the basic theory of how the game (ideally) works and why certain mechanics are the way they are. Then move on to the concrete details of how to craft interesting encounters, dungeons, game worlds, multiverses, etc. and solid advice about how to run the table and manage the game group. After that, if necessary, deeper theory could be discussed. 

If I have some free time, I'll maybe take a closer look at how different DMGs are organized and the information presented, from the lens of an instructional manual for the game. I expect Mentzer and 2E AD&D likely are better at this than others, but that's just my gut instinct.

The Forgotten Magic Items

I realized I should go back and edit a bit of my dungeon creation advice to new DMs or those trying old school style play from newer school style games in TS&R. I should make it clear that there are a whole bunch of magic items, and a few spells, that exist in old school games but not in newer games. Why were they dropped? Because they're really made for helping to explore dungeons, especially megadungeons. And while Gary and Dave knew that they were useful for that, younger designers seem to have not realized their importance. 

I don't blame these younger game designers. When I was a kid, we all thought these powers were lame. We wanted intelligent swords that could heal or teleport you, or wands that cast fireballs and illusions. We didn't realize just how useful these items are! 

If you haven't already guessed, I'm talking about items like the wands of enemy/metal/trap detection, or intelligent sword powers like the above, mineral detection, shifting wall or sloping passage detection, etc. As kids, these seemed like the lamest things. I don't know why, exactly, we never considered that "mineral" detection meant gems*. We'd make jokes about swords that could help you point out the location of the nearest gypsum or limestone. Of course, there could be times when having some non-gem minerals could be handy, too. But as kids, that just seemed lame to us. 

And a potion of treasure finding? Well, the treasure was down there, you just had to keep looking around! Of course, starting with Mentzer and not 1E AD&D, we didn't often hide the treasure in our dungeons. If you beat the monsters, the treasure was there, waiting, like in a video game. Well, not really, it was there all along, just sitting in piles on the floor or in chests, but not hidden behind loose bricks of the fireplace or under twenty barrels of rotten apples. There were some examples of this sort of hidden treasure in Mentzer's sample dungeon Castle Mistamere, but the advice on dungeon creation in the back of the Basic DM Guide didn't really go into that. 

When treasure is hidden or concealed, powers like detect metal or detect minerals or a potion of treasure finding can help find it. Obviously, the powers to detect secret doors or traps help you get to the treasure. But the DM needs to be taught to hide some of that treasure. 

Another reason that my friends and I scoffed at these powers, I think, was that we didn't make megadungeons often. A lot of our dungeons were fairly small. Mentzer's dungeon creation advice, which I just re-read recently, does talk about making dungeons with many levels, but most of the advice seems to be about what I'm terming scenario dungeons. Frank starts you off with a premise for the dungeon, such as "exploring the unknown" or "rescuing prisoners" which for me got me thinking dungeons were sites for a specific adventure or two, and then done.

And even when we did from time to time make a bigger dungeon with multiple levels or a sprawling layout, they weren't campaign tentpole affairs. A lot of the typical powers of intelligent swords are designed to make megadungeon exploration easier (and save on magic-user and cleric spell slots), and repeat trips to the dungeon can make best use of these abilities, by careful mapping, triangulation, and trial-and-error use. 

So, I'm going to edit my advice for GMs new to old school play and make all this explicit...but not as wordy as this blog post. This is to help me get my ideas sorted out before I edit the GM Guidebook draft. I'll explain the purpose of these powers, and that they're only really useful if the GM designs the dungeon in a way that makes them useful, similar to thief skills. 

*In TS&R, I changed the name of this to "Detect Gems" to make it clear.

Who Did Worldbuilding Advice Better, TSR or WOTC?

 Recently, there was a comment on JB's excellent B/X Blackrazor blog by Simulated Knave claiming that they found 1E AD&D lacked solid advice for interaction with NPCs outside of combat or for worldbuilding, something that the commenter found that 3E D&D/Pathfinder was better at. 

Now, I've played a bit of PF but it has been many years since, and I never had the books. I've only briefly looked at the PF 2E thing. So maybe the good folks at Paizo went above and beyond with advice for NPC interaction and worldbuilding. But I did play plenty of 3E/3.5 D&D, and I have those books on PDF still to reference. 

WAY back, I did also make this post about how OD&D has more pages of rules for exploration of the game world than for combat within the game system. The sixth post I ever made here. I think that's relevant to the discussion as a bit of context.

Let's examine Simulated Knave's claim. 

Of course, SK, if you're reading this, feel free to comment and let me know if I misunderstood your intent or points you brought up. It's always possible, and I'm open to having my mind changed on this front. 

Also, one last disclaimer. As most regular readers know, I'm a Frank Mentzer edited BECMI kid. That's my go-to D&D set. And Frank did a pretty good job (I feel) giving the budding DM advice on how to build the dungeon, how to build the home town, how to build the world, and how to set up the politics, and how to set up the planes of existence/powers that be/legendary artifacts* of the world all in an easily digestible format that provides just enough advice to get you going on each of these fronts without overwhelming. 

*Having only relatively recently acquired the Immortals Set, and still not having read and digested it thoroughly, I do have to admit that a bit more advice on creating planar adventures could be helpful than what's in the Companion and Masters Sets. 

But the claim by Simulated Knave was about AD&D giving "garbage" advice compared to d20 system games. 

So let's start with d20. 

3E etc. obviously have some simple and direct player facing rules for NPC interactions. There are skills for lying to NPCs, sweet talking with NPCs, trying to see if the NPC is lying to you, and so on. Bluff, Intimidate, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Perform...are there anymore? Maybe I'm missing one or two. Roll d20+skill bonuses vs a set DC or the NPC's contested roll. 

Sure, it's simple, it's easy to remember, it's in the PHB so players can know the rules. But it doesn't always make sense. I don't care that you've got a +15 bonus to Intimidate, your Barbarian with the +5 greataxe is not going to make the Lich Lord, who commands the army of the dead outside the gate, tremble in his boots. I don't care what you say, or that you rolled a natural 20. Maybe try again after his army has been decimated and you've located his last phylactery. Then you might have a chance.

And yes, I know that d20 has advice to not allow a roll in that sort of situation, but I've seen plenty of players demand things like that over the years. 

What advice or rules does the 3E DMG (I found my 3.0 DMG before the 3.5 one, so I'm referencing that) have for interactions with NPCs outside of combat? 

Two pages on using the Leadership feat to manage sidekicks and cohorts for PCs, including a half page sidebar on animal companions. 

Then we've got a bunch of pages on NPC stat blocks (mostly combat stats). And a big section going over all of the combat rules, procedures, and so on. It's 25 pages long. 

Then there are a few pages on dealing with environmental dangers, which counts as world building advice. 

The next section is on skill and ability checks, so we get detailed rules on how each skill can be used, and example difficulties for them. This includes the various skills for NPC interaction mentioned above, of course. It's a little over 4 pages. Then we're on to saving throws and adjudicating magic. The second part could be considered world building advice. 

Now we get into the dungeon, wilderness, adventure and campaign creation advice. And it covers around 60 pages for all that. But with in that, it's not all world building advice. A lot of it is combat encounter creation advice. Or how to mechanically handle traps. Or dungeon dressing suggestions. Encounter tables. Random town generation. Advice on linking adventures and player goals into a coherent campaign. Not bad stuff, but a lot of it reads as very surface level to me. There are world building tidbits in there, but also a lot of combat encounter (or challenges requiring skill checks) explained, more so than there is advice on crafting a fantasy world. There is world building advice, as I say, but I don't find it as deep as SK seems to. Or maybe the 3.5 DMG or Pathfinder improved on this base. 

There is a section in all of this on running NPCs. Or rather, there's some advice on the stock types of NPCs you might include in an adventure or campaign, and advice on how to use them as allies or opponents. There are some rules for DCs to influence NPC attitudes. Some hirelings you could hire explained. 

After all this, there's the XP and treasure sections, some reference charts, and the index. 

So for NPC interaction, SK claims that 3E/PF provide the following: "What are the odds of sneaking past an NPC? Of stealing from them? Of convincing them of something? Of them knowing some particular fact? Of them existing at all in the particular town?"

3E does do these things. But AD&D gives you all of that, as well. It's different. Instead of giving you the NPC's Perception skill for the player to roll their Stealth score against, AD&D gives you the surprise round and the Thief skills for hiding and moving silently. AD&D has NPC reaction tables. In fact, they're more robust than 3E's. It's got modifiers for racial animosity, for example, in addition to general reaction rolls. How do you decide in AD&D that a particular NPC lives in a particular community or knows a certain thing? Well, that's called making a decision on your own, rather than rolling some dice. 

All of the NPC interaction that SK seems to laud in d20 systems is just a very mechanical functional take on interaction. d20 gives you lots of skills and difficulty numbers to beat, while AD&D gives you actual advice on crafting a medieval fantasy world (granted, a very specifically Gygaxian one) and lets you extrapolate from there how you want your NPCs to interact with the PCs. 

As for world building, I mentioned above that d20 gives you lots of lists of challenge ratings (how hard is it to climb a wooden wall vs a stone one, or how hard is it to pick that lock vs the lock over there), and a lot of surface level dungeon/world dressing. But everything is centered around making some sort of skill roll, saving throw, ability check, or...yes...combat. There's not a lot of fodder for interesting world building and organic, dialogic play. 

AD&D's 1E DMG has tons of pages of charts, lists, and what not to give flavor to the world. It's got lists of gemstones and flowers and their folk belief uses. It's got that random harlot table. 

There are 9 and a half pages near the front of the 1E DMG giving advice on NPC hirelings, retainers, specialists, and so on. Way more detail than 3.0. And yes, much of this is also mechanical. Will your spy complete their mission? How long will it take the sage to research your questions? How will the dwarven mercenary crew react to your Elf trying to hire them? But it's also a lot of extra information on running these NPCs as well. 

Anyway, I'm out of time so I can't dig for more examples right now. But they're there. 

Yes, there are a lot of combat rules in AD&D. There are a lot in 3E. But in my opinion, AD&D gives richer information on all of these things. Sure, it lacks really detailed stronghold development rules. But BECMI has them, so it was never a problem for me. Maybe that's a cop out, but it's true that a lot of gamers I know mixed and matched what they liked from the TSR editions to fill the gaps.

Choosing Your Ruleset as Difficulty Level

This is an idea that's been knocking around in my head for a while, but playing some emulated games with Steven (my 8 year old) this evening* reminded me about it. 

Video games used to have difficulty levels that you could choose before you started the game. I'm sure there are still a few games that use them, but one reason I don't play a lot of video games anymore is that they seem to be designed to either give you "an experience" or else they want you to subscribe/pay lots of microtransactions, so either they are too easy (experience or subscription) or too hard (microtransactions), with no choice. But back in the day, we had this.

So, here are my very subjective and probably wrong estimations of which version of D&D is at which difficulty level. This assumes a few things. One, it's difficulty for the players to play the game, not for the DM to run the game. Two, it assumes you're running things more or less by the book, at least as far as assumptions for things like encounters, healing, goals of play, and the like are concerned. If you play 4E in an "old school style" then that's outside of what I'm talking about here. I'm considering a group that plays 4E (or whatever edition) as the designers intended it to be played. Three, let's leave supplements out of the equation for now, they just complicate things. So no Skills & Powers, no Greyhawk/Blackmoor, no Unearthed Arcana, no Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Just the core rule books.

And I'll reiterate -- this is just my feeling about it. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am down in the comments. But the next time you start up a campaign, consider selecting the rule set that fits the challenge level you wish to give the players.

 I'm Too Young to Die (Very Easy Mode)

4th Edition D&D This is about as easy as it gets for the players. It's designed so that you would have to go out of your way to create a "suboptimal" character. The play assumptions are two to three easy fights then a tougher but still winnable "boss" fight as an adventure. Magic items are fairly easy to acquire, and you're not expected to have to do much more than ride the railroad from set piece battle to set piece battle, with a few "skill challenges" here and there to spice things up.

5th Edition D&D A bit more challenging than 4E, but still a lot easier than most other editions. It's possible to create a suboptimal character, but the rules tend to be a bit more forgiving with character creation. Advancement is very fast at low levels. Healing is ridiculously easy. And again, the adventures seem to be mostly an assumption of a few easy fights leading up to the boss battle. If players just go along and make sure to rest often, and the DM only places recommended encounter difficulties, it's not too hard at all.

Hey, Not Too Rough (Easy Mode)

2nd Edition AD&D The rules and systems for play, including character creation and character advancement, can lead to challenges for the players. You might get stuck with a suboptimal character through dice rolls as much as through character choice. But, the big mitigating factor of this edition is the design goal that players play "heroes" and go on epic narrative adventures. So while death is very much possible from the way the rules are written, the DM advice suggests that this be mulliganed or nerfed to serve the ends of the story. 

 Hurt Me Plenty (Normal Mode)

BX or BECMI D&D  I'm lumping these two together because while BECMI incorporates a lot more complexity of play at the high levels (not to mention Immortals level play being a completely different and more challenging game), at the earliest levels, play is pretty much the same in them. Character creation by the book can be a challenge (roll 3d6 down the line), but ability score bonuses are more generous than in the AD&D line. There aren't many choices to make at character creation, either. Adventure design assumptions are that encounters are not balanced, and it's up to the players to know when to push on for more and when to quit. But there are also rules that make treasure pretty generous, which speeds up advancement if the characters do survive.

3rd Edition D&D This edition has a lot of the design assumptions of the later editions. Character creation is generous with abilities and ways to optimize the character, but the complexity of the "exception-based rules" design, with all the skill points and feat choices and whatnot make it more of a burden to play than other editions. The adventure design assumptions are not quite so forgiving, but still, healing is fairly easy to get, magic items are easily purchased, and it's pretty easy to get around the "save or die" type effects. If the rules weren't so complex and fiddly, this would be in an easier tier.

Ultra-Violence (Hard Mode)

Original D&D It all started here, and it wasn't easy! Characters were randomly generated and didn't have a lot of "powers" to rely on. Monster encounters can easily be with overpowering odds. There's an assumption of thinking your way through encounters, rather than just hacking and slashing. You're dead at 0 hit points, and healing is not easy to come by. The incompleteness of the rules (remember, this is assuming the base rules only, not the supplements) may also up the difficulty a bit, as the DM will need to make a lot of guesses as to what's an appropriate challenge, and players will have to have their wits about them to survive.

1st Edition AD&D This edition has a good mix of difficulty in character optimization (it's got generous die rolling for ability scores but stingy bonuses for high scores, race/class combo restrictions, ability score restrictions, level caps for demi-humans, etc.) and difficulty in adventure assumptions. Monsters are challenging. Tricks, traps, and whatnot are expected, and can really mess you up. Sure, there are lots of opportunities to find powerful magic items, but the most powerful have serious drawbacks. And the level of detail in the rules give the DM all sorts of ways to make things difficult or more challenging for the players.

Nightmare (Extra Hard Mode)

Holmes D&D Rolling 3d6 down the line for stats and rolling your hit points randomly and you can only go up to 3rd level, but the book expects you might run into all sorts of dragons, vampires, purple worms, and the like? Yeah, this is the most challenging version if you play it straight.

*We have a Super Console X, an Android TV box with EmuElec, Retroarch, and about 30 systems emulated, with thousands of games. Tonight, we played some Twisted Metal on PS1 and Gauntlet 4 Quest Mode on Sega Genesis.

Chicken Littles

Much angst in the RPG online spaces these days. Much spleen being spilled about the new OGL 1.1 document leaks. Many predictions of the end of all but WotC product for D&D. 

Bullshit. 

While I'm not a lawyer, it has been clearly established that game mechanics cannot be copyrighted. Write your own presentation of a set of rules, and there's not much that a big giant corporation trying to squeeze every penny out of the player base can do. Sure, a few smaller companies and individual people may refrain from publishing for "OneD&D" after the release (assuming the text of the new OGL doesn't change between now and release), but if they really want to get their material out, they can find ways to do it. 

Besides, all these games already exist. They will continue to exist after the OGL 1.1 comes out. Some may become harder to find, but they'll still be out there. And you can still play them.

It may be scarier for small publishers to put out their stuff. And while little guys like me have no chance of battling WotC in court, I can see a class action suit from places like Drivethru and the smaller publishers, plus people like you and me, having a chance to defend the legality of OGL 1.0 and 1.0(a) products in court. If that never happens, or it fails, that will suck for a lot of small publishers. But we can still make our works and put them out for free, or try to make a bit of money under the radar.

Gygax's words from way back in the 70s (at the end of the Greyhawk supplement? I forget where he said it) still ring true. Once the game has been released, YOU do not need a game company. The game company needs you! Why should you let them do any more of your imagining for you?

The 5E to OSR Pipeline

It may just be that my perception is biased due to the algorithmic nature of YouTube recommendations, but it does appear as if a lot of 5E players have become more interested in the OSR as of late. 

Again, I know it may just be that having watched one video about turning from 5E to the OSR, the algorithm is recommending more similar content to me. But all of the videos that have been recommended are fairly recent. Most have been made within the past few months, and none more than a year old. 

So, why is this happening? 

Well, for one, it may just be a YouTuber fad. One streamer or vlogger tries out an OSR game, and others feel curious to try it as well. People see one person's idea, and they will copy it. Expect more of these videos to be produced if this is true, but don't expect a huge increase in new OSR converts.

Another possibility is that 5E fatigue has set in. There's a reason WotC recently announced their "One D&D" revision/new edition/whatever it will be. People have explored the possibilities of 5E, and one more splat book of new options is not gonna hold their attention much longer. Part of this is baked into the design of 5E, which like 3E and 4E, was designed as a game of system mechanics exploration more than imaginary exploration within the game world. That gives it a limited (intentionally so?) lifespan with the players. 

Final possibility? It's not a trend at all. There are a handful of people who have done this, and YT is just showing me all of the small number of videos like this. In a week, I won't be seeing any more because I'll have sampled all there is to sample.

For the sake of argument, let's assume that there is actually a trend.

Not every one of the videos I've watched has been positive towards the OSR games they've tried, but the majority have been. And these videos have spanned the gammut from playing the actual old editions from TSR to all the various retroclones (well, OSRIC, LL, OSE, S&W anyway), and OSR adjacent games like Black Hack and Dungeon World. 

Despite the bad reputation of THAC0, or Vancian casting, or high lethality, the fact that most of the older editions and their retro-clones encourage exploration of the game space more than exploration of the system mechanics is, I think, the reason why people are engaging with these rules again. That's what happened with me and a lot of other people 15 years or so ago. 

And then there are the folks that have been playing the old editions all along, and still are having fun with them. And new folks are joining these games, and finding out that you don't need a bunch of fiddly numbers on your character sheet, or kewl nu powrz! at ever level to have fun. 

I'm not gonna make a prediction that One D&D will flop. I'm sure there are vastly more people willing to take whatever WotC will give them. And it looks like WotC is gonna try for more of a subscription model rather than a purchase model of sales, at least for their online tools, this time. So they'll probably secure a decent revenue stream with their new version of the game. 

But I will say that the OSR is far from dead. I'd expect a lot of these 5E converts to be coming up with their own retro clones and modifications to the game and releasing them in the next few years! Even if it is just a handful of people splitting off from the 5E community (or straddling both), there's new blood in the OSR. And they will run (and create) games that attract even more people.

The 2E Transition

 I've been hearing a lot about 2E AD&D these days, which is weird that it's suddenly popped up again as a discussion topic just as I've joined a 2E game on RPOL.net. 

The consensus of discussion seems to be: 

A. 2E is a good clarification of the AD&D rules, clearing up some of the confusing bits and explaining rules well.

B. 2E takes everything that was evocative and inspiring about 1E and makes it bland. 

C. The way 2E changes the way XP is dished out radically changes the game play.

D. 2E simply codifies changes that were already happening in 1E campaigns. 

E. 2E is simpler than core 1E, if you stick to the core books only.

F. 2E is more convoluted than expanded 1E, if you include all the splat books and supplements.

G. 2E is too focused on making PCs heros, and playing through heroic quests. 

H. 2E has the best assortment of interesting campaign settings. 

I. 2E is very old school, and is sort of a proto-OSR, with a ton of optional rules and various play styles/campaign styles. 

J. 2E is very new school, with its changed focus of game play and small rules tweaks to focus on character over setting.  

Overall, I find these contradictions and opposed takes on the edition interesting. As I've mentioned before, back in the day (late 90s) we simply mixed 1E and 2E, taking what options we liked from either edition and leaving the rest. It was never a problem. If someone wanted to play a Half-Orc Assassin, they could use the 1E books. If another player wanted to run a Specialist Mage they could use the 2E books. 

Each DM would have to make calls about the rules differences for their campaign (1E, UA or 2E level limits? Race/Class/Multiclass combinations allowed? A few other things). It was really never a problem. I think only one of our campaigns got close to the 1E level limits anyway. 

Getting back into the 2E game on RPOL, and looking through the PHB and a couple of the Complete books, I'd actually consider using the system again. Or at least a weird modified version. Not that I'm going to revised TS&R again...at least not for a little while. But when that next revision eventually comes around, I may be taking a look at certain elements of 2E that I may have overlooked before. 

Anyway, my opinion about whether 2E is "old school" or not, I'd say it's definitely the transition edition. Stick to the core books (and maybe a couple of the Complete Class books) and, with a few optional rules like XP for treasure, you get a very old school game. Add in all the supplements to 1E, and play it with a DragonLance style story campaign theme, you get a more new school game. And yes, that is not a typo, 1st Edition AD&D can be (and apparently was) played as a new school style game with a focus on character builds and story progression. 

2E is the change-over point. So it both is and isn't "old school" at the same time.

The Age of the Rolling Update

No doubt you've heard WotC's announcement earlier in the week of the playtest for "One D&D" which according to their slick YouTube video will be updating, consolidating, and tweaking 5E in order to keep selling you the same stuff you've already purchased provide you with the most up-to-date version of the rules on a regular basis. And it will most definitely NOT be a new edition. Oh no, wouldn't want that. That splits the fanbase.

Well, despite the desire on WotC's part, it looks to me like it will be at least as substantial a change in 5E as adding books from 1984+ to 1E (UA, OA, Dungeoneers/Wilderness Survival Guides), which many consider 1.5E, or the "skills & powers" stuff for 2E, which again many consider to be 2.5E. 

Of course, this is play test material, and the finished 5E was fairly different from the D&D Next play test material in certain ways. 

But there will be changes. And from what it sounds like, the new VTT (if they actually manage to make it work this time) will likely put players on either a subscription model or an in-app purchases model to make money each time something gets added or updated. Not to mention all the money the could make from the sale of virtual tabletop monster models or other assets for DMs without the time to model their own.

So WotC seems to have finally found a way to market D&D in the same way they've always done Magic: The Gathering. Keep releasing updates/expansions and every couple of years update/modify the base rules just enough to keep people purchasing them again. 

If that keeps the company profitable, and keeps D&D in particular and RPGs in general in the public consciousness, that's fine with me. I've been meeting more and more people these days who game, and talk about it openly, than I ever have in my life. I've actually got more players interested in my upcoming TS&R Jade campaign than I need. 

I probably will be finished with 5E/One D&D though. If the online play-by-post 5E games I'm in update to the new rules, I will drop out. If they keep with 5E I'll stick around at least one of them. It's a lot of fun, fairly old school in approach (tons of randomly generated content and a focus on exploration with no set story), and definitely not on any sort of rails. The other two are running published 5E modules, and I joined both games from curiosity. They're very boring to be honest. PbP games require good pacing, and the modules may work really well around a table (real or virtual), but they drag out a lot of boring crap in PbP. But since they're railroads, we've got to play out the encounters given in the module because they're given in the module. 

If you are still enjoying 5E, and looking forward to this "revision but not new edition" I wish you the best with it. 5E is a solid game, and does what it sets out to do pretty darn well. I've had fun playing it, if not so much fun when I tried to run it. I'll be sticking to my old school style games for D&D.

The Great Kobold Debate

Now that the orc alignment/racism thing seems to have blown over, time to move on to a more pressing question about D&D humanoids: Kobolds -- dog-men or mini dragon men?

Starting with Mentzer, I took the dog-like description as more telling than the hairless & scaly description (like I thought that meant they were mangy and diseased) but when later editions made them specifically little crappy dragonmen I didn't oppose it since it was an interesting twist. Anyway, here's the evolution of the kobold for the first 30 years or so. Feel free to chime in in the comments about how you view them.

In Chainmail, they're interchangeable with goblins, and no description given.

In OD&D, they're still just slightly weaker goblins.

Holmes goes with the folkloric description. Interestingly, they've got a save bonus to everything EXCEPT dragon breath.

In AD&D 1E, we get a lot of description, and for the first time they are described as hairless, scaly, and with small horns. The Sutherland illustrations have very dog-like faces, but the bodies are scaly (or wearing chain mail?)

Moldvay is the first time the kobold is described as dog-like. The Errol Otis illustration seems to support my 'diseased' assumption. Mentzer was the first set I owned, but I had seen BX before I got it. So maybe this picture colored my view?

Mentzer's text is nearly identical to Moldvay, but there is no illustration.

AD&D 2E of course gives us more information on kobolds than most people really need, although a lot of it is identical to the 1E information. The DiTerlizzi picture is definitely a hybrid dog-lizard here, which likely shaped their future development by WotC.

And in the Rules Cyclopedia, of course the text is again nearly identical to Mentzer, only adding in the note about spellcasters (from Mentzer's Masters Set).

And in 3E and forward, the kobold is finally specifically tagged as "reptilian" and given the draconic heritage. The heads are still described as dog-like, though.

The indie (and very fun) Kobolds Ate My Baby rejected the reptilian/draconic angle, and made them little furry nasties. I really appreciated that. I don't have a copy of that game to post, though.

Are they dog men? Mini dragon men? Something in-between? Or do you go to the folklore sources and make them evil little fae like redcaps? Something original?

Does Edition Matter?

Big question, and I don't have a definitive answer (that's your TL/DR), but a few recent things have got me considering the effect of an edition on the play experience.

While I was in Illinois, Dean started a third campaign (still using his fractured fairy tale Eberron setting, I think) but using 4E. Now that I'm back in Korea, he asked if I wanted to join, and I declined because I'm just not that fond of 4E.

Then Jeremy started asking me if I'd play in a 4E game that he wants to run, only instead of using a standard array or point buy for ability scores, adapting my West Marches Classic D&D house rule. My rule is as follows:

• Players may choose one of two methods to roll ability scores: roll 3d6 six times, and place the scores where you want them to go, or else roll 4d6-lowest die, in order.

This forces players to choose between slightly higher stats but not where they might like, or being sure to play the class you want, but having slightly lower scores on average. It doesn't always work out. As dice are random, sometimes a 3d6 PC has better scores than a 4d6-L PC. It happens. But in general, it works.

Now, for 4E, which was carefully crafted to be "balanced" and not easily allow you to make a crappy character, and every PC should be equally useful in a fight, I wonder if Jeremy's switch would break the game. Not enough to play in it, though, but it did help me think of this topic for a blog post.

The edition matters, I think, in this case. 5E could definitely be played that way without much hassle. The online play-by-post West Marches game that inspired my own uses random ability score rolls instead of point buy, and it plays just fine. 4E, though, I think might break down. Maybe not, though, as it does also seem to be designed for each character to rely on only one primary ability score (or at least to allow you that luxury if you choose your powers right). The fact that the game was designed assuming all characters would have equivalent scores (through the standard array or point buy limits) makes me think randomizing it wouldn't work.

Maybe I'll give it a try and see.

The other thing that got me considering the effects of edition choice on the game was my reading through 1E Dragonlance Adventures. The more I read it, the less likely I think I'd be to run a game set in Krynn using 1E. I much prefer Classic D&D over AD&D anyway, but I don't hate AD&D.

But what I would possibly do would be to try and run a game set in Krynn using 5E.

I'd posted about that idea a few years ago, even came up with rules for the white/red/black robe mages and Knights of Solamnia in 5E.

And I'm thinking 5E might be a better fit, especially for the original module series, for a few reasons. First of all, adventures in Krynn don't seem to be strongly "murderhobo." The nations use steel coins, but any ruins or monster lairs are likely to have pre-Cataclysm gold/silver/copper coins, which are pretty much useless to Krynn PCs. And since AD&D relies on treasure for the bulk of XP earned, it's harder to get in Krynn. 5E awards most XP for combat, so that's not a problem there. It actually fits better if you want a game that may actually see mid- to high-level play some day.

Secondly, the more streamlined 5E rule set is probably more suited to the more "narrative" style of an adventure path (or railroad if you prefer that term) series of adventures. Since 1E was designed with streamlining tournament play, IMO it's bogged down with a lot of rules minutia that don't really help make the game better (feel free to disagree, I know some of you will) EXCEPT in the case of tournament play, where exact and consistent rules are needed across multiple, competing tables.

For a home game? Meh.

The only thing that stops me from starting a 5E Dragonlance campaign setting right now is that I really didn't have much fun DMing 5E. But I am considering the following and wondering if it might be fun:

• Play through the original module series
• Using 5E with a few modifications for the setting
• Players who are familiar with 5E and adventure path style games, but not with DL/Krynn

Evaluating Editions by their Spells

First off, this is not, despite the tag I'm sticking on the post, an "edition war" post. Those are dumb and a waste of time. Liking certain editions is an opinion. A matter of taste. Like whatever edition you like for whatever reasons you like. I'm done edition warring. I still may slag on 4E from time to time, but I won't slag on YOU for liking it, if you do.

A friend who's been running a 1E AD&D game on RPOL for the past many many years and I were chatting. He's spun off an OA game as a separate section of his main game, and I have characters in both. He wanted to attract more players to the OA part of the game, but someone else told him something to the effect that he should just be running 5E since that's where the players are. This person told him that the differences between 5E style games and AD&D 1E style games aren't that big.

My friend then asked someone else about the differences in 1E and 5E. That person gave him a long 5-point list but I'll condense each point rather than cut and paste since I don't know who was writing this originally.

1. 5E rules are streamlined, but feel less organic/streamlined than AD&D
2. 5E has a shallow power curve -- start more powerful, end up less powerful compared to 1E characters
3. Negative consequences are reduced in 5E (see my recent post on energy draining in my 5E converted to Classic post from the other day)
4. Constant choices and new abilities in leveling characters makes "how my PC develops" the story arc of the game in 5E, compared to 1E where most choices are made at char gen and development depends on in-game events
5. 5E's flavor is video game/CGI action movie where 1E's flavor is pulp/Tolkien

My response to my friend when he shared this with me was that the first guy was off base. You CAN play 5E in an old-school style. I was doing it (until I decided to just use an old school rule set after all). It takes some tweaking, but it's possible. But it's not as simple as the first guy seemed to think it was. This will be addressed below and is the "meat" of this post.

The second guy, I think, was overall correct. And he approaches discussion of different editions the right way. Say honestly what the strengths, weaknesses, and differences that are neither better/worse ARE, and leave it at that.

Then I added what I think is a 6th point of departure. By looking at the spells available in 5E, I get the impression that the designers intend for almost every combat in the game to be a hit point attrition slog. Seriously, there are how many spells that deal damage in 5E compared to other editions? Yes, many of them also have some nifty side effects. But the main point is to deal damage. How many save-or-die spells are there in 1E and other old school games? Lots. Very few (if any) in 5E. Instead, as point 3 above says, many effects are save-or-suffer-temporary-inconvenience.

Expanding this idea, I've got an idea that one can get an overall, impressionistic evaluation of how an edition of D&D will play by its spell lists.

OD&D has relatively few spells (LBBs only). The parameters of each spell are loosely defined. Not many do direct damage. Many are for non-combat purposes. Lots of higher level spells are save-or-die. Judging by this, the implication seems to be that Gygax and Arneson intended for spell casters to be creative problem solvers, applying spells in non-standard or unusual ways by using logic and creativity. From this, we can assume that magic is often going to be a trump card that allows a party to easily "defeat" an encounter. Casters don't get many spells per day, but the duration of spells are long enough that many spells will last for more than one encounter.

Classic D&D (Holmes, BX, BECMI, RC) over the course of time adds more details and qualifications to spells. Each spell is more defined. But the basic balance of direct damage, utility, and save-or-die spells is the same. The people making the rules are not letting you be quite as creative with your magic, but spells are still there to bypass the hit point slog or for clever solutions to problems.

OD&D with supplements leads into AD&D 1E, which has even more definition of spell effects and parameters than in Classic. But it also has a lot more spells, period. There are a lot more damage-dealing spells in the lists, but still the expectation of how spells are applied seems to assume that magic will often allow you to "win" or bypass encounters. There may be less creative use of spells, however, as many of the spells now are explicitly worded to disallow abusive tactics.

AD&D 2E has pretty much the same spell lists as AD&D 1E, although some UA spells make it into the basic PHB lists. This means that there are even more spells to choose from. Spell descriptions and parameters are now even more rigidly codified to prevent "abuse" (creative winning of encounters) but it's still possible. There are still save-or-die spells aplenty. And there are still plenty of spells without direct combat use.

3E/3.5E has a list of spells similar to 2E in number. However, spells can now be categorized as combat, utility, or buff spells. There are so many spells in 3E that exist to tweak the numbers on your character sheet. And plenty of direct damage dealers. There are also still save-or-die spells, but most of them have a handy counter-spell easily available. Suddenly, magic not just for winning encounters, it's for the PCs to win encounters. If the monsters/NPCs try that stuff on you, you often have a handy way to negate it. Spells are becoming just another tool to help win encounters, rather than the occasional "get out of jail free" card they had been in previous editions. And the increase in buffs and direct damage spells tell the spell caster that their job is to be an active participant in EVERY combat, not just waiting around to try and win key encounters. The duration of many spells is reduced from being counted in Turns (10 minutes) to being counted in Rounds (10 seconds) so that casters need to keep casting.

4E doesn't even really have spells. Either that, or EVERYTHING is a spell. At-Will/Encounter/Daily powers each class have mimic spell use. And even the ones labeled as "utility" powers are really most useful in combat, not out of combat. In this edition, spells are all about combat. I don't know/remember the edition well enough to say if there were a lot of save-or-die powers at high level, but I'm guessing there are not.

And finally, 5E. As mentioned above, I agree with the anonymous poster that 5E wants to eliminate permanent negative consequences from the game. Death is easy to avoid. What used to be encounter-winning spells now give the victims a saving throw every round to avoid the negatives. There are still a fair number of counter-spells, and in fact many have been condensed into a handful of spells so that players don't need to waste a lot of their spell capacity on a bunch of random heal/counter spells just in case. They've got one-stop shopping. But the biggest change is that (as I mentioned above) there are SO MANY damage dealers on the spell lists. Why get creative when you can just blast a creature or three for more hit point damage? Slog away!

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Obviously, there are plenty of other differences in each edition. Some are deep differences in mechanics and philosophy of how the game should work. Others are fairly minor or cosmetic even. And again I'm not trying to say one is better than another. But the above impressionistic reading of the spells available and how spells are detailed in each edition does seem to give insight into how the designers expect play to go.

Gygax and Arneson were onto something new, so they had an anything goes attitude. Spells were there to win encounters, and often in creative/unexpected ways.

Later, probably after seeing the same exploits (creative uses of spells to 'win' encounters) used ad nauseam, Gary decided to better codify spells. This made it a bit more challenging for players, but it's still possible to find creative new uses for old spells.

When WotC got their hands on D&D, they fundamentally shifted the game. The expectation that all PCs pull equal weight in combat, experience with designing "balanced" play mechanics most likely brought over from Magic: The Gathering, and a mistrust of DM fiat in the game led to a sort of standardization and blandification (did I just coin that word?) of the magic system.

And that's why it's hard to get 5E to play the way old school games do. Or at least one of the reasons why it's hard. You can play 5E in a more old school fashion, but the spell lists are working against you. They demand hit point slogs. They disallow many creative uses of spells before they're even used. Yes, the mechanics are consistent and clear, but I'm not sure that makes up for what's lost in creative spell casting.