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.

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?

Thoughts on Magic Missile discrepancies

Magic Missile is one of the topics that gets thrown around the Dragonsfoot Classic D&D pages (and I assume the AD&D pages as well, although I rarely read them) quite often.  It's up there with demi-human level limits and alignment as far as perennial hot topics go.

Anyway, this was a waking up too early and lying in bed thought I had this morning.

Mentzer D&D has a discrepancy in the Magic Missile spell.  The actual spell description lists a duration of 1 Round.  The spell list reference sheet from the middle of the players' book lists a duration of 1 Turn.

Much discussion has been made on DF about the ability to cast MM BEFORE going into an encounter to have it "prepped" and in fact being able to cast it multiple times (and at higher levels getting multiple missiles per casting) and being able to one-hit almost any creature.

I'm not going to discuss that, but my idea was connected to the 1 Turn error (if it is indeed in error).  I was thinking of the possibility of using a 1 Turn duration (so one encounter/battle) per casting, with a missile (or missiles) being available to be shot every Round while the spell lasts, as long as no other spell is being cast that Round.

The kicker is, I'd use the Holmes (and Greyhawk expansion?) rule that the M-U needs to roll to hit with each missile - which acts like a +1 magical arrow.

It would give a bit more oomph to MM at low levels, but with a 36 level Mentzer BECM spread, would definitely be too powerful at the high levels.  Well, the rate and number of extra missiles could be slowed, a Moldvay/Cook cap of level 14 could be in place, or the extra missiles thing could just be scrapped altogether.

Anyway, it would be an interesting way to run it I think.

Dungeon Design: Holmes D&D

In the 1978 Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, edited by Dr. J. Eric Holmes, the dungeon design advice of OD&D is pretty truncated.  It's mostly the same advice, but it's so condensed that it could be easier to miss.

However, Holmes did include a much more detailed sample dungeon, and a more evocative megadungeon cross-section than OD&D.  Also, the Basic Set came with either B1 In Search of the Unknown, or B2 Keep on the Borderlands, which both provide good examples for budding DMs to use to craft their own dungeons.

One bit of advice from Holmes that jumped out at me was this quote:

Try to keep the dangers appropriate to the levels of the characters and the skill of your players. (emphasis added)

While I mentioned that in OD&D Gygax points out that there are certain types of encounters that would make players angry, Holmes explicitly states that the goal is to challenge the players.  New players with 5th level characters will likely be less effective than veteran players with 1st level characters, despite the additional hit points, better hit probabilities and saving throws, and more spells of the novice group.  Because the veteran players will play smart.  And maybe they can take on those Frost Giants or Vampires or Purple Worms at the 1st to 3rd level span of the Holmes edition.

A few weeks ago, Ian at Magician's Manse was blogging about his own megadungeon.  His players seem intent to fully explore the first level before venturing on.  He was worried that if they did, they'd be too high level and the second dungeon level would be too easy for them.  It made me think of some of the advice given on Dragonsfoot and other places about only designing and keying just enough of the dungeon.  That way, you can fit the dungeon to the players, rather than to some ideal of the Platonic Megadungeon.

If the party gains character levels but doesn't descend to lower dungeon levels, then more monsters and traps of their level should show up on the level they're on.  Of course, tricks and traps and specials are often less about the party's level, and more about player skill anyway, so Dr. Holmes' advice above is a good addition to the basics set forth for dungeon creation in OD&D.

And so ends the 500th post on this blog.  And there was much rejoicing. (Yea...)