Exporting the effect of AD&D ability scores: Intelligence and Wisdom

Previously, I've discussed a rationale for ability scores as potential rather than realised ability.  I'm trying to expand on that idea by looking at how one might export the functions of AD&D 1e's ability scores to character class and level.  (Briefly: the idea here is to keep the game more focused on these latter qualities because of verisimilitude and fairness.  It makes sense that skill is decisive and reducing the impact of random factors in character creation has long had an appeal.)  I chose Strength to start the discussion because it's the first in the book, but also because its functions in AD&D are widely spread.  In this post, I'll consider Intelligence and Wisdom.

Arguing Alignment

It's hard to set foot in an online forum for discussing RPGs without coming across an on-going alignment argument.  I doubt that anyone has heard a sample of every position advanced in such debates, but it seems to me that the problems mainly boil down to a fairly simple system from the early TSR years being partly re-purposed as the objectives of D&D changed.  I'll mainly be advocating going back to the interpretation of alignment in AD&D 1e, as this interpretation can be used in any D&D (or successor game, such as the Pathfinder RPG) that uses the "3x3" grid.

Review: & Magazine, Issue 13

Yesterday's review of &12 was so enjoyable I couldn't help but go straight on to issue 13.  & Mag suffered a bit of the "2016s" itself, so - to the satisfaction of triskaidekaphobes everywhere - &13 was their only issue out last year.  On the bright side, this issue is fully loaded with great articles.

Review: & Magazine, Issue 12

Issue 12 of & Magazine came out shortly before my long hiatus and certainly had nothing to do with my case of "the 2016s".  Back in 2015, Bryan Fazekas was nice enough to share my review of issue 11 and remarked that he couldn't recall & getting any better praise than being thought-provoking.  I still see his point, but there are plenty of other fine things to say about & Magazine.

Actual Play: The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry (part 1)

One of my regular players wanted to cut down to fortnightly games while the others were up for staying on weekly.  So rather than develop more material I turned to the stack of reviewed modules.  As we're playing AD&D First Edition, Jeremy Reaban's "The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry" was an easy choice - it's an engaging and rewarding beginning scenario.  If you just want a review, take that link out of here because I'm about to drop some heavy spoilers!

Exporting the effect of AD&D ability scores: Strength

Last time, I talked about a rationale for ability scores as potential rather than realised ability.  I wanted to expand on that idea by discussing how one might export the functions of AD&D 1e's ability scores to character class and level.  (Briefly: the idea here is to keep the game more focused on these latter qualities because of verisimilitude and fairness.  It makes sense that skill is decisive and reducing the impact of random factors in character creation has long had an appeal.)  I've chosen Strength to start the discussion because it's the first in the book, but also because its AD&D functions are highly diverse.

Review: "The Howling Hills" by Charley Phipps

This is not the greatest module in the world.
This is a tribute.

Charley Phipps' The Howling Hills is a free adventure for AD&D First Edition and its clones.  The material could be used with other TSR or OSR rules without much conversion.  The scenario aims to challenge high level adventurers - no mean feat in any game - and also has to deal with the problem of very skilled players.

Review: "The Tavern of Daednu" by the Oliver Brothers

The Oliver Brothers' The Tavern of Daednu is a free adventure module for low-level characters.  The cover commits the work to AD&D 1st Edition, but as usual this means that referees using TSR-era D&Ds (and clones of the same) can run Daednu with a small amount of conversion.  It's one of many free OSR resources hosted by Dragonsfoot.

Concreteness, inquiry, and rationalisation

An internal view of 15th. century Brigandine.

The question "why is this stuff in RPGs?" has been thrown around a lot lately.  In the interests of making that discussion a little more safe, let's talk about continued existence of "studded leather" armour in D&D and its successors.  I would like to think that's going to be something that can be talked about without anyone reliving past harms - and if I'm wrong about that, I sincerely apologise for my ignorance.  (There's also a reference to Rust Monsters being tied up later on, but it's not particularly explicit.)

Campaign catch-up I: The temple in the sands

It has been a very long time since I first posted about my campaign.  Despite my absence from the blog, I'm happy to report that the game hasn't died - although one character did.  As I'm summarising a few months of play, these catch-up episodes will be a little sketchy.

Further investigations of the temple in the sands revealed a good many secrets and some fair share of treasure.  The riddle of the altar was finally revealed when the characters traced the path of the sun, opening up a hidden compartment filled with treasure. (1) Excavation showed that there was a great trap door before the altar, leading to a bizarre crypt.

Review: "The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry" by Jeremy Reaban

The Craft Dungeon of Reynaldo Lazendry is a pay what you want module designed by Jeremy Reaban.  For the sake of full disclosure: I don't know Jeremy but I do follow his very useful OSR News and Reviews blog, and I believe that he's a reader of War beneath the Earth.  If he decides to never read my blog again on the strength of what I say here, then I'll just have to live with that.

Examining Appendix B: Random Wilderness Terrain

I'm a big fan of the random tables in the DMG, because I feel that these charts make me less partisan to the development of the scenario.  If the difficulty is being generated more by dice throw than my hand, I don't feel that it's my fault if the PCs are too successful or not successful enough.  Rather, my job is to give the mechanical description some more life and excitement, and to act as a fairly impartial referee with regard to the rules.  Invariably I turn to Appendix A to provide a starting point for stocking my dungeons.  But recently I've been looking more closely at its less-fancied sibling, Appendix B: Random Wilderness Terrain.

The introduction to these tables includes the puzzling instruction that each space can be "1 mile, or larger".  Now, I'm not about to quibble on the shifts in terrain, because the DM is instructed to apply common sense.  My puzzlement stems from the population density generated by the Inhabitation Table - and what that will mean when the scale can be altered.  I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation for just the settlements (setting aside Castle population as too variable for now) and came up with an average of about 411 people per space.  If each space is a square mile, that's a population density slightly greater than that of modern China - hardly the howling emptiness of the World of Greyhawk.  One could massage that figure by saying that large settlements should be prohibited in marshes and mountains, but it's still quite a few people even before considering the land required for the upkeep of the game's monsters.

Taking the space as a 6 mile hex gets a population density of about 17 inhabitants per square mile, somewhat less than modern Russia.  That feels a bit better!  In fact, for most campaigns it's going to be about right once the DM starts applying "common sense" measures like prohibiting towns and cities in overly hostile terrain.  Of course, if you want that full-on post-Apocalyptic D&D style, then maybe try starting with 12 mile hexes and strictly limit settlements off the plain?

Review: "The Barrow of the Moon Druid" by the Oliver Brothers

The Barrow of the Moon Druid is a free adventure hosted on Dragonsfoot for characters of levels 2-4.   The material is intended for use with AD&D 1st Edition or 2nd Edition (with some adjustments).  Realistically, any TSR-era D&D or a clone of the same would suffice. Writing and illustration is all credited to the Oliver Brothers (James, Will, and Paul), as is the play-testing.

Thoughts on modelling the activity of NPC adventuring parties

After the events of my most recent session as DM, I'm left with a problem and opportunity.  The party intends to take a few days out before continuing their exploration of the ruined temple.  That's fine - they certainly have the right to proceed at their own pace.  However, such breaks in tempo can't be free of consequences.  When a site potentially rich in treasure is discovered, other adventurers may seek it out - and in the absence of another group of players to sic on the place, I'm obliged to use non-player characters.

Campaign journal: "Archaeology in force"

The first regular session of my new campaign went off without too much trouble.  One player had to roll up a character, but he was good enough to arrive early and was more or less ready by the time the others showed up.  Due to an expected absence, I had one party member to "explain away".  Unfortunately I didn't write up notes immediately afterwards, so some of the order of things here is a little foggy.

The elven adventurers Aegis (a magic-user with some skill at arms) and Vhondrel (a cleric devoted to the savage elf god) had spent about a month in Tripoli, spending their new-found wealth, assimilating the lessons of their prior adventure, and considering fresh expeditions. (1)

One day an old woman from the desert accosted Vhondrel in the street, throwing sand on the elf-maid and chanting some sort of folk-magic rhyme to "bind" her to a pact.  Despite the strangeness of the encounter, the cleric decided to see what the nomad wanted.  Vhondrel was happy enough to use her healing touch to restore an infant to good health and even happier that the nomads offered to lead her to a ruin in the sands, possibly the site of ancient treasures.

Game preparation time!

I haven't had as much time for reviewing modules this week as last because I'm preparing to DM on Saturday.  (I'll be expanding a one-shot adventure into a campaign in my old milieu.)  This leads to a straight question: am I running anything from the last slate of reviews?

Not this time, but I thought about it.  Beer of the Gods just about squeezed in, but as we're kicking things off I don't think that the GagMen's tidy little palate-cleanser is really necessary.  Steve Gilman's Shrine of Sruukor was my other main option, especially as Steve was good enough to send me a free copy of the second part of the Sundered Chronicles!  However, I was determined to keep in a "Cross and Crescent" motif and Aranure doesn't quite fit.  I've actually decided to take out the graph paper and chart a new low-level area connected to the last campaign's main dungeon, with an eye towards developing a mega-dungeon for continuing play.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the giant class will be making an appearance - and I've had some new insights into the nature of elves...

Stupid, Chaotic, Warlike: The giant class as combatants

Foreword: I mentioned in my review of Issue 11 of & Magazine that I had some disagreements with the views expressed in that issue's special feature articles.  Rather than clutter that post with my views and make it seem that I hadn't enjoyed &11, I'm taking up some of the controversies here.  Because & Magazine is primarily an AD&D 1e publication and that's the game I tend to play, all of my references to the game manuals are for that system.

The special features of &11 opened with Getting More Mileage from Goblinoids by Bryan Fazekas.  Unfortunately it's not a guide on improving the performance of one's savage litter-bearers, but instead an essay to DMs on why the giant class ought to be than just dumb brutes and sword fodder.  The article starts off by suggesting that the reason for the "brute" assumption is the portrayal in Tolkein's work and its many derivatives, which is plausible.  Fazekas then goes on to review the intelligence and alignment of the giant class in order to justify more nuanced tactics.  Much as I'm inclined to accept that more dangerous orcs, goblins, and so forth are a good idea, I don't really agree with the assumptions and I think they lead to making the giant class less interesting - and less dangerous!

Review: & Magazine, Issue 11

Issue 11 of & Magazine came out at the start of the month.  I'd put it on my reading list but hadn't intended on a review until &'s PR Director Ron Redmond somewhat hesitatingly asked me for one on Reddit.  He shouldn't have worried - I like the big quarterly and the ideas behind it.  Although community blogs and social media are a very "agile" means of discussion, periodicals like & provide a stable point of reference.  Bryan Fazekas' policy of announcing a theme for submissions keeps the magazine focused, while in theory allowing for diverse views on the topic to be expressed in the same document.

In Issue 11, the theme is humanoids (aka. the "giant-class", goblinoids) and the views in the special feature articles and the regular articles following theme are very much along the same line - that there is a problem with the assumed vanilla presentation that needs to be corrected, generally with new gaming content and complexity.  Most likely, this is a result of self-selection.  People who feel that the assumed vanilla presentation is largely fit for purpose and only needs a certain degree of expansion would be less likely to write in to &.  I'm not sure that there's anything that the staff could do to correct this trend, and in fact there's no pressing need to solicit contrary opinions.  Speaking just for myself, I disagreed with a great many of the views expressed in this issue - and may lay out my differences in later posts.  But don't mistake that for a condemnation of & Magazine.  Reading opposing views helped to clarify what I think about the topics addressed in Issue 11, providing entertainment on the day and (hopefully!) a better-developed milieu for my future RPG campaigns.

Review: "Cold Drake Canyon" by RC Pinnell

RC Pinnell's Cold Drake Canyon is a free module on Dragonsfoot for 1st to 8th level characters.  The design is aimed at 1st Edition AD&D, but could fairly easily be used with other TSR editions or retro-clones.  Pinnell's stated ambition is to lay out a "mini-setting" with an appropriate base of operations and challenges for bringing characters from low levels up to between fifth and eighth level.

I was very interested in this module for two reasons.  Firstly, it seemed like a cry back to the Keep on the Borderlands both in scope and scenario.  There's room for more modules like Gygax's classic, and having a good free one to direct new DMs towards would have been wonderful.  Secondly, I have my own AD&D 1e game and although I am determined to make use of old notes, the dungeon I have on paper is really more suitable for PCs around 6th level.  Cold Drake Canyon looked like a possible time-saver.