The "Evolve Rules" Table

Hidden in a secret cobweb-filled vault under TSR's former Lake Geneva headquarters we found a curious stone tablet of eldritch origin that had been laboriously inscribed with the following:

To produce a new edition of the rules, start with the current edition, roll on this table 3 times (re-rolling duplicates), and find new artists.

d8	Change
1	Add a new playable race, roll on any of the current edition's random encounter table for race.
2	Remove a playable race without explanation OR re-roll level limits for each class using 2d6+2.
3	Change monster hit dice from d6 to d8, d8 to d10, d10 to d6 as compared with the current edition.
4	Add or remove specialist magic-users, depending on whether or not the current edition has them.
5	Change how rangers pick their favored enemy; if there currently are no rangers, introduce them.
6	Roll d6: 1-3 combat is Theatre of the Mind; 4-5 combat is on square grids; 6 combat is on hex grids.
7	Number of books/boxed sets to spread new edition rules out over: 3d20-2, reroll 1s.
8	Add only 0.5 to edition, not 1.

Apparently an (incomplete!) copy of the tablet was made by certain WotC delvers when they first explored the ruins of TSR after acquiring a deed to their holdings. It's unclear what mistakes they made in their transcription, but they must have made some...

Riffing on 2d6: Reaction Rolls

I've started to take a real liking to 2d6 as a dice mechanic. For the longest time I didn't actually care for it, I was a fan of rolling a d20 for almost everything. But I've spent a lot of time thinking about the classic reaction roll in D&D (inspired in part by this post) and the longer it sat around in my brain, so more useful the probabilities created by 2d6 seemed to get. Here's how that reaction roll works abstractly, at least in most D&D-variants (B/X D&D, page B24 for example):

2d6	Outcome	Probability
2	really bad	2.78%
3-5	bad	25%
6-8	neutral	44.45%
9-11	good	25%
12	really good	2.78%

This has some nice properties. Obviously the "neutral" outcome is most likely which is probably just as well. After all, this is meant for a confrontation with a random pack of monsters who just popped around a corner. If both sides indeed "try to chat" that should probably lead to a temporary stalemate more often than not. Then there's a pretty decent chance for making "progress" in one direction or the other. I think that fits the "random negotiation" model again where both parties can usually feel that things are starting to slip before any actual stabbing occurs. Finally there's a pretty slim chance that things lead to immediate hostilities or immediate friendship. Neither of these should be very likely when you turn a corner and suddenly face a dozen kobolds: your side may be worried about being outnumbered, but their side should be worried about your big swords. So to me, this is just about perfect for monster reactions.

It's strange that Gary Gygax decided to mess with this for AD&D where reaction rolls are suddenly percentile-based. Here's what he (unenthusiastically in my opinion) proposes in the Dungeon Master's Guide (page 63), again abstracted a bit:

d%	Outcome	Probability
1-5	really bad	5%
6-25	bad	20%
26-45	neutral, negative bias	20%
46-55	neutral	10%
56-75	neutral, positive bias	20%
76-95	good	20%
96-100	really good	5%

What exactly are three versions of "neutral" good for except to complicate the table and to force the poor referee to be prepared for seven different outcomes to portray? Five different outcomes already enough of a workload! Also we get slightly increased chances for "really bad" and "really good" at the price of upping the total chance for "not sure yet" to 50% instead of 44.45%. That really only seems to lengthen the average time spent on the mechanic (negotiations take longer to conclude). As far as I am concerned, this is one of several cases where Gary was trying too hard to be "advanced" as it were.

If the point was to make the extreme outcomes more likely, he could have achieved a similar effect just by using different bins:

2d6	Outcome	Probability
2-3	really bad	8.34%
4-5	bad	19.44%
6-8	neutral	44.45%
9-10	good	19.44%
11-12	really good	8.34%

I am not sure if I am the first person to propose this? Maybe Gary even tried it but decided that 8.34% is too much? Who knows with these things...

Interestingly the reaction roll comes in two variants in OD&D. The "monster reaction" variant was actually an even simpler 2d6 roll with only three possible outcomes (Vol 3, page 12):

2d6	Outcome	Probability
2-5	bad	27.78%
6-8	neutral	44.45%
9-12	good	27.78%

This variant is also used in the Confusion spell (Vol 1, page 27). The variant with 5 outcomes (as above from B/X) was used only when recruiting monsters (Vol 1, page 12), not when encountering them.

Using the simpler OD&D table with three outcomes, there's yet another variant we could construct by attaching "special meaning" to rolling doubles. For each of the three outcomes there are two ways of rolling doubles: 1-1 and 2-2 for "really bad", 3-3 and 4-4 for "really neutral", 5-5 and 6-6 for "really good" as it were. It's easy to interpret "really bad" as "monsters attack" and "really good" as "monsters help" but what the heck does "really neutral" mean? Maybe that negotiations end right there and the monsters just decide to leave? Seems reasonable I guess. Opinions?

In terms of probabilities we now get something a bit more complicated to figure out, but it's not impossible. It is, however, a pain to put into a table because the "special outcomes" are not a contiguous range:

2d6	Outcome	Probability
2-5	really bad	5.56%
2-5	bad	22.22%
6-8	really neutral	5.56%
6-8	neutral	38.89%
9-12	really good	5.56%
9-12	good	22.22%

So for the "non-neutral" outcomes, that's also close to what Gary did with his AD&D reaction roll. On top of that it's pretty cute to make doubles meaningful, at least I find it fun.

I don't know if this turns anybody else on to 2d6 but I sure had fun writing it all up. There's more in my brain regarding 2d6, at least the "turn undead" mechanic and using 2d6 for skill checks. We'll see when I have the time to write them up. In the meantime, I'd love to hear your take on 2d6 in general and reaction rolls in particular.

Update 2014/12/11: Who would have thunk it, there are still more variants on the reaction roll! I noticed this earlier today when reading this post over at DHBoggs' fascinating blog. The version he gives comes from the "New Easy-to-Master Dungeons & Dragons Game" but it's also in the Rules Cyclopedia (page 93). Here's my reproduction with percentages inserted as I've done for the other versions above:

2d6	Outcome	Probability
2-3	really bad	8.34%
4-6	neutral, negative bias	33.33%
7-9	neutral	41.67%
10-11	neutral, positive bias	13.89%
12	really good	2.78%

Given the historical precedent discussed above, those asymmetric ranges are certainly strange: Monsters are now more likely to attack than to be cooperative! (Maybe that's just as well, after all the later versions of the game seem to encourage combat more anyway.) The AD&D idea of "bias" is back again, so there's a good chance (a 47.22% chance in fact!) that you'll roll on this table at least twice before getting a result (the rules recommend stopping after three such rolls). Note, however, that there's no longer a "good" and "bad" category, only the extreme outcomes are actually possible.

Now if you think this is a bad table for the reaction roll, think again. Think hard! Because I am about to show you an even worse one. If my brain is any indication, we simply repress things we find horrible even if we grow up with them. Case in point, I played a long-ish campaign using the Rules Cyclopedia back when it came out. I thought I knew those rules pretty well. But when I first wrote this post, I couldn't remember this whacky reaction roll table at all. I must have repressed it!

But now open your 1983 Mentzer Basic Set, Dungeon Masters Rulebook, and turn to page 22. Yes, look at that triply-nested monstrosity. I won't even type it up, I'll just use a scan:

I know I certainly repressed that one. There's literally no record of this anywhere in my brain. And yet that's the D&D I grew up with, the D&D I played forever and ever before getting the Rules Cyclopedia. Did you repress it too? In protest, I'll leave the analysis of this table to someone else.

The Trouble with Movement Rates

I am not sure why I suddenly had an urge to figure out how various editions of D&D handled movement rates for various creatures, but here's the result of my very brief study. I chose to focus on creatures that seem "familiar enough" to allow an "informed guess" of sorts, in other words I chose creatures I cared about for one reason or another. Here we go:

Creature	B/X	AD&D	Chainmail	OD&D	Holmes
Dwarf	60'	6"	6"	6"	60'
Elf	120'	12"	12"	12"	120'
Ghoul	90'	9"	-	9"	90'
Goblin	60'	6"	6"	6"	60'
Halfling	90'	9"	12"	-	-
Kobold	60'	6"	6"	6"	120'
Orc	120'	9"	9"	9"	90'
Skeleton	60'	12"	-	6"	60'
Treant	60'	12"	6"	6"	-
Troll	120'	12"	9"	12"	120'
Zombie	120'	6	-	6	120'

At first everything looks great, a wonderful consistency seems to rule across the entire 1970s and early 1980s. Then, however, the mischief becomes more obvious. Halflings used to be just a fast as elves in Chainmail, but their feet move a lot slower in AD&D and B/X; curiously neither OD&D or Holmes bother with Halflings, one would hope that maybe the "regular" movement (of 12" or 120') for player characters might be called for?

Kobolds are apparently under the influence of a Haste spell for Holmes, everybody else agreed that they are too short to move fast? Orcs, on the other hand, are given Formula-1 treatment only by B/X. Skeletons and Treants get the Haste spell by Gary Gygax himself in AD&D. The slow Trolls in Chainmail might be forgivable because there the category is actually "Trolls, Ogres" for whatever reason. Finally my favorite pet-peeve: Zombies, described as particularly slow in all editions that have them, suddenly run circles around everybody else in Holmes and B/X.

Looking at this, I find it difficult to determine who was smoking what when they put the monsters for their game together. Slowing down Halflings to somewhere between Elves and Dwarves? Maybe. Speeding up Skeletons and Zombies? What? Am I the only person in the world for whom "Zombie" always meant "Romero Zombie" while Ghoul was closer to "28 Days Later Zombie"? Maybe the size of a Treant (long legs) justifies giving them the same movement rate that Giants (almost) consistently get? But what about Tolkien's take on Ents and their rather slow habits?

I didn't spend the time to check what more recent retro-clones do with these movement rates. Well, I briefly checked on Delving Deeper and found that Simon has a much more rational set of movement rates. But I do wonder how many have copied "Zombie 120'/turn" without thinking twice about it...

Anyone else want to share their pet-peeves about movement rates?

Update 2014/11/23: Alright, I couldn't contain my curiousity so I checked a few retro clones regarding these monsters. Here's what I found:

Creature	OSRIC	LL	S&W	DD	ACKS
Dwarf	60'	60'	6	9	60'
Elf	120'	120'	12	12	120'
Ghoul	90'	90'	9	9	90'
Goblin	60'	60'	9	9	60'
Halfling	90'	90'	-	9	90'
Kobold	60'	60'	6	6	60'
Orc	90'	120'	12	9	120'
Skeleton	120'	60'	12	6	120'
Treant	120'	60'	12	6	60'
Troll	120'	120'	12	12	120'
Zombie	60'	120'	6	6	60'

Fascinating, isn't it? Delving Deeper's slightly faster Dwarves I can get behind, but that might be because I play a dwarf in my weekly game and I hate that without my boots of flying almost every monster can run away from my axe. Swords & Wizardry once again forgets Halflings in the monster section (just like Holmes), but at least everybody else seems to agree on their movement rate. But aside from Kobolds and Trolls, the remaining monsters are all over the place again, nobody can agree. And Labyrinth Lord is officially the least "thoughtful" clone because Dan copied both the fast movement and the slow description, just like predicted...

Saving Throws in Mentzer Expert Set

I am working on a general comparison of the B/X and BECMI rulesets and as part of that project I had to compare saving throws. That's when I noticed that the BECMI Expert Set has something of a problem: Inconsistent saving throw tables. The saving throw tables are printed twice, once with each character class description and once as part of the combat tables. Sadly those saving throw tables don't agree. Take, for example, the saving throws for halflings. On page 19 we find the following table:

	1-3	4-6	7-8
Death/Poison	8	6	4
Magic Wands	9	7	5
Paralysis/Stone	10	8	6
Dragon Breath	13	10	7
Rod/Staff/Spell	12	10	8

But then on page 29 we find the following table:

	1-3	4-6	7-8
Death/Poison	8	5	2
Magic Wands	9	6	3
Paralysis/Stone	10	7	4
Breath Attack	13	8	5
Rod/Staff/Spell	12	9	4

It doesn't end there, in fact most of the saving throw tables are different between those two locations in the book. As far as I can tell only those for thieves are the same between the class description and the combat tables.

I am still trying for figure this out. There are simply too many differences to treat this as "just a typo" which was my first suspicion. It seems more likely that one set of tables comes from an earlier version of the manuscript. Overall the tables printed with the class descriptions seem more sane, so I would assume that the tables on page 29 are "wrong" and from an earlier draft. Just a guess of course. Opinions anyone?

Update 2014/05/07: Apparently later printings of the Expert Set correct this inconsistency by using the saving throw tables from page 29 everywhere. But the Rules Cyclopedia is actually different again! For example the "Halfling 4-6" saving throws are 5/6/7/9/8 in that edition. That's a more consistent pattern again, but it's also the third variation of this mess. Makes one wonder how modules could possibly be "tuned" to a certain power level at all...

Wizard Spell Progressions Compared

Bryan Steward posted a question about the wizard (well, magic-user, whatever) spell progressions in B/X versus AD&D and made me realize that I had never formally compared the various editions of D&D in that regard. So I typed it all up in a spreadsheet that you may want to have a look at if you are interested in the details. (I should note that I suck at spreadsheets, so if you want to help me add more data or maybe some graphs, I'd appreciate it.)

The (perhaps not very surprising) conclusion is that wizards in AD&D and OD&D are more powerful (according to my metric anyway) than wizards in B/X. Between AD&D and OD&D it's sort of a toss-up with OD&D being slightly better at low levels and AD&D being slightly better at high levels.

Of course I couldn't resist and added my own spell progression to the mix, the one from my house rules. It mostly floats around AD&D except at level 14 where it clearly beats everything else with two 7th-level spells. But I should mention that the spreadsheet doesn't take XP requirements into account: it's pretty much impossible for anyone to advance to level 14 in my game because I keep doubling XP requirements forever.

So I am quite happy with my spell progression's power curve (mostly in line with the classics) and it's certainly a more straightforward pattern than what Gary and friends came up with.

Update 2014/04/15: Just added the BECMI progression from the Rules Cyclopedia and that wizard has it even worse than the B/X wizard. The Labyrinth Lord wizard is better off than most of the others, close to my progression actually. The Swords & Wizardry wizard is on par with mine as well, but the Lamentations wizard is in the AD&D range.

If that means anything, it's probably that most OSR folks like Dan Proctor, Matt Finch, and my humble self agree that the wizard's curve should have been a little better; just James Raggi (who would have thunk?) has to be different. Of course we all fervently disagree on how many XP it should take to reach, say, level 9 as a wizard: Dan says 310,000 XP, Matt says 100,000 XP, James says 288,000 XP, and I say 256,000 XP. Oh well...

Update 2014/04/16: Just for reference, B/X says 300,000 XP, AD&D says 135,000 XP, OD&D says 100,000 XP. For wizards to reach level 9. Go figure.

Scourge of the Demon Wolf

I just finished reading through Rob Conley's Scourge of the Demon Wolf and wanted to share my impressions. You should not consider this a "review" in any formal sense, it's just my ramblings inspired by having a good time flipping all those pages. In case you don't already know, this is what we're talking about:

Note that Scourge is billed as an "Adventure and Sourcebook" and that's exactly what you'll get: The first 30-odd pages describe a variety of encounters the player characters can have as they are trying to uncover the secret of the Demon Wolf, the last 40-odd pages then provide additional details about the locations that mostly serve as "backdrop" in the first part. Rob provides an excellent summary of why things are this way, so let me just quote him directly:

The majority of the adventures in my Majestic Wilderlands are based around locales and focused on conflicts between different groups. The players arrive in the midst of a situation and have to use their wits and roleplaying skills to figure out the underlying problem. The resolution results in new friends and enemies for the players. In later adventures, the players in my campaign find that these friends are just as valuable as a +5 sword.

When I first read this paragraph I didn't quite understand what it was saying yet, but in retrospect it's glaringly obvious: This might be an "adventure" but instead of dragging the players along a scripted "adventure path" it's really more of a "slightly constrained miniature sandbox" in a sense.

Yes, there's a "hook" that gets the player characters into the fray. Yes, there's a "finale" that uncovers the mystery and allows the player characters to "win" in a sense. But between those two points we have roughly 18 encounters that (with a few exceptions) could go in pretty much any order. If that's not player agency taken seriously (in the context of something rather small like an adventure anyway) then I don't know what would be. Hence let me heap some praise:

It's not just good, it's mind-bogglingly (lol, what a word) great!

Of course my incredible enthusiasm for this aspect of Scourge might just mean that I've read too many "scripted modules" in my life. Just to make the point explicit: The way things are set up it's unlikely that the players will immediately stumble to the final encounter, but theoretically they could. The world doesn't function along a plot line, it functions by itself. Therefore the choices the players make will matter a lot more than they otherwise would.

So we have roughly 18 encounters which despite the dependencies between some encounters lead to a staggering number of possible ways for the adventure to develop. The encounters involve roughly 7 distinct factions (more if you count sub-factions), each with their own interests, motivations, and prejudices. And it all plays out in roughly 6 detailed locations (a lot more if you count wilderness areas and locations only roughly sketched out). That's a lot of adventuring.

I have hopefully already convinced you to at least spend the money for the PDF of Scourge, especially if this kind of open-ended adventure seems attractive to you. Note, however, how I didn't say anything about the actual events in the adventure yet. In a sense the setup is rather simple: People died horrible deaths, someone claimed to have taken care of the problem but was wrong, and now the player characters are about to try the same. Yes, of course the Demon Wolf is responsible, but there's a lot more to discover in the process:

Where did it come from and why? What is it doing? What was it doing for the past two months during which everything seemed peaceful? Exactly how powerful is it and can we even kill it? Can anyone?

In other words, you get some kind of "monster hunt" wrapped in a "murder mystery" with a good deal of "explore the unknown" on top. And then there are the cool locations. Let me just talk about two here: The Village of Kensla and The Golden House Conclave.

Kensla is a very believable medieval village. There is a bailiff appointed by the baron and a reeve elected by the villagers. There are craftsmen, sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and yeoman farmers. There is a three field system and other details of the local agriculture. There are 43 distinct locations and every single building is described complete with its inhabitants, their stories, and their attitudes. The entire thing should be extremely useful well beyond the events of the adventure.

The Golden House is a conclave of mages. Its probably best described as an independent (well, mostly) magical research monastery. The masters, adepts, apprentices, and staff that make the whole thing work are all described in sufficient detail to let player character mages interact with it on a regular basis. Once again we get stories and attitudes for everybody, but in this case we also get details about the various research projects being undertaken and about in-game effects of studying magic here. Just like the village, the conclave is very believable and should be useful for a long time.

Okay, now that I've ranted on and on about how cool this thing is, what are the problems? There just two that I can see, and for the most part they pale in comparison to how great everything else is.

• The editing leaves much to be desired. I am sure the spell-checker was happy, but there are missing or extra words all over and sometimes you have to read a sentence three times to finally parse it correctly. Worse in a way is that there are several inconsistencies. Just one example: "Bebba's husband, Norhelm, died three years ago..." is followed a page later by "...a lot of tension between him and the staff, particularly Bebba, the housekeeper (Norhelm's husband)..." and I guess you see the problems here.
• There are several references to Rob's Majestic Wilderlands supplement which I don't own, mostly in the section about The Golden House. Some things are explained in Scourge itself, but there are several spells and magic items that are non-standard (at least to my knowledge) and must be from Majestic or from Rob's as-yet-unpublished Book of Lost Magic. Of course they are easily replaced with something the referee makes up, but I would have preferred another paragraph or three taking care of those lose ends.

And there you have it. Easily one of my favorite "adventures" now and I honestly can't wait to run it. Despite the immense campaign potential, I think it still makes an awesome one-shot. Maybe I can even talk a few people into playing it with the new Delving Deeper rules?

Ambitious Orcs or Avaricious Ogres?

Alright, so I barely finished writing up my thoughts on Ambition & Avarice and I am already feeling the need to tinker with it. I guess it would be good to run at least one session before messing with the rules? But I can't resist, sorry!

One of the obvious things that sets A&A apart from "classic" D&D is playable "monster" races: We get dark elves, goblins, hobgoblins, lizardfolk, and orcs. Wait, rewind that one more time: goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs? Isn't that just a bit much of the same thing over and over again?

True, much to A&A's credit it does characterize each of those three races differently. So goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs as written up in A&A are actually quite different. However, that doesn't help my deep-seated D&D sensibility of those races being almost interchangeable. Of course there have always been minor variations, and the cosmetics have been different ever since the AD&D Monster Manual started mentioning skin coloration and so on. But for most of my gamer life, those three races have otherwise been one and the same: Things low-level PCs wade through on their way up the campaign's food chain.

What I was really hoping for when I started reading A&A was a monster race that goes a little beyond the "everyone is human-sized or smaller" trope that most games have been stuck in. What I really wanted was this guy:

Okay, that's in fact the illustration for a half-ogre from an old Best of Dragon magazine, but that's the kind of PC that I've not seen enough of. And I think it's easy to "tweak" it into A&A without actually having to write up a new race description: Just replace the existing Orc with Ogre and hand players the picture above if they are wondering what that's like!

Orcs in A&A get the largest hit die already, and obviously so should the Ogre. Orcs get a +1 to-hit and damage, and so should the Ogre. And Orcs get a -2 on reaction when dealing with "civilized pansies" such as humans and elves, right on for an Ogre. So it's really all about the cosmetics of it. I might be tempted to put some kind of cap on intelligence, and I might compensate for that with some kind of bonus for constitution, but A&A typically stays clear of having race modify attributes, so maybe I should follow suit.

Just imagine an Ogre Cultist defending a town from invasion and having to decide whether to sacrifice a few more tasty halflings in order to heal his party up as the big bad black dragon approaches in the dark and cloudy sky. Perfect.

Now how about some kobolds on the other end of the "barbarian" spectrum? :-)