Read it here.

I had to squeeze it to fit it into two pages, as, like I said, the rules and how-you-play of the game are actually only on one page. As such, it’s got all the info you need to play, but no advice or expanded explanation. For example, if one were to be inclined to play this alpha draft, I’m assuming in the text that you’re familiar with Mario & co. and their games, such that I don’t explain what a Goomba or a Boo is, or even who Big Bertha is.

If you’re playing this game, you’ve played Mario games before. If I were to expand the text, I might add a little bit about the denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom, though, because I don’t like to make assumptions when writing games.

Clearly the audience for this text is gamers and especially design-folks, since it’s for an invitational, and as such doesn’t say anything about how to roleplay. If the game gets accepted into the invitational, I’ll likely write up these first three rules, which have become my favorite way of describing what a roleplaying game is–and they wouldn’t be under a “so what’s roleplaying” heading, they’d just be the first three rules of the game.

1. In this game, you portray a fictional character
2. Whenever you speak as your character, that’s what your character says
3. Whenever you describe what your character’s doing, that’s what she does

Influences

It’s too early to talk design influences; here I’m talking straight inspiration for the game. As I was writing it, I began to realize that I was making a mashup of SMB 1 & 2 mostly, with a little of 3 thrown in. SMB 1 & 2 are surely the Mario games I’ve played the most in my life–or at least in my childhood.

What surprised me, though, was that I realized I was also writing the game based on this big book of Mario comics I read to death when I was a kid:

Many of the characterizations of the Mushroom Kingdom denizens come straight from this book (or my memories of it). The comics were silly, but way fun, and the whimsical worldbuilding of their stories really drew me in–I read this collection over & over & over.

When I played the Mario games as a kid, the challenges felt deadly serious–Bowser was no joke in SMB 1. But this collection opened up the Mushroom Kingdom to me, and its stories are really the basis of my game (though my design goal wasn’t to emulate them). If you’ve read these, or are intrigued, give Mushroom Kingdom Stories a shot, and tell me what you think. It’ll only take 40 minutes or so, maybe less (another thing I couldn’t fit into the text!)

Blog Stuff

From here on out, I’m switching to a bimonthly posting schedule. I enjoyed writing weekly, and I’m glad doing so for a couple months got this blog some momentum, but right now I want to caution that I don’t burn out. I want to have the freedom to explore more topics that every-week-oh-shit posting hasn’t allowed me, and I think my writing will improve if I’m not trying to make deadlines so furiously. Occasionally I may post in off weeks.

Anyway, [AD&D and me] is still walking along, slowly but surely. Writing here has become ingrained in my weekly rhythms, and I’m happy for it to continue. Feedback is always a huge boost–I’m writing because I want to write this stuff, but I also want people to read and talk about it, so if you’re inclined to, please do. See you soon!

Today’s post covers page 20 of the 1987 AD&D Player’s Handbook.

Finally! Today we’re getting into what for many people is the core of D&D: the classes. Originally I was going to do a post per class with the sub-classes rolled in, but the internet ate my fully finished Druid section from today’s post, so we’ll see how that goes. All in all, the classes are a meaty part of the game, and to be honest, after this the Player’s Handbook is mostly lists of spells.

A caveat: I’m sure we’ll touch on classes more in other sections (like when we look at spells), and there’s a lot of cool stuff contained in the Classes section, but a lot of it is across-the-board cool: what’s nifty about the Cleric is kinda the same thing that’s interesting about the Fighter, for example, so some classes may not be covered as in-depth as you might want (I don’t talk about the Cleric’s spells at all, for example).

This is in the order they appear in the text, not in alphabetical or any other order.

THE CLERIC

It seems that the classic Cleric has pretty much survived to this day intact in roleplaying culture: A healing-focused spellcaster that can also fight decently (with a blunt weapon) and beat back the undead with the Power of the Lord. That’s what we find in AD&D, and that’s what we find in everything from Pathfinder to 4th Edition to Dungeon World.

So that’s not very interesting, from my perspective. Or: not more interesting than usual. Clerics are fun, and fun to play, even if the religio-magical-fighter trope is a fucking weird one, and, as far as I can tell, one whose origins belong to D&D.

Where things get exciting is in the tables (seems to be a pattern with this book). Take a look at the CLERICS TABLE 1:

So you have the amount of experience you need to reach a particular level, and the amount of dice you roll to generate your hit points based on that level. But look at the Level Title column. You’re seeing what I’m seeing, right: a built-in story arc for the Cleric? I mean, I don’t know how well that story arc fits in with actually engaging the mechanics of AD&D, but arguably that table is a game mechanic, or at least a hard reference point.

The Beginning of Your Pastoral Leadership

I can almost read it as: “Play the Cleric if you want to start as a lowly temple Acolyte, progress up to a Priest, and eventually control your own temple as a High Priest!” Because yeah, at level 9 you become a High Priest and can be the head of a temple. Let’s look at this more in-depth. Actually, at level 8 you become a “Patriarch” or “Matriarch” (yes, Matriarch is in the text) and you

automatically attract followers if [you] establish a place of worship–a building of not less than 2,000 square feet in floor area with an altar, shrine, chapel, etc. These followers are fanatically loyal and serve without pay so long as [you do] not change deities and/or alignment. These followers number between 20 and 200 (2d10, totaled, and multiplied by 10). In addition, there will be followers who are men-at-arms…

More even than a character arc, this looks like a built-in goal structure to me, just as much as gaining experience to level up is a goal structure. In fact, it’s why you want to gain experience and level up–or at least, it’s one big fat reason why you do. And because AD&D is a roleplaying game, the very structured goal is paradoxically open-ended: you attract followers if you establish a place of worship, but how and where and why you do that is surely reliant on the particulars of the fiction that you’re making. Now, the text doesn’t talk about it in this way, but the text spends little time on the little structures that I’m spending so much time on here, and spends a lot of time up front talking about how roleplaying is open-ended. Which is to say: I’m inferring, but I think reasonably so.

Your Very Own Religious Stronghold

With the Cleric, levels 8, 9, and beyond are where it’s at. What comes after your Matriarchy?

Upon reaching 9th level (High Priest or High Priestess), the cleric has the option of constructing a religious stronghold. This fortified place must contain a large temple, cathedral, or church of not less than 2,500 square feet on the ground floor. It can be a castle, a monastery, an abbey or the like. It must be dedicated to the cleric’s deity (or deities).

And Deity help you if yours isn’t one of war. What kind of god other than a warlike one would want you to construct a stronghold? Eh, chalk it up to AD&D’s core focus on challenges and combat. I suppose “stronghold” is just the generic term, as the text does say it can be a monastery or an abbey or anything else. This jumps your Matriarchal duties up a notch or two into mini-society management. Now, there’s not rules for that on a managing level, but theoretically you can do that in the game. Bet your ass if I were playing a Cleric and hit High Priestess level, that I’d bend all my will toward making my castle work for ME.

Really, at the 8th and 9th levels of Cleric the game seems to want to shift into a different scale of play, though again, there’s not much to help you with this shift of game modes. It’s mostly fictional, as far as I can tell. I wonder if people who play/ed this do higher level management? Or do they still just speak and act as their character and have the GM adjudicate it per the rules (which are: make a judgment call)?

One last nugget in this section:

If the cleric then clears the surrounding territory and humans dwell in this area, there will be a monthly revenue of 9 silver pieces per inhabitant from trade, taxation, and tithes.

Or maybe what you do is set your fat cat Cleric up in his castle, get him collecting tithes, and then dial down again, roll up a new character, and play one of your Cleric’s Men-at-arms? The text doesn’t push you in this direction, either through rules or advice, but it seems to me that it does simply through lack of support for this “higher level” play. I mean, is your Cleric who has a monastery, hundreds of followers, and a tithing countryside still supposed to go out and dive into nasty holes in the ground in search of treasure?

I’d be excited about playing a Cleric up to High Priest/ess level, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to play her after that.

Next Week

The misplaced Druid!

I’ve got an AD&D and me post in the works, but it’s just not together today, folks. If you haven’t read the archive, go ahead:

Intro

Gandalminster?

What’s this game about?

Strength through Charisma!

On the Origin of Races

Or tool around a little bit and see what else I’ve written, hmm? See you next week.

Which brings me to what I want to talk about. We’re set to have our 9th session of an ongoing Apocalypse World game. I sent out an email last week to the crew letting them know that I want to wrap the game up in the next 3-4 sessions. In a lot of ways, it feels like the game could go on for much longer than that, but some long-standing conflicts between the characters and their little society are coming to a head, and hitting the climax of those seems like a good place to close the game.

Plus, I, as GM, am just kind of ready to move on. I’ve greatly enjoyed this game. We’ve had a hiccup here & there, but for the most part we’re all really into the game and have a collaboratively creative vibe going on. But man, I just. Maybe I have ADD? Maybe it would help if the game was every week instead of every other week?[1] I feel ready to put this one to bed and move on, but at the same time I don’t want to just drop it–I really want to come to an ending.

The last Apocalypse World game I ran went 7 sessions. There was no ending, and it was my fault as the GM. I just said, “look, guys, I don’t have it in me to finish this one. I want to be done with it.” I think I’m eager to wrap this current game up soon because I don’t want to repeat that failure. I want to finish it, and finish it well, but if we went on for 10 more sessions, or even 5, I can see myself hitting that point again.

Which brings me to the question: How does one GM something long term? In large part, I’m not that interested in GMing (or even having a PC) in a game for a super long time. There are a lot of games on my shelf and for the vast majority I’d be happy playing them for 3-4 sessions, or playing multiple one-session games. Apocalypse World, though, and especially Burning Wheel, are different. I can see myself having a PC in a Burning Wheel game and playing that for a year, maybe more. But GMing a Burning Wheel game for that long? Maybe. I haven’t GMed Burning Wheel so I don’t know, but I suspect and fear that I’d get back into this antsy place where I’m ready for the game to end.

Maybe it’s because in these last two games I haven’t had much of a creative vision as GM. I mean, while we’re playing, I’m excited about what’s happening, and I deeply enjoy throwing things at the PCs and forcing them to make difficult decisions. But in Apocalypse World, for example, Fronts & Threats have left me mostly cold. I’ve enjoyed coming up with them, and I feel like the stuff I prep is fairly creative, but it’s been a while since I’ve come into a session thinking, “I can’t wait to see what they do with this!” I know I’m not supposed to prep a story in AW (and lord knows I don’t want to), but I feel like I’m lacking some sort of overarching vision or direction for the game and the PCs that might give me some fire in my belly.

Or, I don’t know. Maybe I just want to sit in the PC-controller’s chair for a while. When I read Apocalypse World or Burning Wheel, the thing that gets my heart pumping (mostly) is imagining a character and wanting that character to be put in tough situations. I want to have to make difficult decisions and find out who I am when I have to pass through the fire. Being the person that puts the characters and my friends in that fire is fun, and I do enjoy that. But so far it hasn’t been a sustainable enjoyment. Around 6 or so sessions in I can feel myself wanting to move on.

Have you ever felt the same? How do you feel about GMing now? Let’s talk.

[1] As much as the next person, I’m busy. We all do other things. But really, I want to push hard for the next multiple-session game I play to happen every week. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking, but I imagine the momentum and imaginative consistency of a weekly game would help a lot with my problem of long-term GMing. I should say that I’ve never played a weekly long-term game, and in fact this so-far-8-session AW game is the longest one I’ve ever played, or tied for it.

I’ve talked before about The Magic Circle: Principles of Gaming & Simulation. I never finished the book, but today I want to talk about it a bit more. The author discusses Roger Callois’[1] classification of games, and I’ve been thinking about how roleplaying games[2] fit into this.

Before I talk more, though, I do want to say: I don’t think labels and definitions are good in themselves. I don’t want to fit roleplaying games into this schema as a way of declaring the truth of how they are, but rather use the schema as a tool to maybe learn something about RPGs. Which goes to say, too, I’m not declaring the truth of this classification system, just using it as a lens for looking at RPGs.

Also, I’m going to quote from the book at length, which may turn some people off, but part of my reason in reading this obscure and difficult book was to cull things of use and interest to those of us who like to think about games. If that’s you, then, this is good stuff, if sometimes dense.

Callois has presented a classification of games that makes an important distinction between two kinds of rules, and four forms of activities in culture. The paida element concerns the free play of a game, based on its intrinsic values for the players. The ludus element pays more attention to institutionalized rules and conventions imposed on the players. The paida-ludus dimension refers to ways of playing. Caillois considered both game qualities to be the extremes of a continuum.

Many games are a mixture of the paida and ludus elements. The four cultural activities — categories of play: agon, alea, mimicry, and ilinx vary with respect to locus of control of the players. With agon and mimicry, the players can control events. With alea and ilinx, when entering the game, they leave control to the circumstances. Caillois speaks of four categories of play — competition, chance, simulation, and vertigo — and in addition calls them basic attitudes governing play. He mentioned that they are not always encountered in isolation. In many games the various attitudes of play become associated. He presented six possible pairs:

• Competition & chance (agon-alea)
• Competition & simulation (agon-mimicry)
• Competition & vertigo (agon-ilinx)
• Chance & simulation (alea-mimicry)
• Chance & vertigo (alea-ilinx)
• Simulation & vertigo (mimcry-ilinx)

Based on this scheme, Caillois distinguished forbidden, contingent, and fundamental relationships between these four attitudes of play. As an example of a forbidden relationship, vertigo and competition are incompatible. The conditions for ilinx destroy the conditions for agon: respect for rules, self-control, efforts to win, testing oneself under conditions of equality. In a similar vein, simulation and chance are mutually exclusive.

Regarding contingent relationships: chance and vertigo, as well as competition and simulation, can be associated without harm. A fundamental relationship, on the other hand, exists between agon and alea. They are symmetrical to each other, and complement one another. A multitude of games exist that combine the two attitudes in varying degrees. Card games, golf, poker, soccer, etc., are not purely games of chance. They also require skills, self-control, testing oneself under conditions of equality, and prior submission to the decision of a referee. Many board games are a combination of skill and chance. Agôn and alea are regulated through the rules of the game. Without rules there would be no competition. Mimicry and ilinx form another kind of fundamental relationship. Both presume a world without rules and regulations. Caillois said:

The combination of alea and agôn is a free act of will, stemming from the satisfaction felt in overcoming an arbitrarily conceived and voluntarily accepted obstacle. The alliance of mimicry and ilinx leads to an inexorable, total frenzy, which in its most obvious forms appears to be the opposite of play, an indescribable metamorphosis in the conditions of existence. The fit so provoked, being uninhibited, seems to remove the player as far from the authority, values, and influence of the real world, as the real world seems to influence the formal, protected, regulated, and protected activities that characterize the wholly inhibited games subsumed under the rules of agôn and alea. The association of simulation and vertigo is so powerful and so inseparable that it is naturally part of the sphere of the sacred, perhaps providing one of the principal bases for the terror and fascination of the sacred.

Although tripartite combinations occur, Caillois considered them rare juxtapositions that do not influence the character of the games involved.

So where, if anywhere, do roleplaying games fit? Many RPGs have an element of alea (chance), but I don’t know that that’s fundamental to the medium. They are certainly not games of chance, and even if I’m rolling dice or drawing cards to find the outcome of an action or event, those elements of chance almost always have to be interpreted by someone at the table. The elements of chance in any given RPG aren’t really about alea, then, but rather use chance to serve a different purpose.

What purpose? My gut tells me that ilinx (vertigo), “attempts to disrupt regular perception patterns”, is a strong element of RPGs. When I play a roleplaying game, I control certain elements in the fiction, but not all of them. The other players are there to disrupt me, to surprise me, to–perhaps–collaborate in changing my regular patterns of perception.

Obviously, I think, mimicry (imitation/simulation) is a huge part of roleplaying[3]. We are “pretending to be someone else”, even if we’re not really pretending, right? Even if we’re holding our character or cast of characters at length, we imaginatively take on aspects of them during play.

In the end, I really like the mimicry-ilinx classification of roleplaying games, because it settles there naturally in my mind, even if I can’t fully pull it apart with my intellect. There’s still something brewing there that I can’t quite grasp. Callois connects that pair with the sacred, with letting yourself go, with a removal from everyday life, which just, sits there in the space that roleplaying games sit in, for me.

I suspect, though, that there’s really no tight fit. Roleplaying games as a medium are incredibly broad. What about agon (competition)? If you write a roleplaying game about mythical Greek heroes competing, and even call it AGON, does that mean roleplaying games can be categorized under agon, or does it just mean that the elements of agon serve the mimicry-ilinx core of the game?

Shit, I don’t know. And what about games like Do?[4] They completely lack any mimicry.

It would probably help if I actually read Callois, instead of an analysis of him.

I would love for this to be a discussion, either here or on a far-flung forum. What do you think of this lens of classification for games? How does it help you see roleplaying games? What do you make of my thoughts on the matter?

[1] A French academic who wrote, among other things, Man, Play, and Games, a book on the sociology of games and play.

[2] And by “roleplaying game” I mean “or story game, or whatever you want to call it”. In general, on this blog, I don’t make a distinction between the terms and the types of games they refer to.

[3] Let’s stick with mimicry and stay away from simulation, hmm? That last one is minefield in RPG discussion.

[4] Okay, let’s tell it like it is: Do’s a collaborative fiction-writing game, plain and simple. Which I think probably moves it out from under the umbrella of roleplaying/story game, but still, I’m not sure. In my heart of hearts, though, I say: Do’s not an RPG/story game. Does it matter, though? No.

Today we cover pages 15-18 of the 1978 AD&D Player’s Handbook.

After the ability tables, the book gets deeper into what characters are about, starting with Character Races. I really wish Gygax had picked a term like “species” or something, but he didn’t, and it’s stuck with us ever since. I read through the race descriptions, and while each individual sentence and paragraph made sense, I couldn’t get a broader picture of why you’d want to play a Dwarf and not, say, a Gnome or a Half-orc. Again, it’s that endearing/maddening stream-of-consciousness organization.

Gygax was following the rules of good writing in some cases–think of novel ways to re-phrase things–but when it comes to writing a game, that rule of good writing is awful. If a game rule is the same for a Dwarf, an Elf, and a Gnome (like Infravision), then for God’s sake, copy and paste the thing! O well, he was busy helping to formulate a new game medium. He can be forgiven.

Anyway, as I was saying: I couldn’t get a grasp on the broader comparative picture of the races, because of the organization. So this week, instead of dropping into analysis-mode, I switched on organization-mode, which funnily enough in the end seems to be a kind of analysis. I broke down the races into a (fairly) easily digestible format and gave abilities flavorful names that are easily referenced and normalized across the races.

I don’t talk too much about the fictional stuff behind each race, because the book itself mostly doesn’t[1] and because the rules for each race are its culture, in a way. System is setting, right?

Here are your race options, all spelled out, for the next time you play AD&D:

DWARVES

Classes: Fighter* / Thief / Assassin / Multi-class

Perks:

Stout & Gruff: Dwarves get +1 Constitution and -1 Charisma.

Magic Resistant: Dwarves get a bonus to saving throws against attacks by magic wands, staves, rods, and spells. This bonus is +1 per 3.5 points of the character’s Constitution score.

Toxin Resistant: Dwarves get the same bonus to saving throws against poison.

Infravision: Dwarves can see radiation in the IR spectrum, making them able to see up to 60 feet in the dark, and noting varying degrees of heat radiation.

Blood Enemy (ATK): Dwarves get +1 on rolls to hit half-orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, or orcs.

Blood Enemy (DEF): When being attacked by ogres, trolls, ogre magi, giants, and/or titans, dwarves force their enemies to take -4 on rolls to hit them.

Miners of Great Skill: Dwarves are able to detect the following facts when within 10 feet of the phenomenon (determination of approximate depth can be done at any distance):

• Detect grade or slope in passage, upwards or downwards (75% probability – d4, score 1-3)
• Detect new construction or passage/tunnel (75% probability)
• Detect sliding or shifting walls or rooms (66 2/3% probability – d6, score 1-4)
• Detect traps involving pits, falling blocks, and other stonework (50% probability – d4, score 1-2)
• Determine approximate depth underground (50% probability)

Languages: Dwarves are able to speak dwarven, gnome, goblin, kobold, orcish, and the “common tongue” of humankind. In addition to their alignment language, they are able to learn two more languages maximum.

*Max 9th level

ELVES

Classes: Fighter* / Magic User** / Thief / Assassin*** / Multi-class

Perks:

Wiry: Elves get +1 Dexterity and -1 Constitution.

Charm Immune: Elves have a 90% chance to resist sleep and charm spells (d100, score of 1-90).

Weapons of My Ancestors: Elves get +1 on rolls to hit when using a short sword, long sword, or bow (not a crossbow).

Infravision: Elves can see radiation in the IR spectrum, making them able to see up to 60 feet in the dark, and noting varying degrees of heat radiation.

Quiet & Sneaky: If alone and not in metal armor, elves will surprise a monster 66 2/3% of the time (d6, score 3-6). If a door must be opened to confront the monster, the chance drops to 33 1/3% (d6, score 5-6).

An Eye for Secrets:

• When passing within 10 feet of a secret or concealed door, elves have a 16 2/3% chance of finding it (d6, score 6)
• When actively searching for secret doors, elves have a 33 1/3% chance of finding them, and a 50% chance of finding a concealed door

Languages: Elves are able to speak elvish, gnome, halfling, goblin, hobgoblin, orcish, gnoll, the “common tongue” of humankind, and their alignment language. Elves are able to learn one additional language for every point of Intelligence above 15.

*Max 7th, **11th, and ***10th level

GNOMES

Classes: Fighter* / Illusionist** / Thief / Assassin*** / Multi-class

Perks:

Magic Resistant: Gnomes get a bonus to saving throws against attacks by magic wands, staves, rods, and spells. This bonus is +1 per 3.5 points of the character’s Constitution score.

Infravision: Gnomes can see radiation in the IR spectrum, making them able to see up to 60 feet in the dark, and noting varying degrees of heat radiation.

Hated Foes (ATK): Gnomes get +1 on rolls to hit kobolds and goblins.

Hated Foes (DEF): When being attacked by gnolls, bugbears, ogres, trolls, ogre magi, giants, and/or titans, gnomes force their enemies to take -4 on rolls to hit them.

Miners of Exceptional Merit: Gnomes are able to detect the following facts when within 10 feet of the phenomenon (determination of approximate depth can be done at any distance):

• Detect grade or slope in passage, upwards or downwards (80% probability – d10, score 1-8)
• Detect unsafe walls, ceilings, or floors (70% probability – d10, score 1-7)
• Determine approximate depth underground (60% probability – d10, score 1-6)
  
• Determine direction of travel underground (50% probability – d4, score 1-2)

Languages: Gnomes are able to speak dwarven, gnome, halfling goblin, kobold, the “common tongue” of humankind, and their alignment language. In addition, they are able to communicate with any burrowing mammal (moles, badgers, ground squirrels, etc.). They are able to learn two more languages maximum.

Max *6th, **7th, and ***8th level

HALF-ELVES

Classes: Cleric* / Druid / Fighter** / Ranger** / Magic User** / Thief / Assassin*** / Multi-class

Perks:

Charm Resistant: Half-elves have a 30% chance to resist sleep and charm spells (d100, score of 1-30).

Infravision: Half-elves can see radiation in the IR spectrum, making them able to see up to 60 feet in the dark, and noting varying degrees of heat radiation.

An Eye for Secrets:

• When passing within 10 feet of a secret or concealed door, half-elves have a 16 2/3% chance of finding it (d6, score 6)
• When actively searching for secret doors, half-elves have a 33 1/3% chance of finding them (d6, score 5-6), and a 50% chance of finding a concealed door

Languages: Half-elves are able to speak elvish, gnome, halfling, goblin, hobgoblin, orcish, gnoll, the “common tongue” of humankind, and their alignment language. Half-elves are able to learn one additional language for every point of Intelligence above 16.

Max *5th, **8th, and ***11th level

HALFLINGS

Classes: Fighter* / Thief / Multi-class

Perks:

Small & Slippery: Halflings get +1 Dexterity and -1 Strength.

Magic Resistant: Halflings get a bonus to saving throws against attacks by magic wands, staves, rods, and spells. This bonus is +1 per 3.5 points of the character’s Constitution score.

Toxin Resistant: Halflings get the same bonus to saving throws against poison.

Infravision: Halflings can see radiation in the IR spectrum, making those of pure Stoutish blood able to see up to 60 feet in the dark. Those of mixed blood have Infravision up to 30 feet.

Tunnelers: Halflings are able to tell if a passage is on an up or down slope 75% of the time (d4, score 2-4), and can determine direction 50% of the time (d4, score 3-4).

Quiet & Sneaky: If alone and not in metal armor, halflings will surprise a monster 66 2/3% of the time (d6, score 3-6). If a door must be opened to confront the monster, the chance drops to 33 1/3% (d6, 5-6).

Languages: Halflings are able to speak dwarven, elven, gnome, goblin, halfing, orcish, the “common tongue” of humankind, and their alignment language. Halflings are able to learn one additional language for every point of Intelligence above 16.

Max *6th level

HALF-ORCS

Classes: Cleric* / Fighter** / Thief*** / Assassin / Multi-class

Perks:

Brutish: Half-orcs get +1 to Strength, +1 to Constitution, and -2 to Charisma.

Infravision: Half-orcs can see radiation in the IR spectrum, making them able to see up to 60 feet in the dark, and noting varying degrees of heat radiation.

Languages: Half-orcs are able to speak orcish, the “common tongue” of humankind, and their alignment language. They are able to learn two more languages maximum.

Max *4th, **10th, and ***8th level

HUMANS

Classes: All, except Multi-class: Cleric / Druid / Fighter / Paladin / Ranger / Magic User / Illusionist / Thief / Assassin / Monk

Perks: None. Humans are given neither penalties nor bonuses, as they are established as the norm upon which the subtractions or additions for racial stock are based.

Languages: Humans are able to speak the “common tongue” of Humankind. They are able to learn additional languages as their Intelligence allows (1 additional at INT 8, 7 additional at INT 18; for all details see INTELLIGENCE TABLE 1).

And that’s it for your racial options. As usual, humans are the most boring but the most versatile–there’s a whole heap of classes that only they can be. And oh yeah, the classes. We’ll get to that soon. See you next time!

[1] i.e., “The race of dwarves typically dwells in hilly or mountainous regions. For more info, see THE MONSTER MANUAL”.

Today we cover pages 9-13 of the 1978 AD&D Player’s Handbook: Strength through Charisma!

We’re fully into “Creating the Player Character” now, and after a brief detour into An Explanation of the Usages of the Term ‘Level’ (Summary: there’s character level and spell level and monster level and dungeon level, and yeah that seems confusing, and we thought about changing terms, but you all seem to be used to it so we’re keeping it) we move right on to Character Abilities.

The text just says that the Dungeon Master will tell you how to numerically determine your abilities, and then launches into descriptions of each ability and some corresponding tables. So let’s hit the interesting stuff, huh?

Strength

Strength is a measure of muscle, endurance, and stamina combined.

Strength is the best ability because, seriously people, it determines how many gold pieces you can carry. What I mean to say is, the Weight Allowance for your character is tied to strength, and for some reason the WA isn’t given in something realistic like pounds or something abstract like a load score, but in gold pieces. Fuckin’ A, this game tells you what it’s about right in the STRENGTH TABLE II. It doesn’t matter how many pounds you can carry out of the dungeon, kid; alls we want to know is can you stuff a gold piece in every crevice and still hobble your way to the surface?

Intelligence

Intelligence is quite similar to what is currently known as intelligence quotient, but it also includes mnemonic ability, reasoning, and learning ability outside those measured by the written word.

Despite the fact that I can’t understand the last clause in that sentence, Intelligence is the best ability because the smarter you are, the more languages you know. Sure, killing a goblin or a kobold is fun, but anyone can do that. You can talk to them. You can listen at the door and understand what the Orc King is planning.

The real reason languages are cool, though, is because their inclusion in the rules implies that there’s something deeper going on in AD&D than “kill, loot, repeat”, or at least that there can be. It seems to be almost an afterthought in the rules, but c’mon, you can learn how to talk to moles and squirrels. As much as the game is about being challenged by monsters and traps and dungeon environments, it’s also about taking the little throwaway tools it gives you like languages and seeing how you can leverage them–to overcome the challenges? To explore a world where you can discuss the weather with a badger? All of the above, please.

Wisdom

Wisdom is a composite term for the character’s enlightenment, judgement, (sp) wile, will power, and (to a certain extent) intuitiveness.

Wisdom is totally the best ability because…it helps you defend against attacks aimed at YOUR MIND! Yeah–no one’s seeing through that. Wisdom just isn’t that interesting. It helps with saving throws against certain mental attacks, yes, and if you’re a Cleric it helps you not fail at spells. It doesn’t make you better at casting spells, or let you cast more of them, it just keeps you from not failing at the whole reason for being a Cleric.

This is stretching it, maybe, but re-read the Wisdom description. Enlightenment? That is goddamn ambitious. Gary Gygax wrote a game that lets you describe how enlightened and wise your character is. Even if it doesn’t really feel that way in play, because Wisdom is only really important for not failing at being a Cleric, it’s still kind of a grand idea. Wisdom is the best ability because who would have even thought of talking about enlightenment in a game before they read this?

Dexterity

Dexterity encompasses a number of physical attributes including hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes, precision, balance, and speed of movement.

Dexterity is only the best if you’re a Thief or Assassin, but then it’s the BEST, no joke. If you have proclivities toward thieving and/or assassination, plus a high Dex, look at the cool shit you unlock that no one else even gets to touch, let alone fail at:

• Picking Pockets
• Opening Locks
• Locating/Removing Traps
• Moving Silently
• Hiding in Shadows

Your character doesn’t have “skills” in AD&D. They have a random hodge-podge of perks and, in the case of the Magic-User & Cleric, spells. The DEXTERITY TABLE II, however, has hardcore niche protection, and what would down the line become a full-fledged skill system. Dexterity makes me want to play a Thief–the down-and-dirty capable character.

Constitution

Constitution is a term which encompasses the character’s physique, fitness, health, and resistance.

Constitution is the best ability because it totally surprised me with its cool factor. “Resistance”? “Fitness”? Duh. Blah. Boring. But what’s this? System Shock Survival? You have to test whether or not you immediately die when you’re petrified, polymorphed, or magically aged? Suddenly I want to put a few more points into li’l ol’ Constitution and up that SSS chance.

More than that, your initial Constitution score is also the maximum number of times your character can be resurrected from the dead! If you want your character to last, if you want to play that epic game to rival Lord of the Rings, well, you need some more CON, sis.

Charisma

Charisma is the measure of the character’s combined physical attractiveness, persuasiveness, and personal magnetism.

I left Charisma as last because it’s last in the book, but really, let’s speak some truth: Charisma is the best. I don’t know how this ever became the stat everyone ignored, because in the book it rocks. Why? One word: Henchmen.

The higher your Charisma, the more positively people will react to you, the more henchmen you can have, and the more loyal they’ll be (apparently they have a loyalty score but that’s not detailed in this section). Who doesn’t want henchmen? Retainers, groupies, lackeys, thugs, personal guard, a small army–the possibilities! This opens the game up in a whole new direction. Now I’m not just thinking about what I’m doing, or what my party is doing. I’m thinking, “What does my dude do with a group of henchmen?”

See you later

I am continually surprised by this book. We haven’t even gotten to races or classes yet, and we have this bewildering breadth of what you do with your abilities (I didn’t even cover everything, just the stuff I thought was interesting and not obvious). The systems and sub-systems are right out front, and again, the way everything’s organized (or isn’t) makes it all the more arcane. We’ll delve deeper into what characters are all about in the future!

1. Intro

2. Gandalminster?

This series updates once a week, with new posts on Wednesday evenings.

Today we cover pages 7 & 8 of the 1978 AD&D Player’s Handbook. That’s right. Two pages.

my favorite demon

Well, then! We’ve gotten through the foreward and the preface, which means of course that we have yet to cover the introduction. I always take it as a good sign when a book has the FPI trinity. Thorough; nay, obsessive–just the way I like it. I said we’d get to discussing the Ability tables this time, but I don’t think so. There’s a lot of meat under the back-to-back INTRODUCTION and THE GAME headings.

The Big Idea

The first description of the game is short and simple:

ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a world.

Or maybe not so simple. That’s a very captivating idea, and I’ll bet it was doubly so (or more) in 1978. But what does it mean for a game that you’re actually supposed to play somehow? There’s no words in here about “collaboratively telling a story,” or anything like that. The closest we get is the statement that AD&D is “an exercise in imagination and personal creativity.”

Every description of the game communicates the sense that the idea of it all is to build, inhabit, and explore a massive fantasy world. This was the concept I had of roleplaying when I started to read the D&D 3rd edition books sometime in the mid-2000s, so this idea at least got passed down, even if it didn’t pan out in play (for me).

The game is meant to be expansive. In some sense, you’re meant to figure out how to play as you play:

Considerable enjoyment and excitement in early play stems from not knowing exactly what is going on. Being uncertain of how a given situation will turn out, not knowing every magic item available, and so forth, adds spice to the game. Later, this knowledge simulates actual experience, for the seasoned campaigner will have learned through game play. …[I]t is strongly urged that players do not purchase or read the DUNGEON MASTERS (sp) GUIDE.

The full rules are the purview of the DM, and just as your character is meant to grow and change and learn from experience, you’re meant to not worry too much about all the secret rules behind the DM’s screen. You’ll get a sense of them as you go.

Which is important to playing the game well, since as you learn and master the rules you’ll become better at the other big idea of the game, the one that’s not just about inhabiting a world–the description of which is nonchalantly tossed into the 7th paragraph under the heading THE GAME:

A good Dungeon Master will most certainly make each game a surpassing challenge for his or her players.

There we go. It’s a world, but each session you have in the world is supposed to be a challenge.

Promises

Hoo boy. There’s some staggering stuff in here, enough to make any adolescent geek’s sexual fantasies about half-orcs dreams about living in a Conan story come true. At least, that’s the promise.

In trying to describe exactly what role-playing is, the book says, “As a role player, you become Falstaff the fighter” (or presumably any other character of your choice). That’s a big promise. What dreamer, child or adult, who liked swords-and-sorcery fiction wouldn’t find that attractive? How about these:

This game lets all of your fantasies come true. …[T]his game is what dreams are made of!

AD&D…is so interesting, so challenging, so mind-unleashing that it comes near reality.

Mind-unleashing! I can’t even. These are HUGE promises that the game is offering on its first few pages. I’m not interested, here, in whether or not the game can fulfill those promises. The reason I’m looking at them is that examining the experience that the game is selling (and the emotions it taps into when doing that) is just as important for figuring out what it’s about as picking apart the big picture (The Big Idea, above) and what you actually do in the game (So What Do You Do?, below).

What the promises are selling us so far is, well, escapism: Be something you’re not, but that you want to be, in a world far more fascinating than your own. So key to the game, the text tells us, is not just imagining a fantasy world and being challenged in it, but experiencing a sense of being there.

The text also tells us, somewhat flippantly, about how the game will change us, the people at the table.

Each of you will become an artful thespian as time goes by–and you will acquire gold, magic items, and great renown as you become Falstaff the Invincible!

It’s kind of a funny sentence, isn’t it? Gliding from telling us the game will make us better actors over time right into how our characters will become more powerful over time. A little overweening, maybe–”artful thespians”–but the point is clear: becoming Falstaff also means play-acting like him.

Again, this is a place where what the player does and what the character does gets conflated in the text. Just as before, where your character grows from experience, so do you. How does it happen, exactly? That’s left unsaid.

So What Do You Do?

Finally we come to how the game is actually played. We’ve already been told that we become a character in the game, and further,

You act out the game as this character, staying within your “god-given abilities”, and as molded by your philosophical and moral ethics (called alignment).

Apparently you use your character’s abilities (rules we haven’t seen yet) as a creative constraint to how you act out your character. Your character also has some sort of ethical or philosophical guiding principle (again, haven’t seen it yet) that is supposed to “mold” what you do. In this sentence, alignment seems like it would’ve been an exciting mechanic, in a similar way that Beliefs in Burning Wheel are exciting to me–something that helps you grasp who your character is and also propels you into action in play.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I’m trying to take the text on its own terms. Of course, we haven’t seen what the game means by “alignment”, and I’m sure that’ll change how I see things when we get there.

This is probably the single most straightforward description for what non-DM players do in the game:

Players build the experience level of their characters and go forth seeking ever greater challenges…

Pretty clear to me. It seems that there are some people who are wont to say these days that AD&D and games of its ilk don’t really tell you what you’re supposed to be doing in the game–but AD&D, at least, really does tell you, and it’s really simple. The problem is that stuff like the above sentence is buried in the middle of rambling paragraphs that stumble from idea to idea. The sentence above should’ve been indented and bolded under a heading saying “What You Do in This Game”.

At least that’s how I would’ve done it, were I there, with my modern design sensibilities intact. Maybe D&D wouldn’t have been a million things to a million people then, though.

There’s not much else on what the players of the game do (and here I’m including the Dungeon Master as a “player of the game”). Though it does say that “[i]magination, intelligence, problem solving ability, and memory are all continually exercised by participants in the game.”

Surprisingly, the text is very specific about what the characters do in this game.

While initial adventuring usually takes place in an underworld dungeon setting, play gradually expands to encompass other such dungeons, town and city activities, wilderness explorations, and journeys into other dimensions, planes, times, worlds, and so forth…

It’s all adventuring and exploration, all the time, and there’s an arc as the characters grow in experience and power. Again, just like the instructions for what players do in the game, this is related in an offhand fashion with the weight of advice rather than a real play structure.

And, well, this seems to be a considered design choice. As the text says near the end of this section:

This game is unlike chess in that the rules are not cut and dried. In many places they are guidelines and suggested methods only. This is part of the attraction of AD&D, and it is integral to the game.

There still is a certain attraction to it, even if I like my game to have rules, y’know? Is there any other way that AD&D could have been? Isn’t this a reason why people who play role-playing games are so free to talk back to their medium, to take it into their own hands and make games dealing with religion, growing up, or 9/11?

It’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it?

A 7-minute story game of speculative history

For this game, you’ll need:

• 3 people
• 3 notecards and pencils
• A timer

In this game, you play the 3-man crew that hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 on Sept. 11th. You are already deep in the midst of your mission to slam the plane into the north tower of the World Trade Center. The game will last 7 minutes, and at the end we’ll know: Did you follow your orders and run the plane into the tower, or didn’t you?

The rules of the game are:

1. You portray a fictional character.
2. Whenever you speak as your character, that’s what your character says.
3. Whenever you describe what your character is doing, that’s what he does.

Characters

Now, each person choose a character and write them on your card. Write down your answers to the questions, as well.

The Ringleader, Mohamed Moqed

• Why do you follow orders?
• One of your crew members knew about the nature of today’s attack from the beginning. Who was it?
• The other crew member wasn’t supposed to know–he thought you were going to ransom the passengers. He just found out the truth, though: how did he?

The Pilot, Waleed al-Omari

• Why do you follow orders?
• Why do you love the Ringleader?
• You can see New York approaching through the cockpit windshield as you grip the controls. Your hands–are they sweaty or steady?

The Security, Abdulaziz al-Shehri

• Why do you follow orders?
• Why do you hate the Ringleader?
• How did you secure the cockpit?

Next, everyone reads the answers to their questions out loud. The Ringleader goes last, and the answer to his last question (“How did he find out?”) will set the scene, like a movie, for what happens.

Playing

Set the timer to 7 minutes, and go. Ringleader, keep your eye on the timer.

Everyone, play according to the rules of the game mentioned above, plus two more rules:

4. If you want to stop another character from doing something, you can, but you have to get the third character to back you up, to unite with you in what you’re trying to stop. Say what you’re trying to do: what you’re stopping and how. Then pointedly look at the player you want to back you up. What they do then is up to them.

5. If two characters are in agreement about what they want to do, it happens and cannot be stopped.

The End

Once there’s 1 minute left on the timer, the north tower of the World Trade Center is approaching, fast. This is the last split-second to make a decision. At this point, if he hasn’t already, the Ringleader must give a direct order about the mission, one way or the other. Fly the plane into the tower, or don’t. What the other characters do with this order is up to them.

If time runs out and no clear decision is made about the mission, then it’s too late. The plane has crashed into the tower. The Ringleader says how this happens.

Epilogue

If you have not crashed the plane into the tower, after the decisive moment, each character can say one sentence. Start with the player on the Ringleader’s left and go clockwise.

If you have crashed the plane into the tower, you cannot say anything. You are dead.

(this is a hack of a game I wrote called Enola Gay.)