The videogamification of Dungeons and Dragons

Proficiencies were optional in the 2nd edition of Dungeons & Dragons

 I hate the way virtual sessions of D&D go nowadays.

You may hear me express this sentiment and automatically brand me as an old Gronard, with the usual contempt for 5e and modern versions of our favorite tabletop role playing game, but you would be mistaken.

As a matter of fact, I have been running a successful 5e campaign for over three years now, utilizing 2014 rules and only recently transitioning to the 2024 ruleset. 

When I state that I am not a fan of modern game sessions, at least the way they operate in VTTs such as Roll20 and Foundry, it is an overall complain of a player and game master mindset which I think has become prevalent in the table top gaming scene, but it is far from a holistic condemnation of this type of gaming mode.

So I will clarify through the filter of my favorite version of the game, AD&D, specifically utilizing the information found in 1989's second edition Player's Handbook by David "Zeb" Cook et al. 

To be more specific, I have been reading chapter 5 of that great book which deals with weapons and non weapons proficiencies and weapon specializations. I think this is a far more elegant and pleasing system than feats, which made their way into the game in 3rd edition a decade later, and which have become the defacto way for player characters to become more fleshed out ever since.

And to be clear, this video game mentality which permeates the modern scene isn't even a new thing, one could make the argument that it has been there for a long time. The problem (as I see it) is the way the game has morphed as a result of the proliferation of VTTs since around 2014 and the limiting way in which some players want to gain every edge in combat and other aspects of the game, sometimes to the exclusion of common sense in a blind allegiance to RAW (rules as written.)

 Simply put, I am a tad annoyed by the modern player's propensity to faithfully adhere to RAW when it benefits their character, sometimes ignoring common sense in the attempt to gain every little advantage. 

One recent example I can think of at the top of my head is a game session in which a player tried to use the command spell while in the process of interrogating an imprisoned NPC. The problem is that the prisoner at the time was unconscious or asleep, can't recall which. The player kept repeating and at first did not seem to comprehend, that using such a spell would probably not work because the prisoner was not conscious, therefore unable fall under the influence of the spell, or to realize what the PC was even attempting to do at the moment.

Sometime, a lot of time, logic has to prevail over RAW. 

I will go on the record here to state that I don't like feats. I don't like mechanics which give the PCs insane ways to become more OP or to gain advantages simply because WotC or whomever, has decided that it's more fun for players to be uber powerful beings, starting from level 1! 

As far as fleshing out a character beyond what he or she receives by virtue of their chosen race/class combo, I think proficiencies are far more pleasing to me than feats. 

For those who don't know, the way proficiencies work in AD&D 2e is depending on the PC's class, they earn slots while they level which give them the opportunity to add weapons proficiencies and non-weapons like carpentry, seamanship, and even stuff like swimming and stonemasonry. There are no bonuses as in 5e, at least not right off the bat, instead, a character can specialize in a weapon by filling in their slots and improving their mastery over time as they level up.

In terms of non-weapon proficiencies like tumbling, animal lore and tracking, when a character uses a proficiency, either the attempt is automatically successful (for simple tasks) or the character must roll a proficiency check. Each proficiency is tied to a relevant ability, (strenght, charisma etc) and this is what a character must roll.

I like this system over feats because the sheer amount of feats skewed towards making the character OP and superhero like in the modern game is not an option, instead this system allows for progression over time and allows for a more realistic and effective way of character optimization in my opinion.

As an aside, I will be making more game related posts as we head into the second half of the year and beyond. I always try to not let RL issues get in the way of fun discussions, but more often than not I fail to provide regular updates on this blog. That's something I will try to rectify in the coming days and weeks. 

Throwback Thursday comics: DC's Dragonlance

 

Dragonlance No.1, DC Comics, December 1988

In the fall of 1988, specifically December of '88 DC comics had in its stable of titles classics such as the Legion of Superheroes, Batman (where the iconic "Death in the Family" story arc was in full bloom), Green Arrow and Superman, but also adaptations and retrospectives like "The Prisoner" mini-series, "The Shadow" and of course, Dragonlance No. 1, based on the iconic novels and TSR game modules. 

Besides being a pretty innovative adaptation and start to the DL series when DC had the D&D I.P. (Barbara Kesel wrote in the letters page of the comic that in addition to the Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman classic, DC would also start to publish other D&D titles and adventures.) Dragonlance No. 1 for me personally is a bit of a time capsule of a great time in life, when I was a freshman in college going through the transition from H.S. to the quarter system as an undergraduate student at the UCLA campus.

What's fun and unique about the DL comics from that era is that editorial intended them to be more than a fun series based on D&D, they also had stat blocks and a map of the world of Krynn every fourth issue. Full disclosure, I only own the first two, so I am not really sure if this goal was achieved, to blend the series with a sort of gamemasters' supplemental tool, but through the exploration of this series over 30 years later, I aim to find out.

The first issue features background information on the Clerical Order of Majere with their mostly pacifist monks, lists the comic's protagonist Sturm Brightblade as a lawful good 8th level fighter with a THACO of 14 and with 47 hit points! At the time of the story told in the debut comic, Sturm is coming back from a five-year-long journey to discover his legacy. It also goes into describing why the Solamnic Knights like Sturm have fallen into disfavor in the world of Krynn, which is known by any fan of the novels or modules, but not necessarily well-known information to comic book readers not familiar with D&D in general and Dragonlance specifically. 

There are sidebars also included which describe two magic items presented in the comic: A Medallion of Majere and a footman's Dragonlance, different from the more powerful ones used by dragon-mounted riders. Issue 2 has stats for Lord Soth (with 59 hit points and a THACO of 12) 

The story found within the covers of issues 1 and 2 is a good introduction to the series and features appearances by Lord Soth and an old wizard who should be familiar to any Dragonlance fan. Plenty of action and "Gamerese" as well with the reveal of a High lord's blue dragon mount and a column by the late Jim Ward on the RPGA Network. 

These comics are fantastic and every fan of RPGS, D&D and comics in general should get their hands on them, they are easy to come by in back issue bins and on the web. 

Excited over running a few games using C&C game system.

 

I have given my current players at my table a heads up that the next campaign, series of games or one shots at my gaming table will be played using Castles and Crusades from Troll Lord Games. 

I am actually excited to run some games using this system. I purchased their PHB several years ago and it wasn't until recently that I pulled it out of the shelves and decided to really give it an in depth look.

Immediately I remembered what attracted me to it in the store that fateful day I purchased it on a whim: The old school aesthetics, the call backs to AD&D mechanics and OSR sensibilities with a modern coat of paint.

For those of you unaware, C&C has the distinction of being the last gaming project of the late, great Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons. You can really tell what would have attracted Gary to this game not that long ago. (I do believe that it dates back to at least 2004 if not a few years before that.) The best way to describe this game is as an amalgamation of familiar AD&D mechanics and the D20 system which was popularized starting in the year 2000 with D&D 3rd edition and games like Pathfinder 1e.

Not to go too deep into it but here are some things that make this game reminiscent of AD&D (1st edition with some 2e for good measure):

• Racial and class combos including the traditional races such as half-elves and half-orcs which are now missing from modern  D&D
• casting times for magic and spells
• Saving throws, more than those tied to skills in 5e and more than the three associated with 3.5 or D&D 3rd edition
• Situational modifiers in combat like back in the day and in 3.5 

The third edition elements are there with the movement rates which also make their way into 5e and stuff like an expanded alignment system, but the OSR elements are what intrigued me in the first place such as the use of individual experience progression, like in AD&D, the familiar abilities like Clerics turning the undead based on dice rolls and hit dice of the monsters and the limitation on the weapons they are allowed to use. Thieves (called Rogues like in 3rd) don't have a percentage dice roll on skills, but they do use the same attributes and abilities associated with that class like thieve's cant, sneak attacks, hide in shadows, etc.

In short, this game's aesthetic really gives me the nostalgic feels and does it twice: From the first time I picked up my AD&D books at Toys 'R Us prior to the start of the edition wars and again to the early aughts, I wasn't really playing 3.5 then, but I did play DDO and other video games which heavily borrowed or modified those mechanics from the pen and paper version of the game. Can't wait to try out a few games, the "Castle Keeper's Guide" (DM Guide as it is called in this game) is on its way! 

Character age and other game mechanics from 1st edition's DMG

My old 1E AD&D DMG by Gary Gygax.

 

The 1st edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide by Gary Gygax is a mess! This statement should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows or plays the game of AD&D, or even has some passing familiarity with the core rulebooks which make up the main portion of rules for this system.

I have been playing in a weekly first edition campaign for over a year now and in order to understand the system better, I have endeavored to slowly digest the contents of the core books one at a time, starting with the DMG and moving on to the PHB, for no particular reason in this order, except that I am familiar with the contents of the PHB, which is slightly less hefty that the DMG.

I will do this mostly in an attempt to become more familiar with this book's contents. 

Of course, I say that the guide book is a mess because everyone knows it seems to jump from one topic to the next, in seemingly an endeavor to be as comprehensive as possible. It does a poor job of organizing said content, but I will attempt to digest most if no all of it, skipping around sections and doing my analysis piecemeal, rather than in one fell swoop.

Today I am looking at character age, aging and outdoor movement rates, which is an interesting discussion given the fact this doesn't seem to come up a lot in the modern version of D&D. 

So character aging is a part of character creation detailed in pages 14-15 of the 1e DMG. At the onset of each and every character's creation it is necessary to establish his/her age. There is a table for PCs and Henchmen, both human and non human. They are divided by race and class, while the humans get a table organized by the various classes. For example, I rolled for a half-orc fighter and his age turned out to be 15! Then I did the same for a human cleric and he turned out to be older at 19. 

What are the effects of aging in the game? Well, in the book Gary says the DM must keep track of a character's age after one is established, from game year to game year. The age categories are: young adult (for a dwarf this ranges from 35-50) to venerable 450 max for a dwarf, about 120 at the long end for humans. Calculating these affect attributes with a mature character adding 1 point of strength and 1 point of wisdom every game year.   

Unnatural aging is also common and mostly caused by spell casing or magical mans: casting alter reality for example, will syphon 3 year's from the caster's life, which getting hit with a haste spell would shorten a person's or creature's life span by a year.

This section of the book is followed by disease, which I don't even find fun in real life, so why include it in my game? the Book does go into death due to age. Indeed, the read texts: "Once a character dies due to old age, then its all over." 

The following section expands upon the characters' abilities which were first introduced in the PHB. It starts on page 41 and starts with a discussion of the Cleric's spells. Detect evil, detect magic, light and protection from evil. Light is caused upon the visage or before the visual organs of a creature, it will tend to blind it (rather as if a strong light were placed before its eyes), and this causes a -4 penalty "to hit," saving throws, and even armor class. 

Spell description for each casting class are explained for the DM's benefit all the way up to 7th level. 

A rather lengthy section on adventuring outdoors ensues, beginning on page 47. It is at this point that I need to mention that surveying these game rules as written will allow me to cherry pick those I want to bring into my games and those which I do not wish to use either because they seem cumbersome, are a bit vague, or superfluous or all of the above.  

A map is recommended for use by adventures in the outdoors, the scale being 20 to 40 miles per hexagon, with the GM dividing each large hex into blocks of smaller hexes, 5 across the middle or 5 across each face as desired. This is primary done for determining chance of encounters and they reference the possibility and mechanics of pursuit. 

Outdoor movement rates are given on page 58 of the DMG and procedures for getting lost and exhaustion results from movement without proper rest are also detailed. We will return to other movement rules including aerial, waterborne and underwater adventure guidelines, but after our next post which will further detail PC abilities. 

Tribunal adventures: EQ

Everquest Bristlebane my mmo home

 Nexus of Geek is back soloing original EQ. Watch me try to get my toons to level 50 and beyond.

Happy 2024: 3.0 DMG advice part 1

 

The DMG from the edition that changed the game irrevocably and ushered more "crunch"

It may be strange for me to be wishing readers a Happy 2024 in March, but the Nexus blog had been more focused on my mmorpg gaming late last year when I was trying to enjoy my Everquest and wow subscriptions.

I even had a post from January about my mmo gaming goals in 2024, goals which so far gave gone unmet due to the fact my internet connection has been quite poor since I moved in Northern California to my new place mind 2023. As a result, I have been recently trying to boost my signal, something not easily accomplished in rural areas, to be sure. So I abandoned most of my mmorpg gaming and have been primarily focused on running my weekly 5e game.

Last weekend I traveled to Santa Rosa where I frequented some used bookstores and came away with some really cool finds, among them was a pretty clean copy of the 3.0 D&D DMG and the 3.0 PHB at a very reasonable price. 

This led me to want to continue and pick up a project I started during the pandemic years, three years ago when I was examining all the printed DMGs dating back to the TSR era (As D&D has been my primary gaming hobby since the 80s; yes I am old) I thought it would be instructive, both to myself and others who may stumble upon this blog, to examine in great detail, chapter by chapter if need be, some of the information and sage advice available to DMs and wanna be game masters from the pages of all these wonderful and entertaining tomes. 

I had started with the more accessible 3.5 guide, but since I recently acquired the 3.0 guide in the aforementioned book store, I thought it would be fine to start with this one instead while concurrently comparing the info found in both. Do they repeat? Are there new nuggets of information presented in one that they didn't include in the other? Well let us find out.

From the first chapter, the authors advice DMs not to worry about teaching the players all the rules ahead of time. They suggest that all they truly need to know are the basics that apply to understanding their characters (i.e  how spells work, what AC means, how to use skills etc.) and they can pick up this information as they go along. This seems like sound advice when you consider how much more of a "crunchy" system D&D 3.0 and 3.5 are, compared to other systems like 5e and/or Pathfinder 1st edition.

There is a brief discussion of determining the style of play in your games and campaigns, such as what they call "kick in the door" style of play, advice on whether you should take a serious versus humorous tone (personally I prefer the former rather than the latter, but not to the exclusion of occasional mirth and in jokes at the table), table rules, how to integrate new players into an existing game or campaign, and other considerations for running a game including whether or not to use a DM screen, the role of computers in Dming, and the pros and cons of employing miniatures and counters.

An interesting aspect of this chapter is the inclusion of a section dealing with mapping. Mapping is a convention that seemed to be more integral to the earlier editions of the game and which has been somewhat lost in the modern era of virtual table top apps like Owl Bear and others. I remember reading the basic D&D BECMI manuals of the early 80s and even AD&D first edition, where it was recommended or encouraged that a player take on the role of "mapper." Again, this convention seems to have mostly gone the way of the dodo in modern times, probably due to the inclusion of detailed DM and maps for the players that are so detailed, most gamers make use of them without tweaking much, or without having a party explore an area on their own. The 3.0 DMG seems to encourage the older style, even though I am not sure if there were a lot of premade dungeons in this edition, versus the myriad of complex dungeon "hex crawls" of years past. I simply did not play the system enough when it came out in the early 2000s to give a more informed opinion.

As mentioned, this DMG seems to espouse the earlier convention in favor of the DM describing a layout of the place in as much detail as he/she/they want, including room dimensions and confusing maze like dungeons.

 

Before wrapping up this first part I will add that I will limit the scope of this analysis of D&D game guides to official TSR and WOTC products, even though I fully realize that there are many wonderful and helpful third party guides for novice, burgeoning game masters, but I do not own many, so I won't include them, with the possible exception of Sly Flourish's "Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master" since that specific reference is talked about a lot with high regard in the RPG community, and I actually own that tome. 

If you enjoy podcasts or audio discussions of geek culture topics, consider tuning in to www.kpfz.org an listening to my weekly show "The Nexus of Geek." Fridays at 4 PM PST. It is a diversion of mine which I do with my gaming friend and fellow geek Bo on the local community PBS style radio station, many topics that interest me from Superhero and genre film to fantasy fiction and of course gaming are presented. We welcome new listeners and fellow game geeks. 

Speaking of podcasts and/or non print material, I rather agree with this youtuber's take in defense of third edition.  Enjoy!