Degrading Wands

In my eternal quest to eliminate bookkeeping from the gaming table, I will now turn my attention to magic wands and such.

Here's the deal, I don't want to be counting every time a wand is used.  Nor do I want the player to have any sort of concrete idea of how many more uses he can get out of the thing.  At best I'd prefer if they could, via spells such as detect magic or identify or whatever, get a general sense of how potent the magic in the wand is, which would help them determine the expected reliability of the wand.

Wand Potency
Rather than granting a finite number of charges for magical sceptres--a number which must be tracked each time the wand is used--I give it a potency level ranging from 0 (Spent) to 3 (Virile).  The number represents the number of 6-siders the player rolls against the DM's single 6-sider each time he/she uses the wand.  If the Player rolls higher than the DM then the wand works without a hitch.  If the DM rolls higher (odds ~ 1:86) then the wand is downgraded to WandCon 2 (Functional).  It still works, but, from now on, whenever the wand is used the player rolls only 2d6 to check for success. If (when) the DM's 6-sider beats the player's 2d6 (odds ~ 1:11), then the wand is degraded to level 1 (tepid).  Now rolling a single d6, this thing is on its last legs.  Another loss (odds ~2:5) results in the permanent dissipation of the wand's magic.


Tie Roll
A tie result in the wand wars could go either way; maybe your wand functions normally and nothing unusual happens at all.  Or a tie might result in massive degradation of its power or even bring about a zombie apocalypse.  Here's how it works:

If the wand roll results in a tie, another roll is immediately performed, this time at 1 level lower, i.e., a virile (level 3) wand would roll only 2d6 for the tiebreaker, a functional wand would roll 1d6, and a tepid wand would roll 1d3.  If the player rolls higher than the Cool J--who continues to roll a single 6-sider--then the wand is not diminished.  But if the DM rolls higher, then the wand is permanently downgraded.  Multiple ties can result in even lower degradation of the wand; if a virile wand ties on 3d6 and on the 2d6 tiebreaker before finally losing the roll at 1d6, then the wand is downgraded to tepid thereafter.

When the player is rolling a d3, odds are pretty good that the DM is gonna' win and the wand will be spent.  But things are even worse if they roll another tie, a tie with a d3 roll results in automatic wand malfunction.  I like to just make it explode, inflicting its magic on the wielder and anyone else within the area of effect.  Maybe make it a more potent explosion if the wand started the roll at 2d6 or 3d6.

Staffs and Rods
The AD&D rules stipulate that these guys have fewer "charges" than wands, so the formula is altered in this way: the DM rolls an 8-sider instead of a 6-sider against the players various d6 (as determined by potency level).  This obviously increases the likelihood of the rod or staff downgrading sooner, but also decreases the likelihood of tie rolls at the lower potency levels, thus reducing the likelihood of cataclysmic events.

Summary
This makes wands easier to track--you don't need to count every use of the wand, just the ones that result in downgrades.  Also, it eliminates the sense that a wand has a magazine packed with a knowable quantity of spell bullets.  There is the outside chance that even the wands first usage could be its last.  I like that kind of crap. 

Example of wand in use:

Thomas the Thaumaturgious fires off his Wand of Thunder Balls; currently rated Virile.  He rolls 3d6 and gets a 9, the DM need not even roll since she cannot roll higher than a 6.  The wand has functioned successfully.

Yes, that's exactly how it's used.  Why do you ask?

A few rooms later, Thomas calls upon the potency of his wand again, this time he rolls a meager 5 while the DM pops out a 6.  The wand is downgraded to Level 2.

Later on, Thomas fires up his Zeusian wand--now rolling 2d6 each time--for a 4.  The DM rolls a 4 as well.  Another roll is mandated, but for the tiebreaker Tommy is rolling just 1d6.  Another tie! Crom's Balls!  Thomas is sweating now as he rolls a 3-sider against the DM's d6.  He rolls a 2, but the DM rolls a 1!  Thomas unclenches his sphincter as the wand functions normally and maintains its "Functional" (2d6) status.

Had the DM, in the final roll, rolled a 3 or higher against Thomas's 2 on a d3, the wand would have fizzled into permanent uselessness.  But even worse, had the DM rolled a 2, Thomas would have been at ground-zero of Thunderbolt-o-rama 2012; which woulda' been awesome. Maybe next time.  

XPs For GPs: Demi-humans

I won't lie to you, I don't award XPs for GPs and I never have.  Old schoolers praise the crap out of XPs for GPs as the be-all end-all of XP systems, but really, it's very deeply flawed premise and we all know it.  Dare I say it... XPs for GPs can suck it.

That's why OSRians started requiring players to actually spend the money before they got XPs every time they returned a case of Mountain Dew empties for the deposit.  This notion has much more to offer, but, as it applies to demi-humans, I'd like to take it further; to do something with it that will make demi-humans feel more different from humans.

One of the prime differences between humans and demi-humans, I'm thinking, is their particular relationship with material wealth.  Us humans, we like wealth for the power of buying whatever the heck we want, be it hot tubs, influence, chain mail, cock rings, what have you.

This oughta' get ol' Blodgett up to 5th level

Elves are indifferent to the baubles and gew gaws that impress the other adventuring races.  Rather, they prefer the beauty of the ephemeral arts such as music, performance art and ice sculpture.  If they do invest in things of long term value, it will be in the preservation of sacred places; stands of ancient trees, significant rock formations, that sort of crap.  As such, they gain XPs only for those GPs spent commissioning works of poetry, songs, or flower arrangements, and the creation and maintenance of nature preserves, public parks, and gardens.

For dwarves, the value of wealth is not the spending of it, but the hoarding.  They derive ecstasy from the gathering and stockpiling of precious metals, gems and other products of the earth.  XPs are not actually earned until treasure is safely stashed either in a secure financial institution, the vault of a trusted ally, or a dwarf's own personal storage structure; somewhere where it is safe from being spent.  Many "dungeons" are actually the treasuries of dwarves of legend.  Bonus XPs can be earned for transforming gold and gems into fine jewelry, ornamental weapons and other such eccentricities which can be given as gifts or worn about.

Halflings view material wealth as a means to domestic tranquility; as such, they gain XPs only for GPs spent on the acquisition and improvement of real estate.  This ties halfling characters to place in a very measurable way.

As you can see, humans can drop their cash in G'hawk, Mordor, or Lankhmar, and it doesn't much matter.  But for demi-humans, their wealth will be closely affiliated with a place somehow.  Either in the grove of oak trees in Sherwood Forest that Melf has endowed, the treasure hoard and associated safeguards that Gimli has stashed under Mount Fuggitt, or the plantation that Poblo Fraggins owns in Aquilonia, demihumans have some sacred place that they need to be tend to.  Or they can just forego XPs for GPs; which is fine by me.

PS.  The photo was swiped from http://pinterest.com/wandans/hobbit-ty-homes/.  They've got other photos of hobbitty places if you're into that sort of thing.

Men Without Cloth: Non-Holy Clerics

You are not a clergyman.  You have no interest in tending the flock for some narcissistic deity, much less converting more sheep to the cause.  Despite your divine powers, pious is not a word that applies to you.  You don't pay for your miraculous abilities on bended knee.

Get off your high horse, Turpin.

Forego edged weapons?  Bishop Turpin can suck it.  No, you come by your powers by other means, and you pay an even darker price than the ritualized humiliation mainstream proselytizers are subjected to.

Rather, you've made a Faustian deal that saved your Aunt Stacy's knitting store from foreclosure and now some pompous, immortal a-hole owns your soul.  You know that using the "divine" powers for which you paid so dearly ever-increases your malicious patron's grasp on your being, but you can't check your self-destructive behavior.  Or maybe that's his growing influence at work.

Or maybe your grandfather was the byproduct of a tryst between Zeus and a rather adorable parlor maid. Though you've never met Great Granddad and he certainly doesn't know of/care about your mortal existence, you've inherited enough nascent divine favor to crank out the occasional heal wounds or fire storm.

Or you're just a guy who's found a cosmic loophole that's allowed you to hack into the server of the divine realm. You've spliced into Odin's cable box and you're watching ESPN: Old Norse on The All-Father's dime.  Maybe one day Asgard's IT staff will secure its wifi and damnation will be served.  But, increasingly, you're coming to believe that the gods are just guys like you; guys who've figured out how to hotwire the cosmos to their advantage.  Guys who've achieved immortality by convincing the world that they're something special, and who've come to believe in it themselves.

Of course, you can limit yourself to the holier-than-thou, preaching-the-faith-in-exchange-for-cure-light-wounds scene if you want to.  And maybe you can justify why your sermonizing n' moralizing minister is wandering through the 5th level of FU2: Asylum of Turgid Munchkins helping a party of infidels murderize a colony of troglodytes and scarf up their treasure--spoiler alert: not likely.  But the point is, there are other options besides the worn out catholic-priest-with-a-mace that those TSR beardos foisted on us way back when. Try one on for size.

d4 Thieves can suck it

Can you spot the incompetent weakling?  The eyeliner should be a dead giveaway.

During my brief tenure in Holmesian D&D no one ever played a thief; partly because we thought they were bad guys and we all still wanted to be good guys at that point, partly because--shamefully--we had no idea how to roll percentile dice and, thus, could not figure out how to determine the success of thief abilities.  No, my first encounter with the thief class didn't happen until months later, after I had read The Hobbit and started playing D&D of the A variety.  As such, in my experience, thieves have always, always, always drawn their hit points from six-sided dice.  To this day, when I see these B/X retroblasters with d4 hitpointed thieves it makes me double over in agonizing cognitive dissonance.

Even if I accept that a lot of gamerfolk prefer Moldvanian D&D over all other forms, I still can't, in my mind, justify d4 thieves.  What exactly did they do to deserve such shoddy hit points?  They're only slightly better off than MUs in the armor category, with whom they share  hit dice, and yet they lack their magical potency.  Clerics, meanwhile, get better Hit dice, but also get to use bitchin' armor and spells along with combat acumen near to that of fighters.  The payoff for thieves is, ostensibly, a bunch of reusable abilities, but their chance of success with these is pretty atrocious.  And if you abide by Moldvay's overly stringent rule that, in the event of a failed "move silently" roll, the thief will be the only person in the vicinity who can't hear himself blunder across the dungeon floor, then you've got an absurdly impotent character class.  Why saddle them with such horrid hitpoints?  Why?

Tools for Mapping or Mapping is for Tools

Anyone who's been to Lord of the Green Dragons is familiar with this little ditty:

"Ten feet, twenty feet, thirty feet south. Passage turns east and west. Which way do you go?" "We go South." Stupefied look and momentary pause. "Okay. Bump, bump, bump." -E. Gary Gygax to adventurers in Greyhawk Castle, circa 1972. 

Sure it's an amusing anecdote, but it also does a great job of illustrating the shortcomings of using aural data to convey a visual experience.  Obviously, it's completely unreasonable to believe that the characters would have chosen to walk into the wall, but the players, sadly, don't see through their characters' eyes.  For failing to create an experience that would prevent the players from making an unreasonable decision, the DM must share the blame.  But EGG gets a pass; after all, it was only 1972, he was a rookie DM.

The most effective way of giving the players a visual experience is to give them a visual representation of what their characters see.  Therefore, lacking an arsenal of miniatures and dungeon tiles, I draw them a map. 

I hear you hardcore DMs scoffing, and, I admit, it's not a perfect system.  But it does a far better job of providing an immediate, visual experience for the players to react to than even the most efficient aural description ever will.  Sure, the characters would never be able to draw such an accurate map based on their first-person view of the dungeon, but it absolutely beats the pants off of this sort of confab: 

DM: You hear what sounds like children in distress on the other side of the door.
Player1: The ranger and the dwarf bust in the door the door while the rest of the party readies missile weapons and offensive spells.  What do we see?

DM: You see a large well lit room, approximately 40' by 50' with high ceilings.  There are two doors along the east wall and one on the opposite wall.  The north wall is lined with three alcoves.  There's a large table in the center of  room, tied-up on top of which are several small, squealing humans who resemble the farmer's kids.  Four very large, green men with rubbery flesh and protruding noses stand about.  You've clearly surprised them.
Player1: Trolls!  We've gotta' save the twerps; the ranger and the dwarf rush them brandishing--

Mapper: Wait a sec fellas.  How far apart are the doors on the east wall?
DM: They're about 10' apart
Mapper: Thanks, got it.
Player1:  Like I said, we charge them with--

Mapper:  Hold on.  Is the door on the west wall in the center of the wall or is it toward one side?
DM: It's about 5' north of center.
Mapper: Great.
Player2: My thaumaturgist will blast the trolls with--
Mapper:  Not just yet.  How about them alcoves; how deep and wide are they?  Are they evenly spaced?
DM and other players in unison: [groan]

Part of the problem is that you're translating data from one format--visual data--to another--aural data--so that someone else can re-translate it back to a visual format.  But even with DM mapping you're usually copying data from one sheet of graph paper to another, which involves counting squares on the DM map--4 squares by 5 squares--then counting them out again as you draw the map for the players.  Again you're translating visual data into another format--this time to numeric data--so that you can re-translate it back to visual form.

I like to eliminate the translation process entirely; just keep the data visual.  And to help do this I've dredged a couple of items out of my box of drafting equipment from my skool dayz:

Tracing paper: this stuff is awesome! A pad of it should come with every basic set.  Just slap a sheet on your dungeon plan, trace whatever the characters can see, hand it off to the players.  No more counting squares as they walk down long corridors, no more erasing misplaced doors.  You're working in the visual format throughout the process.  Added benefit for hardcore DMs who don't like giving the players too much info: the trace paper does not have a grid of uniform squares on it so players have to base estimates of distance and area on their own, imperfect visual assessment rather than the much more accurate method of counting squares.  Alternatively, normal bond paper and a light table accomplish the same feat.

Dungeon Module FU2: Marching Band of Sublime Precision

Buy the stuff by the pad or, for prolific and/or thrifty  gamers, you can buy it by the roll from your local art supply store.  Get a 12" x 50yd roll for ~$10 Canadian.  That's enough to map out 180 levels of your megadungeon!  

Circle template: That torch casts light in a 30' radius?  Slap the 1-1/2" circle on the map (assumes 4 squares to the linear inch; 5 squares you'll need the 1-1/8" circle), trace everything in the circle that they might reasonable see--obviously not around corners or through doors--and voila!  No more counting squares, ever.

DCC RPG Round Two: That said...

The other day I pretty much soiled my drawers raving about DCC RPG and proclaiming it the holy grail of awesome RPGs--and I stand by every glowing word of it.  Man what a great gaming book.

That said, there are some aspects of Goodman's game that just aint gonna make it to my table:

Thanks Doug Kovacs.  Still no permission.

Character Funnel:  I may try this as a one-off type-deal, but, seeing as I'm already killing off my 1st level PCs at an alarming rate, I don't see how making them even more fragile is going to improve the gaming experience.  I just don't see the value of gathering a huge scad of unskilled, unequipped nobodies--as opposed to the barely skilled, modestly equipped dudes we're already playing--and sending them off in search of an early grave.  I don't see this happening without some very specific motivation, e.g. monster in the cemetery is eating the children so the baker and the blacksmith lead a posse of townsfolk to kill the ghoul. 

Ability Names: Say what you will about D&D, but when it came to naming the abilities Dave n' Gary really stuck the fucking landing.  Any straying from the Original Six ability names sounds like so many jars of "catsup" or boxes of "Cereal-Os."  Stamina, agility, personality all sound amateurish if not downright misguided.  Cracking out Roget's does not improve the gaming experience. 

AC 15: Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of these old schoolers who believes that descending AC is objectively superior to all other forms--even if I do prefer the descending scale in my game.  I absolutely see the value of ascending AC; many, many of my house ruling efforts have included the following qualification: "this would be a lot easier with an ascending AC."  BUT... any ascending AC system I endorse must embrace the AC 0 = no armor principle.  Now this is objectively superior to all others.

20-sided initiative: One of the few things that I do know about neo-D&D is that it embraces the rolling of 20-siders for virtually everything--including initiative.  But you already know this.  Now, I'm far too crotchety to get behind 20-sided intiative, especially when the Goodman guys present a really cool option within their own rule: use the dice chain.  As stated in the book, two-handed weapons use d16 for initiative instead of d20.  This is the kernel of what I think is a far superior idea: why not take this a step or two further and use a greater spectrum of the dice chain: daggers roll d10, long swords roll d8, 2-handers roll d6; something like that. 

Fortitude, Reflex, Willpower: In a game that evokes an atmosphere of menace and chaos in every printed pixel, why would you go with the status quo when naming your saving throws?  The clinical, newfangled titles sound like they were determined by a committee of marketing mavens and real estate copywriters.  For 2e DCC, I hope they come up with more evocative names for saving throws. 


And that's pretty much it.  Every other aspect of this game exemplifies awesomeness in gaming.  Even the funky dice--which initially had me worried--have been put to such good purpose that there is no feasible means of dismissing their greatness.

Monstrous Taxonomy: Demi Humans

Yesterday I ran the Latin on the Goblinoids, so now we're stepping across the aisle to check out the scientific names of the demi humans.  Unlike the goblinoids, demi-humans are made up of several genuses (genii? as much as I love to bastardize it, my Latin really sucks).   I've added Brownies and leprechauns to the mix because EGG describes them both as halfling/pixie hybrids in the MM.  As you will see, there is some disagreement about which genus leprechauns fall under.

Common Name	Genus and Species	Translation
Brownie	Demihomodimidulum morosus	Surly half-halfling
Dwarf	Paulodudus robustus	Stout little dude
Elf	Legolasium pauperis	Poor man's Legolas
Gnome	Nanorum pilestultum	Silly hat dwarf
Halfling	Homodimidulum peshirsutus	Hairy-footed half-man
Leprechaun	Fortunatem crapulatus or	Lucky drunkard
	Homodimidulum hirudosensorem	Leech-riding halfling