Shamus Young has posted his proposal for an interesting Learning Mechanic at Twenty Sided. Here’s how he describes the goal of the mechanic:

Most gameplay mechanics are set up so that characters learn and grow from success. The more success, the more XP. I wanted a mechanic that would simulate an activity that was inherently driven by trial-and-error, and where (this is the important part) the character got gradually better at the activity as time went on. Learning would be fast at first, but progress would be slow. Later on, learning would slower, but success would be more frequent.

He recommends the mechanic for tasks like translating a tome written in an archaic language; finding the cure for a zombie plague; breeding animals; and the like.

Here’s how he describes the mechanic:

The player writes down all the numbers from 1 to 20 on a notecard. Every time they roll a number, that number will be crossed out on the card. If they roll a 15, then they cross out 15.

Each attempt needs to simulate a stretch of in-game time. Hours of labwork, meditation, tinkering, writing on the chalkboard, or whatever is required.

When they make an attempt, they roll the d20. If the resulting number is already crossed out, then the action was a success and they get their reward. If not, they still get to cross out the number they rolled, which will improve their chances next time around. Using a d20, they have no chance of success on their first attempt, and a 5% chance on their next attempt. Every failure improves their chances by 5%, and every success moves them closer to their goal. You decide ahead of time how many successes it will take to reach their overall goal. (For our game, I had the book broken into 13 sections. So the character finished the translation after 13 successes.)

I like the basic concept of this mechanic a lot. It’s similar to a complex skill check, but offers the specific benefits Shamus describes: At first, learning happens fast but progress is slow. Later, learning is slow but progress is fast.

STREAMLINING THE MECHANIC

The idea of keeping a notecard and crossing off number is a nifty gimmick, but if you want to streamline things then you can simplify this mechanic:

Roll 1d20. If the result is equal to or lower than the number of failed attempts you’ve made, you score a success. When you achieve the requisite number of successes, you succeed at the task.

I recommend checking out Shamus’ article directly, as he includes a probability chart useful for determining how many successes a task should require.

It should be noted that, by default, the problems handled by this mechanic are always soluble — given enough time, you will eventually solve them. There is no possiblity of absolute failure. In addition, the mechanic doesn’t account for skill. For some problems these may be seen as features. For other problems they’re bugs. Let’s take a look at how the mechanic might be made more flexible and robust.

EXTENDING THE MECHANIC

PROGRESSIVE SUCCESS: Each success can yield additional information or some other tangible benefit. (A cure that works against the bite of a specific zombie; several pages of translated text; a slightly improved animal.) The mechanic is specifically designed to model tasks which don’t feature all-or-nothing successes.

ROADBLOCK: After a certain number of successes, progress in the task may only be possible when some other prerequisite is met (additional biological samples, a different type of natural resource, etc.). In many cases, the nature of the roadblock may not be known until the roadblock is reached.

VARIABLE DIE TYPES: For tasks of greater or lesser difficulty, you could vary the die type. (With a 1d4 you learn everything about the project rapidly and then gather successes rapidly. On the other hand, with a 1d100 your learning curve takes considerably longer.)

INTRACTABLE PROBLEMS: For problems that could prove intractable for a character, simply set the maximum number of possible attempts. If the character has not achieved success after X attempts, then they’ve exhausted their insight into the problem. (Having multiple people working on a problem like this is useful not only because it speeds up resolution, but also because it gives greater insight into the problem — as represented by more potential checks.)

FACTORING SKILL, METHOD 1: You can factor the character’s skill into the attempt by limiting the number of possible attempts based on their skill. In D&D, off-the-cuff, I’d recommend something along the lines of 10 + skill modifier attempts.

FACTORING SKILL, METHOD 2: You can also make character skill a factor by simply setting a minimum skill requirement. A particular problem, for example, might require a minimum Knowledge (history) bonus of +10. (The drawback of this method is that it still doesn’t allow for any variation in completion time based on character skill. A character with a +10 bonus is just as capable of solving the problem as a character with a +50 bonus.)

FACTORING SKILL, METHOD 3: Set a DC for the task. Each d20 roll becomes an actual skill check. If the character succeeds on the check, the roll counts double. In other words, depending on the die roll, it either counts as two successes or as two failed attempts. (If you’re combining this method with an intractable problem, however, each die roll still only counts as one attempt against the maximum number of possible attempts.)

DISCLAIMER

I’m just spitballing some ideas here. I have not actually run any kind of mathematical analysis on this mechanic (although, as I noted, Shamus Young did provide useful charts for the core mechanic).

I’m calling shenanigans.

Of late the meme has arisen that the difference between “new school” and “old school” gaming is “rules, not rulings”. The free Lulu PDF A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming seems to be a primary infection point and I don’t think we’ll go too far wrong by quoting it:

Most of the time in old-style gaming, you don’t use a rule; you make a ruling. It’s easy to understand that sentence, but it takes a flash of insight to really “get it.” The players can describe any action, without needing to look at a character sheet to see if they “can” do it. The referee, in turn, uses common sense to decide what happens or rolls a die if he thinks there’s some random element involved, and then the game moves on. This is why characters have so few numbers on the character sheet, and why they have so few specified abilities.

There are several problems with this meme.

BAD EXAMPLES

The Spot and Search skills tend to get targeted a lot by people trying to explicate the “rules, not rulings” concept. For example, the Quick Primer for Old School Gaming goes into a pair of lengthy examples of “old school” vs. “new school” play.

In the “new school” example, a player says they’re searching a hallway. They find a pit trap. They ask the GM if they can disarm it. The GM rules that they can. They jam the mechanism. (The results of the search and disabling attempt are handled by skill checks.)

In the “old school” example, a player says they’re checking the hallway. They fail to find the pit trap, but they’re suspicious so they try a different method of searching. They find the pit trap. They ask the GM if they can disarm it. The GM rules that it can’t be disarmed. They go around the trap instead. (The results of the search and disabling attempt are handled by GM fiat.)

Now, if you’re trying to establish that the difference in play here is GM fiat vs. dice rolling, then these examples would be just fine. But what the author actually does is load up the “old school” example with a bunch of details — using a 10-foot pole; carefully inspecting the floor; pouring water onto the floor to detect the edges of the trap — and then tries to attribute that additional detail to the GM fiat.

But the GM fiat has nothing to do with it. It’s an artificial conflation of two different distinctions between the examples. The use of GM fiat vs. predefined mechanics only matters in the moment of resolution. The amount of detail that goes into searching a particular stretch of hallway, on the other hand, is an entirely separate issue.

The “old school” example could just as easily read:

GM: A ten-foot wide corridor leads north into the darkness.
Player: I carefully check the floor for traps.
GM: Probing ahead you find a thin crack in the floor — looks like a pit trap.
Player: I try to jam it so it won’t open.
GM: No problem.

And the “new school” example could just as easily read:

GM: A ten-foot wide corridor leads north into the darkness.
Player: I’m suspicious. Can I see any cracks in the floor? Or a tripwire? Anything like that? [makes a Search check]
GM: Nope. There are a million cracks in the floor. If there’s anything particularly sinister about any of them, you certainly don’t see it.
Player: Hmm… I still don’t like it. I’m going to take my waterskin out of backpack. And I’m going to pour some water on the floor.
GM: [calls for a new Search check with a circumstance bonus for using the water] Yeah, the water seems to be puddling a little bit around a square shape in the floor.
Player: Can I disarm it?
GM: How?
Player: Jam the mechanism? [makes a Disable Device check; it fails]
GM: There’s no visible mechanism. The hinge must be recessed.
Player: Is there enough room to walk around it?
GM: About a two-foot clearance on each side.
Player: Okay, we’ll just try walking around it. Everybody watch your step!

Here’s a different example:

What I like mostly is more of the focus on descriptions rather than mechanics.

Player: “How wide is the ledge?”
GM: “Maybe 2 inches..”
(New School) Player: *seeing the modifiers of the Balance skill for that short a span* “Oh, nevermind, I better find another way across.”
(Old School) Player: “Okay … can I press myself up against the cliff face and side-step across?”
GM: “Sure. Since you aren’t pressured and can take your time, you don’t even have to roll anything.”

In other words, it’s more about player (and GM) creativity.

The poster here ascribes the difference to “creativity”, but that’s not what the example is actually demonstrating. Although the poster obfuscates it by giving different outcomes to the “old school” and “new school” games, the core of the example boils down to a single question: “Will I be able to cross this ledge?”

In the “old school” system the GM determines this by fiat (automatic success, automatic failure, or some probability of success based on an arbitrary dice roll). In the “new school” system the chance of success is determined mechnically.

Isn’t the “old school” GM getting to be “creative” because he determines the probability of success? I guess. But, of course, the “new school” GM also gets to determine the probability of success — he set that probability as soon as he described the ledge as being only 2 inches wide.

LOSS OF CONSISTENCY

So we’ve discovered that “rulings, not rules” is really just a mantra for, “I like GM fiat.” Fair enough. What’s the problem with pervasive GM fiat?

The loss of consistency.

Ben Robbins’ essay “Same Description, Same Rules” is an excellent summation of the problem. Here’s a quick quote:

Rules should not surprise players. More specifically, if you describe a situation to the players and then describe the rules or modifiers that will apply because of the situation, the players should not go “whaaaa?”

If they are surprised it’s either because you specified an odd mechanic (a will save to resist poison) or a really implausible modifier (-6 to hit for using a table leg as an impromptu weapon).

[…]

On the other hand if the same thing uses different rules on two different occasions, it’s hard to see how it makes sense no matter who you are. This might just be the result of inconsistency (oops) or you might intentionally be using another rule to get an advantage.

I recommend reading the whole thing. Robbins’ basic point is that players cannot make logical, informed decisions if their actions have inconsistent results.

The problem with pervasive GM fiat is that you are either (a) creating inconsistency or (b) creating house rules on the fly. And if you’re creating house rules on the fly then:

(1) You have to keep track of them.

(2) Hasty decisions will frequently have unintended consequences.

(3) Even if the house rule you came up with on the fly is good the end result is no different than if you’d had a good rule to start with.

OLD SCHOOL DID WHAT NOW?

So you say, “Screw that. Ben’s wrong. Consistency is vastly overrated.” Well, sure, that may be true. Everyone’s entitled to their own tastes and opinions after all.

But that really brings us to the crux of the issue: The whole concept of using “rulings, not rules” as a distinction between “old school” systems and “new school” systems?

It’s complete, unmitigated bullshit.

For example, take a peek at the example given in A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming: The difference between GM fiat and mechanical determination of success in finding and disabling traps. That’s a distinction that’s been around since the Thief class was first introduced in Supplement I: Greyhawk.

In 1975.

And if your contention is that the New School started in 1975, then I think it’s safe to say that your use of the term is out-of-synch with the way that most people use the term.

But this extreme example only highlights the other core failure of the meme: It claims that the great thing about the “old school” is the lack of rules (which, in turn, allows for GM fiat). But all of those “old school” games seem to feature all kinds of incredibly detailed, nitpicky rules — betraying a bugaboo for the exact sort of consistency that the “old school” movement is now trying to forswear.

Having a Search skill changes gameplay? Sure. But let’s not pretend that’s any kind of systematic preference for rulings vs. rules, because you know what else changes gameplay? Explicit mechanics for determining the loyalty of hirelings. And those rules are part of OD&D, but not 3rd Edition or 4th Edition.

The truth is that the game has moved towards GM fiat in some cases and away from GM fiat in other cases.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

There is, I think, a legitimate philosophical divison being alluded to here: The difference between “do what you want and we’ll figure out a way to handle it” and “you can only do what the rules say you can do”. But let’s not pretend that this is a division between “old school” and “new school” play. The term “rules lawyer” is older than I am.

In addition, I think the truth is that a properly structured rule system facilitates rulings — assuming, of course, that you’re not using the word “rulings” as an ad hoc synonym for “GM fiat”. The 3rd Edition skill system doesn’t just give you a tool for differentiating character concepts — it also provides a robust and open-ended mechanic which can be used to make any number of rulings.

It’s certainly possible to look at any ruleset as being a set of shackles that prohibits you from doing anything not explicitly proscribed. But, in my opinion, a properly designed ruleset is a flexible foundation on which an infinite number of structures can be securely built.

Honestly? The whole “rules, not rulings” thing was a valiant effort. But you’re going to have to keep trying if you want something more than “old school is what I point to when I say ‘old school'” as your definition.

On page 10 of Men & Magic we get the first RPG stat block ever published. “A sample of the record of a character appears like this:”

This is also the closest thing we get to a character sheet in the OD&D rules. (Like many things in OD&D, you have to reverse engineer the general principle out of the example.)

I think the simplicity exemplified by this character sheet is something that a lot of gamers (including myself) look back on fondly: Roll your stats. Pick a class. And you’re ready to go.

Of course, like many things tinged with nostalgia and viewed through rose-colored glasses, this idyllic simplicity never actually existed. Xylarthen’s player still needs to select a race (since he’s an M-U he must be either a human or an elf), equipment (budget those 70 gp wisely), and his spells (well, a spell). And then he still needs to roll or calculate hit points, AC, encumbrance, and speed.

This division between between perception and reality actually proved quite vexing during the early design work for Legends & Labyrinths. I kept trying to get the game to the point where it was literally “(1) Roll ability scores; (2) pick race; (3) pick class”. And, of course, I kept failing. It wasn’t until I took a step back and re-analyzed what I was really trying to accomplish that I was able to get a satisfactory result.

But I digress.

The other interesting thing about Xylarthen is the description of his hypothetical creation: “This supposed player would have progressed faster as a Cleric, but because of a personal preference for magic opted for that class.”

I’m fairly certain that this makes OD&D the only edition of the game to put the idea that not all characters need to perfectly optimized front-and-center. But I also find the passage interesting because it highlights one of the features of rolling your ability scores in order: You are given the raw core for a character. What you choose to do with that core is up to you.

When was the last time you saw a wizard who didn’t have their highest ability score in Intelligence?

The insistence that the game can only be “fun” if your character is perfectly optimized limits the scope of the game. It takes character concepts off the table.

Of course, there are plenty of people who would argue that the guy playing Xylarthen is destined to have “less fun” than if he’d played a cleric. (Or was playing in a game where he could tweak his stats so that Xylarthen looks like every other magic-user in the game.)

And I get that. I can also appreciate that it can be annoying to come to the session saying, “I want to play a magic-user.” And then rolling an Intelligence of 6 and making the character you want to play completely untenable.

And this does, in fact, become less tenable because of the expected longevity of most characters in modern RPG’s. When a character has an expected lifespan of a couple of sessions (if he’s lucky), you can be a bit more philosophical about tackling an unexpected challenge than when you’re expecting to be playing this guy for the next year and a half.

But, on the other hand, Xylarthen sure looks like fun.

The counter-argument, of course, is that nothing stops me from making a wizard with his highest abiltiy score in Wisdom. True. But there is a distinct difference between facing a challenge and dealing with a self-imposed handicap. Just as there is a difference between being given a character and seeing what you can make of it and carefully scultping every detail of the character for yourself.

And I think there’s also a tendency to read the word “challenge” and think that I’m merely talking about the gamist side of the game. But I’m also talking about a creative challenge. The act of creation does not always have to begin with a blank slate. In some cases, deliberately eschewing the blank slate will give unexpected and extraordinary results which might never have been achieved if you limit yourself to a tabula rasa.

The Holmes Basic Set has an interesting section on “Hopeless Characters”:

Sometimes the universe of chance allows a character to appear who is below average in everything. At the Dungeon Master’s discretion, such a character might be declared unsuitable for dangerous adventures and left at home. Another character would then be rolled to take his place.

The act of rolling up a set of ability scores is literally perceived as the moment of creation. When you reject a stat block you aren’t rejecting numbers which aren’t appropriate for your character, you’re rejecting a character who is unsuitable for your play.

The shift in perspective is subtle, but notable.

And this, again, gets back to the idea that character creation itself is a part of the gameplay — not merely a means to an end, but an important part of the process itself. Character creation is not being seen as a prelude activity in which you craft the character you will be playing. Rather, from the moment you pick up 3d6 to roll up their Strength, the game has begun: The ability scores give you the character you will play. And then, from that point forward, it’s your decisions that shape that character’s destiny.

Back to Reactions to OD&D

I stumbled across these in a post over on Troll Lord’s messageboards:

Gary’s OD&D House Rules:

For a score of 15 or over:
STR: +1 to hit and +1 to damage if a Fighter
INT: +1 1st level m-u spell
WIS: +1 1st level cleric spell
DEX: +1 to AC, and +1 to move silently
CON: +1 HP per HD (same as a Fighter class gets, +2 if a Fighter)
CHA: +1 (positive) on reaction checks

HPs: Characters are only unconscious at 0 HPs. For each level a character may have a minus HP total equal to the level, so a 1st level PC is dead at -2, a 2nd level at -3, etc.

Given the recent Reactions to OD&D essays, I thought it might be of interest. These help spread a little love around the prime requisites, fix the oddly incomprehensible rules for Constitution, and gives Charisma a front-end effect as well as a back-end effect (Charisma already had a really important role in governing follower loyalty in OD&D).

From Volume 1: Men & Magic, pg. 5:

Number of Players: At least one referee and from four to fifty players can be handled in any single campaign, but the referee to player ratio should be about 1:20 or thereabouts.

From Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure, pg. 3:

* Referee’s option: Increase or decrease according to party concerned (used primarily only for out-door encounters).

And from Volume 3: Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, pg. 16:

Large Party Movement: Parties numbering over 100, including pack or draft animals, will incur a 1 hex penalty. Parties over 1,000 incur a 2 hex penalty.

These passages, colletively, refer to a style of gaming quite distinct from the modern standard in which a “campaign” refers to a stable group of roughly half a dozen players. And, in point of fact, they refer to a style of gaming quite distinct from that found in most of the published modules from TSR.

OPEN TABLE: The first distinction of classic play is the open table. When Arneson and Gygax talk about a single campaign involving fifty players, they don’t mean that they lived in mansions with massive gaming tables where 50 players could huddle around a battlemat.

Under the open table model of gaming, the adventuring party was fluid. This Saturday your companions might by Bob, Steve, and Lucy. Next Tuesday it might be Steve, Suzanne, Ben, and David. And then on Wednesday you might get together with the DM for some solo play.

This kind of mass participation in a single campaign had a significant impact on how scenarios were designed: The dungeon complex was never designed to be “cleared” or “won”, because if you cleared the dungeon complex where was Tuesday’s group going to go?

And this extended beyond dungeon play. The entire campaign world was a limitless sandbox made interesting not only through the creative faculties of your DM, but also through the actions of your fellow players.

OPEN DMING: Both Arneson’s Blackmoor campaign and Gygax’s Greyhawk campaign featured co-DMs who would run adventures within the same setting and for the same players. For example, Rob Kuntz, who receives special thanks on the title page of Men & Magic, is known for having become Gygax’s co-DM for Castle Greyhawk and co-designing several levels of that infamous dungeon.

It was also common for characters to adventure in both Arneson’s campaign (which was based in Minneapolis) and Gygax’s campaign (which was based in Lake Geneva). And this kind of “campaign visitation” was common.

In fact, my gaming buddies and I used to do the same thing when we started playing: We each had our stable of personal characters, and these characters would be used interchangeably in all of the campaigns we would run (and we all had our own campaigns).

(On a tangential note: Some people ascribe this style of play as having been lost in the mists of time, but I’m not sure that’s actually true except on a personal level. Certainly as I started to place a higher value on verisimilitude and coherent character arcs, the “illogical” nature of campaign-swapping meant that I abandoned this style of play. But on those rare occasions when I’ve seen younger players, they often have the same carefree style of freeform gaming that I used to have.

So if this is something that you miss or that you want to have again, consider simply embracing it anew.)

MULTIPLE CHARACTERS: Part and parcel with all this is that it was apparently fairly typical for players to have more than one character playing in the same campaign. Sometimes they would be playing them simultaneously, but it was also quite typical for you to be playing one set of characters on Wednesday and a different set of characters the following Monday.

BEYOND DUNGEON-CRAWLING: You know what I’m tired of hearing? That D&D is a game about “killing things and taking their stuff” and nothing else.

Has combat and treasure-hunting always been a part of the game? Sure. But the game is about a lot more than that, and it always has been. For example, here’s the description of the fighting-man class from Men & Magic:

Fighting-Men: All magical weaponry is usable by fighters, and this in itself is a big advantage. In addition, they gain the advantage of more “hit dice” (the score of which determines how many points of damage can be taken before a character is killed). They can use only a very limited number of magical items of the nonweaponry variety, however, and they can use no spells. Top-level fighters (Lords and above) who build castles are considered “Barons” (see the INVESTMENTS section of Volume III). Base income for a Baron is a tax rate of 10 Gold Pieces/inhabitant of the barony/game year.

The idea that successful characters were destined for more things than dungeon-crawling was part and parcel of the game. There are rules in OD&D for stronghold construction, political assassination, the hiring of specialist tradesmen, baronial investments (in things like roads, religious edifices, and the like), assembling a naval force, and so forth.

And when you realize that this type of “realm management” play was an integral part of the original gameplay of D&D, then tables in which “40 – 400” goblins were capable of appearing begin to make sense: Sometimes you were a bunch of 1st level nobodies trying to root out the local goblin gang that had taken root in hills north of the village. And sometimes you were a band of nobles riding forth at the head of your host to wipe out the goblin army marching on your barony.

Now take a moment, if you will, and consider the type of game that arises when all of these elements are true: Some of the PCs have become the local nobles. Others are still lower level dungeon-delvers. And the entire world is developing and evolving as a result of their cumulative actions.

OFFICIAL SUPPORT

Ironically, this style of play never received any meaningful support from TSR. Not even in its earliest days. Have you ever seen a module with 400 goblins in it? There are a few glimpses of it here and there — in the Wilderlands campaign setting from Judges Guild or B2 Keep on the Borderland. But for the most part, the type of game being played by Arneson and Gygax — the type of game that led to the codification of the D&D rules — was not the type of game that was being supported through published modules.

Partly this is because that style of game is organic in its nature. You can’t actually capture the essence of the Greyhawk or Blackmoor campaigns, for example, because they were always evolving. (When Wizards of the Coast published Jonathan Tweet’s Everway, a member of the company memorably said something to the effect of, “If we could just include a copy of Jon in every box, we’d sell a million copies.” They couldn’t and they didn’t.)

But, on the other hand, that shouldn’t stop you from publishing the raw material from which a rich sandbox campaign could be played. But the Wilderlands campaign from Judges Guild is probably as close as we’ve ever gotten to that.

What stood in the way? Well, partly the resources. Publishing such a product in a single volume would have been a huge investment. And by the time TSR was capable of pursuing such an investment, that style of play was already becoming “outdated”, Arneson was long gone, and Gygax was already beginning to lose his control of the company.

And even if the resources had been available, such an undertaking would constitute an incredibly large and complex project. Gygax himself spent 30+ years trying to get Castle Greyhawk into print. It has never happened.

So what got published instead? Tournament modules. The earliest TSR modules — stuff like the A series, G series, and S series that we now think of as classics and defined the concept and format of what a “module” is — were all designed for tournament play. And tournament play is almost precisely the opposite of the type of game that Arneson and Gygax were running: The scope is limited (because you have to finish it within a single convention slot), the outcome premeditated (because the next round of the tourney was already designed), completion anticipated (so that scoring could be done), and the impact to the wider world nonexistent (because there was no wider world that could be effected).

For better or for worse, those were the modules that the gamers at home were buying. And they became the models around which their games were fashioned.

And, hand-in-hand with that, the mechanical support for those styles of play were purged from the rulebooks. 3rd Edition — designed by old school grognards working for a company which was, at the time, run by another grognard — saw a return of some of that lost mechanical support. But 4th Edition, of course, has reversed course once again.

The designers of 3rd Edition understood the value of open-ended, fully-supported play. You can see it in Ptolus (the campaign setting Monte Cook used to playtest the 3rd Edition rules). The designers of 4th Edition, on the other hand, openly proclaimed that the game was all about killing things and cited that getting back to those “roots” was one of their primary design goals.

Talk about your false premises.

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