On Wednesday I’m going to be running a one-shot adventure using the original 1974 rules for Dungeons & Dragons. These rules are also referred to as OD&D (Original Dungeons & Dragons) or the “White Box”.

Why the “White Box”? Because the rules were originally sold in a wood-grained box with white labels and, later, in an all-white box. The box contained three booklets: “Men & Magic”, “Monsters & Treasure”, and “The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures”.

Some quick background info on this: I have never run or played in an OD&D campaign. The earliest version of the rules I have ever used is the 1981 Basic Set designed by Tom Moldvay, and that only briefly. I originally came to D&D by way of the 1983 BECMI rules designed by Frank Mentzer before moving onto a weird hybrid of 1st and 2nd Edition AD&D.

(BECMI stands for Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal — the names of the five boxed sets comprising the rule system. This edition of D&D was largely identical to the Rules Cyclopedia published in 1991.)

I do not, unfortunately, own an original copy of the OD&D set. But I do own the PDFs available through RPGNow, which replicate the 6th printing of the rules. (Earlier versions of these rules cannot be reproduced legally because the Tolkien Estate successfully sued TSR for using hobbits and ents in the rulebooks.) So a couple weeks ago I printed them out and started reading.

Of course, even though I’ve never played OD&D, I’ve learned quite a bit of it here and there over the course of my two decades in the hobby. So it’s not like I was coming to it with completely fresh eyes.

But this was, in fact, the first time I’ve actually read these rules cover-to-cover. (Actually, I’ve read them several times now.) And I’ve found the process thought-provoking in many ways. So I’ve decided to start a new series of essays, of which this is the first: Reactions to OD&D.

I’m not entirely sure where these essays will take me. I have a few notes laid out, so I know that some of them will deal with history; and some of them will deal with game design; and some of them will deal with tradition. Some of it will be merely reflective and some of it will be practical.

But I will utter a word of caution before I begin: One thing these essays will not be is a pleasant romp down a nostalgia-filled lane. The OD&D rules are, in many ways, remarkable and fascinating historical documents. But — while I am looking forward to my one-shot as an entertaining and quirky evening of throwback fun — there’s no way that I would spend any notable length of time playing this game.

So if you’re grognard, I warn you to beware: I am going to be critical of OD&D’s flaws… of which there are many.

(For those who are curious: I’ll be using The Caverns of Thracia, one of the classic adventures from the Judges Guild, for the one-shot.)

REACTIONS TO OD&D
Reactions to OD&D
The Ur-Game
Thinking About Morale
Ranged Combat
Prime Requisites
The Scope of the Game
OD&D Character Sheets
Gygaxian Rulebooks
Experience Points
Encounter Probability
Turns, Rounds, and Segments… Oh My!
Wandering Adventures
Interesting Facts About the Blood Shield Bandits
Vampires as Lycanthropes
Turn Undead in Blackmoor
The Arnesonian Dungeon
Arneson’s Machines
Hex-Clearing Procedures
Gods & Clerics
Influence of Little Rules

ADDITIONAL READING
OD&D in the Caverns of Thracia
Running Castle Blackmoor
Character Creation in 5 Sentences: D&D 1974

I’m in the early stages of prepping a new fantasy campaign. One of the specific design goals is that the campaign needs to be able to handle a variable group of players. That means, for the sake of verisimilitude, it’s important that — at the end of any gaming session — the PCs are no longer in the dungeon. (In other words, they need to be in a position where it’s easy to explain why — since player X can’t attend the session — character X isn’t part of the adventure next week.)

Towards that end, I am instituting a simple rule of table etiquette. There are three ways in which a gaming session can end:

(1) The players can, at any time of their choosing, make their way out of the dungeon and end the session for the evening.

(2) As the GM I can, at any time of my choosing, announce that we will stop playing in 1 hour. If, by the end of the hour, the PCs have made their way out of the dungeon, the session ends normalyly.

(3) But if they have not made their way out of the dungeon (for whatever reason), then either (a) everyone in the session can immediately commit to another session within 7 days; or (b) the Escaping the Dungeon! tables will be used to determine their fate.

The Escaping the Dungeon! tables were designed, with a tip of the hat to Jeff Reints for the inspiration, to be used determine the fate of PCs left in the dungeon at the end of the session. At the GM’s discretion they may also be used for some wilderness situations. (For most wilderness situations, I anticipate being able to use PBeM to resolve the journey back to the home base of the PCs.)

ESCAPE CHECK

CHALLENGE ADJUSTMENT: Adjust the chance of escape by +/- 10% multipled by the difference between the average CR of the local opposition and the level of the character. (For example, a 5th-level character facing CR 7 opponents would suffer a -20% adjustment on their chance of escape. In a classic dungeon scenario, you can make this adjustment using the dungeon level — a 5th-level character on the 3rd level of the dungeon would enjoy a +20% adjustment on their chance of escape, for example.)

SMALL COMPLEX: If the characters are attempting to escape from a lair or other small complex, increase the chance of success by 10% to 20%.

MAKING THE CHECK: An escape check is made for each character separately. There is always a minimum 1% chance of escape or failure. On a failed escape check, roll 1d10 on the Failed Escape table below.

FAILED ESCAPES

DESIGN NOTES

The primary goal of this little sub-system is not to punish the players. However, it is designed to provide them with a meaningful motivation to leave the dungeon in a timely fashion. Failing that, it is designed to provide interesting consequences that (frequently) can be followed up on subsequent forays into the dungeon — whether that’s recovering lost equipment, ransoming a lost comrade, or the like.

The actual chance of outright dying, you’ll note is quite slim. If the escape check is the standard value of 50% (and it will usually be higher), then your chance of dying is only about 10% vs. a 55%

The results of the Failed Escapes table, it should be noted, are meant to be flexibly interpreted by the GM given the exigencies of the specific situation in which the PCs find themselves at the end of the session. The creation of a short fable explaining the events leading to their escape (or lack thereof) — perhaps even one garnering them with some bit of lore or insight into the dungeon complex — would not be out of place.

And, of course, the table is specifically designed to be used in a very specific type of old school inspired campaigning. In most of my campaigns I have no problem hanging out the reliable “To Be Continued” placard.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

PRELUDE 2D: THE AWAKENING – TITHENMAMIWEN

PBeM – March 5th thru 9th, 2007
The 15th Day of Amseyl  in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

(more…)

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

Prelude 2: The Awakening – Tee

In which our heroine elf awakes to a welcome (yet surprising) homecoming, only to discover that things are not always what they seem and the past is not so easily forgotten (even if it has been completely misplaced)…

When I pitched In the Shadow of the Spire to my prospective players the campaign didn’t even have a name yet. Actually, it didn’t have much form at all. I only knew two things:

(1) I had pre-ordered Ptolus and it would be arriving within a couple of weeks. I already knew enough about the city to know that I wanted to run an urban-based campaign there, but I (obviously) didn’t know a lot of the details.

(2) I wanted to incorporate the Banewarrens adventure into the campaign. I first read this adventure back in 2002 and I’d been itching to run it ever since. In some ways I had actually started laying the groundwork for this campaign way back then, when the players in my original 3rd Edition campaign passed through the port city of Ptolus and saw the Spire for the first time:

(That’s a player handout modified from a DM-only reference image.)

As I started wading through the Ptolus tome and the campaign began to take shape in my mind’s eye, one of the things I realized early on was that the PCs shouldn’t be from Ptolus itself. It would be more interesting, in my opinion, if their characters were exploring the city with the same fresh eyes that they were. It would also be more disorienting (for both players and PCs) to awake with amnesia in completely unfamiliar surroundings.

Those of you who have been reading the campaign journal from the start, however, may have noticed a slight incongruity here: Tithenmamiwen is from Ptolus.

No plan, however, survives contact with the enemy… or, in this case, the players.

Actually, though, trying to push this one off on the player is a bit disingenuous on my part. Tee’s player simply came to me with the idea of playing an elf. The character concept she was discussing in general terms, however, struck off all kinds of resonance for me with the work I had just recently put into fleshing out some of the elven communities in Ptolus itself.

Taking a step back, I realized that it made more sense to tap into this pre-existing development work and use it as part of Tee’s background. I also came to the conclusion that variety is the spice of life: Yes, it was interesting to have both players and PCs coming to the city with fresh eyes. And, yes, that lack of familiarity was disorienting.

But there was also something inherently interesting in the broken homecoming experienced by Tee: She had left home for reasons she didn’t fully understand and now she was back again for reasons she didn’t even know. There was a disoriention to be found there as well, and a useful contrapuntal beat to the other characters.

This decision also had some long-term consequences that I hadn’t fully considered. For example, Tee had a greater sense of ownership in the city than the other PCs… which meant that her reputation was important to her from Day One. She needed to be able to live there when all was said and done, which meant that she helped to keep some of the more radical impulses of the group in check.

In the comments on Sunday, Bobson mentioned Weapons of Legacy. This was almost certainly the worst supplement ever produced by Wizards of the Coast. It wouldn’t even be worth mentioning, except that the core concept (which they mangled so horribly) is actually pretty nifty. In response to Bobson’s post, I went digging around and found an old series of messages I posted to the rec.games.frp.dnd newsgroup regarding this trainwreck. I’ve reorganized and slightly rewritten these thoughts here…

THE REACTION

I’m coming kinda late to Weapons of Legacy, but I’ve got a legendary weapon that I need to give to a low-level PC and it seemed like it might be the perfect fit. So I borrowed a copy from a friend and sat down to read through it and see what I could bash out.

Wow. This is one of the worst supplements I’ve ever seen. Oh, there’s been some third-party D20 stuff that’s worse, but not by much. It reminds me of some of the worst dreck that TSR was cranking out during the darkest days of 2nd Edition.

It got off to kind of a rough start when the authors just kept repeating the same ra-ra, pom-pom cheerleading of themselves. Then the book started repeating the exact same description of what a weapon of legacy was in nineteen different forms: Yes, okay, I get it. Weapons of legacy improve as I gain levels. I read the blurb on the back cover. Can we get to the meat of the matter, please?

Then I got to the part of the system where, in order to unlock the higher level powers of a weapon, you had to perform rituals which would give you feats which… weren’t actually feats? Well, that’s pretty lame. It would have been interesting to have a mechanic where you could either (a) spend gold and XP to unlock the powers or (b) spend a feat to unlock the item’s powers, but to have a system where you get something that we’ll call a feat but which doesn’t actually work according to any of the rules which govern how feats work? Stupid. Pick a different name. Or, better yet, don’t pick any name: Instead of having rituals which give you feats which unlock powers, just have rituals which unlock powers.

Then I got to the part of the system where, in order to unlock these powers, you have to accept penalties to attack bonuses, class abilities, saving throws, and the like. What the hell? The awesome artifact of arcane power from the elder days of the universe is… making me suck? And not only that, but the penalties frequently go after the very stats that the weapon is boosting. So you’ll have a +4 weapon, but it will only effectively be a +2 weapon because it comes with a -2 penalty to attacks… and not only attacks with that weapon itself, but with ALL weapons.

(If you run the numbers, this makes a kind of pseudo-sense for some of the items described in the book: The penalty to the item’s core competency ends up making it about as effective as the item you could buy for the same price. But upon closer inspection, this doesn’t hold up: You’re spending just as much money for an item which is making you suck whenever you’re not using the item.

I can see the temptation that led to this mechanic: “Well, if you’re willing to accept a penalty for using an item, the item should cost less.” But, first of all, it doesn’t fit the purported concept behind weapons of legacy. And, secondly, it’s impossible to balance such a mechanic: Either you have the penalties target the same abilities as what the item is pumping up (which defeats the purpose) or they target other stats, in which case you’re creating a whole sub-system which exists only for the purpose of enabling min-max abuse.)

My patience with the book was finally exhausted, however, when I got to the rules for actually creating legacy items. From their own Example, this is the process: Create a basic magic item. Choose an option from Menu A. Choose an option from Menu B, since the Menu A choice can’t be taken again. Menu B selections take up two slots for every one slot that a Menu A ability would have taken. For your next selection you can select from Menu A again, but instead we’ll select from Menu C. This takes up three slots for every slot that an ability from Menu A would have taken. Now, select the penalties for using the item from tables 4-1 through 4-10…

Are you kidding me? Are you frickin’ kidding me?

THE BIG PICTURE

The basic concept behind legacy items is simple: Instead of replacing their magic items as they increase in wealth and/or power, their existing magic items increase in power with them. This means that Elric never “outgrows” Stormbringer. It also allows you to put ancient and powerful artifacts in the hands of low-level PCs without completely destroying game balance.

The most basic mechanic for accomplishing this goal is simple: As the PCs level up, a legacy item would automatically increase in power with them.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t quite work. There’s a 48,000 gp difference between the cost of a +1 longsword and a +5 longsword. So if you have a mechanic by which a +1 longsword automatically transforms into a +5 longsword — and everything else remains the same — then the PC will have an extra 48,000 gp to spend on other magical equipment (and thus unbalance the game).

When you put the problem that way, the solution becomes pretty obvious: If you want the item to improve, you still need to figure out how to impose the cost of the more powerful item in order to keep things balanced. You can’t do that upfront (because low-level PCs don’t have the cash reserves to buy a +5 longsword — if they did, they would own them already), so that means that you need to find a mechanism of imposing the cost as the item improves.

SOLUTIONS

THE BACKSTAGE SOLUTION: The PC never actually pays any additional cost. Instead, you simply adjust the amount of treasure the party receives to account for the “extra” value of the legacy item. By the time the legacy item becomes a +5 longsword, the party has been “shorted” 48,000 gp of treasure — but that’s okay, because the +5 longsword makes up for it.

There are two potential problems with this approach, one minor and one major.

The minor problem is that it requires the DM to adjust the standard treasure distribution. This isn’t a huge hassle, but it is one more thing that needs to be accounted for.

The major problem, however, arises in groups which assidiously split treasure equally. Unless the party is willing to adjust for the “lost” treasure, the PC with the legacy item will receive an unfair share of the party’s wealth. (They’ll get an equal share of all the actual treasure, but then have an extra 48,000 gp of “virtual treasure” as a result of their legacy +5 longsword.)

And thinking of it as “lost” treasure probably won’t make most players happy, either. It makes the legacy item feel like some kind of penalty.

THE SIMPLE SOLUTION: Legacy items come with pre-packaged abilities. By performing legacy rituals, characters can spend the standard XP and gold cost for enchanting the item with those abilities without the necessary Item Creation feat or any of the other prerequisites.

This is a simple, straight-forward approach. It’s guaranteed to be balanced with the core rules because it’s using the existing item creation system as a basis for its prices.

The only mechanical problem with this approach is that it leaves the PCs with little motivation to take advantage of it. It costs just as much to unlock the powers of a legacy item as it would to enchant the item with a new power from scratch. There are slight advantages to be gained (the XP cost comes from the item’s user instead of the party’s spellcaster and they don’t need a feat to do it), but I think it’s likely that most players will prefer the flexibility of getting exactly what they want instead of being locked into whatever abilities are prepackaged into the legacy item.

So you might want to consider granting a 10% or 25% discount to the XP and/or gold costs for performing the legacy rituals.

MORE COMPLEX SOLUTIONS: If you wanted to design a complex system from scratch, you might consider looking at using a system in which a character can take feats which bind them to a particular legacy item and unlock the legacy item’s abilities.

Another option (or perhaps building on the same option) would be to model certain items (intelligent or otherwise) like cohorts. The legacy items would gain XP just like cohorts and the powers of the legacy item would depend on its “level”.

WHAT ARE LEGACY ITEMS?

Let’s assume that we go with the Simple Solution I outlined above. What explanation(s) might there be for these particular mechanics:

(1) A legacy item has within it the nascent potential for a specific set of abilities.

(2) It requires both money and XP in order to unlock these abilities.

THE RITUAL OF CREATION: Legacy items are created using the standard Item Creation rules. The creator of the item must meet the prerequisites for all of the item’s potential properties, but they only pay the XP and gold piece costs associated with the basic properties of the item.

Why would someone create a legacy item? Well, it’s less taxing on the spellcaster who creates the item — they’re shifting some of the burden onto the one who will actually wield it. It also shifts the time required, which means that a single spellcaster could (for example) more easily supply magical weapons to an entire platoon of soliders. And, at the same time, the legacy rituals act as a kind of insurance policy against the items falling into enemy hands (since the enemy would need to expend their own resoruces to perform the legacy rituals anew).

One last thing to consider here: What should the market value of a crafted legacy item be? Remember that, unlike other items, legacy items can be a money sink that can never be cashed out. If the party wizard creates a +5 longsword by spending 25,000 gp and 2,000 XP that sword can be sold at a by-the-book price of 25,000 gp — recouping that gold directly back into the party’s coffers.

But if you pour the same 25,000 gp into a legacy ritual, then that money is simply gone. (22,500 gp if you use a 10% discount. 18,750 gp if you use a 25% discount.)

(On the flipside, this helps provide a motivation for the PC to keep the legacy item. Which is, after all, one of the primary reasons for having the mechanic in the first place.)

TRUE LEGACIES: The auras of magical items tend to “mix” with the auras of those who wield them. When a great hero or villain wields a weapon, for example, they leave behind indelible traces of their legacy.

Legacy rituals are designed to tap into these “greater auras” and unleash their power — but, like any mystical ritual, there are the associated costs in equipment, components, and the like.

This explanation for legacy items is more evocative, while still explaining the need for the costly rituals (that coincidentally maintain game balance).

You might consider using both explanations. Perhaps some items are possessed of true legacies, while other items are merely designed to be bound to their owners. Mechanically the two are similar, but in terms of the game world they’re quite different and distinct.