If you came to D&D with 3rd Edition, chances are you don’t know what “prime requisites” are.

In OD&D each of the three classes — fighting-man, magic-user, and cleric — had an ability score as a “prime requisite”. These prime requisites served two purposes:

(1) In order to change classes, you needed to have an unmodified prime requisite score of 16 or better in the class you wanted to change to. (Although this rule was “not recommended”, except for elves who had the racial ability to freely switch at will between fighting-man and magic-user at the beginning of each adventure. It is open to interpretation whether elves needed to have the necessary prime requisites in order to do that. There is also the oddity that magic-users cannot change into clerics and vice versa… but nothing stops them from first changing to fighting-men and then changing to the other. But I digress…)

(2) If you had a high prime requisite score in your class you earned additional XP. If you had a low prime requisite score your XP was penalized, as described on the “Bonuses and Penalties to Advancement due to Abilities” table:

In later editions, certain classes also had minimum ability scores and prime requisites that had to be met. For example, in the 1st Edition of AD&D in order to “become a paladin a character must be human, have a strength of not less than 12, a minimum intelligence of 9, a wisdom of 13 or more, a minimum constitution of 9, and not less than 17 charisma”.

GYGAXIAN BALANCE

In the currently predominant culture of gaming — where the fetishization of balance is, at best, barely lurking out of sight — this entire design schema is impossibly alien. It’s practically anathema. Why would you take a PC who was already more powerful than the other PCs (because they have higher ability scores) and make them even more powerful (by giving them XP bonuses)?

And when you get to classes with minimum ability score requirements, things seem to become even less comprehensible. Many of these classes were just flat-out better than the other classes. So now you’re taking powerful characters, making them more powerful by giving them access to better classes, and then allowing them to advance more quickly to even more power by giving them XP bonuses.

I’ve seen people point to this as an example of Gygax being “incompetent”. These people annoy me because they’re missing the point: Gygax didn’t fail to balance character vs. character. That just wasn’t one of his design goals. He was trying to accomplish something very different.

The first thing you’re seeing here is Gygaxian naturalism. Why are the guys with better ability scores able to access more powerful classes? Because they’re more talented.

There is a balance being modeled here, but it’s subtler than the mechanical equivalence at the beginning of a Chess match.

Basically Gygax was saying: “Look, Character A has more talent than Character B. The ability scores tell us that. So that means that Character A can get into major league baseball and Character B is going to be stuck in the minor leagues. And that means that Character A is going to earn more money.”

At this point modern afficionados of “balance” will protest, “But if Character A is in the major leagues and Character B is in the minor leagues, then they’ll never get to play on the same field!”

And Gygax would say, “Look, kid, you’re abusing the metaphor.”

Because, at this point, we need to understand the other fundamental underpinning of OD&D play: Darwinian attrition.

DARWINIAN ATTRITION

In OD&D it was assumed that PCs would die. In fact, it was assumed that the vast majority of PCs in the campaign would end up dead.

This had two important impacts on the way the game was played and, thus, the way the game was designed:

(1) On the one hand, if your character “sucked” compared to the other PCs, it didn’t really matter all that much. After all, he was probably going to be dead sooner rather than later. Dungeons were dangerous places.

(2) On the other hand, the mere act of survival was something to be lauded. Longevity was an achievement. And achieving that longevity with a “sucky” character? Ah, that was something to be lauded even more! It was like playing with a handicap.

This is something that gamers familiar with the modern paradigms of design sometimes struggle to understand, so let me try to explain by way of analogy. Imagine that you’re playing Name That Tune:

Me: I can name that tune in 8 notes.
You: I can name that tune in 6 notes.
Me: I can name that tune in 5 notes.
You: I can name that tune in 4 notes.
Me: Name that tune!
You: Aw, man! I have to name that tune in only 4 notes, while you could name it in 5 notes! It’s not fair! My character is much less powerful than yours!

Okay, the analogy kinda broke down there somewhere, but hopefully the point is clear: Yeah, that guy over there has better ability scores. Are you going to whine about it, or are you going to show him that you can play the game better than he can, scores or no scores?

CHARACTER GENERATION AS GAME

Of course, the argument can be made that the random generation of ability scores has nothing to do with the skill of the players involved. But so what? Were you under the illusion that craps is a game of skill?

See, part of the trick here is that character creation was considered part of the gameplay.

It was gameplay that was fundamentally different from the gameplay that happened once the dungeon exploration actually began, but it was still an important and integral part of the game. Like the rules for setting up terrain in a wargame. Or the bidding in a game of Bridge.

The game that, in my opinion, best understood that character creation was part of the game (and, consequently, is most misunderstood by many modern gamers) is the original Traveller.

In Traveller, all newly created characters start at 18 years of age. You could then attempt to enlist in one of six services: Navy, Marines, Army, Scouts, Merchants, or Other. Successfully enlisting required a successful roll of the dice (some services were more difficult to join than others). Each term of service lasted for 4 years and carried with it the chance of injury or death (determined with another dice roll — some services were more dangerous than others). Depending on what service you had joined, you would gain different skills and training during your term. And once a term was completed, you could opt to re-enlist, join another service, or end your career and start play.

Wait a minute… did I just say that your character could die during character creation? Yes. I did.

I’ve seen lots of people describe that system as crazy. But the concept really shouldn’t be that hard to grasp: Mechanically, character creation in Traveller is a gambling game. You’re gambling the risk of death, injury, or debilitation from age against the possibility for better skills and training.

And the brilliant part of it, frankly, is that Traveller used the gambling mechanics to encourage players to create characters with interesting and intricately detailed backgrounds. What did you do during that term of service? Why did your character choose to re-enlist? What did you do to learn those particular skills?

The original Traveller rulebook may have summed up this approach to game design best when it said:

The Solitaire Game: One player undertakes some journey or adventure alone. He or she handles the effects of the rules as the situation progresses. […] In addition, there are many aspects ideally suited to solitaire consideration. A single player can spend time generating characters, designing starships, generating worlds and subsectors, planning situations, and mapping out ideas to use in later group scenarios.

Under this design philosophy, rolling up characters was more than just a means to an end: It was meant to be fun in and of itself. There’s a little bit of gambling — a little bit of excitement — in that moment when the dice fly and the fate of your character is shaped before your eyes.

THE MODERN PARADIGM

Of course, in most modern gaming character attrition is low. The goal of “survival” has taken a backseat to the development of character, exploration of world, and the telling of stories. And, as a result, some of the necessary elements that make Gygaxian balance work no longer exist.

But I still think we can learn some valuable lessons from Gygaxian balance. There is more to a roleplaying game than mechanical equivalence.

It’s also important to remember that, given the open-ended nature of roleplaying games, true mechanical equivalence can only be achieved by artificially narrowing both the range of potential characters and the breadth of possible or expected gameplay. (4th Edition, notably, does both.)

There’s something to be said for characters with long lives and the long arcs of development that those lives make possible. But there’s also something to be said for the capricious whim of fate that makes victory meaningful because failure is always an option.

And for Arneson and Gygax, both of these things could be true at the same time.

Back to Reactions to OD&D

Let’s start this essay with a couple of quotes from “Volume 1: Men & Magic” regarding ranged combat. First, from the Alternative Combat System attack matrices on page 20:

Missile hits will be scored by using the above tables at long range and decreasing Armor Class by 1 at medium and 2 at short range.

To put this rule in context for those who aren’t familiar with OD&D, allow me to explain: Both melee and long-range missile attacks use the same attack matrices. But at medium distances missiles receive a +1 bonus and at short ranges they receive a +2 bonus to hit.

Compare and contrast this with 3rd Edition. Here both melee and ranged attacks use the same Base Attack Bonus, but at medium and long ranges the missile fire suffers penalties.

One critique of 3rd Edition is that ranged combat specialists are at a significant disadvantage compared to melee combat specialists. How many of those complaints would disappear if you implemented an OD&D-style system of giving bonuses for close range missile attacks instead of penalties for distant missile attacks?

(And how many more would disappear if you took the equally radical step of giving ranged attacks a Dex-based bonus to damage like the Strength-based bonus that melee attacks receive? All of them. But I digress.)

(EDIT: It has been pointed out that the word “decrease” might actually mean that Armor Class is improved against missile attacks at medium and close ranges. I hadn’t really considered that possibility because it seems natural to me that the closer something is, the easier it is to hit with a missile weapon, but it’s certainly true. This, by the way, is why I don’t miss the “lower AC is better” days in the least. Is that +2 a bonus or a penalty? Only her stylist knows for sure.)

And here’s another quote from “Men & Magic”, this one from the “Bonuses and Penalties to Advancement due to Abilities” table (which, like many things in OD&D, is only partly about what it says it’s about):

To understand the importance of these entries, you first have to understand one other thing: There are no equivalent bonuses (or penalties) for melee attacks.

So, once again, we see OD&D giving a significant advantage to ranged combatants compared to their melee brethren. In doing so it stands in contrast with 3rd Edition (where ranged combatants require special equipment, class abilities, and/or feats to even begin equalizing with melee combatants).

It stands in even starker contrast with 4th Edition, where ranged combat has been completely nerfed for the convenience of the miniatures game. And this is slightly ironic because I suspect one of the reasons that OD&D is so friendly to ranged combat is because of its roots in the Chainmail wargame: Chainmail needed to cope with the reality that charging ranged attackers Agincourt-style is, historically speaking, a really dreadful idea. One that people have been willing to repeat time and time again throughout history (World War I, I’m looking at you), but a really dreadful idea nonetheless.

PALIMPSEST INVERSION

Of course, all of this goes out the window if you interpret the OD&D rules slightly different. Here’s a quote from “Volume 2: Monsters & Treasure”:

Attack/Defense capabilities versus normal men are simply a matter of allowing one roll as a man-type for every hit die, with any bonuses being given to only one of the attacks, i.e. a Troll would attack six times, once with a +3 added to the die roll. (Combat is detailed in Vol. III.)

This little paragraph is incredibly confusing for many reasons: First, the basic combat system is largely detailed in Volume 1. It is not meaningfully discussed in Volume 3 (only Aerial Combat and Naval Combat are given any substantive treatment there).

Second, based on its formatting and context the passage appears to be referring to an “Attack/Defense” entry on the table immediately preceding this text… but no such entry is to be found. It’s actually referring to Hit Dice. (A troll has 6 + 3 HD, hence the +3 bonus it receives.)

Third, the most literal interpretation of the paragraph is “monsters attack like men once for every HD they have”. There are two problems with this: First, the Alternative Combat System has separate attack matrices for men and monsters — so if monsters end up attacking “as a man-type”, what’s the point of the attack matrix for monsters? Second, the text only refers to monsters… which means that monsters get 1 attack per HD, but the PCs don’t. I don’t really see any way for that to be viable, do you?

For the most part, as far as I can tell, this passage is almost universally ignored. Or used only when the Chainmail rules are used for mass combat.

But one way in which it has been interpreted is that everyone (monsters and men alike) get 1 attack per round per HD.

However, by combining that with certain rules from Chainmail, another interpretation also arose: Everyone (monsters and men alke) get 1 attack per round per HD… but only when engaged in melee.

Which, of course, immediately shifts the pendulum of power away from ranged combat and places it rather firmly and definitely in favor of melee combat.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

In lump sum, therefore, OD&D serves — in its many-faced way — as excellent fodder for a discussion of how ranged and melee combat should relate to each other.

But this also speaks to one of the broader themes in these reactions to OD&D: There are many who like to talk about “old school” gaming as if it was some sort of unified style of play, but could there be any larger bifurcation of play styles than those created by the disparate interpretations of the mechanics we’ve seen here?

In one set of mechanics, ranged combat has a distinct edge. Smart use of a sling or bow is strongly advantageous, leading to combats being conducted from the maximum possible distance. (And even when the combat tightens up, there’s still every reason to continue using your ranged weapon if you can.)

But in the other set of mechanics, the melee fighters grind up the battlefield — completely outclassing the damage-dealing capabilities of the ranged combatants through their sheer number of attacks per round.

Back to Reactions to OD&D

Go to Part 1

Reeva woke up before dawn with a stiff and scabrous back. The rest of the night passed quietly and, in the morning, they headed back down the stairs.

Two more guards had been placed at the far end of the rope bridge. But Thalmain and Trust kept them harried with missile fire while the rest of the party rushed across the bridge and engaged them. In short order they were dead.

It turned out that the guards had been standing duty outside of two large wooden doors.  Jorgen grabbed his 10-foot pole and jammed it through the handles of the doors, barring them shut… And just in time, too, as someone tried to open them from within.

“Dmitri! What is it? Are you all right?”

Jorgen tried to bluff them: “Everything’s fine!”

It didn’t work. Everything within fell quiet… too quiet.

Jorgen grabbed one of the broadswords the guards had carried and jammed it through the handles, taking back his 10-foot pole. Then they kicked the guards’ bodies over the edge of the chasm (they head a splash and a sickening crunch from below).

They headed off in a different direction, crossing over another rope bridge through a chasm where they were harried by giant bats. They eventually reached a chapel guarded by more of the ebon-eyed guards.

These guards they killed, but not before Jorgen, son of Karl, son of Nichol was brutally cut down. (And with a Constitution of 5, he wasn’t getting back up.)

Proceeding into the chapel they found a sacrificial altar hidden behind some black drapes. Bound to the altar and gagged was a prisoner: Herbert the Elf!

THAT’S ALL FOLKS!

And that’s where we ended the session. It was a weeknight and people were beginning to wear out. We’d gamed for about 4 hours (including the 45 minutes or so spent on going over the rules and creating characters at the beginning of the night).

Opinions of the evening were split.

The final PC death tally stood at 7. (It would have been 9 without the Constitution-based survival checks I was making.) After the TPK one of the players very visibly checked out of the game — it seemed like they just couldn’t be bothered to care any more. The player of Nichol/Karl/Jorgen/Herbert — while providing some of the best entertainment of the evening with her spontaneous explanation of dwarven mating habits — was becoming visibly pissed off by the end of it.

(As she later put it, “An entire dwarven family was destroyed tonight.”)

Another player later summed up their impression by saying, “OD&D = Death + Math.”

Everyone else seemed to enjoy themselves. At least one of the players seemed eager to continue playing through the scenario. (Given the mixed reactions from the others, I doubt that will happen. But we’ll see.)

From my perspective, I would have liked to see the Caverns of Thracia get a little more thoroughly explored. But on the flip-side, there was something extremely rewarding about watching the dungeon slowly assume that old school aura of terror/respect.

The players were also slowly learning (or re-learning) classic dungeoncrawling skills. They went from more-or-less barging straight ahead to taking a gradually more cautious and clever approach.

I’d also like to take the opportunity to say that the spontaneous coining of the name “anubis” for the dog-faced humanoid they confronted was probably the highlight of the evening for me. It just felt like the perfect Old School moment — like the first time someone referred to an illithid as a “mind flayer” and the name stuck or something — and I could easily see myself statting up a race of dog-faced anubians for a Monster Manual.

Rules mastery also plays a role in the success of a session. I was certainly struggling in several places trying to figure out how to handle certain things. (And the poor organization, layout, and wording of the rulebooks certainly didn’t help matters.) I was beginning to find my groove towards the end and I wouldn’t mind running a few more sessions in the Caverns just to get a feel for what it’s like to run OD&D from a position of having really internalized the system (however kooky it may be).

I have to, once again, beat down the temptation of trying to rewrite, codify, and re-organize the rules into something more useful. It would certainly make the game (much) easier to run, but it would also kill something vital. Decoding the rulebook is part of the experience here.

If I want to play a cleaned up version of this game, I’ve got 3rd Edition. (4th Edition, of course, is a completely different roleplaying game with no clear lineage to OD&D except its trademark.)

On the other hand, it might be interesting at some point to take the OD&D rulebooks and deliberately explore the path that wasn’t taken: Whenever a rule leaves itself open to interpretation or whenever Arneson and Gygax explicitly give us more than one option, take the path that subsequent editions of D&D didn’t take. See what sort of game you end up with and then refine it from there. Call it the D&D Apocrypha if you like.

Well, maybe some day. I’ve already got one game burning a hole in my pocket.

UPDATE: Continued…

Go to Part 1

When Nichol didn’t return to civilization, his explorer’s journal was sent to his son and heir, Karl. Karl hired a group of mercenaries and treasure hunters to accompany him into the jungle, hoping to discover the fate of his father. (This was my way of avoiding the need to generate fresh rumours on the Rumour Table.)

Karl was accompanied by the witches Reeva and Trust, a halfling fighter named Thalmain, and Fientar the Cleric. (The witches were just magic-users. Reeva, as you may already suspect, was run by the same player as Veera. It should be noted that, with this second group, a huge premium was placed on getting the best armor possible. Getting hit was directly equated to being dead, so heavy emphasis was immediately placed on not getting hit.)

This time the random 1d8 roll determined that they would be approaching the ruins from the southwest. As a result, they ended up practically stumbling over a short, squat building of gray-black stone that was hidden within a small copse of trees. A rusty gate on one side of the building led to a narrow flight of stairs that plunged down into darkness.

(I kinda regretted that they stumbled over this second entrance to the dungeons. It would have been nice for them to return to the first building they had explored, since (a) I’m sadistic and (b) the minotaur had ordered that the heads of the previous PCs be placed on spikes in the clearing in front of the building as a warning to others.)

Thalmain made some efforts to get the rusty door to open quietly. When that didn’t work he started trying to remove the hinges, but at that point Karl (like his father before him) got impatient and yanked the gate open with a hideous screeching noise.

They lit a lantern and headed down. The stairs bottomed out at a deep chasm. A rope bridge extended across the chasm. Karl inspected the bridge closely — ascertaining that it was of recent construction and in good repair — before starting to walk across.

Half-way across the bridge, a spear came flying out of the darkness. It impaled Karl through the chest. He collapsed.

(Nichol had a Constitution of 9 and survived his first brush with mortality. His son Karl, on the other hand, only had a Constitution of 6 and died instantly.)

Thalmain and Trust fired blindly (and ineffectively) into the darkness. Thalmain then got the idea to light one of his arrows on fire so that they could see what was on the other side of the bridge. The arrow soared over the head of a broadsword-wielding guard dressed in plate armor who was charging towards the bridge. Eerily, the guard’s eyes were solid black.

(The black eyes were my reaction to this passage from the rules (“Monsters & Treasure”, pg. 5):

…it is generally true that any monster or man can see in total darkness as far as the dungeons are concerned except player characters.

I thought this was rather silly. I felt there needed to be some explanation of this discrepancy. And thus the followers of Thanatos were given their ebon-eyed visage.)

Reeva tried to use her dagger to hack through the ropes holding up the bridge, but she was too slow. The ebon-eyed guard sliced open her back as he ran past her off the bridge. She collapsed in a pool of her own blood.

The others rallied, however, and quickly killed the guard without suffering any additional injuries. Worried about possible reinforcements, they grabbed all of the bodies (the guard, Reeva, and Karl) and dragged them back up the stairs and into the jungle. There they stripped the plate armor off the guard, discovered that Karl was dead, and dressed Reeva’s wound.

… AND BACK FOR MORE!

They heard someone approaching through the thick foliage of the jungle. Drawing their weapons they waited anxiously.

A dwarf walked out of the trees.

This was Jorgen, son of Karl, son of Nichol. He had been sent by his grandmother to find his father.

“Okay, we have some bad news for you…”

THE THIRD CHARACTER

Jorgen, of course, was the the third PC of the night for the player of Nichol and Karl. His ability scores were absolutely abominable: 9 Strength, 8 Intelligence, 4 Wisdom, 14 Dexterity, 5 Constitution, and 7 Charisma.

While she was waiting for Jorgen to be introduced, the player asked for another character sheet so that she could roll up her next character and “speed things up a bit”. She was clearly embracing the lethality of old school play.

She was less than happy, however, to discover that her next character (Herbert the Elf) would have had the best ability scores of the night: 13 Strength, 15 Intelligence, 17 Wisdom, 9 Dexterity, 12 Constitution, and 10 Charisma. He also ended up with 7 hit points (the maximum possible).

And thus the joking began: Dwarves, it was theorized, were cursed. That explained all the bad ability score rolls for Nichol, Karl, and Jorgen.

More importantly, how had Jorgen even found them with an Intelligence of 8 and Wisdom of 4?

“You hear noises approaching through the wood.”

“Okay, quick. Kill him now before you see him, then I can just switch over to Herbert.”

But no, Jorgen would live and Herbert would (for the nonce, anyway) be shelved.

Jorgen, however, quickly earned the nickname of “Wheezy” — his low Constitution leaving him with a horrible case of asthma and a slightly arhythmic heart. It turned out that Jorgen, son of Karl, son of Nichol was — like all dwarves — the result of horrible inbreeding. Dwarves, it turned out, bred in their underground warrens like rabbits. The tunnels were packed full of them. Which is probably why Jorgen was pushed out the front door and sent on his way. (“Go find your father!” “Didn’t he just leave like an hour ago? For god’s sake woman!” Cough. Cough. Wheeze.)

…

Okay, you probably had to be there. But by the end of it, we were all nearly dead from laughter. I could scarcely breathe.

Continued…

Go to Part 1

The PCs spent the night in the jungle, eating acrid centipede meat and narrowly avoiding some curious stirges. Shortly before dawn, Cruhst the Cleric heard a large party of some sort moving about in the clearing near the ruins. He crept closer, but it was a moonless night and he couldn’t make out more than vaguely humanoid shadows moving about.

The next morning, Nichol groggily regained consciousness and the party decided to return to the ruins.

When they reached the tree-breach in the building, Veera and Warrain pulled themselves up and peeked inside. They weren’t pleased by what they saw: Eight hyena-faced humanoids, a minotaur, and a dog-faced humanoid (which they termed an “anubis”) were lounging around the stairs, clearly keeping some sort of guard.

Warrain threw a sleep spell at them. The eight hyena-faced humanoids dropped like rocks, but the minotaur and the anubis were still on their feet. Warrain cursed. He and Veera both dropped to the ground and ran back towards the other.

From behind them, they could hear the minotaur shouting in Ancient Thracian (which, happily, Warrain could understand): “TREACHERY! KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!”

Warrain and Veera quickly explained the situation to the others and Warrain suggested that they run for it. But, instead, they stood there and debated.

The minotaur came running out of the building, loping up the side of the slanting tree and leaping down into the meadow. The injured Nichol and Warrain hung back, but Cruhst, Ghaleon, and Veera charged the minotaur.

The minotaur lowered his head, speared Cruhst through the chest, and threw him to one side like a ragdoll. The motion carried him between Ghaleon and Veera, who both swung wild and missed. The minotaur whirled toward them. Nichol took the opportunity to come up from behind and stab him.

Unfortunately, Cruhst’s death was only the beginning. Although they inflicted some remarkably grievous wounds on the minotaur, Ghaleon was knocked unconscious and then Warrain failed a saving throw against a sleep spell hurled by the anubis magic-user (who had climbed out onto the tree himself). Veera and Nichol didn’t last much longer.

Total Party Kill.

ANALYSIS OF A TPK

The dice did not like this group.

First you had the truly abominable rolling for hit points. In a group with a total of 5D + 3 hit points, they ended up with only 12 hit points. (The average result is 20.5 hit points.)

Then there was the random encounter: There was a 60% chance that there would be a random encounter in that particular building. The encounter was rolled on the Gnoll Patrol table. I rolled a 6 on 1d6, generating the worst possible result: 8 gnolls + a special.

So I rolled on the Specials table… and got a 6 on 1d6, generating a result of “reroll twice on this table”. I then rolled the two hardest opponents on the table.

Clerics in OD&D, it turns out, don’t have any spells at 1st level. Which means there’s no magical healing. You would think this would be significant, but since everyone pretty much died the first time they were hit, it wouldn’t have made much difference.

Tactically, they knew the minotaur was bad news. The shouldn’t have tried to engage it in the first place. Having engaged it, they should have followed Warrain’s advice to run or tried to lay some sort of ambush (instead of standing out in the open and talking about it).

The entire foray (exploring the building, going down and fighting the lizardmen, coming back up, and fighting the minotaur-led gnolls) took about 20-30 minutes of playing time.

A few of my players were ready to toss in the towel at this point, but the rest of us talked them into rolling up a new set of characters and trying it again.

Continued…