Zac's combat challenge

Author: DHBoggs / Labels:

So I tried posting this as a comment on Zacs blog for this post http://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2011/09/does-system-matterto-rancor.html

But for reasons unknown to me it just won't post.  What the heck, I'll just put it here.

Fun Challenge

Dragons at Dawn (Dave Arneson tribute game)
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/dragons-at-dawn/16163330
Luke is a Hero level Priest , Monk subclass, Order of the Jedi
Level 4, HD 2+1, HPV 8.  He is unarmored, therefore AC1,  Scores: Appearance 6; Brains 8; Cunning 8; Dexterity 9; Health 8; Strength 7; 

Rancor is apparently a non regenerative variety of true troll or something like it with the ability to swallow victims, so well give him (her?) an AC 6, HD12, HPV 46, Dexterity 5.

Gammoriean – why bother. 1 HD AC4 (leather).
Note: because the Rancor is a stupid beast, the Referee does not apply any level adjustment benefits that might otherwise be due to a 12 HD combatant facing a 4 HD combatant.

Round 1

The gammorrean falls into the pit.  The Referee decides to begin the Gamorrean at “disrupted” morale state – Rolls a failure and the Gamorean is now “routed” for 18 rounds.

Luke falls into the pit.  He is not hurt but is surprised for one round and the Referee applies a penalty to his Morale roll.  He fails, and drops one step to “shaken” for 2 rounds (minutes). (at Luke’s level, Morale rolls are optional for players, but we will assume the Ref likes to use them.)

The Rancor easily passes his morale roll and attacks the Gamorean.  Size is the only modifier that applies (12/10 = 1.2 rounded to +1) in the Gammorean’s favor, but being routed, receives only ¼ of Fighting Strength (1HD +1)/(4)  - Resulting in “Less than 1 FS” or  12 FS vs  >1 on the matrix.  This means the Rancor only needs an 11 or less on 2d6 to hit.  The roll is good; the Gammorean is hit.  Being generous, the Ref allows an Armor Class Saving throw for the Gamorean (AC4), but rolls a 5.  The Gammorean is knocked down, scooped up  and quickly eaten.

Meanwhile, The Priest (Luke), picks up a bone , retreats,  and surveys the room for details.

Round 2

Rancor: The Rancor, still possessing the Morale advantage, attempts to grab Luke.  The Referee, considers the situation and asks the Priests player to make a 2d6 dex roll at -4.  Despite Luke’s excellent dexterity (9), the roll fails and the Rancor has him and gives a good squeeze (lets say 1d6 damage – about 3 HPV) to soften him up before devouring.

Luke:  the Priest/Monk however, decides  not to attack with the bone, realizing the most he could possibly do – assuming a successful hit and 6’s on all damage die – would be 14 points of damage.  Instead he decides to jam it in the Rancor’s mouth to prevent being eaten.  The Referee considers the action and requests a Dex roll at -1.  A 6 is rolled and the move is declared successful.

Luke is dropped. The Referee allows a saving throw vs. Health (just to mix it up), but Luke’s player rolls high (a 10) and fails the roll.  Since the drop isn’t very far, the Referee rolls 1d4 for damage and gets 2 -  bringing Luke’s total down to 3 HPV.

Round 3

Luke’s Moral has now returned to normal.  The Referee decides a new Morale Throw should be made.  Both the Rancor and the Priest pass, but Luke’s roll is much higher.  The Referee decides a momentum shift has occurred and grants Luke the initiative.

Luke: Luke throws a rock at the Rancor, an activity at which he is quite skilled (+4),  requiring a combat roll.  Luke gains a +1 for size modifier, +4 for Dexterity (9-5 = 4), giving a total adjustment of +5 to FS.  Added to his 2 + 1  HD, Luke gets an FS of 7 vs. the Rancor’s FS of 12.  On the matrix, 7 vs. 12 requires a 3 or better to hit.  Adding Luke’s skill bonus, that become a 7 or better.  Lukes’ player rolls a 6, hitting the Rancor. Using the split move allowed to shooters, Luke now backs away from the Rancor, opening a door and moving into the next room.

Rancor: as Luke backs away, the beast attempts another grab.  Luke’s player makes a successful save vs. dexterity.

Round  4

Luke:  the Priest attempts to open a barred doorway – the Referee looks at the Priest’s strength score and declares an automatic failure.   Instead the player opts to use a projectile “split move” again (move and shoot), and declares Luke will pick up a rock throw it at the Portcullis controls as the Rancor passes under.  Throwing against a nearby stationary object would normally require a Dexterity Throw, but given Luke’s throwing skill and his high dexterity, he cannot miss.

Rancor:   The Rancor is slowed by the confined space but begins to enter the second room just as Luke throws the rock.  The Referee does not bother to calculate the damage as portcullis through the brain is fatal even to Rancor kind.

0 comments

Dragon Economics

Author: DHBoggs / Labels: ,

I’m very interested by the French and Indian war period in North American history.  I’ve made it a point to visit, repeatedly if possible, any sites from the period I can.  One that’s on my list of yet to do’s is Fort Frederick in Maryland.
Not much happened there during the war, but the place itself is of unique interest because of the fort.  Unlike most of the British and colonial log forts, fort Frederick is made of stone.  Otherwise, it is much the same in design and situation.  It was a wilderness fort, built to guard the frontier, but built with permanence in mind.  It has four large corner bastions, three large interior building and four 180’l x 17h curtain walls.

Recent discussions on the Adventurer, Conqueror, King system, got me thinking about fort Frederick.  The parallels to building a D&D “borderlands” stronghold really struck me.   True, its not medieval, but for all intents and construction purposes, fort Frederick might as well be, but unlike your typical medieval scenario, we have an actual record of what it cost to build.  Further, we know the general range of wages being paid to craftsmen, so it provides one opportunity to convert real money into gaming gold. 
The actual historic cost to build Fort Frederick was 6000 pounds
Carpenter’s wages around 1760 when the fort was completed were circa 45 - 50 pounds a year (about  1/125th the cost of the fort) , and wages for other types of craftsmen are in the same ballpark. 
If we turn to the 3LBB’s and the equivalents in the FFC we can look at how much it would cost for an OD&D gaming character to build a stronghold identical to Ft Frederick; they would need to pay for the following:
Four  180’ curtain walls (7000 gp each)    28,000 GP
Four bastions (3000 + 20% for added height)  14400 GP
Three stone buildings  (2500 each)  7500 GP
Total  GP 49,900
Now, since we know that a mid 18th century carpenters yearly wage was about 125th the cost of building Ft Frederick and that it would cost 49,900 GP to build in D&D land, we can calculate the carpenters wage for D&D.   The Carpenters yearly wage should be 400 GP (33 GP per month).
Now here is where it gets interesting.  It is no secret that original D&D’s economics come almost straight from Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor campaign.  Indeed the original drawing showing castle construction and prices in the first through 3rd print of the 3LBB’s is one of Daves little sketches.  I’ve always wondered at the costs and wages given in OD&D, whether there really was any logic behind them or if they were just pulled out of the proverbial arse.  It turns out that a wage of 33 gp a month is entirely consistent with the wages for OD&D craftsmen.  A smith for example makes 20 gp a month (25 in the D&D draft), an armorer 100 GP (75 FFC, 80 per the draft).  So, as far as non military wages go, the wage to expense ratios seem about right in OD&D.  The equipment lists may have some issues, (armor for one) but most things are reasonably priced in regards to the wages being earned.
Oddly, this changes dramatically in AD&D.  AD&D is much more nuanced and varies a bit between 1e and 2e; the yearly income of the average craftsperson varies between about 20 - 40 GP a year.  A tailor earns 30GP a year, a carpenter 40 calculated as 300 work days at 3sp a day and 20 sp = 1 gp.  That’s only 3.3 GP a month – one tenth.  The construction costs are indeed much less too, but not nearly enough to balance out.  Building fort Frederick using the AD&D structure cost yields a fortress cost of around 11,000 GP.  Instead of a ratio of 1 to 125, wages to expense – that’s a ratio of 1 to 275.  In other words, using the AD&D carpenters wage and the fort Frederick historic rates for wage to cost, the AD&D fortress should cost 5000 GP,  instead of more than twice that.  What is further odd about AD&D is that some of the wages given for specialists do not change from OD&D, creating a wildly swinging economic picture – Armorers are still 100 gp/month, smiths, 30.
Interestingly, 2e restores construction cost to something more in line with OD&D, but the poor carpenter gets only a slight bumpt to 5 gps a month, making his lot in life even worse!
The upshot of all of this is that Arnesons rates – particularly if you use the adjusted ranges given in the FFC, seem to work well together in terms of historic norms.  I wouldn’t be too surprised if he was using Napoleonic era data as a base of some sort, but whatever it may be, the numbers weren’t just pulled out of a hat or an arse.
Except, for mercenaries.  Here the OD&D prices are screwy.  Soldiers are dead cheap (20 GP a year for Heavy Horse!)  It may be that concessions were being made for wargaming purposes, but the root of the trouble with troop costs is that the started off as nothing more than the CHAINMAIL “point” costs.  Observe:


Classification
CHAINMAIL
OD&D

Non-Fighter

1

Light Foot
1
2

Heavy Foot
2
3

Armored foot
2 ½
-

Archer

5

Crossbowman
3
4

Longbowman
4
10

Light Horseman
3
10

Medium Horseman
4
15

Heavy Horseman
5
20



I didn’t give the FFC prices here because there are two different lists and it’s not straightforward  how they work.   Some calculation is required.  Perhaps this is exactly why Gygax used his own Chainmail figures for the mercenaries lists, while using figures derived from Arneson for the other Hirelings.  The Horse rates in the 3 lBBS are just the Chainmail rates times 4 (rounded), the others look as if the wrong column was being read, just a point off.  Clearly, the mercenary GP costs were only a slight variation on the CHAINMAIL point costs rules, with little relation to the rest of the economy.    
Looking closer at the FFC, one list is prices for the 2nd Coot Invasion (1973).  The income was calculated by season, but what’s not clear is if the expenses were by season also, meaning multiply cost times 4, maybe.  The earl of Vestfold and the King of the Great Kingdom must pay 550 gp for a heavy horse, but if that’s per season then the yearly cost is a pricey 2200.   
A couple page later Arneson gives another list that seems to be the basis of the Hirelings list found in OD&D, which it basically matches, thus revising the earlier Coot Invasion figures.  Here the rate for an unequipped Horseman is a mere 10 GP a year, but add Horse armor (320), chainmail, (24), a horse (l25,m100,h400), helmet (2), saddle (6) spear (5), etc., and we are already looking at close to 800 GP a year for a heavy horseman.
So, in both cases Arneson had a much more economically consistent wages to expenses economic mileau in place, which became somewhat muddied in OD&D and utterly trounced in AD&D.

0 comments

critiquing the comfort zone of gaming habit

Author: DHBoggs / Labels: ,

Some well received and inspiring lessons;  
The process of learning to DM/story-telling is best discovered in the trenches by  creating our own dungeons/locales.  This personalizes the experience 100% and builds in layers of confidence, objectivity and other enhancements of a greater type not found in running  pre-made adventures. The difference between creating your own story and reading it aloud rather than reading aloud another's.
For the most part many of us were weaned  in "Fun House" climes; but whatever the "adventure"  environment, one learns rudiments and essentials and these thereafter take root and grow according to the prevailing creative force in every individual as expressed through personal understanding and application, and in differing degrees.
Robert J. Kuntz, Aug 2011 http://lordofthegreendragons.blogspot.com/ (Rob has a lot more to say on the subject - have a look)



I distinctly remember Dave and Gary in early 1974 reacting with astonishment to the relative avalanche of letters asking for settings, backgrounds, and "how do I do this in the game." For them, coming up with those things WAS the fun part. They couldn't understand why people wanted to pay somebody else to have the fun for them.
Michael Mornard
ODD74 Forum: Re: More thoughts on how D&D has changed, « Reply #8 on Jul 23, 2011, 1:14pm »   http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi


When Dragonlance DL1 is held up as the module that heralded beginning of the end by OD&Ders there is something they are not making clear enough. If you are producing adventures like that yourself, terrific, but to use such a well-knit published module is a dead end because there is no room for personal touches and what do you do when you've finished it? Try to mimic the designer's style from then on? Bad idea. These modules influence how you think as a DM, as did the classics from the old days (if you used them) even if they allowed each DM more autonomy.
I say 'why use published modules at all?' At intermediate level as a DM your sources should be fiction, literary as well as straight fantasy, so READ widely…  At beginning levels use your imagination and look for artwork, ruined abbey by a river, witch's house in a small wood, stone circle on a barren coast, and use the monster manual. It takes so long to play a game, have confidence (if you have talent) that plenty of ideas will come to you so you can grow from the simplest start. Think of the cliche and discard it. Now think of something that needs explaining or investigation; a handsome young knight is seen leaving the witch's hovel; on a stormy night a tentacle reaches up over the clifftop, rights a toppled stone from the ring and touches each other stone in turn before disappearing; a terrified but determined painter is discovered near the ruined abbey spending many hours trying to capture the evening light...
Kent, January 2009.
http://somekingskent.blogspot.com/2009/01/ive-been-reading-about-old-school-od.html

...there are only three OD&D bonuses, when not using Greyhawk: missile bonus, hp bonus, reaction bonus.  And the first two are pretty limited.  And I'm struggling to think of non-ability bonuses in the LBBs.  There are some percentile bonuses for the evasion rules, and bonuses from magic, but I don't remember seeing any codified bonuses or penalties for combat situations (attack from behind, darkness penalties, etc.) Bonuses seem to be impromptu for the most part, and few and far between. … I think impromptu bonuses versus codified bonuses is just another example of the DIY vs. official support split in the way the game changed.  Just as in the past you played in the DM's world, you played in the DM's ideas about who had the advantage in a situation, so you got a +/- 1 or 2 as the DM saw fit, and really not much else.  But that changed to playing in an official setting, with official rules, and thus the DM becomes not someone with a good idea, but someone willing to be tricked into mastering all the minutiae of both the setting and the rules.
John "Talysman" August 2011 http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=6104&page=3#79664


 Referring to using the AD&D monster manual with it’s added statistics and monster details in an OD&D game Dave Arneson wrote, “As I have said many times before. Work with what works for you. But be very aware that this adds complications and draws you and your players away from the real treasure, THE STORY.”
It was his last web post. March 22, 2009 http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=othereditions&thread=1775&page=1

3 comments

% in Lair

Author: DHBoggs / Labels: , ,

The first book of gaming goodness that I ever owned, months before I ever played in a roleplaying game or really even knew what RPG meant, was the AD&D monster manual , 4th edition, which I have sitting on my lap now.
Many of the stats listed for the beasties seemed cryptic to my 11 year old brain, but perhaps none more so than % in Lair.
I think I, along with a great deal of other gamers  thought this little stat meant “How often the monster(s) is home”, and that seemed pretty useless considering the game was supposed (I thought) to revolve around detailed adventure modules in which the designer choose what room or other a particular monster was in.
% in Lair was thus safely ignored for 30 years.
And then I read this little bit in the FFC. “For each encounter, consult the Encounter Matrix for the type of creature that lives at each spot…   The normal chances of the creature being in it's lair are worked out as they normally are. So if Encounter Six has a 30% chance of being found in it's lair, then that percentage is used and the number of creatures encountered will then be any number up to the total number present in the hex.  Again to avoid confusion, you may wish to take the maximum number of creatures that are listed on the Monster Matrix as representative of the population in the hex for each encounter, given a plus or minus 10% to keep the players on their toes.   For each time that the creatures are found in their lairs, there will be a chance that a portion of them are out in the countryside.  To determine this number, assume that 40% of the population is always in the camp and that up to 60% (10 - 6O%) are always outside of the camp.”

Wait, what?  Here Arneson is saying percent in lair is not a statistic telling us how often the monsters hang out in their lairs.  Arneson tells us that where several monsters exist in a lair, 40 – 90% of them will be found “in lair”.  hmmm.  Next I turned to my trusted MM in the hope of clarification and read:

“% in Lair indicates the chance of encountering the monster where it domiciles…..”

Domiciles

So % in lair, whatever else it might be, it indicates the chance that players have actually found a lair in a given hex, be it a dungeon, a castle, a thieves den, whatever.  It turns out to be a vital statistic for hexcrawling.

Gygax, in the MM goes on to indicate that it will also mean encountering the monster.   But he seems to be missing something here, the fact that not all monsters are singular and multiple type monster populations – bandits lets say, aren’t always all in the same place at the same time.  It would seem that % in Lair was one of Arnesons stats for hexcrawling that Gary may not have fully used or understood in the same way, leaving out the % not home part.  So when we turn to the FFC and read 40 – 90% of a given population may be out of lair when the lair is encountered – it becomes clear that the "in Lair" stats most important function, one very useful to the hexcrawl Referee, is telling what the likelihood of randomly finding a lair is, regardless of how many or who may be home.

For single creatures, it gets interesting. Dragons especially so.  The FFC, gives different chances of a dragon being in its lair depending on type and gender and it does so in two different and conflicting entries – one co authored with Richard Snider, the other, older d6/CHAINMAIL based material.  Arneson and Snider’s AiF  also gives a % chance a dragon is home that differs yet again.  None of these are anything like OD&D’s % in Lair stat for dragons.  So in the case of dragons, it’s easy enough to use one of Arneson’s stats for determining when various types of dragons are in their lair, and OD&D’s % in Lair for when the lair is found itself.

In summary, a % lair roll should be made after a positive encounter roll occurs when adventurers enter an area to see if they have stumbled on the lair or some wandering group outside their lair.  if it is a wandering group, it will be some portion of 10 – 60% (1-6 on a d6, split in half for each roll of 6) of the lair population.  

10 comments

The Narrator

Author: DHBoggs / Labels:

A brief thought for this morning
What are role playing games?  They are collective stories told, usually with the aid of dice to randomize some results.
The players are the protagonists.
But I mean all the players, including the game master – as the voice of the setting they are a “character” of the world too.
The narrative structure of the story is the rulebook.
The question then is; do you prefer the narration to have a more overt, heavy handed presence?  Or would you prefer the narration to fade, usually unseen, buried into the background of the story? 
That’s the experiential difference between rules light and rules robust gaming.

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Random Humans and Their Lairs

Author: DHBoggs / Labels: , ,


In the D&D Draft it tells us this. “Castles: Castles can be specified on the map, or may appear much like wandering monsters, …".

Two of the entries in the random Humans table for CoZ  ought to be immediately familiar to OD&D players: Bandits and Nomads.  The “monster descriptions” haven’t been published yet so you’ll just have to take my word at the moment for what is there. 

The Nomad entry incorporates Buccaneers and dervishes (as raiders) in addition to the new label of Drifter, and the Bandit entry has a sub category of rebels.  These granularities allow for different circumstances.  Even so, all of these are built off their familiar FFC/3lbb counterparts and are pretty standard fare.

But there are two other human encounters listed in the CoZ table that aren’t easily found in the traditional monster manual.   First, lets look at “angry mob”.  Angry mob is none other than the quirky “angry villager rule” of OD&D.  In OD&D, encounters with angry villagers of near unstoppable frenzy are suggested as a method for punishing unruly players.  Rather than have it come up never or only at the whim of a capricious DM, I thought it made most sense to allow angry villagers as a possible random encounter.  Arnesons version in his manuscript expands a bit on what is already in the 3lBBs in terms of their ferocity and resilience and I weave that into CoZ.

The next possible encounter is that of Retainers – that is to say, armed courtiers of some lord or leader of some kind, who may or may not be present.

You won’t find “retainers” in the OD&D monster lists; but then again you will find plenty about them in the Underworld and Wilderness section on Castles.  Retainers, as presented in the CoZ “monster” description are modeled on the rather extensive rules for randomly generating castle inhabitants.  The “inhabitants” are the retainers.

Why would I turn “castle inhabitants” into a wandering monster?

 Immediately after you generate your monster for the Hex, you generate its lair.  It is therefore entirely possible to generate a group of retainers (or bandits, or an angry mob) who live in or have occupied a castle, a cave, or some other structure.

So, by incorporating both angry mob and retainers in the lists, Champions of ZED takes two of the more quirky and interesting encounter types in OD&D and seamlessly embeds them into the map generation rules in a way that allows a great deal of variety in how they might actually play out.

Next, a closer look at lairs and the ideas behind them.

1 comments

The Somewhat Random Board

Author: DHBoggs / Labels: , ,

Here’s one of the secrets of 3lBB OD&D – it’s a game of poker, not a game of chess.
In Chess, the board is set a certain way every time, in poker the hand you are dealt is random.
Empire of the Petal Throne pioneered the “chess” route for game worlds, but in 1974, EPT and complex top down worlds were not what was on Gygax and Arnesons mind.  D&D was designed around the idea of deal the out the cards and let the chips fall where they may. 
Dice and randomizers were being used in wargames to determine hits and so forth, but OD&D went an order of magnitude further by encouraging players to let the dice randomly generate the whole world, and the encounters in it. 
Dice rule CoZ.
And so, adventures start with a map.
A blank map
From there the fates take over.
But of course, the fates help those who help their elf. The idea behind these tables isn't to push a button and have the whole campaign world spread out before you, but to create opportunities for decsions about the world within the general guidlines desired, while still leaving a good bit up to chance and mystery and allowing for organic growth as the campaign unfolds.   One tricky bit when translating those OD&D tables into something broadly useable, and this is doubly true of Arnesons FFC tables, is that the assumption throughout is that you will be recreating a fantasy northern Europe.  To be sure, that assumption is not always the case, mention is made of Mars for example, but the default always seems to be oak forest and wheat fields under a cloudy sky.
So in recreating the tables I made a deliberate effort to make sure there was flexibility there.  The first tables talk about choosing a biome, making it clear, from the get go (I hope) that you can generate your map in whatever kind of world you want to, or if you really want to, you can let the dice pick that for you too.
Another thing I felt was needed was an elevation table.  OD&D & FFC tables just call for hills or canyons.
Dave Arneson’s detailed instructions for drawing your own fantasy map are what inform the bulk of  the first two sections, including the tables for population centers. (FFC 80:25-27)
Creature Encounters, section 3, then draws more from the 3LBBs.  The first table, both in D&D’s Underworld and Wilderness Adventure and Champions of Zed is broad and generic and based a category of creature you might find in a given terrain.  Coz then  recognizes that the individual tables rolled on need to be specific to the campaign world and designed by the referee just as the 3LBB’s give examples of creatures in a Martian campaign.
Although Coz strongly encourages the making of custom encounter tables examples are given  with lists of creatures that will be found in the monster manual.  Of these the Humans table is likely the most interesting, and I’ll talk more about that in another post.

2 comments

The Game Board of OD&D

Author: DHBoggs / Labels: ,


"Off-hand adventures in the wilderness are made on the OUTDOOR SURVIVAL playing board (explained below). Exploratory journies, such as expeditions to find land suitable for a castle or in search of somelegendary treasure are handled in an entirely different manner.” Underworld and Wilderness Adventures, P. 15


“REFEREE'S MAP is a wilderness map unknown to the players. It should be for the territory around the dungeon location. When players venture into this area they should have a blank hexagon map, and as they move over each hex the referee will inform them as to what kind of terrain is in that hex. This form of exploring will eventually enable players to know the lay of the land in their immediate area and thus be able to select a site upon which to build their castles. (Castle building and its attendent requirements will be covered hereafter.) Exploratory adventures are likely to be the most exciting, and their incorporation into the campaign is most desirable.”
UWA, p 16

You might have to read that again, because 40 years of habit have all but obliterated the simple fact that in 1974 Gygax and Arneson expected Dungeons and Dragons, players to have a game board on the table.  That’s right D&D was designed as a board game!
Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit, but not much. The "map board" game came onto the table after the dungeon, so it wasn’t meant to be present at every gaming session, but the statement that “exploratory adventures are likely to be the most exciting.” definitely encourages the hexcrawl exploration on a tabletop map and tells us that wilderness travel wasn't intended just to be hops between dungeons, but an exploratory expedition itself.
Champions of Zed takes this idea at face value.  Sure you don’t have to play this way, but having players fill out a hex map as they move from place to place is fun!
The underlying assumption throughout OD&D is that the” wilderness” will be created as the game progresses, dens and lairs will be fleshed out, castles and towns will appear, distant kingdoms will be named and so on, and there will always be more to see just over the horizon.  Sure, you can go buy MegaWorld and place your game in it – sometimes there’s a place for that – or you can design your own Megaworld – that can be fun too – but the old games – Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Khalibruhn, Fred’s World, even Magira – these were community projects where players and dungeon masters and dice collaborated, one hex, town, and dungeon at a time.
This is why CoZ starts off not with character creation, but world creation.  The emphasis is on the adventure, the exploration, not the explorer per se.   Just a few days ago, Michael Mornard, who played in both Greyhawk and Blackmoor before D&D was even published made this very interesting comment on Finarvyns ODD74 forum “…And that was the first year or so of how the game grew... "Hey, who wants to explore MY dungeon?" The game was centered around the referee, and the idea of the game was to explore the referee's world.  At some point this changed. The mindset became, "We want play being a bunch of heroes, who can we talk into refereeing?" The game became centered on the idea of the players' adventures rather than the referee's world.”
Next post I’ll go “under the hood” of CoZ and look at the sources for the section on Hex map creation.

7 comments

Thinking about climbing the social ladder

Author: DHBoggs /

This post isn't specifically about Champions of Zed, but is more about the Domain level of play in whatever version.
So, I’m going to jump ahead in the rules a bit and discuss something that’s long seemed a trouble spot in gaming rules – social capital and social power.  Here is what I mean specifically: suppose your character is a thief and you decide you want your character to join the local mafia and work your way up the hierarchy to become godfather.  Alternatively, maybe you want to have the character start their own mafia.  Or maybe your character is a wizard in a guild or a fighter in some fighting brotherhood – whatever.
In D&D, traditionally it just sort of happens.  Suddenly at level x you are king of the hill.  Okay, but there’s a chance for gaming being glossed over there.
Trouble is, trying to write rules for human social interaction and upward mobility can quickly descend into a complex morass, so it is not something I was eager to tackle.
The recent developments of Borderlands and Adventurer Conqueror Kings have inspired me to think about this some more though, so I pulled out a couple of the books I thought might provide some for thought Timothy Earl’s “How Chiefs Come to Power” and Raymond Firth’s “Elements of Social Organization”, and a few scattered papers on the rise of social power in small societies (mostly Brian Hayden’s) that I won’t bother you with.  
Then I thought about what is already in the 3LBB’s and the FFC – the Loyalty Trait (Men and Magic p13).  Loyalty – which for Arneson was synonymous with Ego - is essentially a seventh “ability score” meant primarily for NPC (although Arneson suggested that it could optionally apply to players too).  Its main use is to modify morale throws.  Here is the section I have prepared for CoZ:
“Loyalty Trait 
All Non-Player Characters (including monsters) in the service of Player Characters must be given a Loyalty Trait.  Loyalty Traits are a kind of Character Trait generated by rolling 3d6.  It primarily determines possible benefits or penalties to Morale Throws but can be used for other situations such as temptations to steal or attempts at bribery.  Adjustments to this score are made for the Player Character’s Charisma Trait and for other factors as determined by the Referee.  For example, hirelings continually exposed to extra-hazardous duty, poorly paid and so forth may receive a -1 or -2 to their Loyalty.  NPC’s kept in service may receive a +1 bonus for every year of time in game. If they are treated particularly well, given bonus pay, and participate in successful adventures, this bonus may be increased to +2 or +3 a year.  The players, of course, can not know the hirelings Loyalty Trait, shy of reading their minds.”

Okay; now here is what I’m thinking (and this goes beyond the CoZ rules and may appear in the expansion).  The loyalty trait lends itself to Domain Level play as a mechanism for playing out the power struggle in groups, because just as Morale can be applied to either an individual or a unit “loyalty” can be applied to a group too.  Winning friends and influencing (or coercing) people is how, broadly speaking, “chiefs” come to power, or as the line from Beowulf puts it “Behavior that’s admired is the path to power everywhere.”
There are three ways to wield power over others
1.       Inheritance
2.       Conquest
3.       Social mobility

These are not mutually exclusive.  Characters may wish to increase their social power within the game; fighters may wish to rule realms, mages may wish to lead magic guilds, preists may wish to head a religious order and so forth. 

Of the three, social mobility is essential, even when not a factor of gaining power, the rules of social mobility are necessary to maintain, and potentially increase it. (Just ask Ceasar)

To determine a characters ability to rise within an organization, or to found and grow an organization, or to maintain power from year to year, a  group loyalty trait known as a Power Index must be assigned.

The Power Index functions generally as individual Loyalty does except the Trait is assigned to the group the character wishes to exercise power in, and it usually starts off low – at 3 unless otherwise determined by the Referee. (or maybe it should just be 0)
To this figure are added or subtracted a number of factors, the value of which, positive or negative must be judged by the referee.

The factors affecting the Power Index are as follows:
Blood
Wealth
Fame
Favors
Trustworthiness
Suki Relationships (Exchange)
Coor Relationships (community)
Length of Association
Generosity
Intimidation
Oratory/Charisma
Adherence to Tradition
Honor Debt
Kin Ties
(all I've got so far)


“From each according to his status obligations in the social system, to each according to his rights in that system”  Raymond Firth, Elements of Social Organization;  p142 Third edition 1961

Any time there is a significant shift in circumstance the Referee should recalculate the character’s power index and make a Loyalty Throw.

Competition within a group is simply a matter of comparing the Power Index scores of each competitor – highest one wins. 


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Zero Edition Dungeoneering - a beginning

Author: DHBoggs / Labels: ,

This first weblog entry is something of an experiment as I've never 'blogged before.  So we shall see how it goes.  I'll begin by reposting and expanding on a post I left on the ODD74 forum...


The cat is out of the bag. Those who have gotten the latest issue of Fight On! may have noticed an article by me describing a true to OD&D method of building the campaign world hex by hex from the ground up. The article introduces the Champions of ZED (Zero Edition Dungeoneering) role playing game. "What's this Boggs?" you say, "Have you written another game?" Well, yes I have. Building off of all the research that went into into Dragons at Dawn, and Holmes to Level 12, and concurrent with all the work on D@D Supplement I, and on my yet to be released study of what I argue is Dave Arnesons 1973 D&D draft, I prepared the manuscript for Champions of Zed. I realized that the only way for me to master and make use of all this material in a way that would be of real benefit to everyone was to create a retro clone that reconciles all the scattered OD&D threads.   Serious Work began last November and finished in June of this year.  Here is a little piece from the introduction to explain what I mean:


"A little story: In the late 1960’s a history major at the University of Minnesota began work on a naval wargame set in the Civil War. He shared his rules with a cobbler in Lake Geneva Wisconsin who was very interested in naval wargames and who had published various rules for wargames previously. The cobbler – Gary Gygax – and the undergrad - Dave Arneson – began to work together on the rules, which they agreed to switch from Civil War to the Napoleonic period. After a time, the two hired an editor/co author Mike Carr, to pull together their work into a single set of rules. The result was a game called “Don’t Give Up The Ship™” published in 1972 by Guidion Games. Meanwhile, Gygax published a set of medieval and fantasy wargames rules and Arneson began experimenting with fantasy roleplaying as an outgrowth of the historical character driven play he had been doing in Dave Wesely’s Braunstein games. Arneson and Gygax began collaborating again via phone and post. Being separated by hundreds of miles, each produced separate sets of notes and manuscripts. In January of 1974 Gygax published his manuscript and the world’s first fantasy role playing game became available for purchase in three, somewhat confusing, little brown booklets. Such is history, but, what if things had gone differently? What if, instead of publishing a manuscript that Arneson wasn’t at all satisfied with, Gygax had agreed to bring in an editor – much as they had done with Mike Carr previously – to take a look at all the material prepared by both men and put it all together in a better organized and edited fashion?


To the extent possible, that is what Champions of Zed is. Champions of ZED aims to be very, very close in fact and spirit to the original three game booklets published in 1974, related materials directly from the two authors, and relevant portions of the Medieval Miniatures rules of 1971. Nevertheless its purpose is not just to please a limited group of game Grognards. Rather Champions of Zed is designed to serve as a pathway to a different and neglected style of collective world building and gaming fun...."


The most important of those "related materials" of course are the old portions of the FFC, house rules and web posts from Gary and Dave, and Arnesons draft of the rules.


Here on the 'blog I will discuss various sections, both what has been published already and previews of what is to come.  It will be both a read through of the rules and an opportunity for kibbitzers to possibly influence thier final form.


The future of CoZ - what to expect:


Champions of Zed will be serialized in Fight On! magazine, probably somewhat abridged.  The rules are written, done.  But I choose sit on them and let them marinate, tease them out through Fight On and give everyone a chance to digest them bit by bit.  Why?


I have made every effort to make Champions of Zed a masterwork of OD&D and I'm not interested in rushing it or publishing early.  It's got to be perfect. 


When FO! is through with it I will put out the whole thing as a .pdf and POD, including a free no art version.


There will also be a delux illustrated game, and a follow on hardback expansion to an "all under one cover" rulebook.  My goal is simply to make this a "go to" product for fans of the Classic and Original game.

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