What to Buy Instead of WotC's "The Making of Original D&D"

For several years I have avoided giving WotC my hard earned money. I have patiently waited for the rest of the world to wake up and do the same. Today, I wish to be much more specific and proactive.

WotC recently announced the publication of The Making of Original D&D in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Game. It is currently available for pre-order on Amazon for about $100. Please do not order this product. In the years that followed my open letter to WotC about their warning label on legacy products, not only have they not removed their label, but have gone on to treat their customers, fans, and even their own employees with contempt and malice. We don't need WotC or Hasbro in order to play and grow our game.

If, like me, you are interested in a product that explores the origins of the game in fascinating and applicable ways, I encourage you to spend your money in a much more responsible way and be treated to a fascinating and highly useful book: The lost Dungeons of Tonisborg.

If you don't mind giving Amazon some of your money,
you can pick up a paperback edition for a mere $30. 

This book has history, facsimiles of a dungeon designed and played prior to the publication of D&D, an updated version of that same dungeon, a guide on how to play the game as it was prior to 1974, and (best of all) a set of rules based upon the way Arneson and Gygax ran the game. This is amazing stuff and a treat for anyone interested in the history of the game.

For those of you who have it, what is the rule that blew your mind the most? For me, it was the idea of rolling up a character's base saving throws randomly!

Again, let WotC rot and spend money on people who actually care about this game and its history. 

Gamer ADD: Toward and Old School version of 5e Part 2

One of the things that drives me batty about 5e has nothing to do with either the system or the mechanics. I really despise the presentation and layout. Awhile ago, I did an experiment to see if I could to a “Player’s Guide” for my Lost Colonies campaign world for 5e. It was a nightmare. Trying to figure out what a class can do at any given level is a chore that can result in looking up several different references in different parts of the rulebook. The process was so headache-inducing that I gave up trying.

When my Gamer ADD-addled brain started thinking about treading down the 5e road again, I did not want the published core books (or any other books) involved. Dealing with just the SRD (while still too complicated in its presentation) makes things easier to deal with.

Thus, when thinking about an Old School Hack of 5e, I want the presentation to be simple and easy to digest. One easy editorial decision that will make that process easier is to limit the number of levels covered in the game. 0e covers Fighters and Clerics up to 10th level and Magic-users to 16th. I have been playing this game since 1979 and I have only seen two characters make it to 9th level. I played one (a bard in 3.5 that retired at 9th level) and the other was a PC in my Lost Colonies Campaign (LL). Thus, from a practice experience POV, having a game only cover levels 1-10 seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Of course, my experience is almost exclusively with xp being awarded according to older rule-sets where xp is not only harder to come by, but 1xp=1gp is the primary means of gaining xp (and in some cases it’s Arneson’s 1xp=1gp spent). Thus, in order to make levels 1-10 feel like a complete game, the xp needed for each level is going to need a slight overhaul.

In 0e an 11th level Magic-user needs 300,000xp. Conveniently, if one were to use that number for the xp needed to get to 10th level, halving that for each level (effectively doubling the xp needed for each level) the xp needed to get to 2nd ends up being 1000. This number is half as much as what is needed in older editions of the game (thus, making leveling faster/easier for the modern gamer context) but is much higher than the 300 needed in 5e as written (which helps placate my own old school proclivities).

Given this info, here is a rough draft of the kind of layout I have in mind for this project:

Yes. That is ONE page for everything needed to play a fighter from 1st-10th level.

Note that there are a couple of changes from the SRD for the fighter:

• The Proficiency Bonus progresses slightly faster. I did this to make Fighters better at fighting in the long-term than Clerics and Magic-users.
• I replaced the 7th level Martial Archetype power “Remarkable Athlete” with the mechanics of the 7th level Barbarian ability “Feral Instinct” — advantage on initiative. I did this to keep the fighter class more focused on fighting prowess.
• I replaced the Martial Archetype power at 10th level with an Extra Attack (which would be granted normally at 11th level). Again, I did this to keep the focus of the class on fighting prowess.

Gamer ADD: Toward an Old-School version of 5e

As I mentioned in my last Saintly Saturday post, my Gamer ADD-addled brain is busy editing the 5e SRD to reflect my own old-school proclivities. At the end of the day, though, I am not all that interested in editing it beyond the bounds of what could be called 5e D&D or to tie it so closely to a game world as to effectively create a new D&D-esque game with a little 5e sprinkled on top.

An (excellent) example would be Mithgarthr. For all intents and purposes it is 5e D&D; however, there are enough world-specific races and classes and unique mechanics that it deserves to be its own game. As much as I admire the folks at Mithgarthr Entertainment for producing a version of 5e that I’ve been sore tempted to buy in hardcover (something WotC has never even come close to doing), my goal is to produce something both far more generic and compatible.

In other words, what I want is a version of 5e that can be easily used regardless of what campaign world the end user wants for the their game table and that can be used (with very little effort) in conjunction with the 5e rules as written. I use the caveat “with very little effort” because, in order to scratch my curmudgeonly old-school itch, there will necessarily be some alterations to classes that will deviate slightly from the rules as written.

Speaking of classes, I will pick up on an idea I first posited here — there will be only three classes:

1. Clerics (using the rules for Paladins)
2. Fighters
3. Magic-users (using the rules for Warlocks)

Additionally, I will only use ideas/spells/powers from the SRD to describe these three classes. Thus, there is no need for detailing different oaths, archetypes or patrons. This will simplify the typesetting and presentation of each class immensely.

For those who are wondering why only three classes, there are two main thrusts to my thinking:

Firstly, 0e only had these three classes. By sticking to that pattern, it gives this modern version of D&D an old-school feel.

Secondly (and possibly even more importantly), all of the other classes are redundant:

• Barbarians and Rangers are fighters with specific backgrounds and tactical proclivities that don’t really need any mechanics to express.
• Bards are entertainers and there is an entertainer background. Thus, one could be a bard in any class and thus a specific class with specific mechanics aren’t all that necessary.
• Druids, Clerics and Paladins are really all the same class with slightly different foci. Using a bit of background and role-playing choices, one can easily emulate all three with one set of mechanics (the Paladin Class being my choice because it is the one that most closely resembles the cleric of older editions of the game)
• Sorcerers, Warlocks and Wizards are also really the same class that primarily differ on where magic comes from. That can easily be explained through special effects and world-building concepts. Especially since Cantrips in 5e can be cast at will, there is very little mechanically difference between these classes.
• Rogues have always been the skill-heavy class. 5e gives access to all kinds of interesting skills and proficiencies through backgrounds. One can choose an appropriate background with any class and function as a thief-like character.
• Monks have always felt a bit out of place in D&D because they have a definitive Wuxia feel to them that is a bit alien to the average high-fantasy D&D campaign world. At the same time, they don’t really do Wuxia justice. If one really wanted to do a Wuxia-style game using a 5e D&D chassis, backgrounds would be a much better way to build that world than relying on the Monk class.

Thus, the original three classes married to a robust background system can easily emulate all the other classes found in 5e.

On Gnomes and Titans

Recently, an old high school buddy of mine got inspired to go back and re-read some of the older rulesets of D&D, in part because of my gushing review of the Swords & Wizardry Legion stuff I was able to get my grubby mitts on.

He and I have a weird appreciation for gnomes as a PC race. When 4th Edition came out, there was a Youtube video explaining why tieflings were now PCs instead of gnomes. Ironically, it just cemented everything we like about gnomes. We both are infected with the old-school mind-set that if you can survive a dungeon with a pathetic excuse for a PC it says a lot about your skill as a player. Therefore, we understood this video as a challenge:



So, my friend decides he is going to make a 1e AD&D gnome character and consequently forwards me this quote:

"When being attacked by gnolls, bugbears, ogres, trolls, ogre magi, giants AND/OR TITANS (emphasis mine), gnome characters subtract 4 from their opponents' "to hit" dice rolls because of the gnomes' small size AND THEIR COMBAT SKILL AGAINST THESE MUCH BIGGER CREATURES (mine, again).

He also challenged me to figure out why a gnome would have combat skills against titans.

This rule is actually a remnant from Chainmail:

DWARVES (and Gnomes)…Although they are no threat to the larger creatures, Trolls, Ogres, and Giants find them hard to catch because of their small size, so count only one-half normal kills when Dwarves and Gnomes fight with them…

So, although gnomes are ineffectual at doing any damage to these types of creatures, from a tactical point of view, they do serve as a great way of slowing them down long enough to get stronger units in place to take the larger creatures out.

This rule is not found in OD&D, probably because it was assumed because the combat system used by OD&D was Chainmail. The d20 system everyone is familiar with today was the alternate combat system. As a consequence, this is not found in either Holmes or Moldvay but does find itself back in 1e AD&D with “Titan” added to the list of examples of creatures that have a hard time hitting dwarves and gnomes; however, 1e AD&D also adds that very curious phrase about combat skill…

If one takes a look at the Titan in the 1e AD&D Monster Manual, three intriguing aspects jump out:

1. Titans primarily live on other planes, but do occasionally visit the Prime Material Plane especially to mingle with Storm Giants.
2. Titans can use Invisibility at will and have access to a number of spells from both the magic-user and cleric spell lists.
3. Titans who use Protection from Evil get double the bonus against Lawful Evil creatures.

This paints a picture of a creature type that existed before there was a distinction between Arcane and Divine magic, who does not see other planes as their natural home, spent time specifically fighting Lawful Evil creatures but lost due to the fact the the Prime Material Plane is no longer their normal habitat.

There are two groups of creatures that immediately suggest themselves when one thinks of Lawful Evil: Humanoids and Devils. Only one of those groups lives on the Prime Material Plane.

I am now going to go down a path that necessitates an understanding of my reading of the relationship between various humanoids and Dwarves. You can find that post here.

The ancient being(s) that twisted elves and dwarves into various humanoids did so in an ongoing battle with Titans on the Prime Material Plane. In response, the Titans developed more powerful protection spells against the humanoids which made up the bulk of the armies they were fighting against. In response, the ancient(s) enslaved the dwarves to use as fodder against the titans and further twisted the dwarves into gnomes. Dwarves and gnomes are resistant to magic and gnomes are bread specifically to deal with illusionist magics (to fight invisible titans). Due to the fact that the protective magics of the titans were designed to fight Lawful Evil humanoids, when they came upon dwarves and gnomes, they were caught by surprise and underestimated the danger of their foes. As a consequence, the titans were driven off the prime material plane.

Thus, dwarves and gnomes have combat skills against titans because they were specifically bred to fight against them by the ancient(s) who twisted elves and dwarves in the first place.

Meditating on 5e: LBBs + LBBs

One of the things I really like about 5e is the whole concept of Backgrounds. It immediately adds flavor to a character and gives a good Referee hooks for adventures. In a way, it reminds me a lot of one of my favorite mini-games of all time: the character creation in Classic Traveller. There is an assumption that your character comes from somewhere and that background defines who you are and what you can do. It also implies the kinds of connections your character has and what influence those connections have.

Another reason I like the Background system of 5e is that it mitigates the need for the Rogue/Thief class. Since various backgrounds grant characters skills that normally are filled by the thief, the class has become redundant. This got me thinking about what other classes might be made redundant and I came to an interesting conclusion: it is possible to get rid of all of the classes except for the original three and express them all with Backgrounds.

This, of course, necessitates doing something with the 5e skill system, which I have said before is not something that is necessary to interpret as a pure skill system. I propose that these “skills” are actually broad Areas Of Expertise (AOE). Rather than telling players what their character can’t do (as I would argue a traditional skill system does, even the Thief skills from early editions of D&D), these suggest to players what their characters can do.

Here is the difference: a skill system defines what each skill is and then tells players when they can’t do something (when they fail a roll or fail to have the proper skill). An AOE, as I envision it, is a means for a player to argue that their character should succeed at a particular task.

For example: a character with Survival finds himself on a ship needing to lash down the sails in preparation for a storm. The player can then come up with some story from their character’s previous life that would justify saying Survival allows his character to succeed:

There was this time during a bad rainstorm that Bessie got caught in a gulley underneath a fallen tree branch. I’m gonna use the same knots that we used to pull that branch up to lash down the sails.

If the story or the reasoning is sound, no dice need to be rolled and yet another layer is added to the history of the character.

I am thinking of giving every character four AOEs: two based on their character class and two based on their backgrounds. This allows me to break up the skills of 5e into three categories: Class Skills, Non-Class Skills and Tool Skills.

Each class would have four skills that are not available to the other two classes:

• Cleric: Insight, Medicine, Persuasion, Religion
• Fighter: Athletics, Animal Handling, Intimidation, Perception
• Magic-user: Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature

This leaves six skills and nine tool skills that are only available through a background. Thus, it would make sense to have nine backgrounds that would allow a character access to two Non-Class Skills and one Tool Skill as well as one extra Class Skill. I named these nine Backgrounds after various classes that have popped up in D&D throughout the years:

• Assassin: Poison (Tool Skill), Deception & Stealth (Non-Class Skills), Investigation (Class Skill)
• Barbarian: Gaming (Tool Skill), Performance & Survival (Non-Class Skills), Insight (Class Skill)
• Bard: Instrument (Tool Skill), Acrobatics & Performance (Non-Class Skills), History (Class Skill)
• Druid: Herbalism (Tool Skill), Deception & Sleight of Hand (Non-Class Skills), Animal Handling (Class Skill)
• Illusionist: Forgery (Tool Skill), Acrobatics & Deception (Non-Class Skills), Persuasion (Class Skill)
• Monk: Navigation (Tool Skill), Acrobatics & Sleight of Hand (Non-Class Skills), Athletics (Class Skill)
• Paladin: Artisan (Tool Skill), Performance & Survival (Non-Class Skills), Religion (Class Skill)
• Ranger: Disguise (Tool Skill), Stealth & Survival (Non-Class Skills), Nature (Class Skill)
• Thief: Thieves’ Tools (Tool Skill), Stealth & Sleight of Hand (Non-Class Skills), Intimidation (Class Skill)

Note: This leaves three skills that are class specific: Medicine (Cleric), Perception (Fighter) and Arcana (Magic-user).

Also note: All of these categories are intended to be very broad, and thus while some AOEs don’t seem to fit, they can easily be explained by moving slightly beyond the old D&D class title. For example: Deception and Sleight of Hand don’t seem to go with Druid very well; however, if you understand the Druid to be akin to a faith-healer, hedge-mage or veterinarian these things begin to make sense. Deception can be useful when someone who needs to hear good news in a time of disease and epidemic. Sleight of Hand can be used to describe a surgeon’s hands as well as a pick-pocket’s.

To round things off, each background would come with it a type of contact that a character could reach out to in times of need.

If one wanted to go full-on Classic Traveller, it would be a simple matter to create a table to randomize both the Background (a d10 where a ‘0’ represents Player/Referee choice) as well as the skills. A d6 can be used to determine two skills at once with the following pattern where A, B, C and D represent the four skills associated with a Class or a Background:

1: A + B
2: A + C
3: A + D
4: B + C
5: B + D
6: C + D

This would result in some really weird combinations that would force players to be creative, so I would love to use it myself, but I expect most players would prefer to just choose.

On Elves and Angels

In a post I made last week about the fey, a commenter mentioned a story about angels. According to the story, there are three types of angels:

1. Normal angels whose job is to be a protector (exemplified my the Archangel Michael) and a messenger (exemplified by the Archangel Gabriel).
2. Fallen angels who rebelled against God, also known as demons.
3. Followers of Azazel who didn’t openly rebel against God, but stopped doing their job:

And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.' — Enoch 6:1-3

It is the last group that was of interest, because these angels could be a stand-in for all kinds of things in an FRPG. One of the more intriguing possibilities is that these “neutral” angels and their offspring become what we know as elves.

And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. — Enoch 7:1

Note, that this story comes from the Book of Enoch, a Jewish work from sometime around 300-100 B.C. which is not accepted as part of the Canon of Scripture by the vast majority of Jews and Christians. For my part, I think this largely has to do with the depiction of the angels, who have come to be understood as being bodiless powers. While the Nephilim are mentioned in passing a couple of times in the bible and seem to corroborate what is spoken of in detail in the Book of Enoch, the word “Nephilim” is not something that can either be easily translated or understood. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the OT from around 300 B.C.) translated the word as “giant” not angel or demon.

Since the angels are bodiless, they can’t really be going around having children; however, I haven’t been able to get the idea of elves-as-neutral-angels out of my head for the last several days. What would a bodiless power stripped of their powers look like?

And Enoch went and said: 'Azazel, thou shalt have no peace: a severe sentence has gone forth against thee to put thee in bonds: And thou shalt not have toleration nor request granted to thee, because of the unrighteousness which thou hast taught, and because of all the works of godlessness and unrighteousness and sin which thou hast shown to men.' Then I went and spoke to them all together, and they were all afraid, and fear and trembling seized them. And they besought me to draw up a petition for them that they might find forgiveness, and to read their petition in the presence of the Lord of heaven. For from thenceforward they could not speak (with Him) nor lift up their eyes to heaven for shame of their sins for which they had been condemned. — Enoch 13:1-6

In other words, they are cut off from heaven and cannot communicate with heaven, nor will any of their prayers be heard; however, they are condemned to be bound to earth until all their children kill each other, aka the Day of Judgment.

This leads to a very interesting proposition, especially given a world in which monsters are sin personified: what if the bodiless powers bound to earth (fallen and “neutral” angels) could enter into the bodies of those willing to house them? This would explain several very characteristic attributes of elves: the fact that they are long-lived, the fact that they seem not to really have much interest in the world of men, the fact that they are not affected by a ghoul’s touch and the fact that they were the only race in OD&D and Basic D&D that could “multi-class.”

In other words, all elves are dual personalities: the person who makes the deal with the “neutral” angel and the bodiless power themselves. This relationship cuts the person off from divine intervention but grants arcane power coupled with fighting prowess. Orcs could still be seen as twisted versions of elves, except that the person making the deal is likely cheated from having any say in how their body is being used.

This also puts a new spin on half-elves and half-orcs. These no longer need to be the children of a human and an elf/orc (and the strongly implied rape in the latter pairing). Rather, these are people from those communities that refuse to be possessed by a bodiless power.

Meditating on OSR Innovation

Another bandwagon I am compelled to hop onto is this meme about innovation in the OSR: rules or settings? First, let me get this out of the way: when hasn’t the OSR been innovative? Seriously. I will grant that we can look like a bunch of reactionary grey bearded curmudgeons, but from the get go we have been pushing rules written at various times in the 70s and 80s in all kinds of interesting directions. Why are people looking for the next Tékumel or Blackmoor when there are literally as many astounding worlds as there are bloggers?

For example: part of the “complaint” about innovation is getting beyond 2000 cp in a dusty room…a reference to all the whinging about the Dwimmermount experience. How wasn’t Dwimmermount innovative? I said this before and I will say it again — James Maliszewski pushed us all to deal with, understand and chew on the concept of the megadungeon. Regardless of what you think about how his Kickstarter was handled or whether or not you care for the final product, the whole experience has made the hobby better.

For myself, I was never much influenced by Tékumel or Blackmoor. I hold no special place in my heart for either of these products, nor do I have any real interest in investing much time on either product. The same can be said of most setting products. Those who read this blog know that I have never played a single game in either Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms. The guys I play with have always been DIY when it comes to world building.

On the other hand, new systems don’t really float my boat either. Look at me, my favorite system was written back in 1981 and, when push comes to shove, I’d be happy playing nothing but B/X for the rest of my life.

What do I really want in a product? I want to be able to use it at the table. This either means that I can easily plug and play with an adventure or have a product that gives me awesome ideas that are easily applied to my games. This is the best way to be innovative, because there are so many products out there that are not very easy to use. Let me give you a couple or three examples of what I believe are innovative products:

Demonspore by Matt Finch
This is one of the best adventure modules ever produced by the OSR simply because it is designed to be plugged into an existing dungeon. It doesn’t have to be, but it can and I did and it was brilliantly easy to do.

Realms of Crawling Chaos and Starships & Spacemen 2e both by Goblinoid Games
Both of these products are plug and play tool kits for Labyrinth Lord (though S&S 2e can function as a stand-alone game). Frankly, anything in the Labyrinth Lord line is designed to be modular so that if I want to do a Star Trek/Flash Gordon/Horror/Mutant Apocalypse mash-up without house ruling everything, I can. Indeed, I have yet to fully take advantage of all of the modular goodness provided in RCC and S&S 2e.

This whole discussion began with JB of B/X Blackrazor and his problems with the game White Star by James Spahn. Personally, I really appreciated JB’s perspective. I was pining over the game because of the excitement generated around this section of the internet, but my gaming budget is still Free. JB let me realize that I would have had buyers remorse if I’d scraped together the cash to buy it.

Like JB, I worked on my own version of a Flash Gordon-esque version of BX/0e but abounded it because it wasn’t a game I really ever wanted to play. Now, before I get accused to being bitter about Spahn’s success in the same way JB did, I have already shared what fruits came out of that whole experiment.

Way back when, I did a series of posts stripping the 0e spell list of special effects in order to create a system to build new spells based on 0e assumptions. I shared it as Ye Auld Skool Spell Creator. What may not be obvious is that this whole project began as an attempt to create a tool kit for creating Jedi-like powers for a sci-fi version of BX/0e so that my version of a Star Knight (or whatever else you want to call it) wouldn’t have to have Bless or Purify Food and Drink on their spell list.

Speaking for myself, this is not the best thing I’ve ever shared with this community; however, I do believe that it is the closest thing that I have ever produced that demonstrates what I want in terms of the Rules vs. Setting discussion. It is innovative in the way I want my OSR products to be innovative: I can use it at my table to create my vision of a sci-fi campaign or add cool new spells to my 0e-inspired games.

In other words, I don't need publishers to give the new Tékumel or Blackmoor, I want them to give me cool tools to help me make it myself.