Dungeon, exploration and the title: "Dungeons & Dragons"

This is the second post in a two-part series of posts on the title of Dungeons & Dragons as a means to empower hobbyists to start their own medieval fantasy wargames campaigns.

The last post was on level of scale and the incorporation of role play. This post is on how the one-to-one level of scale empowered character exploration -- giving birth to the supertitle, "Dungeons & Dragons."

Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor

Before the publication of Dungeons & Dragons, its co-author, Dave Arneson, was already a wargamer involved with his group of friends in running wargames campaigns. He and came up with a wargames campaign for his friends that was a full-blown medieval fantasy wargames campaign that came to be called Blackmoor. Arneson had already encouraged his players to look at their relationship to the wargame in a different way. Inspired by things like Diplomacy, and by Baunstein and other such campaigns before, Arneson encouraged wargames-style role-playing as a significant aspect of the birth of Dungeons and Dragons.

The First Dungeon

Dave Arneson stumbled upon a scenario over the course of his Blackmoor campaign where his players’ characters, while laying siege to the castle of one of their enemies, decided that they would mine, that is to say, dig under the walls to try to break the siege. When Arneson moved the scale down to the level of skirmish so that each figure on the table was one to one in scale, then you have not just a soldier in front of you, but you have what is going to be called a character, and you're going to be playing not as the general of an army, but as that one character in a medieval fantasy setting.

This gave Dave Arneson an idea. And what he decided to do has made history. He set up a situation where once the players’ characters had successfully dug under the walls of the castle, they would suddenly find themselves tunneled right into the crazy labyrinthine dungeons underneath the tyrannical lord's castle. 

Instead of just coming up in the castle yard, they found themselves down in the dungeons. And instead of the normal dungeons of history that just had normal prisoners, Dave Arneson populated this dungeon with the fantasy denizens of the underworld: monsters and creatures that the characters had to steer clear from so that they could come up, find the bad guy, take him out, and win the day.

Exploring the Unknown

Arneson conducted this scenario such that the players’ characters did not know exactly where they were until they had explored the dungeon and created their own map of the dungeon. They could keep track of where they'd been, where monsters were to avoid. They were playing in such a way that they were not simply laying out a battlefield and playing a pitched battle with miniature figures on a one to one scale, but instead they were imagining exploring down in the darkness of a deep dungeon and they had to create a map of what they'd discovered as they were going along.

This is not unlike other games that were popular at the time and still are, such as Battleship and Stratego. Both Battleship and Stratego are simple games where something is concealed from the player, and through play you slowly begin to reveal what's concealed, and those revelations and guesses made on those revelations help lead the player to victory. So this was already a concept that existed in gaming, and Arneson was able to grab it and use it at a much more complex level of scale where instead of it simply discovering whether you've sunk someone's battleship, or whether you've found someone's flag in a battlefield, now you got a whole labyrinthine dungeon underneath an evil tyrannical castle.

Dave Arneson's players found this so exciting and fun that they said, "Hey, we've really got to do this again sometime." We now see the birth of the first dungeon for what would come to be called Dungeons and Dragons.

Everything in place for the Title: Dungeons & Dragons

Arneson had stumbled upon the joys of dungeon exploration with his players. Dragons are the quintessential monster of medieval fantasy. At the time in the wargaming hobby community, there were a lot of “something & something” titles. Fill-in-the-blank and fill-in-the-blank titles were popular at this time of hobby wargaming. So there is a story that says that Gygax as sitting at his kitchen table with his daughter and a list of words. He would go through the list, adding two words together with an “and” in between. When the combo “Dungeons & Dragons” finally came up, his daughter said, “that’s it, that is the one.” And it has stuck ever since. At least that is the story!

So now with this post in this series, and with the posts of the previous series on the subtitle, we have in place what a wargame is. We have in place the tradition of Free Kriegspiel. We have in place what a wargames campaign is. We've talked about how things move down to the skirmish level or one to one scale of play. We've talked about role playing in early war gaming, such as the game of Diplomacy. We've talked about how Arneson added the discovery of hidden things through careful play, such as we find in games like Battleship and Stratego. When all of these things come together, then Dave Arneson together with Gary Gygax were able to put together the first published rules for setting up and conducting a medieval fantasy wargames campaign: Dungeons and Dragons.

Summary so-far

So to sum things up, Dungeons & Dragons arises when we have a referee (Free Kriegsspiel) with an extensive knowledge of both wargaming (hobby) and medieval fantasy literature (fidelity to outside source) who moderates a generally skirmish scale (level of scale) medieval fantasy wargames (wargaming) campaign (campaign-play) that connects wargame sessions involving exploration of unknown spaces and areas (exploration) through skillful role-play (role-play). I would add, anyone playing a game with these elements in place, because they are playing a fantastic medieval wargames campaign, they are therefore playing "Dungeons & Dragons," as originally presented by the authors, whatever that particular group happen to call it, and whatever is currently being published with that name printed on the cover!

Fight on!

These two series of posts are now tied up. Now I can launch a follow-up series of posts where I will look at a couple of miscellaneous things that haven't quite fit into a previous post but that now begin to make sense in light of what we have discussed so far: things like Experience Points and gold, etc.

Scale, Role-play, and Dungeons & Dragons

I recently published a four post series reflecting on the subtitle of Dungeons & Dragons to help make sense of the original publication. Here are those links:

Wargames and Dungeons & Dragons

Medieval Fantasy and Dungeons & Dragons

Rules and Dungeons & Dragons

Campaigns and Dungeons & Dragons

With those reflections in place, I can now move on to reflect on the development of the supertitle itself: "Dungeons & Dragons"! In doing so I hope to empower hobbyists to start their own medieval fantasy wargames campaigns.

This will be the first post in a short two-part series of posts. This post will be on level of scale and how the move to one-to-one scale empowered things such as the abstraction of hit-points and the ability to role-play.

Scale

Wargaming allows for play at different levels of scale. So on a given war gaming table, an inch might represent 10 feet, 10 yards, 100 yards, etc. One miniature soldier might represent as many as, say, 10 soldiers, 20 soldiers, 100 soldiers, depending on the level of scale that you'd set up in the beginning. For most historical miniature wargaming, the level of scale is what is called tactical. So tactical warfare is one given battle between two armies where two generals or colonels can direct the activity fairly obviously over the course of about one battle day.

This makes a lot of sense in, say, Napoleonic warfare, which is again, one of the reasons why Napoleonic warfare is so attractive to historical wargamers. But there are other levels of scale. If you jump up to a higher level of scale, you can have strategic wargaming. This is where you might start getting into what you call hex and counter wargaming, where you've got a map divided into many different hexagons, and those hexes might represent 5 miles, 6 miles, 25 miles of distance across. Instead of miniatures representing soldiers, or 10 soldiers, or 100 soldiers, you have a more abstract piece that represents an entire legion, battalion, or perhaps even an entire army.

At the highest level of abstraction you have board games like Axis and Allies, or Risk. Some miniature wargamers question whether those should count as wargames, because they're at such a high level of abstraction that they're not very far away from a game like chess or checkers. But the typical scale of war gaming for miniature wargamers is tactical. You can abstract it to a higher level like strategic. But you can also move down to a tighter level of scale.

Skirmish

You can go down to a level of scale called skirmish warfare. This is where you're really talking about individual soldiers, head to head with each other. In this case, each one of your miniature figures actually represents one soldier. So the ratio or the scale becomes one to one. Every miniature figure is exactly one soldier.

Chainmail, for example, has a section dedicated to skirmish or man to man combat for the resolution of this level of medieval wargaming. So its fantasy supplement had to address this level of scale as well: how would fantastical creatures and armies match up in not just tactical, but also skirmish level warfare.

Hit points as abstract

One-to-one level of scale helps make sense of the roots of some of Dungeons & Dragons core mechanics, such as, for example, Hit Points. The rules of combat resolution have to be different at such a tight level of scale. The statistics, the way that you match results of combat up to dice, the things that a referee would need to judge all change when you get to that smaller, tighter level of scale.

In a tactical level wargame, when two enemy troops come in contact with each other, generally, if one side is successful and the other fails, the side that fails is removed. If you have those rules exactly at a skirmish level, playing only one character, then every time you went into combat, your character might die the first time he or she was hit. This hit-equals-removal way of playing that works at a tactical level doesn’t directly map to a skirmish, one-character-per-player level of scale. So instead Gygax and Arneson developed hit points. Hit points are the number of points your character can take from successful hits before the character is finally removed. Hit points are an abstraction for the relative resilience of your character and so, in general, as your character increases in level, your character is going to increase in this resilience, represented by hit points.

Role-play

One-to-one level of scale also helps us make sense of what the original players understood "role play" to be. Role-play existed before Dungeons and Dragons. Role playing is something that's done for example, at professional development training sessions, in training for therapists and counselors, or in other contexts where a mentor is trying to teach a student. A concrete situation with a client, or a patient, or even a more dangerous scenario, where you would say, "here is the situation. We're going to pretend that this situation is real, and we want you to role play what you think you would do in this situation."

One of the chief examples of role-play in wargaming would be the famous game, Diplomacy. Diplomacy is a wargame at the highest possible level of abstraction that could still really count as a wargame. You have a map of Europe, right on the edge of World War I, and you represent one of the major European powers at that time, such as Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Russia and the like. You are going to play the military forces of this particular national power. And in each turn, you can move your armies or navies, and you can attempt to take over other regions. But the most important part of this game is in its very name itself, which is Diplomacy. In Diplomacy, in every game turn, there's a phase at which you are allowed to enter into diplomatic negotiations and form diplomatic relationships with other players. You might form alliances against other players such that it is almost impossible to win the game of Diplomacy if you are not talking to other players, forming alliances, breaking alliances, and the like.

In Diplomacy, you as the player would ask yourself, “given this situation, and given the capacities that this nation has to achieve victory in this war game, how would I, as its leader or ambassador act? I want to play out what I would do to survive and achieve victory in this role within this situation.” Thoughtful role-play becomes a way to invest in the success of the game. Role-play in Diplomacy is a skillful means of engaging the game.

Role-play can work at any level of wargames scale, but it seems to draw-out at the more extreme levels of scale: strategic on the one end, with games like Diplomacy, and skirmish at the other end, with what is going to become Dungeons and Dragons. When you're playing a skirmish scale wargame, and where, instead of playing an officer over a squad you are playing only one figure on a wargames table, then you have an opportunity to role play that figure.

Understanding the wargaming roots of Dungeons & Dragons helps to make sense of the kind of confusion about what is going on in play between what is sometimes called "old school" styles of play and more recent Role-playing Games that emphasize the building of a story. What is clear is that role-play meant discerning what you would do in a given wargames situation if you were actually in this war and you actually had the capacities granted you by the game. Role-play meant playing the role of a leader in a war campaign. It did not, at the time, mean something like playing a part in a play or story - although plenty of players loved to ham it up, even from the beginning, if what I have heard is correct.

Next in this short series: Dungeon, exploration, and the title: "Dungeons & Dragons"!

Few have the inclination or patience to fight under rules they did not compile

. . . little attempt has been made in this book to lay down rules for specific periods of military history, assuming that the wargammer will have obtained or formulated rules for the type of warfare in which he is most interested. To this must be added the well-established and acknowledged fact that few wargamers have the inclination or patience to fight under rules that they did not compile themselves.

--Donald Featherstone, Solo Wargaming (emphasis mine)

This really incapsulates what differentiates the (original) Dungeons & Dragons category of play from the larger category, "old school," in which if falls.

Are you playing a wargames campaign that happens to be set in sword and sorcery? Or are you playing a role-playing game and following its published rules.

Fight on!

Rolling Characters On-The-Fly

Armor, FM:

d6+1

Weapons, FM: d6:

1 Magic Sword

2 Sword and Bow

3 Sword

4 Spear and Dagger

5 Club and Dagger

6 Club

Magic Sword on d6:

1 +3 Lightning

2-3 +2 Magic Missile

4-6 +1 Light

Armor, CL:

d6+3

Weapons, CL:

High: mace

Low: club

CL: healing potion; turn undead (reminder)

MU d3:

1 Sleep

2 Charm

3 Light

Gold: 3d6, straight-up

Note: I used the above to roll-up the middle-schooler's characters on the fly so that I could drop them straight into play. It worked. Lots of fun.

Maxims of Mechanical Minimalism

I am discerning three recursive maxims that drive my D&D minimalism and define my approach to "rules-lite." Here they are:

1. Always resolve through role-play anything that can be resolved through role-play
2. Keep all mechanics as abstract as possible, as concrete as necessary
3. Use abstract mechanics as openings to, rather than shut-downs of role-play

Notice how the three form a neat recursive circle. The first prioritizes role-play over mechanics. The second limits the nature and use of mechanics. The third reminds us to use mechanics to support, rather than shut-down, role play, thus leading us back to the first maxim. I must say I find this quite satisfying.

Always resolve through role-play anything that can be resolved through role-play

What I mean here by "role-play" is wargame-style playing of a particular tactical role defined by character class, race, level, etc., much like infantry, cavalry, artillery, with light, medium or heavy armor define rolls to play in napoleonic wargames. I do not mean amateur improvisational theatre. That said, just as with Diplomacy, there are good times to "ham it up" for the sake of "sealing the deal" in a tough diplomatic negotiation.

I remember running a game of original edition using my Perilous Realms house rules for some players who were familiar with later editions. One first-time-to-original player asked "do all weapons just deal 1d6 damage?" "Yes," I answered. "So why not just buy a cudgel and leave it at that? Why spend the money for a halberd or a sword?" "Cudgels can't cut anything," I replied, "halberds have a long reach. Swords cut and thrust." He could not understand what I was driving at because he had been living under the oppression of over-mechanization! I had to explain, "the different weapons allow different role-playing possibilities. You can do things with a spear you can't do with a sword, and vice versa. Does that make sense?" He was doubtful. But when the mummy came and they lowered the portcullis just in time, skewered it on a spear to keep it from retreating, hit it with oil and torched it, they then started seeing the strategic nature of the game -- something that has more to do with role-play than mechanics. A bunch of first level characters survived a random mummy encounter. I could only congratulate them.

Point of the maxim in this case: there is no need for variable damage mechanics in order to "describe" the usefulness of different weapons. The weapons themselves, used "in-world," do that for us, through good role-play.

Keep all mechanics as abstract as possible, as concrete as necessary

Mechanics serve as a kind of "oracle" that gives the game-world the feeling of independent reality. The more mechanics are used to dive into describing concrete minutiae, the more they become a straight jacket upon either referee or player decision-making. Like all oracles, they should be abstract and open to interpretation by the diviner -- in this case, the referee. The more concrete the mechanic -- like research into the exact force of the weight of a blow from a halberd on plate armor generating a complex chart of bell-curves, yada yada -- the more the game gets stuck in the morass of endless non-interpretive dice rolling -- what folks call "roll playing," rather than role-playing.

Let's take the common complaint that the original edition doesn't have a "universal mechanic." I will not dispute that here but I will point out that it has a near universal exploration mechanic:

1d6 : the lower the more beneficial, the higher the more detrimental to playing-characters

Key examples: Locate secret passage: 1-2, elves 1-4; elves sense secret door on passing by 1-2; force door: 1-2; spike slips: 5-6; traps spring: 1-2 (I suppose this means deliberately looking with a ten foot pole, otherwise it should have been 5-6, but inconsistency is one of the glories of the original edition!); listen at door, hear something: 1, elves 1-2; wandering monster per turn: 6; surprise: 1-2 (again, should have been for monster, 5-6 for party!); wilderness exploration has similar mechanics.

A pattern emerges: Roll 1d6:

• Unlikely to benefit PCs: 1
• Possible to benefit PCs: 1-2
• Toss up: call high or low
• Likely to benefit PCs: 1-4
• Unlikely to be detrimental to PCs: 6

These represent chances of 1/6, ⅓, and ⅔, respectively (except for "toss up," which I only use when both the players and I are "meh" about the outcome of something. I never write "toss ups" into my house rules).

I only consult these exploration mechanics when I need something more than my own knowledge of the setting and the player's careful description of their actions to make a ruling about the results of their behavior. That means I don't use mechanics very often. If they describe something pretty well and their characters are pretty high level or possess talents and possibilities, then they succeed. The more beautiful, interesting and fun their plan of action and description, the more inclined I am to grant them success. It is a game. The point is fun. The point is to reward, not punish, good, fun role-play.

I learned this the hard way but I am the better for it. I had some high-powered PCs surprised by finding a high-powered ancient vampire waiting for them in a closet they opened up. He shot out about 50 bats in their faces (awesome!). When they got their wits about them, the wizard decided he would turn rock to mud, opening a whole in the ceiling of the temple right above the vampire, thus turning him to dust with sunlight. I was still stuck in the old mechanics-heavy framework. I said,  "okay, high it works, low he escapes from the light." I rolled low. I ruled he escaped from the in-coming light just in time. One of my players, a long time referee in his own right, noticed that I was disappointed in this outcome. He said to me, "are you disappointed it didn't work?" "Well, yes, " I replied. "Well hell then, man, rule that it worked, you're the ref! Let's have fun!" It was like scales falling from my eyes. We were all supposed to have fun, even me. I liked their plan. It contributed to fun -- even my own fun as the referee -- after all, although I was "playing" the vampire, I was not "on his side"! So I reversed the ruling and we all cheered. I learned something important that day. I only need mechanics when I really am unsure of the outcome of player actions. If it makes sense, or just seems fun to me, it works!

In most situations where I do use the "universal exploration mechanic," I reason it out with the players. I low-ball them. They high-ball me, and we comprise and I roll the dice in front of them. "I think you have about 1 chance on a d6 to pull that off." "No way, man, at least a toss up!" "Okay, 1 or 2, fair enough?" "Fair enough." "I rolled a 4 so it didn't work as you'd hoped, sorry guys." "That's cool. It was worth a try." "But you do manage to get about half way there." "Cool!" Etc. I do, of course, roll secretly for "listen at door," the triggering of traps, etc.

Point of the maxim in this case: abstraction allows for oracular interpretation, and that only when the referee feels the need.

Use abstract mechanics as openings to, rather than shut-downs of role-play

We keep mechanics as abstract as possible in order to encourage role-play. Keeping mechanics abstract allows room for interpretation and creative description. But sometimes we turn the abstraction into a chance to make things as boring and free of detail as possible. And that is our mistake, as players and as referees.

[NOTE with regards to the following example: I mean no severe critique of the referee or his rules. I am trying to make one small point about a use of mechanics that bugs me. I've learned so much from this referee and he is awesome. Okay, now, moving on to the example:]

I've played in a game where the referee allows magic-users to have up to two shield-bearers. These shield-bearers serve as kind of body guards. The referee describes the results of hiring such help purely in mechanical terms. He says each shield-bearer, so long as they are defending the magic-user, has his armor class increased by one, while lowering the armor class of the protected magic-user. So a magic-user would effectively have an armor class of, say, 7 while these shield-bearers would have an armor class (in plate) of 3 each. This seems reasonable. But I find it affects play in an adverse way. It takes away a chance to role-play strategically and reduces it to numbers and probabilities.

I remember explaining this clever mechanic to some trusted folks on an online forum and someone replied "why turn this into mechanics? Just role-play it. The shield-bearers protect the magic-user until the opponent can break their defense." Oh. It suddenly made perfect sense to me and I saw how mechanics could steal role-playing opportunities. So it breaks my first maxim. But it also, in play, winds up becoming an example of why I need the third maxim.

We were playing with these mechanics when we were attacked by poisonous hypnotic frog-men. The referee randomly rolled that they attacked the magic-user rather than either body-guard. He rolled an attack against armor class 7 and hit. My thought was, this mechanic forced us to assume that these were the most inept two shield-bearers ever hired. I suppose the frog men could have leaped over the shield bearers and landed on the magic-user's head. But why weren't the shield-bearers knocking the creature off their patron? It just didn't make sense to me the way that the abstraction of the mechanic then forced an interpretation of the game world rather than the other way round.

Why not allow the player and referee to role-play the shield-bearers? If the random roll shows the magic-user is under attack, imagine what the shield-bearers are trying to do to prevent it. Ask the player, "what instructions or agreements has the magic-user made with his bodyguard?" Imagine what you would do if you were the body guard. Then make up something creative -- mechanics be darned!

This extends to many other aspects of combat. We've all been subject to the unbelievable boredom of:

• roll d20 fail to hit
• roll d20 hit
• roll d6 damage: 1
• you are now hit: 6 damage
• next round, roll initiative
• yada yada, yawn

Now, I am not saying that strategic role-play should necessarily grant mechanical benefit. I am not saying that if a player says, "I swing down on them from the chandelier," that your response as a referee should be "+1 to hit!" I think quite the opposite. It should open up role-play, strategic role-play, possibilities. What to the goblins think of this acrobatic act? Perhaps roll for reaction. Do they cower at the bravado, laugh at the stupidity, or leap to bite the feet? Keep rolling the d20s and the d6s but describe what is going on.

I've "trained" players by having my NPCs do strategic stuff with objects nearby. As the players see that the NPCs can turn a situation around by grabbing a chair, throwing over a table as a shield for their archers, etc., they start doing the same thing. That way, the attack and damage rolls become oracles for interpretation within a combat scenario that is role-played with strategy, rather than abstracted to the state of absolute boredom.

Point of the maxim in this case: mechanics are supposed to be abstract in order to free the players and the referee to describe the concrete actions of the characters.

Okay, that's all I've got for now. I hope my little mini-essay was helpful, or at least interesting, and I welcome comments.

Fight on!

Ringmail

Rules for Medieval Toy Soldiers

Introduction

"Ringmail" was an improbable historical construct. So too these rules are an improbable match to anything historical. But they sure are fun!

Scale

Toy soldiers are 1:32 scale; that is 2&¼" or 54mm.

Field of Battle

Arrange a field of battle anywhere from 6' to 24' in dimensions. Determine battle line between opposing sides in roughly the middle of the field. Each side has a starting line set back from the battle line equivalent to that of their opponent's and no less than 24." Main stronghold, camp or pavilion of each side no more than 12" back from respective start-lines. Scale of play is such that terrain types and penalties make little sense. Distribute interesting obstacles for tactical use. Recommended: felt battle mat marked with 2" hexes; model trees, blue ribbon for rivers, etc.

Composition of Forces

Each side has one or two engines of war. Arrange each side with troop types falling roughly within the following ratio:

1 Archer : 3 Cavalry : 5 Infantry

Turn Sequence

1. Engine
2. Range
3. Melee
4. Move

All actions simultaneous. Alternatively, players determine initiative for movement by opposing check. First turn: move only. Second turn: move and melee (if any). Third turn adds range. Fourth and all subsequent turns: all four phases.

Movement

• Engine 3"
• Archers 6"
• Infantry 12"
• Cavalry 24"

Range & Melee

Range fire and melee resolved with modified rock-paper-scissors:

• Archer removes cavalry (24" range)
• Cavalry removes infantry
• Infantry removes archer

All other melee resolved on opposing check: loser removed; both remain on ties. Note the following exceptions:

• Cavalry and archer opposing check in melee
• Both archers remain when attacker losses opposing check against archer not returning fire
• Flank (side) or surprise (rear) attack of lesser to greater allows opposing check
• E.g., infantry flanking cavalry resolved by opposing check

Engine

• Redo misfires
• Remove any figure hit by projectile
• Remove engines hit by opposing engine fire
• Take engines with two or more troops of opposing side on successful opposing check

Morale

Check a force's morale at the top of every turn after reduced beyond half its original line-up: maintain morale on 2d6 = 7+ otherwise morale lost.

End

Battle ends when one or both sides:

• Losses morale
• Reduced to less than a third its original line-up
• Surrenders

Victory

Victory goes to the side that:

• Does not loose morale
• Is not reduced to less than a third its original line-up
• Does not surrender

Otherwise a draw. Alternatively, other end and victory conditions may be agreed upon; e.g., attaining some goal such as capturing an object or flag, etc.

Sieges

Make walls with gates and even some wall-portions that engine fire can topple. One additional engine to the defender but defender starts with one third the troops of the besieger. Imagine any foot soldier positions along a wall or upon a parapet as capable of range fire, whether depicted with range weapon or not.

Point Values

• Engine 5
• Cavalry 4
• Archer 3
• Infantry 2

Setting up a Medieval Toy Soldier Wargames Campaign

Each side starts with 50 points to acquire starting forces. Note guidelines to composition of force, above. After each battle, save for the return of removed troops on 2d6:

• Engine 6+
• Cavalry 6+
• Archer 7+
• Infantry 8+

Victor gets 20 points, looser 10. Capture of opposing "baggage" or some other such treasure, object or goal grants 5 points. Each side of a draw gets 15 points. Unused points accumulate. Use points to acquire new forces for subsequent battles.

Fantasy Supplement

For a fantasy scenario, use larger scales for large types (e.g., tall elves, trolls, ogres, etc.) and smaller scales for diminutive types (e.g., small elves, dwarves, hobbits, pixies, etc.).

For monsters, use appropriate toys (e.g., dragons, giants, animals). Most monsters move as cavalry. Flight grants 36" of movement. Monsters resolve melee with an opposing check: monster = 2d6 to normal figure = 1d6. Some monsters also have range or engine capacities, e.g., dragon fiery breath, giants hurling rocks, etc. Monsters cost 15 points; those removed in battle save for the next on 2d6: 9+.

Mark one or more figures per side to indicate special status as a hero, wizard, or knight (i.e., "Templar" or "cleric").

Hero = best of both cavalry and archer; removed by archery
Wizard = best of both archer and infantry; removed by infantry
Knight = best of both infantry and cavalry; removed by cavalry

Heroes melee and range monsters with equal opposing check; defeat monsters by flanking or surprise. Heroes and wizards range fire as archers (wizards by magic). In any given battle wizards may cast each of the following once per battle: fireball, lightning bolt, light (good wizard) or darkness (bad wizard) during the engine turn phase. Light spells cause fell and undead creatures to check morale with a penalty. Darkness spells cause normal troops to check morale with a penalty. Resolve fireball and lightning bolt as engine fire. Lobbing a colorful marble with the thumb usually does the trick. During the engine phase knights may do one of the following per battle: restore one removed figure upon a successful save (see above); cast light (Dark Knights cast darkness); dispel undead creature. Heroes, wizards and knights cost 10 points and those removed in battle save for the next on 2d6: 5+.

A Sort of Challenge

"How much better is the amiable miniature than the Real Thing! Here is a homeopathic remedy for the imaginative strategist. Here is the premeditation, the thrill, the strain of accumulating victory or disaster -- and no smashed nor sanguinary bodies, no shattered fine buildings nor devastated country sides, no petty cruelties, none of that awful universal boredom and embitterment, that tiresome delay or stoppage or embarrassment of every gracious, bold, sweet, charming thing, that we who . . . remember a real modern war know to be the reality of belligerence." H. G. Wells, Little Wars, 1913.

Fight on!

Cartomancy for Role Playing Games

Suits

♡ heart, health, emotion, passion
♠︎ weapons, strength, intelligence, calculation
♣︎ wands/staves, magic items/artifacts, magic, action
♢ treasure, wealth, goals, desires

Ranks

A: Singularity, whole, beginning
2: Dialogue, duel, dichotomy
3: Trinity, triad, triangulation
4: Corners, earth, foundation
5: Pentagram, Pentacle, Pentagon (magic)
6. Movement, strategy, warfare (HEX, of course!)
7. Holy, Sacred, Blessed
8. Stop (sign!), cessation, stagnation
9. Celestial, ethereal, primal
10. End, completion, ruin

Face Cards

J: Rogue, knave, problem (N)PC
Q: Eternal feminine, anima, major female (N)PC
K: Eternal masculine, animus, major male (N)PC

Joker (color, or upright): Risk, trust, faith, venture, amazing good fortune
Joker (b&w, or upside down): Foolishness, over-boldness, brashness, disaster, amazing misfortune

Reading

2-card reading: First card: context, second card: event or action.
3-card reading: First card: past, condition; Second Card: present state, current focus; Third card: future, goal, want, desire, plan.

Uses

Describing NPCs, determining NPC motives and plots, even PC backgrounds, if folks are interested.

Dice don't have to be the only oracle.

The Characteristics of Games (Part IV.)

This is a series on the book The Characteristics of Games that has a first post.

Chapter 3 is named, "Infrastructure," by which they mean "rules," but other aspects of games that take them beyond a simple study of rules and mechanics. The focus of the chapter is on what they call the "systemic first with agential overtones," (p. 71.).

Rules are instructions that tell players what actions they can take and their outcome in terms either of changed game state or ultimately in terms of winning, losing, or scoring. Rules may be enforced by the players, judges, or even by gameplay environment -- such as the size and feel of a football field, or the code of a computer game and the limits to player agency inherent in that code.  So they are using the word "rules," not in a narrow sense of "rules in a rule book," but in a broader sense of that could include instructions one might need in order to play or that determine how one plays.

Are universally accepted practices of play that are not in fact written down also rules? I think of leveling up when player characters are back in town and safe. I've never found that rule written anywhere. But I have never been in a group that didn't play by that. Is it a rule of D&D?

They ask a question about rules: "to what extent are the rules the same thing as the game?" They believe the identification of rules with their games makes far less sense than commonly supposed. They point to all the rule changes that have happened over time to basketball since its invention. Is it a different game than the one invented? "Only a pedant would say yes" (p. 73.). They offer a better point of view: "Think of the rules to a game as like the words to a story: a story can still be Little Red Riding Hood despite having different words from some other version. In fact it can even have a completely different ending. . . Although the rules are not the game, the rules let one experience the game by playing it, just as the words let one experience the story by reading it" (p. 73.). I think this is a great analogy!

In fact, they point out, a very common occurrence is that of changing the rules just exactly in order to keep the game the same! The goal is to keep the game experience the same, similar to, or "better," based upon the common experience and known goal of the play of the game itself. If some folks figure out a way to cheat the system such that the feel is wrong or the goals are moved or changed, then the game itself exerts a kind of pressure that usually leads to changing or establishing additional rules in order to achieve the same "feel" and goals as before. This describes well what has happened in the changing of the rules of basketball over time, for example. It may well describe the centuries-long journey of chess. It does not in my opinion describe the drive behind the rules glut of later editions of D&D!

"Just as Little Red Riding Hood is an entity having life outside its specific text, games are usually entities the live beyond their rules" (p. 73.). Rules do not define games. The game defines the rules. Man that is a great point for the OSR! It feels right to me to say that a big difference between old school and certain kinds of subsequent gaming is whether or not the mechanics themselves are supposed to create a kind of feedback loop into the game experience. Why can't dwarves be clerics? Because the game we are playing is a game that engages the classic legendaria of the medieval west. There are no stories where dwarves are clerics. Just because it is mechanically possible does not demand its existence. In fact, when we allow it, we actually create an alternative, mechanically derived legendaria that takes us further away from the game we are trying to play: "medieval fantasy wargames campaign."

I wish I knew Napoleonic wargaming a bit better. I am sure I could derive an analogy. But here goes: imagine a Napoleonic wargame that progresses from historical scenarios to hypotheticals. Some genius engineer type (no offense intended) sees that there could possibly be a troop with mechanics that blend artillery with cavalry. There is only one problem: this never in fact historically existed. Now, granted, with fantasy, who is to say whether it is okay for it to exist or not? After all, it is fantasy? But the more we move away from the inherited legendaria, the more we move away from the ability of the referee to have the authority to make calls based upon knowledge of the genre. Freedom for one may seem like simply missing the point of the game to the other. Hence, I play original edition D&D!

I also personally love their approach to the relationship of rules to their games because it is so very Platonic (and, as many are aware, I am a Platonist). The archetype precedes its instance, and both precede descriptive discourse about either!

I would add that the more one can assume an identity between rules and the game the more we are talking about a puzzle or riddle rather than a genuine game. It may be fun. It may be a good part of a game. But, alone, a puzzle is not a game. A puzzle can be "solved." A game can only be "played."

They then make what they see to be a useful practical distinction between first-order and second-order rules. First-order rules are those that anyone must know in order t o play or enjoy watching the game. Second-order rules are those someone needs to know for the game to occur, but a player may not nee to know them, although, of course, many expert players will also know them. I see this in D&D as obviously manifesting in the difference between players and the referee and even in the rules themselves between what is shared with the players and what only the referee should see. One way to see the difference is to imagine you are teaching someone to play. There are very few games where you would teach all the rules from the start. Typically you only teach first-order rules - and those in so far as needed to get started, with others being explained through actual play.

They then make the important point that sometimes rules may even become a barrier to play. I see this as a corollary to their above points about the actual relationship of rules to their games. This is a most excellent point for those of us in the OSR who like not only "rules lite," but also a more free kriegspiel approach to "wargaming," with heavy emphasis on trust in the expertise and fairness of the referee.

In making their point, they make the following seemingly bold claim: "In general, rules are a bad thing in the sense that one would like to achieve the same gameplay results with fewer rules, rather than more. Of course, this is not always possible. Too many first-order rules is especially bad," (p. 75.) because of the difficulty in introducing new players to the fun of actually simply playing. I cannot think of a point more conducive to the "rules-lite" approach to D&D. But by distinguishing between first and second-order rules we can have a very then "Players Handbook" and as thick a "Dungeon Masters Manual" as we desire (to use terms from Gygax' tournament revisions to D&D, i.e., "Advanced" D&D).

They thus conclude that:

One danger to watch out for when designing or modifying a game is the impulse to fix things (problems in the other characteristics) by adding rules. Sometimes adding rules is unavoidable, but in general it's better to look for other fixes. Repeated little extra bits of rules, each added to fix a different problem, can add up to a quite messy game. Again, adding first-order rules is worse than adding second-order ones, and the more players (rather than referees or computers) must adjudicate, the worse adding rules becomes. (p. 76.)

I think the above describes well exactly my implies that drove me to write out my little "retro-supplement," even "anti-supplement," Perilous Realms. I wanted to take away rules, rather than add. I wanted to create as much as possible the same basic experience of playing D&D with less, rather than more rules.

They conclude this point about rules by pointing out how we sometimes inadvertently legalize something by giving it an in-game penalty. Think about all the fouls that basketball players perform these days because they can manage the penalties to their advantage. Penalties are not rules that state "don't do this," but rather, "if you do this, X happens." In D&D I can think of the way that say encumbrance penalties can be flouted for min-maxing. But I need to think this one out a bit more.

After discussing rules they discuss what they call "standards." "Standards" are their name for sets of rules that often fall into what they call "clusters," e.g., rules around shuffling and trick-taking in card games, etc. Learning new heuristics is as difficult as learning new rules, so many games use "standards," "commonly accepted patterns that many players are already familiar with" (p. 76.). One "standard" would simply be the 52 card deck used for countless card games. Some say the sue of standards avoids creativity. But consider -- most folks play games to have fun and standards help folks know a lot about playing a new game before they even begin. Standards often come in bundles. Such s, for example "trick-taking card games." Or "track boardgames with dice."

This leads me to a grand contemplation: what if the subtitle to D&D had been "standards for medieval fantasy wargames campaigns," instead? Might that have freed people from rules glut and rules lawyering? What if the real difference between editions and campaigns is more about the difference between chess and checkers, monopoly and parcheesi, five-card stud and Texas hold-em rather than that of different "rules." What if it is the standards that make it a kind of game, a game type, rather than rules that make it a single game? What if D&D names a set of standards for a genre of games instead of rules for one game? That makes a whole lot of sense to me. And could perhaps put a buffer on "edition wars."

What are some standards in D&D that are like those of "trick-taking card games"? How about, classes and levels instead of skills. How about saving throws and hit points? These are more than rules. These are whole sets of rules. The rules may change, but the "standard" is still recognizably "D&D."

They then talk about end state of games. Some end with a single, unique winner. Some end with several winners or with folks assigned different scores. There can be different end conditions. They call games where someone clearly wins "orthogames." "Nonorthogames" are those were there is no clear winner, but where the goal is different, such as Hacky Sack, where the goal is to keep the bag in play as long as possible. I wonder if D&D is a "nonorthogame" in the sense that no one "wins." Or is "winning" per level? You "win" when you "level up," and thus set up the conditions for the next "win"? At any rate, D&D is a game of "scaled performance," leveling assigns players a score with in-game benefits. If a game has only two sides, there is almost always a unique winner. So, perhaps "winning" is surviving an encounter. Perhaps "winning" is at the "wargame" not the "campaign" level. There are even different ways to determine the end of a game. Some games end when there is a clear winner. At other times, some condition names the end of the game, then the game state is studied in order to determine the winner. In both cases, a "victory condition" is necessary.

They then turn to a discussion of points. Points are numeral scores assigned to each player.Typically highest is best, but not always, as in gold. In some games, points are spendable as in-game currency as real-world currency, as in gambling games. "Playing for points" is common. Sometimes points can be spent within the game to improve one's position, as in Monopoly.  This leads to the "snow-balling": whoever is ahead spends points to get further ahead. In order to avoid this, some games use a two or more point track system. They call this 'Dual-track point systems." here, in game "money" may better one's in-game condition without directly contributing to victory points. This avoided snowballing. they can force strategic choices, such as "guns or butter." Seems like D&D is a Dual Track point system, where XP and gp are related, but not identical. They can influence one another, but not usually directly.

Then they turn back to the beginning of the game and discuss different possible starting positions for the game. Starting positions can be symmetrical: all players start with the same relative game-state, such as Chess or Monopoly. They can be asymmetrical, such as joining an already busy OLMMG. Asymmetry can be slight or extreme.

Then they make a note about how games interact with human sensation. This can lead to even addictive behavior in the case of, say, gambling machines. I suppose novelty dice is the D&D equivalent to sensory aspects of the game!

Thanks for reading.

The Characteristics of Games (Part III.)

This series of posts begins with a first post.

Ch. 2. Multiplayer Games

This chapter seems like it may have a lot to say about D&D, but, in the end, as interesting as it is, I think it turns out not to be too very germane to our conversation here. Still, I thought I should provide a brief summary before moving on to Ch. 3.

The chapter has five sections: Player Elimination, Interactivity, Politics, Kingmaking and Teamwork.

A multiplayer game to be truly multiplayer (according to their heuristic) must actually be multisided. Two teams playing one another is still a "two person" game with two "sides" of "teams" working together to eliminate the other "player." With this regard chess and soccer are the same. They are both two sided games.

D&D as most of us experience it is really one of these kind of games. The "referee" "plays" the non-player character baddies while the "multiple players" are not really multiple as they work together as a team against the "baddies." I am exaggerating to make a point here. But I do not think I am far off in most of our common experience of how the game is run today.

This is different from the original campaigns where each character acted fairly independently (not always as a "party") and where the referee truly refereed between wargames that would crop up between players.

In true multiplayer games the authors distinguish between "races," and "brawls." A race winds up being a one-player game with multiple instances. Each competes against themselves for time and the best time wins. A brawl is built up from a two player game where extra players are added and rules determining elimination are set. Races have logical elimination and therefore (when played fair!) low player interaction. Races include foot races but also scrabble, candyland etc. Brawls can have, in addition to logic elimination effective or perceived elimination. This allows for greater player interaction, meaning, greater possible influence on a player's elimination by other players involved. The more this increases, especially when such interaction can be deliberately targeted, the more that such "metagaming" realities such as politics and kingmaking come into play. So, for example, poker can almost never get political because, even though there is much interaction, that interaction (unless you are cheating and counting cards) cannot be targeted. But you can target interaction in, say Risk.

The most obvious example of this emergent phenomenon of targeting and politics is in one of the key games of our gaming history, the political, kingmaking brawl par excellence: Diplomacy!

They give an abstract example called "The Chip-Taking Game":

Imagine a game, which we'll call the "chip-taking game," where each player starts with a pile of ten chips. Players take turns going around the table. On her turn, a player may take one chip from any player and discard it. The winner is the last person with any chips left.

Most people would not enjoy playing this game for long. There is no real skill involved, other than the skill of convincing other people not to take your chips. And even if you possess that skill, once the other players notice you have it, they will probably react by trying to eliminate you first.

Unfortunately, many multiplayer games reduce to the chip-taking game, in the sense that most of their game features are irrelevant for determining the winner, who is instead chosen ultimately in chip-taking fashion. All that's necessary is that the game be highly interactive, n the sense that players can affect the positions of other players, and also that players can target whoever they affect. (p. 48.)

Diplomacy is, ultimately, just such a chip-taking game. The mechanics do not matter. That is why the mechanics, from a wargaming perspective, are so simple. They really, in the end, don't matter. If you get particularly good at the mechanics of Diplomacy, in the end, it may not really help you much. You had better be really good at politics. Once people figure out you are particularly good at either the mechanics, or the politics, they are likely to gang up on you and eliminate you so they don't have to worry about such a good player spoiling all their fun anymore! Cynical, but true. To make sense of this affect, they give this interesting example:

As a simple albeit artificial example, suppose we modify the chip-taking game so that on a player's turn, she chooses another player and plays a game of chess against him; if she wins he discards two chips, and if she loses he discards only one. This game has all the complexity and skill of chess, but it doesn't matter. Kasparov is no more like to win than anyone else at this game, and probably less; the other players are likely to choose him consistently until he's eliminated.

I think this may be important to bear in mind in D&D campaigns that truly turn wargames campaign: where players are no longer "the adventuring party" but antagonists at war with one another. Keeping the mechanics pretty simple will keep play honest, as it will really come down to factions and alliances.

They give a long list of strategies that they claim simply will emerge in any game that turns out truly to be a political (i.e., "chip-taking") game. It is long, so I'll just select my favorites:

• Lying low so that players do not perceive you as a threat.
• Waiting while other players fight it out and then mopping up the pieces.
• Cajoling, whining, or begging other players not to hurt you.
• Offering out-of-game benefits . . .
• Hurting the player who last hurt you ("revenge").
• Explaining to the victim why your choice was the rational one given the current game state . . .
• Arguing that a player's choice of you as the victim is not optimal . . .
• Kingmaking: near the end of the game, a player who has no chance to win determining which of the players still in contention actually wins . . . (p. 51)

They conclude that if "the game has enough targeted interaction, the above effects will dominate the game, and in some sense all games with enough targeted interactino are the same game" (p. 52.). I just love that. Then, they add in a footnote that the "cynical (or realistic, depending on your point of view) may see some resemblance to life in general." Cute, but well stated.

Kingmaking is where one perceives that one is all but logically eliminated from the game, but uses whatever resources left in order to make sure a certain player does (or does not) win the game. This is pure politics, as it will have no in-game rewards for the kingmaking player.

Finally, the chapter concludes talking about teamwork. They present cooperative games as a special case. Most team-based games boil down to two-player games with each "player" consisting of a team. Teams usually consistent of differentiated roles. For folks on a team to feel like they are having fun, they need to feel that they are contributing in some way to the over-all win for their side. This leads to a need for relative balance between different roles. (Uh-oh. Dangerous to say on an old school forum. I will only whisper it <"character balance."> I have whispered it. I will say no more.)

It could be argued, of course, that D&D is a cooperative game (most of the time, the way we find ourselves playing it), with the ref adjudicating impartially. I do hope that is the case. It often feels more like a two-player game (team against one), especially under certain strains of old-school refs who pride themselves on their "killer dungeons"!

This series continues with the next post.