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Introduction to Each Post in This Series

On Friday (July 23, 2021), I mentioned that I was relearning AD&D 1st Edition (“1e“) with the intention of running it. As I read through the Player’s Handbook (“PHB“), certain mechanics or text will strike me as odd or surprising, but in either case worthy of discussion. In fact, the most surprising thing I’m experiencing is that I’m finding a lot more great ideas in 1e that we’ve since abandoned. I find myself asking, “Why?” As a result, I’ll be writing several posts over the next few weeks. I’m sure everything I’m thinking has been discussed before — sometimes be me — so perhaps my questions have been answered, and my concerns resolved, years ago. My experience with RPGs is relatively limited in scope, having played a small number of games, so I’m sure a lot of what I’m going to say has been incorporated into games I’ve never even heard of. (Some have certainly been addressed by future editions of D&D themselves.) Nevertheless, bringing this directed conversation to the public is new to me, so here it goes.

Posts in this series: | My Playlist | Campaign Settings and Pantheons | Languages | Level | “Dead Levels” | Division of Labor, Distance, and Time | Initiative | Combat Subsystems | Armor Class Ratings | Alignment and Reputation | The Feel of a School of Magic | Boring Magic Items | Ability Score Bonuses and Skill Rolls | The Problem with Democracies | Hitting More Frequently | Encounter Balance and Shooting Yourselves in the Feet |

Ability Scores

I’ve talked a little about this already, and foreshadowed the coming of this post. I’m not going to repeat what I wrote there, so you may need to read that post for context, but here’s my premise. At least at some point beyond character creation, if not immediately, the range of ability scores for player characters tends to be far too great, at least with respect to various editions of D&D. This occurs because of the use of boring magic items and ability score bumps. Needless to say, the Wizard isn’t going to boost his strength, while the Fighter absolutely will. Because they likely started 10 points apart (Wizard 8, Fighter 18), the already great spread gets even worse as they level up. This is a problem because of how it cascades through a game’s design to harm both skill rolls and the design itself.

Skill Checks

All games that I’ve played recently employ some form of “group skill check.” This is a check where all the characters are working together, so each player makes the same skill check representing their character’s contribution to the effort. 4e expanded this into the oft-maligned skill challenge. If, for example, all of the players are scaling a cliff, that check would be something like D&D‘s Athletics check. The problem is that in both 4e and 5e, neither of those characters are the slightest bit concerned as to what they roll. The Wizard is going to fail miserably, and the Fighter is going to succeed easily. That’s boring for both players. You need both skill rolls to matter, which means the target number for success must be attainable to both. That can’t happen if their scores are too far apart.

There’s another way to resolve this issue. During the group skill check, players can assist one another. The games I’ve played have done this, but with issues. Usually, the assist isn’t good enough, and the Wizard fails anyway far more often than makes sense to me. Sometimes the party should fail, but only when failure is based on a skill roll against a reasonable target number. I’ve seen this result avoided far too often via deus ex machina rather than by a fair game design. (By now, you should know how much I hate dei ex machina.) In other cases, this is handled reasonably, but only by adding an unnecessary layer of complexity to the process. The Fighter makes a second roll, and if she succeeds, she reaches down and pulls up the Wizard. Not only is that more time consuming, but it sometimes completely nullifies the Wizard’s roll. Instead, the Fighter should roll once, and that single roll should be measure not just for success, but for how much it succeeded. Did the roll succeed by 1? 3? 5? 10? The answer to each of those questions determines a bonus the Fighter can hand out to other characters that need it. That simulates the Fighter reaching down and pulling up the Wizard without a bulky second roll; it’s simply part of the process. However, keep in mind that the Wizard’s roll also has to matter. The Fighter’s shared bonus has to be small enough that the Wizard will still fail if the Wizard doesn’t come close on his roll.

Having both of these solutions working together is the best option. With the way I’ve mapped out, both skill rolls matter. The Fighter cares because her roll must uber-succeed, and the Wizard cares because his roll has to come within a reasonable distance of success. Other characters just have to worry about themselves. All of this requires an underlying mathematical foundation that supports it, and I often don’t see that.

Each of these problems can be solved with a slight tweak here and there, but one of my points is that they’re all connected. If you don’t have a fundamental design structure that fixes all the problems, you’ll continue to have these problems pop up here and there. The problems is I don’t think game designers actually want to solve this problem. Wizards of the Coast promised to do so with 5e but quickly abandoned that promise.

It probably wouldn’t have been good for business.

Follow me on Twitter @gsllc

Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)

If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.

Introduction to Each Post in This Series

On Friday (July 23, 2021), I mentioned that I was relearning AD&D 1st Edition (“1e“) with the intention of running it. As I read through the Player’s Handbook (“PHB“), certain mechanics or text will strike me as odd or surprising, but in either case worthy of discussion. In fact, the most surprising thing I’m experiencing is that I’m finding a lot more great ideas in 1e that we’ve since abandoned. I find myself asking, “Why?” As a result, I’ll be writing several posts over the next few weeks. I’m sure everything I’m thinking has been discussed before — sometimes be me — so perhaps my questions have been answered, and my concerns resolved, years ago. My experience with RPGs is relatively limited in scope, having played a small number of games, so I’m sure a lot of what I’m going to say has been incorporated into games I’ve never even heard of. (Some have certainly been addressed by future editions of D&D themselves.) Nevertheless, bringing this directed conversation to the public is new to me, so here it goes.

Posts in this series: | My Playlist | Campaign Settings and Pantheons | Languages | Level | “Dead Levels” | Division of Labor, Distance, and Time | Initiative | Combat Subsystems | Armor Class Ratings | Alignment and Reputation | The Feel of a School of Magic | Boring Magic Items | Ability Score Bonuses and Skill Rolls | The Problem with Democracies | Hitting More Frequently | Encounter Balance and Shooting Yourselves in the Feet |

Boring Magic Items

I’ve already discussed this but am going to repeat the argument here: You should never have a +X amulet, shield, suit of armor, weapon, etc. It’s boring, and the bonus is illusory anyway.

DMs balance encounters to suit the game they want to run. Maybe they want the encounters to be average, harder than average, or easier than average, but whatever the balance they want, that’s what they want. Let’s say a game is designed such that we can assume our characters will get a +1 weapon by 3rd level. If that happens, are all the encounters suddenly too easy for the party? Of course not. When I say that a “game is designed such that we can assume our characters will get a +1 weapon by 3rd level,” what I’m also effectively saying is that the monsters the characters will face at 3rd level also receive that same bump. That maintains the balance the DM seeks without having to mess with the level of the monsters. In other words, the bonus is illusory because it must be met, bonus for bonus, by the monsters. 1e makes things a bit more interesting using tables to determine randomly the precise magic item you find (as well as some other things like level drain and ability score drain being assumed), but even those items are balanced for a range of levels. I’m not satisfied by that, but at least there’s something interesting going on, so I can understand why someone else may be. But getting just a +2 weapon? C’mon, people.

Here’s a better solution, and one that all games use in part anyway: Be creative. Create interesting magic items, such as 1e‘s scimitar of speed, or 4e‘s frostbrand weapon. Sure, these weapons also give you an illusory combat power that must be balanced by increasing the threat of monsters, but the point is that they make things interesting. The 1e scimitar of speed is fun because you can attack even while the rest of your side is surprised. With a frostbrand weapon, the Fighter can use tactics to line up the enemies in such a way as to hit multiple targets with a blast. Without stealing the Wizard’s thunder, for just a fleeting moment, the frostbrand weapon let’s the Fighter act as a Wizard using a blast power, and it feels like an accomplishment with respect to tactics. If the enemies are vulnerable to cold, that’s gravy. Even 3e armor of acid resistance, which is a passive effect, would give a character their chance to shine. The fighter wearing that could run headlong into a fight against a black dragon and nearly single-handedly save the day. Maybe. Dragons are tough. In any case, those are interesting magic items.

On the other hand, who actually thinks it’s fun to add 6 to your attack rolls rather than adding 5? There’s nothing fun or interesting about that, and that’s the primary mechanical difference between a +X weapon and a nonmagical one. The only other one I can think of is that some creatures can’t be hit by nonmagical weapons, but not having magical weapons in those scenarios just means every encounter is a TPK. That means the boon of finding a +X magic item is, in all meaningful ways, illusory. It adds nothing to the mechanics or fun of the game. But here’s the other thing. Even if you think getting a +X weapon is fun (in which case you’re weird), would you miss it if it were gone? Wouldn’t you be just as happy with a scimitar of speed as you would a +X weapon? If so, then eliminating +X magic items from the game keeps everyone happy. Accordingly, 1e has a lot of cool magic items, and those are the only ones I’ll ever hand out.

You may be fooled by illusory bonuses, but I’m not.

Follow me on Twitter @gsllc

Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)

If you enjoy this post, please retweet it.

Introduction to Each Post in This Series

On Friday (July 23, 2021), I mentioned that I was relearning AD&D 1st Edition (“1e“) with the intention of running it. As I read through the Player’s Handbook (“PHB“), certain mechanics or text will strike me as odd or surprising, but in either case worthy of discussion. In fact, the most surprising thing I’m experiencing is that I’m finding a lot more great ideas in 1e that we’ve since abandoned. I find myself asking, “Why?” As a result, I’ll be writing several posts over the next few weeks. I’m sure everything I’m thinking has been discussed before — sometimes be me — so perhaps my questions have been answered, and my concerns resolved, years ago. My experience with RPGs is relatively limited in scope, having played a small number of games, so I’m sure a lot of what I’m going to say has been incorporated into games I’ve never even heard of. (Some have certainly been addressed by future editions of D&D themselves.) Nevertheless, bringing this directed conversation to the public is new to me, so here it goes.

Posts in this series: | My Playlist | Campaign Settings and Pantheons | Languages | Level | “Dead Levels” | Division of Labor, Distance, and Time | Initiative | Combat Subsystems | Armor Class Ratings | Alignment and Reputation | The Feel of a School of Magic | Boring Magic Items | Ability Score Bonuses and Skill Rolls | The Problem with Democracies | Hitting More Frequently | Encounter Balance and Shooting Yourselves in the Feet |

Alignment

Oh, shit. It’s on now. It’s a good thing my blog isn’t popular. I’d get hammered if this went viral.

What happens when a lawful good, mortal character picks up the Book of Vile Darkness? It burns, right? In 5e, she suffers disadvantage. In 4e, she grants combat advantage and has a penalty to attacks and saves. What happens when a neutral evil, mortal character holds it? Nothing, right? Well, that makes no sense. If the book is covered in acid, radiating electricity, or otherwise sending off harmful waves, it should hurt anyone who holds it that isn’t resistant to the damage. But it doesn’t. Why? Because what it’s radiating is evil, and in fantasy RPGs, law, chaos, good, and evil aren’t just philosophies. Philosophies can’t burn you.

Instead, law, chaos, good, and evil are forces of nature, just like electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces. As Lord Gygax wrote, “it is very difficult for a character to voluntarily switch from one [alignment] to another. . .” (1e PHB, 34). This shouldn’t be hard for a D&D player to accept. We already accept the notion of the elements — air, earth, fire, and water — as fundamental aspects of nature, which is terrible science. Alignment can easily fit into that same approach. It’s an even stronger position to take considering that, in a fantasy setting, gods are fueled by prayers. These alignment forces provide a medium through which prayers and deeds fuel the power of the gods. Accordingly, you should expect the gods to engage in a divine arms race, infusing their mortal races with alignment energies, which results in an instinct to worship their respective creators. In other words, it makes perfect sense that Gruumsh would infuse orcs with both chaos and evil, and make them in his own image. Exceptions aside, who else would orcs worship?

Stories

Many wonderful stories that permeate not only RPGs, but our culture in general, are often a direct result of, and deeply intertwined with, this idealized approach to alignment. I understand that some of those stories have troubling themes (e.g., Sleeping Beauty was raped), but there’s no reason that such themes must exist as part of this approach. That’s a matter of story only. However, I will say that sometimes you need a story to be extreme in order for the audience to appreciate it.

A Few Problems Remain

If the point of keeping alignments is the stories, you have to make sure alignment doesn’t negatively impact the story. I see that happen when, for example, every player safely assumes that every monster they meet is evil.

Even if 99.99% of, e.g., hobgoblins are evil, the percentage of evil hobgoblins the characters actually meet should be much lower. Otherwise, every encounter with hobgoblins becomes as “kick the door down, kill everyone, and steal their shit” encounter. That’s too easy and boring.

So, even assuming you accept my position that alignments should remain, and you make sure a high percentage of exceptions exist among the humanoid NPCs the characters meet, there are two more problems that yet remain, and they have nothing to do with the social controversies surrounding it.

First, it sometimes seems that everyone has a different definition of each of the alignments. Over on Facebook, someone recently asked, “Just for fun, what alignment(s) suit Indiana Jones?” Here are the answers:

Chaotic good.
Neutral Good.
Chaotic Neutral.
Neutral.
Lawful Good.
Lawful Neutral.
Neutral Awesome.
Lawful Evil.
Chaotic Bitchen.

Unless “awesome” and “bitchen” are synonyms for evil, they all agree Indy isn’t neutral evil or chaotic evil. Well, that doesn’t exactly narrow it down. Without agreed-upon definitions for these terms, it’s hard to deal with them. Lord Gygax acknowledged this.

Naturally, there are all variations and shades of tendencies within each alignment. The descriptions are generalizations only.

PHB, 33.

This suggests, as do the explanations given in that Facebook post, that part of the problem is that everyone has their own opinion as to where the line is drawn between two alignments. Several of the 125 answers drew the boundaries around some alignments more narrowly than others. That is, they’d cite a single instance of Indy going off alignment as proof that he wasn’t of that alignment at all. For example, one person said chaotic good because Indy would occasionally break a law. Even a lawful good character would break a rule once in a blue moon, but “occasionally” breaking a rule sounds like neutral good to me. Chaotic good is a disrespect for all but the most important laws (e.g., murder), and even those were flexible. This poster apparently wouldn’t tolerate a single rule break before designating Indy chaotic good.

I’m not sure this problem is solvable. Both 2e (IIRC) and 3e were reasonably thorough in their discussion of alignment, yet we still have this problem. However, we just need the problem solved on a per-table basis. That can be done at a session zero and as the campaign proceeds. So, for the sake of argument, let’s say everyone at a particular table fully agrees on how a character of a particular alignment should act under a particular set of circumstances. This leads us to the second problem: Some people don’t play alignment properly even where we all agree on what that alignment demands of the character. Some players choose an alignment for some mechanical benefit, but play the character as a different alignment simply because it’s more fun, or perhaps to take advantage of a different mechanical benefit. I can think of far worse things players have done, but you lose something from the gaming experience for yourself and others if you play that way.

The Solution to These Problems

These problems can be (have been?) mitigated in two ways: 1) lessening the mechanical benefit of alignment forces; and 2) having a robust reputation system. If a lawful good paladin holds the Book of Vile Darkness, then it should burn him and provide a mechanical penalty, because that’s a penalty that applies to only a small number of related encounters. The moment alignment has a larger impact on mechanics than these exceptional cases, players have an incentive to claim an alignment that they won’t actually play. Still, any incentive at all could be a problem, so we’re not out of the woods yet.

The overall behavior of the character (or creature) is delineated by alignment, or, in the case of player characters, behavior determines actual alignment.

1e DMG, 23

The other solution is a robust system of reputation. 4e’s D&D Encounters had such a system, but it wasn’t as strong as I’m suggesting. At any moment where the players are going to increase their reputation, a DM must disclose to a player that a given act will have appropriate consequences. They will be seen either as someone to rely on or someone not to be trusted depending on what choice they make. Some choices don’t carry any ethical weight to them but still add to a character’s reputation. Thus, characters accumulate good, bad, and neutral reputation points. The total number of points they accumulate determine their reputation (i.e., how well-known they are), but the difference between their good and bad points determines how certain institutions and organizations will view them. If you’re a thief with more bad points than good, the ruling noble won’t trust you, but the Thieves’ Guild will help you out. Alignment and reputation can work well together, and I see no pressing need to omit alignment from RPGs, but if you do omit alignment, you should certainly replace alignment with reputation.

Dwindling down to Nothing

As more elements are removed from the game, there won’t be anything else left to play. Alignment is yet another fine idea that’s about to be removed because people are connecting a fantasy world to the real world. The last time I dealt with this point of view, the Satanic Panic kicked my ass. The panicked saw the mythological elements of D&D as competition for their own religious views, which meant they were taking both mythology and games far too seriously. This campaign against alignment shares the same mentality, taking a game too seriously and treating it as you would the real world. The last time I checked, there are no goblins running around my neighborhood, and evil isn’t anything more than a state of mind, so there’s no need to eliminate many powerful stories from our arsenal. If this trend continues, future generations won’t be able to tell any stories at all. I’d rather not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

There. I’ve spoken my peace. I’ll never publicly discuss this alignment bullshit again.

Follow me on Twitter @gsllc

Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, LLC, who neither contributed to nor endorsed the contents of this post. (Okay, jackasses?)