52 Pages Tutorial Character Sheet

One of my first old school things to get attention was the Old School Players character sheet which had all the rules for rolling up a character on it. Last weekend I was getting some new players started and thought it would be a good idea to work up an overlay for the existing 52 Pages sheet that would kind of simulate this experience. It ended up as three pieces of paper that you would cut various sized holes in, with instructions for filling in the parts of the sheet that were visible through the holes at he time.

This was clever but proved a little unwieldy in practice; I probably should have made the overlays a different color than the sheet. Anyway, this gave me the idea to just go back to the old ways and produce a character sheet with the instructions on it. After some simplifications and "ask the GM" handwaving I managed to fit things onto two sides of a piece of paper (European A4, so North Americans may want to do some resizing).

Blogger is being funny about updating the links section on the right so here is the link to the shared doc. Enjoy!

Prestige? Hell, I Was Born This Way

A contradiction:

First, the best way to do classes in a Basic D&D hybrid is start out with a simple list pretty much keyed to the ability scores. Fighter STR, Thief DEX, you know the routine ... Dwarf CON and Elf CHA pretty much slide in there. The runty class, I think, is best reserved for little nippers with no exceptional scores - that's how I make my gnomes. So seven classes, and it's damn clear which ones you're cut out for, and if your DM is a softie they can let you swap a pair of scores to play what you want.

The Grimdarckane Cricketeer Bladerager (tm)

It is also the easiest thing to slip out of that discipline - to get bored of the repetition, and sneak in a druid here, a bard there, a paladin or ranger or illusionist ... And then a genius insight! You can have your simplicity cake and eat complexity too. Just keep the more advanced options as 3rd Edition-style "prestige classes" for later levels, at a point in the game when the players are well used to it, and looking for new challenges and options.

The contradiction? For some classes that people want to play, it makes no sense, because the class is tied in with a background. Why should my vanilla cleric forsake his god and become a druid? That's as outlandish as a Christian curate suddenly becoming a Buddhist lama at 7th level (oh wait). Why should a vanilla fighter suddenly discover her barbarian roots? While it's easy for a wizard to start specializing, or a fighter to join holy orders, or a rogue to pick up the lute and become a bard, some other class-based choices cut to the identity of the character.

Sure, you could require that the would-be barbarian declare a wilderness background as a plain level 1 fighter, but then that's just another option players have to keep in mind when they start, to avoid the disappointment of being trapped in a choice they made when they didn't know any better. That way lies Third Edition madness, where optimal builds are mapped out level by level from the start like some kind of retirement plan.

So another solution presents itself: to make further specialization about what you can do, not who you are. Not about being a barbarian, but about gaining a Berserk Rage feat at level 3. Not about starting as a druid, but getting closer to nature within your faith, picking up some wilderness miracles at level 3.

But then you risk losing the simplicity of class-based design when it comes to NPCs. Instead of being able to say "This is a level 9 druid" now you have to say "This is a level 9 cleric with the Animal Friend and Plant Baron and Rockslide Impresario and Storm Meister special options."

Anyway, I see two ways out of the maze:

1. Different rules for player and nonplayer characters. The PC gets more specialized by feats, the NPCs have a set of named classes that involve a regular progression of those feats. The PCs, then, start out with a simple set of choices, but then have more diverse options than the NPCs in the fullness of time. In the meantime, the DM can handle the complexity that comes from having twenty or so NPC class options.

2. Realize that players evolve over more than one character. So, give players new to gaming or to your particular system the easy, limited set of options. By the time that first character dies or they are ready to join a new campaign, they will be more able to handle a complex set of class choices.

Which one do you prefer?

It's A Hard Game

Will Dungeons and Dragons be the next [insert high-impact fantasy franchise here]?

This article in TIME is a better-than-average mass media assessment of D&D's impact on the popular landscape.What I appreciate is its clear analysis of the game's simultaneously pariah and ubiquitous status. D&D has a clear and massive legacy, a definite mandate as a cultish hobby,  but an uncertain future as a mass phenomenon.

I sometimes think the often-repeated cries for these kinds of games to regain their fad status are misguided. The days when people just broke out the D&D and played were days without wide access to more immediately involving interactive games. Let's not forget that tabletop games are hard. They can be hard in an easy way or hard in a hard way, to be exact.

The easy hard way is playing with the tons of rules that some approaches to gaming demand. It's easy because it requires the same cognitive skills as understanding how to play Monopoly or World of Warcraft, just multiplied by a factor of however many. It sometimes seems unnecessary when you can play computer games that take care of the drudgery, but nonetheless we see people drawn to the rule-based approach because they have the brainpower, the obsessiveness, or the ability just to sit back and let other people coach them.

The hard hard way is letting go the rules, finding a gamemaster who is capable of doing more than we did just breaking out the rulebooks in high school, and accepting his or her authority. The "authority" part is the really hard part, especially for adolescents. I know I remember things that way, anyway. In fact, the revival of stripped-down D&D may be a better thing for parents playing with their young kids and friends. The chain of command is already clear there. The kids don't demand much in the way of continuity, emotional depth, grandiose sociopolitical thematizing, and other quintessential adolescent ohmygod-so-serious concerns.

As I've argued before, we could get more players for our games if we made it clear that the DM handles most of the rules, and you just tell us what you're doing and how - but that assumes enough maturity on the part of the players. I don't know, I think we can get enough of those players to come around. It might take a shortcut around the stigma - call it the "survival game," give them modern equipment and problems, only slowly introduce the weird. Or the hell with it, embrace the weird, let your own maturity as a person open eyes and make it okay for them.

Just never let them see the damn gaming forums, okay?

One-Nerd Character Sheets

A game that's appealing to new and nontraditional players need not have simple rules, just a referee who's willing to take on the burden of dealing with the rules ... at least that's what I argued a few weeks ago.

I want to get specific now about ways  to tackle an issue I have special awareness of. For the past 15 years or so I've been teaching statistics and methods at the undergraduate and masters' level to psychology students. A lot of them are smart, but just have an unease or outright dislike when it comes to numbers. This is often a gender issue, but not always. Of course, to use statistics I have to deal with numbers, but try to soften the blow by using concepts and figures more than equations in teaching.

My question is, how many people like this have frozen over when they see a form to be filled in with numbers, numbers, numbers?

This resemblance can't help.

And how many would be more at ease playing a game that rewards their talents of verbal expression, imagination, logical thinking, problem solving - while only having to deal with six one-digit numbers, a hit point score, and their money and experience totals?

Here's the current character sheet I use for my games (click these to enlarge).

Now here it is split up into two: a basic player's sheet stripped of most of the statistics and numbers, and a basic referee roster where they all go.

 For extra simplicity, I suggest flipping the bonus and score areas of the ability scores, so that the 3-18 roll goes in the little dash to the right, and the bonus/penalty/0 goes into the big box on the left.

The "good at" and "not so good at" boxes are there for the player to make notes on the DM's summing up of their skills.

Most of my current players are avid roleplayers who are comfortable with the numbers and sums. Some of them would even feel uncomfortable without being able to look and see exactly what their character numbers do. But if I ever have a chance to run games for non-gamers - kids or grownups - I'll give this approach a shot.

From One-Nerd Game to Multi-Nerd Game

People who write about role-playing games sometimes harken back to a Golden Age of the olden hobby. In this white box dreamtime, the nerd did sit down with the jock and everyone in school was swept up in this crazy D&D fad, before [your least favorite edition] happened and everything collapsed.

The last time D&D was ever marketed to cool people.

Others quest for an El Dorado, a revitalized hobby scented by Febreze instead of cat piss. In this odyssey, families, regular folks, and the ever elusive middle aged soccer mom are skilfully steered clear of all things stigmatizing, difficult and awkward - lost sheep emerging into an engrossing world of participatory narrative that they never knew.

These twin idylls are probably distorted and certainly unrealistic as a characterization of the past or the conceivable future. They read like the “glorious past, glorious future” thinking of extremist terrorist groups (pdf link) although I’ll allow that those who follow roleplaying dreams destroy only disk space on forum servers.

All the same, many of us have glimpsed the possibilities. The impromptu game on a train with an utter non-gamer. The clique of punks in my high school who ran a wild mishmash of Runequest and D&D. And the Eden myth is somewhat true - earlier versions of the rules are more friendly to non-geek play. This is not because the rules themselves were readable and playable by the average person – quite the opposite! Rather, it’s because they invested most of the rules knowledge in the referee.

The approach up through AD&D was to give the DM authority and keep as much of the rules secret as possible. The DM Guide was supposed to be a secret from the players, the attack and saving throw matrices locked away inside its covers and behind the sacred screen. Skill use was entirely the province of the DM.

This meant that players could take a naive, analog approach to the game. With no rules knowledge at all, they could proceed by just saying, “I do this, does it work?” More to the point, they didn’t need to be confronted with a wall of stats and procedures. It’s not that they had no agency; it’s that their agency was completely in-character.

And then the nerds ruined it for everyone else; the way that, buying cases of cards at a time, they destroyed Richard Garfield’s vision for Magic: The Gathering as an ever-unfolding surprise. The nerds had to know what they needed to hit armor class zero; they had to have clearly defined skill procedures; eventually, they had to have feats and powers to feel special. As character options< became more complex, optimized builds became a focus and obsession. Instead of the wall of nerd elitism stopping at the DM screen, it grew to enfold the whole playgroup.

So D&D stopped being a one-nerd game and started being a multi-nerd game. Rule systems that put everything up front, no matter how simple, miss this point. To get non-nerd players into the game, you don’t need to increase their sense of understanding or control over the rules. In fact, you want them to ignore the rules and trust the referee. And that’s something you can’t buy in a store – a DM who is socially skilled, deeply knowledgeable, and trustworthy.

Equipment and Weapon Cards - System-Free

I realized yesterday that it might be more useful if I left off all the One Page prices, weights, and rules assumptions from these cards, so that you can put on them whatever's appropriate in your rules system and campaign.

The weapon kits, of course, can't be system neutral entirely. For example, the "civilian" kit for wizards has a crossbow, the "rogue" kit for thieves has a bow and arrows, choices not supported by AD&D. I also included the mace in the "cleric" kit but some DMs may allow religion-specific weapons. You may want to substitute appropriate weapons (darts, sling) or just say that the weapon is for hirelings or other party members to use.

Hope these are useful!

First Timers' Dungeon Crawl

At the university's game club meeting today, I finished off the first foray into the Castle of the Mad Archmage. If the previous week's theme was "slaying easy foes" this one's was "RUN!!"

There were six people around the table and four were completely new to tabletop roleplaying gaming as of last week, with various experiences in boardgaming, computer RPGs and those online story games my niece is into. I think D&D provides a perfect entry point because its assumptions and cliches are so widespread that everyone slips into it like an old pair of loafers. From my viewpoint the run of computer RPGs these days tends toward the "line up and blast each other" Japanese style, so having real, running, 2 dimensional problem-solving tactics in a game may have been a special revelation.

Four of the eight people who were at the previous week's game showed up along with two new folks. It took a while to roll their characters up (I'm thinking of producing custom character sheets for each class to speed this up) and we decided that the turmoil of the party fleeing down separate corridors and splitting up would explain the disappearance of some and the appearance of others.

Incidentally, I may be going to Dragonmeet in London on 26th November in loose affiliation with the club (that is, more likely to stay with friends than take the minivan, coach or whatever they end up hiring for the day). If any UK or other oldschoolers are planning to be there, I might want to run for one session and play for the other. Let me know in comments.

Play report and Mad Archmage spoilers after the cut.

Character Roles Reflect Player Roles

See, the different power mechanics for different character types in old D&D are not a bug to be phased out and homogenized. They are a system of player preference and type as valid as the tank/shooter/controller/buffer system in multiplayer online games and the tabletop systems that emulate them.

via Pixeljoint.com

Fighter: The safe role for the strong and silent type of player. Can attack until the hits run low. Always knows what the right thing to do is: block and attack the bad guys. If you don't have this type of player: Buy men-at-arms and henchmen.

Rogue/Thief: The good role for the impulsive tactical thinker. Using their combat and dungeon abilities requires initiative and coordination, but the abilities are not depleted by use, so the big picture doesn't play a part. If you don't have this type of player: Just play instinctively and roll with the punches, stabs, crushes and KABOOMs. Or throw a chicken down the stairs in front of you.

Wizard/Magic-User: Knowing this role well requires a grasp of a part of the rules - spells - that other classes can just ignore. This is a role best suited for the "specialist" player who enjoys working with complex systems and bending the rules. The player has several big, one-shot effects at his or her disposal, and especially at early levels, having the strategic big picture and knowing when to use each one is crucial. Having a strategist's mind also overcomes the critique that the magic-user's player has nothing to do when the spells run out; this player is likely to take over managing the party's other resources. If you don't have this type of player: Invest in oil, acid, offensive scrolls and potions.

Cleric: The cleric plays a relatively simple role, like the fighter, but supportive rather than offensive. The times to intervene are clear: heal wounded party members; turn undead when they show up. This should appeal to the player who likes to support and hold the party together. If you don't have this type of player: Invest in protection scrolls and healing potions.

In D&D, though, the cleric class partakes of other player roles - an armored blocker like the fighter; a caster of offensive spells like the wizard. This dilutes the class somewhat and may be part of the complaints that it is too bland or overpowered.

One of the reasons I'm eagerly looking forward to further development of the "all cleric spells work like turning" idea on Nine and Thirty Kingdoms: it pushes the cleric to further differentiation from the magic-user. The cleric becomes a manager of uncertainty over time rather than a dispenser of sure-shot one-shots.

Birth of a Gamer: Amazon on a Train

Last weekend we took in a play and a couple of meals up in London with some fellow Americans, a visiting prof at our department and his social worker spouse. These folks are somewhat older than we are, close to retirement age, but only are around at my university in the spring and were about to head back stateside.

Because the spouse had expressed some interest in roleplaying in one of our earlier meetings, I'd surreptitiously bought some dice (six siders) in Covent Garden market. The train ride back out of London was the scene for her gaming initiation, and the four of us were lucky to have grabbed table seats. It takes one hour but the time fairly flew as I had her roll 3d6 in order - 13 strength, 5 charisma - creating a warrior. When I gave the chance for one descriptive word, she came up with "Amazon."

Our Amazon approached the gates of a walled town. For some reason, interacting with the guards, she spun a story that the chainmail and spear weren't hers, but she'd just found them - a story she would repeat later. In any event, her social awkwardness led to a less than friendly reaction roll, but they let her in for the usual toll.

Three streets led away from the gate. I was completely winging this, with only four dice and no written material at all. I came up with rough ideas of what each street would lead to, and gave her the choice. She took the left-hand path, leading to an industrial district, where she came upon a group of tannery workers getting their supper slops. The cook rolled a great reaction - 11 on 2d6, friendly even toward her terrible charisma - so I had him greet her warmly, offer the last of the slops and a job feeding the pigs out back. But she didn't know that ... and though she took the job up, it was with some fear and a little ribbing from the rest of us as to the decidedly non-heroic turn of our adventure.

The workmen left and the cook showed our Amazon to her quarters, in the butcher shop of this all-in-one hog processing operation. Feeling wary by now, she decided to sneak out in the fading light and see if anyone else was about. I had her run into some women who worked in a weaving and dyeing establishment, but their reaction was negative and they called their menfolk to give dire threats to the Amazon (hostile reaction, but not a strong morale result that would have led to a fight).

She went back to the butcher shop, where there was an ominous trapdoor. She had the idea to use her strength to try and open it, at which she succeeded (roll low, 3d6). There were claw marks on the inside of the door and a series of rungs going down. Her eventual security plan was to sleep atop the door, so that anything coming up would both be blocked and wake her.

Of course, the underground has to intrude into the first adventure, right? So in the middle of the night, she's awakened by a thumping and scratching on the trapdoor. She gets up and runs out of the butcher shop, round a corner, waits and listens. In the darkness, something is shambling and snuffling toward her ...

And then the train reached its stop and the session was over.

Thinking back to our earlier discussions about the different selves in a game, our friend showed excellent adventuring caution. She put herself into the dangerous situation with great conviction and intensity. But, she did very little immersion into the role of the Amazon. In a sense, the "Amazon" was herself -a modern woman in medieval times, thrust into a strange town with strange goings-on.

We hope to pick up again next year!