Me and the DMG

[squeen]

Here's a bit of starter-yeast for a thread this is intended to be a reflection of how y'all came to understand the D&D system you are currently using.

For me, its encapsulated in a evolving understanding of the 1e DMG and how to use it.

For today, let's start slowly...

I'm just going to talk about the Attributes Bell Curve, since that's the first figure you see in the DMG.
It always struck me as a strange (useless/lame?) plot to begin the Guide,

But now, years later, I grasp it's utility when thinking about Adventure/Game Design.
It answers: "What fraction of PC's will meet this requirement?".

For example, today I was specifically pondering the question,

"Should there be a strength requirement for getting your Dex AC bonus while in Plate mail?"​

If so, where should I set it? 15? 12? I couldn't get my head around it...so I made this:


Occurred to me the Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF) is probably more apropo here. So I added that little floating table. Half-a-percent means 1 in 200 rolls is an 18. Hmm...

DING! (light bulb appears over my head)

The DMG does not really tell you so much "How To Play The Game", or even "How to DM" --- it's more of an informal aid that helps you Be a Better DM. Yes, there is some essential info in there (e.g. attack table) that are nowhere else. But most of it is Gygax's Tips that get you out of those weird corner-case jams you'll eventually find yourself in as a DM. It's been said elsewhere, but bears repeating: the tone of the book is Peer-to-Peer.

It's a strange text, to be sure, but I've grown fond of it.

More to come...

 

[squeen]

OK. I know what you're all thinking but afraid to ask:

"But squeen!...MY players want to be special snowflakes---what does the distribution look like when you roll 4d6 and keep the best three?"

Here ya' go...ya' bums!



Note, the traditional interpretations of Guassian distributions starts to break down (mean+sigma number aren't what you'd expect), and this thing starts to look like a Chi-Squared curve---shifted to the right with 3-times as many 17's and 18's!!

Happy pappy?

(boy are my hands tired from rolling all those dice!)

 

[DangerousPuhson]

"But squeen!...MY players want to be special snowflakes---what does the distribution look like when you roll 4d6 and keep the best three?"

It's not about being special snowflakes, it's more like "but squeen, I want my character to be able to SOMETHING well, otherwise I have to sit back and watch somebody else pick all the locks, lift all the things, and talk to all the people because my character fails at everything!"

Some people want realistic - a world with average people who can't do anything special. Other people want a game that their characters can actually participate in meaningfully. And some people just want to play fantasy superheroes.

 

[squeen]

Sounds like a 5e-ism with too many DCs vs. attributes occurring.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Sounds like a 5e-ism with too many DCs vs. attributes occurring.

So, like the skill system of virtually every modern tabletop RPG?

 

[EOTB]

Flexing herd status neatly corresponds to the bell curve posts. Magnificently subtle.

 

[Beoric]

It's really irrelevant if the attributes are shifted to the right if either (a) you are running an old school choose-your-risk-level campaign, or (b) you are running a system where the NPC/monster attributes or DCs are also shifted to the right. Shifting the attributes to the right is the RPG equivalent of giving players "participation" ribbons and making them believe it.

Here's another observation. Players like to hit things. WotC apparently did studies and found that players like to hit about 65% of the time and get frustrated if they hit less than 55% of the time. This has also been my experience, and I will add that the same players don't seem to mind if monsters also hit 55-65% of the time. They just want their participation ribbon.

In other words, math is relative, and we shouldn't get sucked into the illusions that drive our players. Go ahead and make them feel like special snowflakes, but don't make the mistake of thinking that their characters are actually special snowflakes.

 

[squeen]

It's really irrelevant if the attributes are shifted to the right if either (a) you are running an old school choose-your-risk-level campaign, or (b) you are running a system where the NPC/monster attributes or DCs are also shifted to the right.

The point of the 4d6 curve (if it has one---was just an afterthought), is that in Game Design, you are intending one thing to be true...attribute inflation can invalidate your assumption.

Getting back to my self-answered question of, "What are the implications of having a 15 or greater strength requirement for a character to be given their DEX adj. bonus to AC while in plate armor?"

With the bell-curve, the top 10% of the characters will be unaffected by the weight...with the 4d6 curve, the top 25%.

Maybe that's fine...but maybe that's not what I was thinking for some reason or another when I made the House Rule.

@Beoric : You are exactly right in that it doesn't matter if DC's are also shifted...just as it wouldn't matter if AC's are all also shifted. Here, it was a small (self) realization that screwing with one game mechanic---however minor---has possibly unconsidered repercussions that affect the total game design. Do you really want to go through and re-balance everything yourself? That's a lot of work---perhaps time better spent writing awesome adventures. (Curiously, here we are again at the "deft-handed DM" fooling the players?)

When WotC does their idiotic "market research" of "what players want" and then uses it to re-tool the game to give the next edition (Advanced 5e?) more Bread and Circus...it's all ill-considered rubbish if they haven't worked through the systemic consequences holistically. (...and from what I gather, from field-reports of unsinkable super-characters, and a general bitching here about the quality of their published adventures, they still have not.)

Again, EOTB said it best: Players want Victory. Simple as that. ...BUT it's the Challenge that keeps them coming back to your table (at least the players worth having). The interplay between those two conflicting elements is at the heart of every human "game" ever devised.

Switching gears now (back to 1st, eh?).
(Awesome pun potentially lost on a generation that may never have used a manual transmission)

Let me again encourage others to talk about the pros and cons of their particular edition's DMG here too. In part, this thread is intended to be a sharing of how you came to the hobby (as a player), if you like, as well as your metamorphasis into a DM.

I'll pick up my own story next...

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Participation trophies? Snowflakes? Generation that never used manual transmission? These comments explain so much now!

OK Boomers!

Back in my day we walked uphill to our game table both ways, and if you wanted a D&D game you just walked into a business and handed the manager your character sheets. Darn kids and their "hand-holding, right-shifted stats" - why I remember back in the Roosevelt administration, when you got gold in your dungeon you were damn happy about it! Kids... bootstraps... grumble grumble grumble...

Everything makes so much sense now! I was arguing with Boomers this whole time!

 

[squeen]

Everything makes so much sense now! I was arguing with Boomers this whole time!

Wrong. (Boomers are your parent's generation.)

Forgive my ignorance---does 5e use 4d6 as the default? (...trying to figure out why the sensitive nerve.)

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Father?!?!

 

[squeen]

Back in my day we walked uphill to our game table both ways, and if you wanted a D&D game you just walked into a business and handed the manager your character sheets. Darn kids and their "hand-holding, right-shifted stats" - why I remember back in the Roosevelt administration, when you got gold in your dungeon you were damn happy about it! Kids... bootstraps... grumble grumble grumble...

DP, your comments are silly-fun, but also a bit inaccurate. What you wrote applies to the WWII--the so called "Greatest Generation".
(...which incidentally was Gygax's and Arneson's)

"Boomers" are the post WWII babies. They were raised in a time of unparalleled prosperity in the USA. The boomers were often ridiculed (in the 70's) as the "Me Generation", and thought to be quite self-centered, disrespectful, spoiled, and petulant---generally unwilling to shoulder the burden industrial society was trying to lay on them by parents whom had essentially "conquered the world".

The "GI" or "Government Issue" generation (their parents) were the one's typically scolding their Boomer-offspring in this manner about how much harder they had it back in their day (e.g. Great Depression, WWII, no indoor plumbing, no electricity, no antibiotics, etc.).

That the Millennial-Generation (Boomer's kids) are now mocking their parents in the exact same way they once mocked theirs is not so much ironic, as sneaky---since the boomers are now getting credit for the hardships of their parents (i.e. Millennial 's grandparents) that they never really had to face!

Win-win for the Boomers!

(But they usually do. The herd...etc.)

EDIT: Millenials get a bad rap. If anyone's to blame it's the parents. Truly, it's all the Boomers fault. (who will then blame their parents...)

 

[The Heretic]

Psh, don't be silly. Gary Gygax was part of the Silent Generation.

Also, Gary added more variation to attribute rolling in Unearthed Arcana. Do you have that book, squeen?

 

[squeen]

Psh, don't be silly. Gary Gygax was part of the Silent Generation.

Also, Gary added more variation to attribute rolling in Unearthed Arcana. Do you have that book, squeen?

I do have UA. That could be another thread---as I don't love it either (yet).

I wasn't targeting 5e or anything else when I posted the 4d6 distribution. It's actually labeled as Method I (of 4 alternatives) on p.11 of the (1e) DMG.

It's an old debate.

EDIT: Oh! You are right abut the Silent Generation (my parents too). Thanks for educating me.

 

[Malrex]

EDIT: Millenials get a bad rap. If anyone's to blame it's the parents. Truly, it's all the Boomers fault. (who will then blame their parents...)

Don't even get me started on this conversation....

 

[squeen]

Don't even get me started on this conversation....

I would love to hear your thoughts (maybe in a private!)

 

[Malrex]

It's the phones (HD 10, AC 0, D 1d10)...Robbed them of their confidence to be by themselves in their own thoughts. Where everything is "awkward" out there in the big, scary world without their phone...where everything MUST be handed to them on a silver platter....snowflakes indeed.

 

[squeen]

...Robbed them of their confidence to be by themselves in their own thoughts.

We must be careful to remeber sterotypes are not universals. DP certainly does not lack self-confidence!

 

[Malrex]

I'm not directing it at DP or anyone here necessarily, just in general. I'm just being a judgemental jerky jerkface.
But...hey..maybe this is all changing. With this pandemic, I've actually seen kids playing outside!! Ultra rare sighting. I'm looking for Bigfoot next.

 

[The Heretic]

I've found that phones have a deleterious effect on people's spot checks. Just another reason I'm glad I only have a landline.