Me and the DMG

[Beoric]

The spear chucking Orc in Moria, shouldn't have used a missile weapon --- because he, like Thor against Thanos, "should have gone for the head."

Um. no, Frodo concealed the chain shirt, so there would be no reason to take more head shots.

I remember this rule. I would say that if you want to use the rule, where it is obvious that the character has an armored body and unarmored head, I would (a) point out that his head was unarmored, and (b), start taking more shots at the head. I would also impose visibility/hearing restrictions because of wearing a helm (IIRC there is a companion rule somewhere that talks about a great helm doing this but being a better AC that plate), so this is a real choice.

I should mention, I never liked the rule because I didn't think an unarmored head should have a 10 AC. It is a smaller target than "anywhere in the body", and is more easily protected by shields, arms and weapon parries. This is my problem with every "called shot" system I have seen. For example, if you are wearing a chain shirt without chausses or grieves, should there not be more attacks to your unprotected legs (which in this case would also not get a shield bonus). Should attacks against the legs never get a shield bonus unless using a kite shield? If that same chain shirt is short sleeved, do I get attacks against the arms? If I am not wearing gauntlets or muffs, should there be a chance of losing a finger? Should that chance be larger if my weapon has a decent guard? Is a guard better than quillons? I am afraid the minutae can become unplayable.

And unlike DP, I do like these conversations, and even started a thread for the purpose of having them.

 

[squeen]

All great points--especially about the arms/hands. A Great Helm was suppose to give +1 AC to plate+shield for a total AC of 1.

What I thought was interesting about running the stats BtB was the effect of that 1 in 6 (or 1 in 2) along with the AC 10.

Is an AC typically worse by 1-2 points against a "nekid noggin" reasonable? Everything basically dropped one armor style (plate to chain, chain to leather, etc.). I thought ol' EGG's math worked out decently.

In retrospect, perhaps your thread would have been a better place for this.

Well, +1 for Byrce's Forum --- just crickets over at K&KA so far. (EOTB to the rescue)

 

[Beoric]

I have gone through the exercise of assigning a value to each piece of armor representing how much of the body it covers, and assigning fractional AC to each. I could then add up the AC of the various parts, and calculate what happened if you were in plate, but gave up your vambraces in favour of (leather) bracers of brachiation; took of your sabatons to don slippers of spider climbing; and took or your helm to wear a cap of I-can't-remember-the-name-of-a-cap-right-now. I didn't worry too much about accuracy, I just wanted some sort of model of the impact for every type of armor piece that might be replaced by a magic item.

 

[Beoric]

I have gone through the exercise of assigning a value to each piece of armor representing how much of the body it covers, and assigning fractional AC to each. I could then add up the AC of the various parts, and calculate what happened if you were in plate, but gave up your vambraces in favour of (leather) bracers of brachiation; took of your sabatons to don slippers of spider climbing; and took or your helm to wear a cap of I-can't-remember-the-name-of-a-cap-right-now. I didn't worry too much about accuracy, I just wanted some sort of model of the impact for every type of armor piece that might be replaced by a magic item.

Is an AC typically worse by 1-2 points against a "nekid noggin" reasonable? Everything basically dropped one armor style (plate to chain, chain to leather, etc.). I thought ol' EGG's math worked out decently.

It's good enough. What interests me is whether there is an actual choice to be made, ie some sort of downside to wearing a helmet. If not, then the players will always wear one, and the rule become pointless because it will never be engaged.

 

[squeen]

It's good enough. What interests me is whether there is an actual choice to be made, ie some sort of downside to wearing a helmet. If not, then the players will always wear one, and the rule become pointless because it will never be engaged.

That's it exactly! The no-helmet benefit of listening at doors + increased visibility.

Would you also be tempted to modify the chance of surprise?

 

[Beoric]

That's it exactly! The no-helmet benefit of listening at doors + increased visibility.

Would you also be tempted to modify the chance of surprise?

IIRC, it is only the great helm that gives the bump to AC and is called out as restricting visibility. An ordinary helm (which I think was illustrated on one of Gary's DM supplements - you know, the one with the pictures of the armor and polearms) is basically an iron cap with nasal, and doesn't restrict vision at all.

So it really isn't a trade off, except for removing the helm to listen at doors (which was really a way to create a risk of ear-seekers because Gygax was annoyed at the listen-at-door pixel bitching which his own DMing style had created). Pro tip: after you listen at the door, assuming you are the fighter and not the thief who actually has a skill to do that, put your helm back on.

I can't remember enough about the surprise rules to know if you should modify surprise. If surprise is really more of a party thing, I think it might be cancelled out by the other members of the party who aren't wearing helms - like the MU, or the thief (who as you pointed out doesn't really suffer an AC penalty). Also, a modification to a d6 roll is a pretty big hit to take, depending on the type of helm. Also, I thought you started from the premise of implementing the rules as written, which premise would be defeated if you had to create houserules to make them work properly.

 

[squeen]

Also, I thought you started from the premise of implementing the rules as written, which premise would be defeated if you had to create houserules to make them work properly.

Yes. Seems like someone has to periodically talk me down from my D&D-mod-ing fugue-state.

It's a thing, though --- learn a new rule...really understand it and it's place in the larger scheme...

...and then you've got this hammer and everything looks like a nail.

 

[Beoric]

Hey, I think you always end up drifting toward modding for a good reason. When you understand where something works in the grander scheme, you also start to see where it doesn't work. But I support your RAW experiment.

EDIT: I would rephrase that if I could figure out how.

 

[squeen]

NOT that I'm doing it...

...but move surprise from d6 to d8. 3 in 8 (37.5%) with helmet, 2 in 8 (25%) without.

Compared to 2 in 6 (33.3%) BtB. It's a minor shift to the character wearing a helmet, and a small advantage to the ones without. The deal breaker is that it's a party effect...as you stated.

NOT that I'm doing it...

 

[Beoric]

You could also apply it to other 1e perception skills, like searching for secret doors. NOT that you are doing that.

 

[Beoric]

@squeen and @EOTB I have a question for you. I have two orcs. Per the MM I roll for weapons: one has an axe, the other has a polearm. The entry for AC is 6.

Is the AC because of their natural qualities (hide, dexterity, etc) or because they have armor?

If armor, does this assume they are using a shield (plus ringmail or studded leather) or no shield (scale only)?

If it assumes a shield, is the orc with the polearm actually AC 7 because he needs both arms for his weapon and cannot use a shield; or do we assume he has slightly better armor (scale)?

 

[squeen]

I had always mentally been in the AC9 system, but noticed there had been a shift.
When exactly did the AC10 change occur?

Agree with EOTB. Monster AC is a knob the DM is allowed to turn fairly liberally as the situation requires.

For example, I've put skeleton (hiding) inside suits of plate mail to toughen them up. I did not overthink the mechanics. They were just AC 2. You also seen I've haste-ed skeleton and given them an AC bump there too. This (excessive?) willingness to tweak and invent probably marks me as an OD&D-er, and is why I have had such a strange relationship with 1e. I am attracted to its rigor, but too easily wander off melody in an improvisational fugue. Gygax codified AD&D to reign-in nutjobs like me (and I'm thankful for it).

Conversely, Finch's observation in S&W (unabashedly 0e) that rules for PC's don't apply for monsters/NPCs is also a bit liberating if you like. Sometimes we DMs need that kind of permission too.

Still, the simulationist in me acknowledges that the 5% difference in AC probably matters more statistically in mass combat situations than in a single encounter.

Not terribly helpful. Sorry.

Thanks for reviving this thread. Consider this it's central theme: AD&D appears, on the surface, to have rules for every contingency --- but that's not actually true. What it provides is a surprisingly well-considered, complete, inter-locking, and functional system for the most common occurrences, and guidance for many, many special cases. Still, the DM is encouraged to use good judgement and be inventive to bridge the gaps.

To my eyes, its a Masterpiece of game design. Unequaled since. And just like there is no perfect painting or sculpture, it has flaws....but I find I can happily live with them.

 

[Beoric]

AC in the MM wasn't updated to the AC10 scale yet; it was still using the OD&D AC9 scale. So if a DM wanted, all ACs could be worsened by 1. I don't mess around with the adjustment (since it would be constant and I'm not interested in giving up decades of ingrained muscle-memory).

Gygax apparently didn't worry about the adjustment either, since he uses the same AC in Appendix E of the DMG, and (I checked) in later modules like Tsojcanth.

EDIT: The reason I ask is because of my ongoing quest to convert 1e monsters to 4e, and make them as close as I can get to exactly as hard a challenge in 4e as you would expect them to be in 1e.

 

[squeen]

Thank you.

 

[The Heretic]

With the PHB. I wonder sometimes if the use of an AC 10 wasn't tied to the insertion of "0-level" into the game. There wasn't "0-level" mercenaries in OD&D, was there? So if 1st level was already mathematically tied to AC 9, then a new, lower level was tied to a new, lower AC scale bottom.

I think there are monsters with an AC of 10 in either the Fiend Folio or the MM2, but would have to check to be sure. There are no monsters having an AC of 10 in the MM.

I can think of one in the Fiend Folio. The Tirapheg. One of the stupidest monsters EVAR.

 

[squeen]

Reposting an old comment from The Mystical Trash Heap that I think is relevant to this thread:

The rules aren't systematized - different dice are used, ability scores and other modifiers are applied in different ways, sometimes a high roll is better and other times a low roll is better, etc. - and they're not necessarily consistent with each other (two similar types of effect in two different dungeons (or caused by two different spells or magic items) might require completely different rolls to resolve), and in the published rulebooks they're not really organized except in a sort of stream-of-consciousness way...

In my other work-life, I have written an in-house replacement for the Mathwork's MATLAB/SImulink, in the C programming language. It's been a labor of love since it allow me and my group of co-workers to do things outside-the-box of a canned piece of software who's source-code we do not control---even one as programmable as MATLAB.

It's grown organically over the past 20 years in odd directions, most often in response to our helter-skelter engineering needs for a particular application, in a particular time, given the limits of computer technology during that particular age. It's not complete. But it's solid and broad, having much real-world usage under it's belt.

Looking back at the whole, that continuity of effort has also created more than a few disparate ways of doing/coding things. Some are now dead-ends, superseded by something "better".

In short, it has "character" now, much like AD&D.

Trent continues...

AD&D definitely has an "it" factor that other rpgs don't, which is why I'm still thinking and talking about it now while countless other games are just distant memories. I was just packing stuff for my move and came across my boxes of RuneQuest and Traveller stuff. I still have good memories of playing those games, but seeing those books didn't give me even a slight urge to "get back into them" the way that the AD&D books always do. I can't quite grasp it firmly enough to put it into words, but it's definitely there.

OK, here's a (probably half-baked) theory I came up with about the "it" of the AD&D books and, by relation, why revisiting them is inspiring in a way that other books aren't:

Because the AD&D rules aren't really systematized and everything in them is "bespoke" and modular, all of it fits exactly with what it was designed for both flavorwise and in terms of possible outcomes, so everything feels tied to the imagined space - nothing ever feels like disconnected math, or like a square peg and a round hole. This makes the imagined scene feel richer and more immediate. This happens in play, but it also happens when reading the books: every time you come across a rule, you imagine a scene in play where that rule applies - whether it's someone being chased by a monster through a dungeon-maze, throwing out food and treasure to try to distract the pursuers, or someone who's fallen overboard in stormy water and has to try to remove their armor before it pulls them under, or someone who's removed their helmet to listen at a door and then been surprised by a monster and has to fight bare-headed, or somebody who's trying to hire henchmen and is trying to decide whether the best way to advertise is to post notices, hire the town crier, employ an agent, or just make the rounds of local taverns.

I added the bold emphasis.

The books are filled with literally hundreds (if not thousands) of examples like this - many of the monster, spell, and magic item descriptions include their own little "mini-scenarios" in the form of special case rules - how long do you have to escape or be rescued if you're swallowed whole by various creatures, how fast can a levitating person pull themself along a wall, what happens if you put too many sharp objects inside a bag of holding, etc.

Every one of these little special cases makes you visualize a scene in the game, and makes you (or at least me) think about what you would do in that situation. In that way, just perusing the rulebooks, spotting a few of these little bits, and then imagining the scene around them, is kind of like playing the game.

A more elegant and systematized set of rules is easier to explain and easier to use, but it doesn't have that same immersive feel, and doesn't get your blood pumping. Or something like that...

I think he's close. That's what the 1e DMG does to me too. D&D's 1st-revision with all that play-testing stuffed into its rules.

Yes. It's a disheveled heap, but it inspires (me). Maybe that's why so many "adventures" these days don't work at the table, but are for off-line reading. People are longing for a means (now leeched from the rule books) to get inspired. When I posted about the B/X books feeling like forgeries when they were first published--- that's probably what was lacking. They no longer drew me in, or made me want to start playing. The "stream of consciousness" and "situational" feel was lost. They didn't have Trent's "it" factor.

Wonderfully, Finch's Swords & WIzardy Core (1st-2nd printing*) rulebook does. Why? A single-author voice? A conversational tone that encourages creative/divergent design? I don't know**. But to me, it's lightning-in-a-bottle....and I'm such a sucker for magic.

[* the 3rd printing was reskinned by someone other than FInch and feels airy-fairy and disjointed. Some of the author's passion has clearly been drained.]
[** Apologies to DP, EOTB, & our moderator for ending this post with a puzzled tone. I promise my next one will conclude with an authoritative shout above the battlefield-din of the internet. ;P]

 

[Pseudoephedrine]

I think T. Foster is understanding something important there - that a set of rules should serve as a prosthesis that extends the range of imagined options, and inspire anazographesis* in someone looking to run a game - but I think contrasting Runequest or Traveller with the AD&D 1e DMG in that respect, (beyond a personal preference) is mistaken. Traveller in particular is another system that strongly produces those two effects in people (I would argue this is why Traveller is both a perennial favourite and structurally a huge inspiration on other SF RPGs). I don't think the lack of systematicity of the rules of the AD&D 1e DMG really helps or hinders that, but rather the short scenarios or edge-case rulings, regardless of how they are turned into dice rolls, are what's important.

*"anazographesis" is a term from Greek moral psychology whereby one imagines a situation vividly and in such a way that one is inspired to act either to bring it about or avoid it coming about. It is an important faculty of Greek moral education that is existent to some extent in all people but that can be cultivated through training and exposure to art.

 

[squeen]

Interesting new word (and concept).

Agreed (and others will too, I'm sure) that having non-systematic or jumbled rules are not a plus for running a game-system. The weird thing, for me, is that it's almost always a secondary consideration.

For example, I liked UNIX despite (because of?) it's jumbled cobbled-together nature that bespoke its history. It has a depth due to it's genesis that I find appealing. I love simple elegance, but I am not turned-off by a certain kind of complexity if it "fits" well with the whole. UNIX has/had* a long-standing philosophy of "small sharp tools that do one job really well".

[* In recent years, within Linux (UNIX's successor), the pressure to make things "easier" for new administrators transitioning from WIndoze has instead caused that guideline to be broken more and more repeatedly. "Centralization" has become the new watch-word, with the bogus by-line of "SECURITY UBER ALLES" as a shield to hide behind. ]

I think Foster's only point about Traveller is that it's rules are more organized/uniform than AD&D.

But what's interesting (as you and Foster say) is what results. That elusive "it" factor that some things have got, and others clearly do not.
Design-by-committee, or trying-to-please-everyone (looking at you Disney Star Wars) leaves an indelible mark too (shallowness?)---one that elicits exactly the opposite response in me.

Oh, yeah. I am ending this post with an authoritative statement, and I don't give a rat's ass what you namby-pamby mamma's boys think about that because my Paladin could kick your paladin's ass any ol' day of the week!

 

[Beoric]

It's a disheveled heap, but it inspires (me).

I agree entirely with both parts of this sentence.

But I don't find the 1e DMG inspires because of its mechanics, I think it inspires because of its implied setting. Encounter tables, for instance, or random dungeon generation, inspire me to write things. However I have never known anyone to build an adventure around segment based combat order determination.

And I don't think my assertion is at odds with the quote from Foster. All of those quirky spell and monster descriptions tell you something about how they work in world, and have very few characteristics that are purely mechanical. Those game elements that do have purely mechanical effects tend to be called out for their lack of inspiration (I'm looking at you, +1 sword), and their proliferation in later editions is (IMO) a valid criticism of those later editions.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I think it inspires because of its implied setting. Encounter tables, for instance, or random dungeon generation, inspire me to write things. However I have never known anyone to build an adventure around segment based combat order determination.

Oh man, I connect with that statement on so many levels. You've helped me put my finger on exactly what it was about old-school D&D that captured my attention in my youth - thank you. You're right, I was one of those guys all about the fluff around the game rather than the crunch of things. Origins for owlbears and gelatinous cubes never being "formally" fleshed-out - it really leads the mind to imagine and conceptualize (a big piece of my DM fun).

A paragraph to describe a demi-plane, a sentence to explain a layer of the Abyss; one of the few times I've seen brevity used with a deft touch. I guess the sensible next step for the industry was to make endless splatbooks that take a chapter to explain how moving in outer space works (/sarcastic joke).

their proliferation in later editions is (IMO) a valid criticism of those later editions.

This I MUST point out is the subjectivity addressed before. You cast bad light on later editions for something entirely out of their purview - Magic items can only ever proliferate a game via one of two inputs: 1) an uncreative module author, or 2) the DM. That's it, two sources - if you worry about magic items getting out of hand, those two are literally the only culprits to which blame/responsibility can be assigned. It's not the system. Don't blame the system for the failings of individuals.