Here I begin a “chapter by chapter” breakdown of the rule changes in 3.old. First up, ability scores.

As I’ve mentioned before, I think the linear bonus curve of the d20 System is problematic. It contributes to the culture of pluses, making differences in ability scores more (not less) acute. Thus, many (if not most) players and DM’s that have played nothing but 3.x tend to gravitate toward point buy as the only “fair” method of selecting ability scores. Get that, selecting ability scores. Blasphemy!

Since ability score modifiers are standardized under a linear curve, you expectedly get metagamey things like magic items and spells that increase ability scores +2 at a time. When the d20 System came out, this was revolutionary. Now you could design magic items and effects with predictable and uniform bonuses no matter who got them or what their base ability score might be at the time (thus, the jump from 12 to 14 was no more or less exciting than the jump from 20 to 22. This turned out to be boring and add to the mathematical imperative in the subgame of character optimization. Worse, it led to the buff problem and an exacerbation of the 15-minute adventuring day, as recently explicated over at Grognardia.

Thus, 3.old returns to the previous paradigm in which most ability scores provide no numeric bonuses.

This is just such a freeing concept to me. No more do players have to worry about point discrepancies here and there, because you can have a character with all 10s and one with all 14s and they’re not going to play that different at all. Nobody is “behind” on pluses in this scenario, and the ones that do get pluses because of their exceptional stats will really feel special. Again, though, your ability scores shouldn’t define your character, they should just be numbers called upon when the DM thinks it’s necessary to apply them to an in-game event.

As a general reference for ability scores and what they mean in 3.old, I refer you to the free OSRIC pdf. Changes to that are outlined below. Ability score generation is left up to the DM, and can accommodate any of the suggested methods from all editions of the game.

Strength

I’m flipping the Bonus To-Hit and Bonus Damage columns, because as I’ve previously stated I believe that hitting more often is superior in play to hitting less often but dealing more damage. You will see lots of changes along these lines. I think hitting should be encouraged.

Encumbrance will work just like in the 3.x PHB. I see no reason to change it.

Bend Bars/Lift Gates and Open Door make a comeback in 3.old, although their utility is up to the DM’s adventures. Still, these things are necessary to remove the universal mechanic and make each ability check unique.

Dexterity

The Surprise bonus is changed to Initiative bonus, a holdover system from 3.x.

AC Adjustment column is plus not minus, as we’re keeping the higher AC the better.

Armor Class in 3.old gets some changes. You start at 0 (zero) and work your way up via the normal channels (armor, Dexterity bonus, mage armor, etc.) That’s because the modified combat system works off a THAC0-like chart for each class: your target number to hit a creature is your Attack Number + the creature’s Armor Class. You roll a d20, add magic and ability modifiers, and compare it to the target number. AC had to start at zero to avoid having Attack Numbers in the negatives right off the bat (and since we’re based on E6, I don’t think they’ll ever get there, even for fighters).

Dexterity also provides a bonus to Reflex saves equivalent to the AC Adjustment column, except expressed in minuses rather than pluses (at the high end, opposite at the low).

Saving Throws in 3.old are Fortitude, Reflex, and Will, but they work off charts like in the old days rather than being a bonus to a d20 roll. Goodbye universal mechanic! Thus, a high ability score subtracts from the target number shown on the chart for your class and level.

Constitution

Constitution also provides a bonus to Fortitude saves equivalent to the Bonus Hit Point column (including the extra bonus for fighters), expressed in minuses rather than pluses (at the high end, opposite for low).

Intelligence

Magic Users still gain bonus spells as in 3.x.

Wisdom

Clerics still gain bonus spells as in 3.x.

The Mental Save column is changed to Will save and is expressed in minuses rather than pluses (at the high end, opposite at the low).

Charisma

Remove the Reaction Bonus column, as that is handled by skills.

Speaking of skills, the skill system in 3.old is modified to be simpler and remove the unified mechanic. That said, there is still rolling, and as of right now ability scores will add to rolls much as they do in 3.x, with the exception that the bonuses to rolls are +1 at 15, +2 at 16, +3 at 17, and +4 at 18 across the board. This may change.

There you have it, a first glimpse at the changes in 3.old, including a preview of some of the subsystems I’ll be discussing in future posts.

Blimey, it looks like I covered both the culture of pluses and the universal mechanic in the previous post, so it’s time to get onto something more controversial.

3.old aims to get players into their imaginations and out of their character sheets. There are two main things that distract players from the game: character optimization obsession and the culture of pluses (tactical numeric optimization?…I need a good name for this). Tactical numeric optimization (TNO) occurs when players examine their character sheets for the maximum bonuses to attack and damage possible at any given time. They ask for bless spells, potions, bardic effects, etc. every freakin’ turn rather than just going with the flow.

Some of this goes on before the game as players decide which weapons their characters are going to use. Utility often trumps imagination here, too, because different weapons have different damage factors (not to mention other considerations). In game, this constrains both players and DMs as well. Players must always attack with their optimal weapon, and that choice gets even more narrow if he takes feats and makes other choices to optimize his use of that weapon.

I don’t like the idea of all weapons dealing the same damage, or more appropriately I should say I don’t like the idea of all characters dealing the same damage with weapons. So, in 3.old weapon damage is determined by your class.

Fighters: d8

Clerics and Thieves: d6

Magic Users: d4

If you give a fighter a dagger, he’s going to be able to do a hell of a lot more damage with it than some pencil-necked magic user. Likewise, a magic user should be able to use a longsword but not to really great effect. So, there are no weapon proficiencies in 3.old. If your thief can somehow remain hidden and sneak with a halberd in his hand, you better give a damn good descripton of your backstab! If you conceive your magic user with a longsword, more power to you! Gandalf dual-wielded quarterstaff and longsword and it didn’t break the Lord of the Rings.

Speaking of dual-wielding, go for it! Guess what? You still only get one attack per round. And since we’re based on E6 (or perhaps E8), we don’t even have to worry about iterative attacks (which are going to revert back to “fighters only, 3/2 at 7th level” if we do go to 8th level in the core rules). I might introduce a feat or something giving you the ability to make two attacks in a round if you’re dual-wielding, but it will again be fighters only and probably require you to at least be 6th level. Point is, though, by dialing back damage to a static number based on class, we can more easily create interesting combat scenarios and situations that don’t “break” the game in any meaningful way.

The other thing is, it will probably be very difficult to raise the amount of damage you do with an attack. I believe attack rolls are more deserving of bonuses than damage rolls for several reasons. First, if you control the amount of damage a character can possibly do, then you don’t have to fiddle with enemy hit points as much. As a designer, I can be pretty sure of the range of damages being dealt by a party of a certain level. Things don’t have to spiral out of control like they have in recent years. Second, missing attack rolls sucks, as I talked about previously. I would much rather have characters hit most of the time and worry about describing the coolness and/or providing them with interesting effects of their hits.

That’s enough for this time. I think I’m going to start outlining the game now chapter by chapter. A lot of the work is done, so “getting it down on paper” is the next step. First up, Ability Scores!

As I stated in my previous post, one of the main design goals of 3.old was to get rid of the unified mechanic, the d20+modifiers vs. DC mechanic that insidiously diminished the playability of 3.x. Let me review why I believe that the unified mechanic is a fundamental flaw in 3.x design:

1. It provides only the illusion of movement (scalability).

It doesn’t matter if you have +4 vs. DC 15 or +40 vs. DC 51, you still have a 50% chance of success. Therefore, challenges such as monsters and traps must be designed to assume a certain level of competence in order to assign them proper Challenge Ratings. This creates an imperative for players to maximize their characters so that they can keep up with the escalating challenge DCs, which leaves precious little space for anything but combat-oriented advancement of skills, feats, spells, and class abilities.

2. The bonus matters a lot, the bonus matters very little.

There’s a sweet spot for bonuses when everything is based off a d20 roll, which makes sense for some subsystems but doesn’t for others. Combat can be balanced (problematically) to make up for attack rolls, but at the early levels when you’re getting +3 to +5 to your roll, then the d20 variance is generally pretty large, then it starts to come down as attack bonuses start to catch up with AC, and then at CR10+ things get wonky again because AC is designed to be tough versus fighting characters, making it nearly impossible for non-fighters to hit anything at those levels.

Take ability checks, however. The d20 variance on those is always huge, and leads to silly situations like the gnome opening a door the orc barbarian failed at. Of course, the DM can always house rule those things, but if there’s a DC attached to something you can bet every character will give it a shot. And really, why shouldn’t the rules make sense in the first place?

How to Eliminate the Universal Mechanic

It’s actually not as difficult as you think. I’m only speaking generally here because I’ll get into specific design decision discussions for specific subsystems in their own time.

First, you go back to THAC0. THACO is simple, so we’re going to use it, except that we’re keeping the “high AC is good” so it will require a minor tweak. (I’m trying hard not to rant about the apocryphal status THAC0 has achieved…it’s really just a simple equation, folks.)

Next thing to do is go back to the old saving throw charts. We’re keeping the three saving throws of d20, but making a chart and having them descend as you rise in level. This makes things so simple, and dovetails quite nicely with James Maliszewski’s philosophy of saving throws.

Taking attacks and saves out of the universal mechanic does something that frees players…it gets rid of the addiction to pluses. Players became so used to “plus this, plus that, does it stack?” that, as I said before, character optimization became the dominant mode of play in 3.x. People looked right past ideas to the underlying mechanics and whether or not they gave them sufficient pluses to keep up with the game.

Taking out the plus syndrome also frees us up to fix what I consider one of the hidden tragedies of 3.x: the linear ability bonus curve. +1 per 2 over 10 was an insidious invention that created min-maxing players right there at character creation. The first thing you do is assign your ability scores (rolling becomes passe when bonuses matter so much), and of course everybody has the exact same array. If you make bonuses less necessary, and instead differentiate scores in more inventive ways (like the old Bend Bars/Lift Gates percentage, for example) then people worry far less about being “equal” to everyone else. I realize this is a controversial opinion, and I’m not going to elaborate on all the reasons the linear ability curve is problematic. Suffice it to say that it is, and that removing it will improve the play of the actual game (as opposed to the character optimization metagame).

So there you have it. Each of these changes will be elaborated on in the days to come as I talk about the game “chapter by chapter.”

Delta has a great post about Games Within Games in which he talks about the advantages of using subsystems instead of a universal mechanic in roleplaying games. I have a lot of thoughts about this subject, I’m not sure how many will come out in this post. This post is mostly about one of the design goals of 3.old, namely the mitigation of the impact of the universal d20 mechanic on the game.

Character optimization has become the dominant mode of play in Dungeons & Dragons.

All other aspects take a backseat to character optimization, even for Dungeon Masters, who have to precisely balance their scenarios against the power level of the player characters in their game. The universal mechanic is the reason for this. Once the game’s resolution mechanic became about escalating Difficulty Classes versus escalating character abilities, the complexity ratcheted up with no discernible benefit to the actual play of the game itself. In fact, to its great detriment.

The system creates the illusion of movement. “My character has +8 instead of +7 now!” However, in order to maintain balance with the Challenge Rating/Encounter Level system, monster statistics should grow at an equal rate. Thus, a 1st-level character should have a 60% chance to hit (for example) an orc while a 20th level character should have a 60% chance to hit a balrog.

The problem with this system should be apparent: no two characters will advance exactly alike, thus creating a universal disparity. This problem is most obvious with saving throws. It’s well known that in high-level 3e, you either have a very good chance to save against something or a very bad chance. The disparity between good and bad saves became incredible at higher levels, especially when one or more saves were tied to a character’s best stat(s).

One solution to this would have been to design monsters/traps/challenges against the low end of the spectrum. After all, if a fighter’s big thing is Fortitude save, who cares if he almost always makes them? But, 3.x design did not go in that direction. Design goals were to challenge the *best* with any given challenge, leaving non-optimized or otherwise-oriented characters to face almost certain failure at certain tasks or to resist certain attacks and effects. This created an imbalance.

Why go to all this trouble to create the illusion of movement only to have the house of cards come falling down as soon as someone gets “off track” in their character development. From this problematic mechanic, we inherited all sorts of things like the Big Six magic items, game-defined rather than DM-defined treasure allocation, increased prep time (due to tailoring challenge DCs and adhering to the CR/EL system), and many others.

I had two related design goals in 3.old to help mitigate this problem:

1. Get rid of the unified mechanic, and
2. Get rid of the culture of pluses

I’ll explore each of these over my next two blog posts.

As I mentioned on Twitter yesterday, Mrs. Droid and I have created a new way to play 3.x D&D. The genesis of this particular project was my desire to play a retroclone and her desire not to. I convinced her to let me tweak 3.x rules to make them feel more old school, and thus we embarked on a few nights of brainstorming and discussion.

My goals, as it turned out, were several, even though at the beginning of the project I hadn’t realized what some of them were. The first was a “scorched earth” fix for everything I thought was wrong with 3.x. I have deeper opinions on all of the flaws of the system, both in concept as well as in actual play, but this project was not the time to explore those. I wanted to distill the essence of *my* old school experience. Please notice that I’m not attempting to define old school here, or even old school games…I’m trying to recapture what it is that made the games so great *for me* back in the day. Sometimes that turned out to be mechanical, sometimes it turned out to be more of a flavor thing (like putting back in some old spells whose presence I missed).

We didn’t just port over or destroy mechanics, either. In some cases, like with skills, we created a hybrid system. I think the skill system we came up with is quite awesome; it’s more free-form while still giving players a chance to customize their characters.

One important early decision we made was to make E6 the basis for our game, which made things much easier on us. It’s not that high-level play never existed, it’s just that one thing we agree on is that we don’t care for it that much. So, E6 seemed like a natural fit, and it also limited the amount of design work we had to do on spells and class abilities, etc. We can always add things later…after all, the game started out with only three classes! (Don’t worry, we have four. ) Not trying to have every little thing in the first release is also part of the old school charm for me, it lets us have expansion books that really feel like lore. In the old days, every new book I bought was like some secret tome that opened up new and interesting worlds in my campaign. These days they have more of a cold feeling. Maybe it’s because so much is rehashed, or spoiled in previews, that it becomes expected rather than wondrous.

In any case, keep an eye on this blog over the next week or two for a section-by-section outline of the new rules and discussion of what they were trying to accomplish. At the end of it I’ll throw together a PDF, probably incorporating changes from the community discussion.

I hereby dub this version of the system: 3.old

Wow, this is really fun to watch.

After you’ve watched it once, make sure to read the comment by Josh…it will make you want to watch it again!

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/61/

In a reply to my previous post, Chgowiz invited me to clone (ha!) a poll he’s running at his blog and several other websites. I figured I’d take him up on the offer since he did all the work and the answers are of interest to me (obviously, since I started the discussion). So without further ado, here are the questions, and I look forward to your answers!

* * * * *

There has been a bit of fur flying lately about what begat the OSR. There’s a lot of Internet-available history that traces the emergence of games like OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, microlite20/74 and Swords & Wizardry from a publisher/content provider perspective, but less so from a player perspective. There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence for various reasons why people are playing original edition games, so I thought I would try and ask questions, rather than argue about it. I’m going to post this same post on Dragonsfoot and other forums as well - just to see what kind of response I get.

Notes: If you’re not currently investigating or playing an original edition game or retroclone/simulacra, this poll is not for you.

For purposes of this poll, I’m defining original edition as anything prior to 3rd Edition (I’m including 2nd edition because it seems the discussion/argument is more about 3E/4E as a differentiator.) Retroclone refers to games like OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, Castles & Crusades, microlite74, etc.

Multiple choices are OK. If you have an answer to a question that I’ve not provided, please feel free to write in your own.

1. What are you doing with an original edition/retroclone D&D?

1. I’m playing in an established campaign as a player
2. I’m running an established campaign as a DM
3. I’m looking to play in a new campaign
4. I’m looking to run in a new campaign

2. What type of roleplaying game were you playing (or are still playing) before you became
interested/involved in an original edition/retroclone?

1. I’ve always been playing original edition/retroclone D&D
2. 3E D&D
3. 4E D&D
4. I was playing something other than D&D

3. If you were playing 3E, why did you decide to investigate/play an original edition game or retroclone?

1. I still play 3E
2. I’m not looking to replace 3E with original edition, just curious
3. My group of friends are playing and I went along with it
4. I was unhappy with the 3/3.5E rules, mechanics or approach
5. I was unhappy with how Wizards of the Coast published/marketed 3E
6. I like the OGL and wanted to play games that use it

4. If you were playing 4E, why did you decide to investigate/play an original edition game or retroclone?

1. I still play 4E
2. I’m not looking to replace 4E with original edition, just curious
3. My group of friends are playing and I went along with it
4. I was unhappy with the 4E rules, mechanics or approach
5. I was unhappy with how Wizards of the Coast published/marketed 4E
6. I like the GSL and wanted to play games that use it

5. What attracted you to investigate/play an original edition/retroclone D&D?

1. It was recommended by a friend
2. It was what my game group is playing
3. I used to play these games and wanted to “go back”
4. I liked the approach of the rules/mechanics
5. I liked the philosophy behind the rules/mechanics
6. I liked the “feel” (Swords & Sorcery or pulp) of the game
7. I was attracted by the amount of “buzz” on the Internet

6. How did you learn about the original editions/retroclones?

1. It was recommended by a friend
2. It is what my game group is playing
3. I already owned my older books
4. From a blog
5. From a D&D related forum
6. From the retroclone publisher’s website

Please comment to respond to the poll. Thank you.

I was recently pointed to a discussion at Knights & Knaves about one of my posts. (Links are at the end, to avoid HTML’ing the RPG Bloggers feed). Man, the reaction was hilarious, and on par with the most defensive of 4e lovers. One of the problems with the discussion about different editions is that the most tribal members are constantly either on the attack or the defense, so the good discussion gets lost in the noise.

There are a few people there I’d love to have these discussions with, and I’m happy that grodog visits here occasionally. Obviously I think James Maliszewski has a lot of great things to say, which is why Grognardia was one of the first links I put on my Blogroll. But then we have people that were “insulted” by my post, I suppose because I didn’t call them out by name and bow before their old school cred? Give me a break.

Of course old school players and games existed before 4e…they’ve been around since 1974!!! So all those “I was an original old schooler”s can suck it unless they were sitting at Gary’s table.

The point of my post was to follow up on the idea that 4e was dissatisfactory to a large subset of players for reasons other than simple entrenchment, and to promote the idea that discussion about the reasons for that is good for RPG theory. One year into 4e D&D’s existence (forgive me for not showering rose petals at WotC’s feet like much of the blogosphere has done ), I noticed the trend that people who were initially excited were no longer so hot on 4e, and had started to play other games at a significant rate. Those people would *never* have looked at the Old School Rennaissance or whatever it’s called had modern D&D continued to cater to their tastes, yet I’m seeing many of them checking out games like Labyrinth Lord, Swords & Wizardry, and OSRIC (once again, forgive me if I don’t have enough old school cred to use the proper nicknames and terminology for these games ).

There has also been a significant proliferation in the number and interest in Old School products, as well as the blog space devoted to old school gaming, since 4e was first being previewed. This is not a coincidence, and the failures of 4e to capture the interest of such a large subset of players and DMs will be looked back upon as a turning point in the history of Old School Gaming as a movement.

While there were products out there, and websites and forums, the launch of 4e provided both increased awareness of and discussion about D&D. The hype machine rolled out, the blogosphere exploded, and people were once again energized. So while grodog may be right that the movement started back with the launch of 3e, my argument is that the launch of 4e took the movement to the next level by providing additional visibility, thus readership, thus discussion, and thus the impetus to create and market all these products we’re seeing now. It can be compared to the difference between a bunch of people having a certain political belief and the coalescence of a political party (or ideological platform). Individuals and small groups can have ideas, but movements do not grow from nothing, there must be a catalyst. In the case of the old school movement, what brought it out of the fringe and into the mainstream discussion was the launch and design of 4e.

So I stand by the assertion that 4e created the old school movement.

Original Post: 4e D&D Created the Old School Movement

Knights and Knaves thread

What would happen if you doubled the combat speed of all PC’s in a 3.x game?

I’m sitting here imagining two changes to combat rules in 3.x. First, base PC speed is 60 only during initiative. Second, there are no more attacks of opportunity for movement, but threatened squares now count as difficult terrain.

What I want is to encourage battlefield movement, speed up play a bit, and give players the chance to have their characters act more “spontaneously heroic.”

Imagine if you will, a climactic fight in the grand ballroom of a lordly manor when the villain and his minions arrive. You’d hope all sorts of crazy stunts and acrobatics would be possible in such a great location. Imagine your fighter sees the villain standing near the back of the room laughing maniacally as his minions sow chaos throughout the assembled nobles…but he’s right underneath a chandelier! To cut the rope on the chandelier, the fighter most likely has to spend a round, maybe two, just running or climbing up to the second level, avoiding AoO’s as he goes. Then he’s got to make sure he has a standard action left to attack the rope.

Under my rules, he can probably get up there with a single move action and then cut the rope!

Even without such an obvious setup, I think it would result in a lot more action in wide open combats, and less wasted rounds just maneuvering into position. The hope is that it makes everyone’s turn filled with action, and takes a bit of the “minis game” maneuvering out of the equation.

What do you think?

Ari Marmell, one of The Gamer Dome’s favorite RPG designers and authors, wrote a Ravenloft novel that wasn’t published before the line was killed. Wizards released the novel in serial form, but has now compiled it into a single PDF. If you like gaming fiction, check it out, as Ari rarely disappoints.

Download Black Crusade here.

If you like Ari’s writing, check out his latest Magic novel Agents of Artifice: A Planeswalker Novel
.