Gedankenexperiment: Vancian Rarity

"In ages gone," the Sage had said, his eyes fixed on a low star, "a thousand spells were known to sorcery and the wizards effected their wills.  Today...a hundred spells remain to man's knowledge, and these have come to us through the ancient books..."

The Dying Earth, Jack Vance

We all talk about the Vancian magic system in Ye Auld Game, but 99% of the time we are talking specifically about "fire and forget".  Vance's strikingly original presentation of memorizing and forgetting spells is certainly one of the most unique in literature, but there is actually more to Vance's magic than just that.  The quote above is the one that always sparked my imagination.  These arrogant wizards know that, in fact, they have a tenth of the knowledge of their predecessors and, rather than convince them to pool their resources, it actually makes them guard the few spells they have both zealously and jealously.

Now, that's something I could do with more of in YEG.  So, imagine this:

Whatever iteration of the game you are playing, the 1st level Magic-User spells are the entire  syllabus of known spells.

Fly?  You wish.  Fireball?  Who can shoot exploding balls of fire; this is magic sonny, not comic-books. 

Of course, everyone knows that there are, in fact, other spells out there.  Every first-year sorcerer has read that bit of Laconius where he mentions the Miraculous Mantle of Obfuscation, which renders the user invisible, and the intemperate uses to which he put it in relation to the Witches' Coven of Outreterre  Or known the frustration of  studying that antique blabber-mouth Quinquarine, who, over the course of several volumes, promises to reveal the formula obscurely referred to as The Perambulatory Revelator of One-and-All, only to have no copies of the final volume survive the bonfires of the Irenian Orthodoxists.  Or  stared at the great tapestry at Biancule, depicting the turning of the invasion of the Mauvrian Hordes, and wondered what incantation allowed the fabled archimagus Villondro to enmesh the Mauvrians in gigantic spider-webs?

So, of course there are more than just these twelve spells.  That's why you are crawling down a hole in the ground with a party of cerebrally-challenged bravos, cut-purses, and roustabouts, facing death a hundred times over in the form of goblins, traps, and pneumonia, instead of staying in a nice cosy manse somewhere, casting Charm Person over and over for a hundred crowns a pop.  Because there are more spells out there.

And whoever finds even one of them, is going to be star among the thaumaturgical-set.  Seriously, people are going to be hitting you up right, left, and center for just a peek at your grimoire; the grimoire that contains the only known copy of Ariste's Vertical Realignment in the world (even if some slack-witted copyist wrote it down as Levitation.  But, hey, that error kept the thing lost all these centuries 'til you found it, so be nice to the guy).  You now become famous as "So-and-So the Levitator" and anybody who needs something vertically-realigned has to come to you; either to pay for the privilege or to try and steal your spell (recall, in this context, the bit in The Dying Earth where Turjan crashes the chambers of Prince Kandive).

The Referee is going to place far fewer scrolls containing spells above Level 1 in this game because even a single Level 2 spell is a major treasure.  Spell-Scrolls retain their value , of course, because of fire-and-forget.  The Referee is also much freer to cut off the spell list wherever he likes.  Don't like the Wish spell?  Fine; it never need come up.  In fact, if you don't like the whole concept of spells above level 6, say, then that's easy enough too.

One additional option is that one may want is to grant all MU's the entire Level 1 list in the books at start, in part for compensation and also because it sounds right to me.  I'm influenced here by Stephan Michael Secchi's Talislanta.   There were some thirteen "Basic Spells", including the Spell of Eldritch Power, the Spell of Conjuration, and the Spell of Radiance.  Anyone who had made it to 1st level had mastered those. As Secchi puts it:

The following list of spells forms the basis of Talislantan magical tradition, and represents a body of knowledge common to all practitioners of magic, regardless of race, nationality or profession. Apprentice spell casters spend years learning to master the complex verbal and somatic components of these powerful incantations, the origins of which date back to the Age of Mystery. So ancient are these spells that their authors' names have long since been forgotten.

Talislanta Handbook and Campaign Guide (1989)

At that point, one could have an entire career in magic with just those thirteen spells.  Anything beyond involved digging lost librams or stealing from someone else.  And then there were the big prizes: the spells of the Archaeans, the originators of magic, who were able to craft spells that far exceeded later ones in terms of horse-power and scope.

Gedankenexperiment: Treble the Price of Everything

Over on Geoffrey McKinney's blog, I've been part of a discussion on the role of money and equipment in the game.  The starting point was Geoffrey's statement that the equipment list, so important at 1st level, becomes irrelevant soon thereafter.  You agonize over whether or not to to take the sword, knowing that won't leave you enough for chain-mail, or to just accept the mace for now.  But once you come back from your first expedition, that's pretty much over - when you have a bulging bag of silver and gold, the difference between 8 gp and 10 gp is meaningless.

I really feel Geoffrey's point.  Scrimping and saving - heck, debating whether or not to try and steal that nice sword - scream D&D to me.  The problem is that since you need cash to level up, most games don't work if the players only make it out alive with a brass farthing and two subway tokens.

This idea ties in to my proposed experience rules for Dying Sun, which, notably, do not include XP for treasure.  The idea for me is that treasure is it's own reward in a game where the characters are cash-poor.  I've compounded this by reducing starting monies to 20-120 rather than 30-180.  But this still isn't enough!  I don't want to get bogged down by "reality", but in the real world, a sword was, until recently, a great treasure in and of itself.  That's the real reason that it was a sign of rank; it was friggin' expensive.  And plate armour?  Plate armour was like a Lamborghini or something.  Medieval knights essentially made a living off of taking the arms and armor of their foes (or ransoming them back to their families).

With that in mind, play this little game: treble the price of everything in the book.  I'm looking at Labyrinth Lord because it's right in front of me, but use any iteration you like.  That standard-issue sword now costs 30 gp.  With a bad roll, that might be the only thing you can afford.  Why would anybody ever take the much-crummier spear?  Because at 9 gp, it's value for money.  Chain mail now costs 210 gp - well out of reach of any starting character.  So, your typical 1st level Fighter goes from a hauberk-clad swordsman to a guy with a spear and studded leather.

Does that suck?  Well, maybe.  But it also gives you a damn good reason to go risk life and limb crawling down holes in the dirt; a guy's gotta make the rent somehow.  What it also does is give a real zest to ordinary items.  The 1st level Fighter is dying to get ahold of chain-mail and a sword.  Yeah, a plain old sword.  Even one that a dirty orc was using.  D&D characters can't be choosers.  Of course, he probably won't be able to scavenge that mail-coat that he just tore up to kill the orc; damn!  But he can loot every pocket for every last copper piece and try and save up for the day when he can afford a shiny new coat of mail for his own.  And, off on the horizon, the day when he might be able to buy an actual suit of plate, which at 1,350 gp is truly something only the great champions of the realm could ever have.

Gedankenexperiment: Recasting B/X Demi-Humans as Human Classes

Seems as if a lot of folks out there are interested in running their version of Ye Auld Game with a more Sword & Sorcery flavour.  S&S is a relentlessly humanistic genre; if you want to try and extract some theme from an entire genre, you could do worse than this for S&S: "people are venal and petty, but they are, ultimately all we have."  Or, as a famous hill-man has it, Crom helps those who help themselves.

Theology aside, the multi-species Fellowship of the Ring model implied by the rules is fairly contrary to the humanocentric nature of S&S.  So sitting awake the other night with a fever, I decided to engage in a little thought-experiment in using the B/X version of demi-humans as human classes.  I'll list the basic recasting (using the class as written with no changes other than the flavour text), followed by an option or two which might make a slightly better fit (alert, imaginary readers know that I can't resist fiddling with rules).

* The Elf becomes the Dabbler (aka the Picaro): The Dabbler is a man of many talents who learns swordplay as easily as spell-casting.  The sacrifice is that he will quickly be outstripped in those fields by those who concentrate in them (the Fighter and the Magic-User).  Still, the Dabbler has an admirable breadth of skills to bring to any situation; in addition to fighting and sorcery, he is also a linguist (the extra languages), a man with a keen eye for secrets (Detect Secret Doors), and, perhaps most usefully, a fellow who knows how to get out of the way of danger (Saving Throws).

Option: Drop the resistance to ghoul paralyzation, which never made any sense to me for actual Elves, much less a Gray Mouseresque Dabbler.

Option: Drop infravision.  One might replace it with better night vision.

Option: Get rid of the Detect Secret Doors ability (I'd give it to the Delver class below).  One might exchange it for unlimited level advancement.

Option: If you are going full S&S on this, then you probably won't want humanoids any more than demi-humans.  Replace the humanoid languages with other human languages, or ancient eldritch scripts, or something more S&S in tone. 

[I was originally thinking of making this class more of a Jedi Knight - a mystic warrior.  And, of course, Jedi are cool.  But that's a little too campaign specific and isn't very S&S anyway.  Still, it might be a cool option for another type of game]

 * The Dwarf becomes the Delver (aka the Dungeoneer aka the Tomb Raider): The Delver is a specialist in plundering ancient tombs and ruins for profit.  He brings with him an expertise in stonework and masonry; he can spot the tricks and traps the ancients built into their dungeons and, if he can't spot them, he's good at dodging them.  To that end, he's made a study of the languages of those who dwell underground (Kobolds, Gnomes).  But don't call him just a thief; he's a trained warrior because the most dangerous trap can be a monster.  He isn't proficient with two-handed weapons - too bulky when raiding a dungeon - but he's a match for any Fighter otherwise.

Option: Drop the infra-vision.  As with the Dabbler, maybe replace with better dark vision.

Option: Give the Elf's Detect Secret Door ability to the Delver.

Option: As with the Dabbler, drop the humanoid languages, since there won't be any humanoids.

Option: I could see reducing Hit Dice to D6 to make the delver more in line with the Cleric as a limited warrior.  Again, the trade-off could be the unlimited advancement.  If that doesn't seem enough, I could see reducing the XP requirements to match the Fighters.

* The Halfling becomes the Ranger (aka the Scout): The Ranger is the wilderness warrior we all know and love.  He isn't proficient with the bulky greatsword, which isn't much use in the forests, but he can use pretty much anything and is especially good with missiles.  In the wilds, his wood-lore makes him is virtually invisible and even in the dungeon, he can stand so still as to be unnoticed much of the time.  The Ranger is particularly trained in the endless war against the gigantic marauders which haunt the wastes and has learned how to avoid their clumsy blows to an amazing degree (-2 AC vs. giant-class).

Option: Change the -2 AC to a +2 to hit.  This makes him more like the AD&D Ranger and makes a little more sense.

Option: As before, humanoids aren't that S&S.  Replace the -2 AC to apply only against animals, as the Ranger has learned how to stave off the attacks of wild beasts.  Yeah, yeah: animals don't sound that cool.  But animals in B/X are pretty damn tough.  And I would let in apply to something like an Owlbear, which is, after all, just two natural animals combined.  It might apply to other things like Displacer Beasts and so on.

Option: If you see the class as less of a horse-mounted scout and more of a woodland hunter, then you gotta let them use the longbow .  If that seems unfair, you might disallow plate armour or weapons  designed only for war (like the sword).

Option: Give them a tracking ability.  Maybe in exchange for the -2 AC if it seems too much to you.

Option: I would, for free, give them an improved ability to hunt.  Unlike other characters, they only need take half a day to hunt; if they do take a whole day, they get twice of many supplies.

I could totally see playing a game with these classes.  I actually could see playing a Delver as fun, even though I have never, ever wanted to play a Dwarf.  As always, let me know what you think.

Thought Experiment: One-Roll Combat Resolution in Ye Auld Game

I really have no idea when I first encountered the idea of having the quality of the Combat or "To Hit" roll establish the damage inflicted.  I don't think I saw the idea during my first gaming period (1981-1990), so it must have been sometime after my return (2004).  Of course, many gamers had long felt that the quality of the roll ought to matter...somehow.  The most common reaction became the multifarious "critical hit" mechanics, but that is really only a half-step (if that).

Whatever the first such implementation, the game-system that has most impressed me in this regard is the Prose Descriptive Qualities (PDQ) system by Chad Underkoffler.  I recently wrote about my regard for the game Truth & Justice (which uses PDQ) and how it helped me to understand the abstract nature of D&D combat.  Combat (indeed, any sort of conflict) in PDQ is handled by having the participants roll 2D6+ relevant modifiers and comparing the result.  If the attacker has the higher roll, he inflicts damage equal to the amount by which he exceeded the defense roll.  If the attacker rolls 10 and the defender rolls 7, then the attackers inflicts 3 ranks of damage.  Very clean.

Now there really isn't any "Rule of Ideal Game Design" requiring the quality of the one to affect the other.  It's perfectly reasonable to have a mechanic such as D&D's, saying that the first roll simply establishes whether or not damage accrues and that the Damage Roll independently determines the amount.  This is absolutely fine game design.  No, the problem isn't one of design, but of psychology.  I have never yet seen a player, told that he has to roll better than "9", roll an "18" and not excitedly point at a miniature, the dice, or a pizza slice, shouting, "Oh yeah!  Nailed 'im!"  And I have never yet seen a player in that same situation who, upon rolling a "1" for damage, not look rather murderously at the Referee.

Thus, I have been idly playing with the idea that the Combat Roll is the major determinant of the damage inflicted.  Whether this is actually a good idea or not, I'll leave to your judgment, o discerning reader.  I'm just conducting a Gedankenexperiment here.

First, it's obvious that I can't just swipe the PDQ method without entirely rewriting the combat system.  That might be great and may be the subject of another experiment, but that's not what I'm going for here.  So, no opposed rolls. 

Second, as my loyal, imaginary readers know, Spellcraft & Swordplay is my D&D game of choice right now.  This game works on the premise that the default, Chainmail combat system of 2D6 is never replaced by the "Alternate Combat System" using the D20.  This significantly affects the experiment's applicability to most iterations of the game.  But it also suggests something nifty to me.

One quirk of S&S is that almost all rolls are made by trying to get 11+ on 2D6.  But not combat.  Combat works by cross-referencing weapon type to armour class to determine a target number.  Of course, non-amnesiac readers will recall my heroic battles with the Combat Matrix to come up with a preferred version.  And, as it ended up, I decided that it was easier to drop the idea of having the matrix determine the target number and instead determine a modifier with the target number standardized at 11+ (like everything else).

What a happy occurrence!  Because it immediately suggests a mechanic: let the number in the one's place determine damage.  A roll of "11" does 1 point of damage; a roll of "18" does 8.  I like that.  It's dead-easy to remember and it means that the more skilled warriors do more damage, whether they have a +9 Sword of Bad-Asssery or just a pruning knife.  That definitely fits in with the abstract nature of Hit Points and combat in general.

Now it gets a little bit more complicated.  S&S dispenses with differing weapons doing differing ranges of damage: everything is 1D6.  Differences among weapons are handled by how they interact with the various armour classes.  Up to a point.  Because that same psychology that inspired this post--the one that wants the quality of the combat roll to affect the damage--also wants to see some difference in damage between a dagger and a claymore.  In a variable weapon system, that's easily handled, but not in this experiment.  

Hmn, I suppose the easiest (if not cleverest) thing would be to give a damage bonus to large or two-handed weapons (say +2) and a subtraction to small weapons (say -2).

So.  

So, we roll 2D6+modifiers and, if we get a two-digit result, the one's digit tells us how much damage we do, as modified then by weapon size, strength bonus, magical bonus, etc.

So.

Well, it's an interesting idea anyway.