Charisma in AD&D
(or, preferably, the lack thereof)
Jim Vassilakos
Player 1: “Wha’d’ya mean she says no? I have an
eighteen charisma.”
GM: “That doesn’t give you carte blanche to walk up
to first princess you meet and ask her to hop in the
the sack.”
Player 1: “Heh-heh… you said meat.”
Player 2: “Actually, not that I disagree, but he asked if
she wanted to have intercourse, which leaves some
room for interpretation.”
GM: “Okay, fine. She looks at you, startled. To what
sort of intercourse are you referring, good sir?”
Player 1: “That depends. What’s your favorite
position?”
GM: “She slaps you.”
Player 1: “In a playful way?”
GM: “In a forceful, angry, cheek-stinging way. In
fact, take a point of damage.”
Player 2: “Ouch.”
Player 1: “Whoa! But I have an eighteen charisma.”
GM: “Don’t care.”
Player 1: “But don’t I at least get to roll a charisma
check or something? I’m like Casanova, Don Juan,
and Brad Pitt all rolled into one. At least let me
roll.”
GM: “Fine. Roll.”
Player 1: Rolls. “Whoa! Critical Success! I want this
witnessed! Woo-hoo! Yeah, baby! Is she DTF yet?
She damn well better be!”
The GM has two obvious choices. The first would be
to grant the player his wish. “Yeah, dude. She thinks
you’re hot.” Sure, it seems insane, but if we
mechanize social interaction, allowing roll-playing to
substitute for roleplaying, then the GM will find his
back against the wall. After all, the player has the
highest human charisma and got the best roll he could
have hoped for. From the player’s perspective, it can’t
get any better than this, so anything the GM does to
try to invoke reality will be viewed as unfair.
The second choice, which was always my own style
once I began GMing, was to say you’ve got to
roleplay your charisma. “But then what’s the point of
having a high charisma?” players would ask. This was
a question I was never able to answer adequately, and
so in my game, as with so many others, charisma
became a dump stat.1
1
“A Dump Stat is a gaming concept: a quality in the game 5All I can remember is that it was sometime between the
that you choose not to allocate any character-building publication of the Dungeon Master’s Guide (1979) and the
resources to (and thus your character does not possess).” Fiend Folio (1981).
https://geekfeminism.org/2012/04/14/open-thread-whats-
As many of you know, charisma has long been a
dump stat throughout the various editions of D&D.
Lenard Lakofka wrote in the early 80s, “…charisma
(is) the one basic ability in the AD&D™ system that
is difficult to incorporate into a game situation. It is
very common for a player, as he or she ‘molds’ a new
character, to put the character’s lowest score into
charisma unless he or she wants to play a paladin,
ranger, or druid, for which a respectable charisma
score is required.”2 A decade and a half later David
Brumbaugh asked, “…why is it that so many players
assign their lowest rolls to a character’s Charisma?”3
And almost another decade later, Jason Nelson-Brown
wrote, “Poor Charisma. It has always been the weak
sister, the proverbial red-headed stepchild, the—well,
the dump stat of stats; even when 3rd Edition tied in
many more skills and game effects, we still end up
trying to stick it to the lowly Charisma-based skills.”4
I started gaming around 1980 or thereabouts 5, and
back then charisma was more-or-less considered a
substitute for physical appearance. Granted, Gary
Gygax said otherwise: “Charisma is the measure of
the character’s combined physical attractiveness,
persuasiveness, and personal magnetism. A generally
non-beautiful character can have a very high
charisma due to strong measures of the other two
aspects of charisma. It is important to all characters,
as it has an effect on dealings with others, principally
non-player characters, mercenary hirelings,
prospective retainers, and monsters. It absolutely
dictates the total number of henchmen a character is
able to retain. It affects loyalty of all hirelings and
retainers. It is the key to leadership.”6
But all the players and gamemasters I knew were
disregarding these rules. Lenard Lakofka wrote, “In
my years of playing, I have never used reaction
adjustment or number of henchmen based on
charisma.”2 In the early years of the game, players
and GMs considered the rules to be mere guidelines.
your-dump-stat/
2
Make Charisma Count for More by Lenard Lakofka in
Dragon #63 (July 1982), page 19.
3
He's Got Personality by David Brumbaugh in Dragon #243
(January 1998), Page 40.
4
Save My Game: Diplomacy (03/17/2006)
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?
x=dnd/sg/20060317a
6
Player’s Handbook (1978), page 13.
 Perhaps, in part, because charisma was so
disrespected, Gygax introduced comeliness, the
seventh and final primary statistic, in 1985.
“Comeliness reflects physical attractiveness, social
grace, and personal beauty of the character. It is used
to determine initial reactions to the character, and
characters with a high comeliness may affect the wills
and actions of others. While charisma deals
specifically with leadership and interactions between
characters, comeliness deals with attractiveness and
first impressions.”7
The practical upshot was AD&D now had two dump
stats. It really made no sense to me. The game had a
stat that was generally regarded as being useless, so
instead of getting rid of it, or replacing it with
something better, or devising some game mechanics
that would assist rather than hinder roleplaying…
instead of doing any of these things, Gygax decided to
divide it into two different stats.
Of course, I couldn’t accept this. Not only did it
make charisma, already a dump stat, that much less
valuable, but it entrenched it as being purely non-
physical. Comeliness was now the proxy for physical
appearance, while charisma had to do with the
character’s personality, the very thing I was insisting
that my players actually roleplay. So, somewhere
along the line, I simply dumped charisma, but I
accepted comeliness and added perception. 8
However, most GMs played according to the
standard rules, so there was a period of time from
1985 to the publication of AD&D 2 nd edition in 1989
when charisma and comeliness co-existed, and this
arrangement, in my opinion, began to nudge GMs to
allow roll-playing in place of roleplaying. Needless to
say, I thought it a mistake when 2nd edition dumped
comeliness9 but retained charisma. Of course,
charisma had a longer lineage. Dumping it instead of
comeliness would have been tantamount to an
admission of error, but I think such a move would
have, by and large, been welcomed. 10
Whatever the reason, this choice had important
consequences, as 2nd edition was also the edition that
introduced non-weapon proficiencies (skills). The
designers were rolling them out on an optional basis,
perhaps to test the waters and see if gamers would use
7
Unearthed Arcana (1985), page 6.
8
I was part of a small group of four gamemasters who set up
a shared-world campaign for AD&D in 1991, and this rule
appears in our manifesto. See Guildsman #4, page 118.
There was a lot of give-and-take in that discussion, and I
decided to yield on a lot of stuff, but getting rid of
charisma, I believe, was one of the things I was passionate
about, and apparently I got them to agree with me.
9 11
With the exception of some rules at the end of an
adventure in Polyhedron #89, page 15.
10
If somebody happens to know David “Zeb” Cook, perhaps
the rationale behind this decision can be clarified.
them. Naturally, they tied them to the primary stats, so
they needed a certain number of charisma-related
skills. The ones they designated as being charisma-
related were etiquette, singing, disguise, gaming, and
local history. 11
But there were immediate problems. First of all,
some of these ended up ghosting12 big-time. Singing,
for example. Did anybody ever put points in singing?
Secondly, why did they designate “local history” as
being charisma-related? You’ve got to be charismatic
to know your local history? I can see how it’s related
in some way. You need to talk to people to learn local
history. But you need to talk to people to learn a lot of
stuff. It doesn’t make everything charisma-related.
Finally, there’s etiquette. Surely etiquette is charisma-
related, right? Well, hold on. To quote some rules,
“having the character know what is correct and
actually do what is correct are two different matters.
The encounters must still be role-played by the
character. Knowledge of etiquette does not give the
character protection from a gaffe or faux pas; many
people who know the correct thing still manage to do
the exact opposite.”13
Aha! So charisma is really about knowledge, not
about personality. Right? But from earlier in the same
book, “The Charisma (Cha) score measures a
character's persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and
ability to lead.”14
Wait, I’m confused. It’s persuasiveness, personal
magnetism… but I’ve still got to roleplay? I can’t just
roll dice? Of course, it was up to the individual GM,
but many times a player would say, “Hey, I’ve got a
such-and-such charisma and a high skill level, so let
me just roll these dice,” and the GM would say,
“Okay.” And that was it. Dice were rolled. The
encounter was resolved. The conversation happened
without a conversation actually happening.
Roleplaying was dumped in favor of roll-playing. At
least that’s what I saw happening in a lot of the games
I attended, and it was a terrible thing to witness, as
human interaction was the true beauty of the original
game, and now it was being mechanized.
Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition (2000) added bluff,
diplomacy, gather information, intimidate, and more,
and other game designers, of course, picked up on this
trend. Rolling dice in place of roleplaying was swiftly
becoming the new norm, and this state of affairs has
continued right up to the present day. Dungeons &
Dragons 5th edition (2014), supposedly a throwback to
the good old days of 1st edition, features several skills
associated with charisma, including one called
See the 2nd edition Player’s Handbook, pages 54 & 55.
12
Being ignored.
13 nd
2 edition Player’s Handbook, page 58.
14 nd
2 edition Player’s Handbook, page 17.
persuasion. “The DM might ask you to make a
Charisma (Persuasion) check,” the rules state.15
I can’t help but be reminded of Lenard Lakofka’s
statement back in the days of 1st edition that,
“Negotiation with a ‘monster’ should take whatever
natural course the events dictate, and should not be
subject to various die rolls to see how the NPC reacts
to the player character. That’s what the DM is there
for….”16
Now, some would say, “The DM/GM still has this
prerogative. The rules said ‘might ask,’ not ‘must
ask.’” But the practical consequence of these rules in
the groups I visited was that roleplaying took a back
seat any time the player had some skill or ability
which he could use to roll-play toward some desired
outcome. I think it was just considered more of a sure
thing, and it was easier, and it was certainly faster to
roll dice than to actually roleplay.
One could argue there’s a place for these sorts of
rules in terms of speeding up play. After all, if you
have to roleplay every single scene (such as haggling
for goods at the local market), the game is going to get
a bit tedious. But the problem is once these rules are
introduced and used for scenes and situations that
aren’t critical to the plot of an adventure, they then
become accessible for all scenes and situations. It
might be hard for the GM to argue that a player can
use bluff or persuasion for haggling down the price of
some horseshoes but not be able to use it in an
encounter with the boss monster or one of its
lieutenants. The player would naturally ask, and quite
rightly, I think, “What’s the point of even having this
skill if I can’t use it when I need it the most?”
Of course, there’s a third obvious option, which is to
effectively split the baby. Make the player roleplay the
encounter, but let the skill have some effect, or to put
it the other way around, let the player roll dice to
determine what happens, but stick in a heavy
roleplaying modifier. However, I don’t especially like
this compromise.
Part of my reasoning is I think roll-playing would
end up dominating the game. It’s not hard to envision
situations where the player plays out the scene
wonderfully but then rolls a critical fumble (the worst
possible roll) or where the player rolls a critical
success (the best possible roll) but plays out the scene
poorly. In each instance, how well the player roleplays
is apparent to the entire group as well as to the GM,
but it can be difficult to quantify in terms of exacting a
modifier, and people are bound to disagree with the
GM’s ruling, particularly when the stakes are high in
terms of plot. In contrast to this is the fact that the roll
of the dice and skill/attribute modifiers are pretty cut
15 th
5 edition Player’s Handbook, page 179.
16
Make Charisma Count for More by Lenard Lakofka in
Dragon #63 (July 1982), page 19.
and dry, so it just seems less arbitrary to let the dice
decide. Hence, in order to appear impartial, I think,
many if not most GMs would allow roll-playing to
push roleplaying increasingly to the periphery of how
plot points are determined during play.
Another problem I have with this compromise is that
it focuses the conversation on a specific goal, and the
question becomes whether or not one side can
overpower the other with their charisma. In real life
conversations may start with a specific goal, and
personal charisma may play a factor, but
conversations by their very nature can result in almost
anything. You could begin the conversation haggling
over the price of a piece of fruit, and from that learn
about the oppressive fees the King is charging small-
time merchants, and next thing you know, you’re
taking part in a rebellion. Conversations can lead
anywhere. Hence, engaging in one with the sole
expectation that it’ll serve merely to modify a dice roll
seems unduly self-constraining.
And there’s a third reason I don’t like this
compromise. Even in cases where the player roleplays
well and where he or she rolls well, ultimately the
final roll of the dice is what determines the outcome,
and while some people prefer it that way, I personally
don’t. I think it makes the victory less sweet.
I’m once again reminded of the roguish PC talking
the princess out of her crown and scepter. 17 The player
was laughing about it for months. And why not? He
earned it… not by rolling some dice but through old-
fashioned roleplaying. He acted the scene beautifully,
so beautifully that I was taken in, and I knew who I
was dealing with. That poor princess, she got taken to
the cleaners, and he savored it like you wouldn’t
believe. In short, it made a memory, and while great
memories can certainly be made through great dice
rolls (I’ve seen this happen several times), I still don’t
think its quite the same as memories made through
great roleplaying. But like I said before, that’s just my
personal preference, and I’m fully aware that I’m in
the minority.
Rather than thinking of the roll-playing vs.
roleplaying divide as a binary choice, as my previous
graphic indicates, it might be better to think of it as a
continuum, and although I initially imagined the
17
See my comment to Patrick Riley in A&E #506.
distribution as being essentially Gaussian, it might be But in pretty much all of the roleplaying groups I
better, instead of thinking of our own preferences as visited over the years, the GMs (and, I presume, the
points on the continuum, to alternatively think of them players as well) were more like Player 1. 20 It was all
as being a set of ranges. For example: about the dice and combat, and the verbal interaction
was almost entirely out-of-character. These groups
were never quite as hardcore as the Cal-Tech gamers,
but they were definitely on that end of the spectrum,
and this only confirmed for me that while I’m not
entirely alone, I’m clearly in a minority.
Roleplaying is fun, of course, partly because you can
be whoever you want to be. More to the point, you can
be the antithesis of
whoever you are in real
life. So just as a pencil-
neck, office slave gets to
play a brawny barbarian,
I make this point because I think some players are so too does the awkward,
compatible with both sides of the divide, but others boring, shy guy get to
aren’t. I came face-to-face with this incompatibility on play the most interesting
my visit to the Cal-Tech gaming guild. 18 Myself and a man in the world. If we
soon-to-be-friend were pretty much horrified by what all dispose of charisma,
we witnessed. Later, however, I had second thoughts. how can the
To quote myself from A&E #363, “The truth is, there uncharismatic play out
are different styles to this thing that we do, and while their fantasy persona?21
all of us probably think that our style is best, none of Some years ago, I had the bizarre idea of bringing
us have a monopoly on the concept of how a charisma back, but instead of tying it to any particular
roleplaying game ought to be run.” skills, I thought I’d let it serve as a “take-back”
This roleplaying/roll-playing divide also came up in method as well as an instigator of social gaffes.
my discussion of Dave’s Traveller Campaign in A&E
#500, which Lisa Padol and I continued to discuss in Charisma Gaffes / Gaffes are where the GM or
issues #501 through #505, and it came up much earlier Score Take-backs
another player want to force an
in a Warcraft campaign that I talked about in A&E 3 60% uncharismatic character to
#355, #359 & #361, and I’m sure there have been 4 50% commit some faux pas. Most of
numerous other instances. And I also mentioned how I 5 40% these will probably be
used to visit local gaming groups mainly for the 6 30%
perpetrated by the GM, since
purpose of seeing how different GMs were running it’s not in the group’s interest
7 20%
their games19, and so I got a pretty broad sampling of for one of their own to
different styles, and what I figured out from all this is 8 10%
constantly be offending the
that I’m the weird one. I’m the outlier. I’m “Player 2” 9-12 NPCs. Take-backs are where a
in the graphic above. 13 10% charismatic character can take
There are a few I’ve met who are like Player 3. I’m 14 20% back words or actions that were
thinking of one guy who was extremely personable, 15 30%
poorly received and try again.
and he could do all sorts of voices and accents. He One additional player may
16 40%
was so good at it, we’d throw him challenges. I kibitz for every charisma point
remember how he once imitated Elvis imitating 17 50%
above 15, offering the player
Arnold Schwarzenegger imitating Bill Clinton or 18 60% ideas on what to say or do.
somebody… and he blended all three of them so
20
beautifully that we were practically on the floor dying. Being far to the right on this spectrum, my perception is
And he loved to roleplay, but at the same time he no doubt skewed, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s partly
loved dice-rolling and combats and strategy, and he because I removed charisma from my game in the early
90s. In doing so, I effectively removed myself from the
could sit in front of a computer and play Wolfenstein
hobby’s evolution as pertains to charisma. In short, I got off
for hours upon hours, cackling “mein leben” in the train once I noticed it was starting to go in the wrong
imitation of all the Nazis he was mowing down. direction (IMHO), but nearly everyone else stayed onboard,
and so that’s how I think I ended up with this perspective
and why my style of play seems like such a throwback to
18
See page 10 of my zine in A&E #363. the days when charisma was more or less ignored.
19 21
See footnote #26 of my zine in A&E #363. See Spike’s comment to me in A&E #512.
Player 1: “Wha’d’ya mean she says no? I have an
eighteen charisma.”
GM: “That doesn’t give you carte blanche to walk up
to the first princess you meet and ask her to hop in
the sack.”
Player 1: “Heh-heh… you said meat.”
Player 2: “Actually, not that I disagree, but he asked if
she wanted to have intercourse, which leaves some
room for interpretation.”
GM: “Okay, fine. She looks at you, startled. To what
sort of intercourse are you referring, good sir?”
Player 1: “That depends. What’s your favorite
position?”
GM: “She slaps you.”
Player 1: “In a playful way?”
GM: “In a forceful, angry, cheek-stinging way. In
fact, take a point of damage.”
Player 1: “I’m doin’ a take-back. Gotta get sixty or
below.” (Rolls percentile dice.) “Forty-four.”
GM: “Okay. To what sort of intercourse are you
referring, good sir?”
Player 1: “Anybody want to kibitz?”
Player 2: “I dunno. Tell her you love her.”
Player 1: “No way, dude. Bangrod ain’t no liar.
Anyway, girls like it when guys are straight up,
right? And she’s a princess. She doesn’t have time
for bullshit.”
Player 3: “Tell her she’s beautiful.”
Player 1: “Is she?”
GM (consulting his notes): “No, but her handmaiden
is.”
Player 1: “Then screw that stuck-up princess.
‘Actually, m’lady,’ I’ll say, ‘I was hoping you’d
permit me to have a word of intercourse with your
handmaiden. The need is most urgent.’ In my
pants, I mean, but I don’t say that. I’m not crass.”
GM: “What is this need concerning?”
Player 1 (looking at players 2 & 3): “C’mon, guys.
Help me out here.”
I never tried this idea in an actual game, but it
occurred to me it might have the advantage of
encouraging roleplaying rather than discouraging it,
which is how the charisma stat has always seemed to
function. Also, one would assume, uncharismatic
players might learn through constructive criticism to
be a little less uncharismatic, not that this would
necessarily cure any of their other deficiencies. And,
certainly, the potential cost of making charisma a
dump stat would be high indeed. Unfortunately, like I
said, I never got around to play-testing this, so I have
no idea how it would actually work out. If any of you
decide to play-test it, please let me know how it goes.
Comments:
Homebrew Magic System (from A&E #508):
Spike Jones (A&E 512/p3): “Mana-Sorting In Your
Homebrew Magic System: Is there a point at which
the system would break down under its
complexities?”
Each spellcaster tended to stick with just one type of
mana at any given time, so mana-sorting rarely came
up, but the system had other problems worth
mentioning.
I’m vaguely reminded of one time the party was in
Xkutyr, a metropolis in Deepearth, and the roguish
character I described earlier 17, was sneaking into the
palace of Lord Thrash, who happened to be a pretty
badass demon. I think the whole party or at least some
part of it was present, and this PC was either using
some magic item or potion of disguise, or maybe
disguise was being cast on him so that he would look
like this demon so as to fool the guards.22
Whichever the case, we ended up with spell failure,
and so I consulted the spell failure table. 23 I’m not
100% sure about the roll, but it might have been roll
twice followed by backlash and something unusual,
and I vaguely remember thinking that a straight-
forward interpretation of backlash seemed like a dud.
You’re already using the magic on yourself, so how
can it backlash? My interpretation of this was that it
had so be something bad, but it also had to be
ridiculous, especially if something unusual was the
other result. So I came up with something unusual.
The way the spell works, I believe, is that it doesn’t
actually change the physical features of your face. It
changes the way that people perceive them. It’s
22
Technically, disguise isn’t supposed to be transferable, but
either I overlooked this or the illusionist’s player talked me
into letting it be transferable (perhaps in return for a higher
chance of suffering spell failure). It may also be the case the
illusionist dumped his or her cookies, effectively creating a
horrendously overpowered mistake.
But it’s also possible that it was a magic item. I
envisioned a lot of magic items as being sort of like an ice
box that you take with you on a camping trip, but for magic
instead of food. Rings, wands, potions, and scrolls all
involved some mage, presumably a high level one,
effectively casting spells into the item so that it would hold
the magic for safekeeping, and sometimes he or she (or
they) would make a mistake, so you’d essentially have a
miscast spell sitting there, and you’d only find out when the
magic was released (when the item was used).
This was a long time ago, and my memory is poor to
begin with, so you’ll have to bear with me on the fuzziness
of the details (although it’s funny that I can remember the
name of the city and its ruler). Suffice it to say that
somehow this roguish character was getting magically
disguised.
23
See page 4 of my zine in A&E #508.
primarily mind-effecting. And backlash, to me, meant
that instead of getting the demon’s face, whoever he
met during the magic’s duration (which wasn’t short)
would get his face.
But then, to make it unusual, I threw in a big twist. I
decided that spell’s effects would cascade, so that
whoever came across these people (now with his face)
would also get his face, so, basically, his face would
spread from person to person, throughout the palace
and even throughout the city, or at least a good section
thereof, until the magic would expire. The duration of
Disguise is ten minutes per caster’s level, so from a 6 th
level caster, the duration would be an hour, and I seem
to remember that the caster was well over 6 th level, so,
basically, his face traveled quite a distance.
The good part was that since everyone looked like
him, the guards couldn’t distinguish what person was
really him. Indeed, they couldn’t distinguish anyone
from anyone else, except for those whose magic
resistance had kicked in, so there was complete
mayhem, and I forget how the party took advantage of
the situation, but I can tell you that they made sure to
get the hell out and then go into hiding, and, of course,
that character had to then hide his face until they were
well out of the city.
So that’s an example of how to deal with a situation
where the system gives you results that might not
immediately make sense. Whenever this happens, you
as GM will have to “interpret creatively.” 24
However, the system is complex in other ways, such
as all the calculations that are necessary just to
determine a spell failure percentage. One thing I found
that helps a lot is to do some of the calculations ahead
of time. I would have the player of each spellcaster
create a number of tables on their character sheet (one
for each college of magic in which their character
practices magic). Here’s an example (this one is for a
priest of 15 intelligence and 17 wisdom who is 3 rd
level in divine magic and 2nd level in common magic):
Divine Magic
Spell Lvl Ice Hail Tempest Maelstrom
1 8% 5% 10% 15%
2 15% 10% 20% 30%
3 23% 15% 30% 45%
Common Magic
Spell Lvl Ice Hail Tempest Maelstrom
1 12% 8% 15% 23%
2 23% 15% 30% 45%
24
Or, to put it another way, you’ll have to pull some shit out only be 42 minutes long.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
of your ass.
Note that these tables don’t take into account
situational modifiers or the use of metal or leather.
But they take into account the non-situational
modifiers, so all you have to do is modify the
percentage that applies for a given spell as per the
situation, and that speeds up play enough that the
math no longer gets in the way of the game.
Since all these percentages are a bit tedious to
calculate by hand, I wrote a program to do it.25 Also, if
you’d like to see the 1992 edition of this system, I
finally got around to scanning it to pdf.26
Roleplaying vs. Rollplaying:
Lisa Padol (A&E 512/p1): “I have never seen anyone
disagree and say, ‘Well, no, actually, I want
rollplaying.’ Everyone nods, and we move on.”
I think most groups are doing more rollplaying than
roleplaying, but that isn’t to say that they’re doing it
wrong or that there’s no roleplaying going on. RPGs
grew out of wargames, so there’s a strong wargaming
element. Hence, it shouldn’t be surprising that combat
figures heavily in most RPGs.
But my feeling was always that combats should be
like the commercial breaks in a TV show (as
measured by the standards of the 1960s, not today’s). 27
That means I’d allow about 15% of game time to be
sucked up by combat, but most gamemasters go way
over this. In many groups that I visited, this ratio was
reversed: 15% roleplaying, 85% combat.
To me, that’s a pretty clear sign one isn’t
roleplaying, but these groups, I am sure, would have
balked at any suggestion that they might be
rollplaying. For whatever reason, most gamers seem
to prefer rollplaying even through they also seem
ashamed to admit it. Maybe it’s because I’m at one
extreme on the spectrum, but that’s the way I tend to
see things.
25
Download the Campaign Archive at
http://mypbem.com/Vassilakos/index.html
Unzip it, run camp.exe and select magic → arcanum
minoris → spell failure calculator.
26
https://www.sendspace.com/file/01q0u5 (This version is
simpler in certain respects than the version I presented in
A&E #508. It yields lower spell failure percentages, allows
multi-classing, and doesn’t penalize studying in multiple
colleges, which consequentially makes the spell failure
calculations less onerous. Also, this one has rules for
overcasting/mana-pumping, which increase spell versatility.
In short, most players would probably prefer this version,
but note that it makes spellcasters even more powerful than
the later version of the rules that I presented in A&E #508.)
27
“Commercial breaks have become longer. In the 1960s a
typical hour-long American show would run for 51 minutes
excluding advertisements. Today, a similar program would
Television_advertisement#United_States_of_America
The Shadowlands:
Patrick Riley (A&E 512/p1): “As far as I can tell, if
you enter the Shadowlands, walk a mile, and go
back to Earth, you’ll find yourself a mile away
from where you started and in roughly the same
direction. But there are no geographic similarities
or analogues between Earth and the Shadowlands.
Where on Earth, there might be a park or a
skyscraper but in the Shadowlands, there could be
a cave or a dismal swamp. Fortunately, the Bleed
never leads you into solid rock or in the middle of
the ocean, as far as I know.”
I liked this, and I really liked your writing style, but I
can’t help but think that if there were some similarities
between the gross morphology of Earth and the
Shadowlands (mountains, hills, canyons, oceans,
lakes, major rivers, and islands), then you’d have an
explanation for why people wouldn’t end up in solid
rock or in the middle of the ocean, and so it wouldn’t
have to be explained as merely the universe being
kind, which undermines to the setting’s mood. Also, it
would explain the use of the word “shadow” in
Shadowlands, since there would be, for example, a
shadow version of the San Francisco Bay, but it might
be filled with blood or bile or dead babies put though
a blender. I mean, you’d still have a lot of freedom in
terms of designing the specifics of each area, but by
positing a similar gross morphology, you’d be giving
yourself a jumping-off point for your creativity, and I
also think it could make the setting more engaging.
But that’s just my opinion, and you can take it or
leave it. Overall, I enjoyed it, and I’d like to see more.
Multiple Parties in the Same Dungeon:
Gabriel Roark (A&E 512/p2): “Keeping east &
south, the explorers encountered Snorri
Broadshoulders’ expedition. The dwarves were all
too happy to point the dubious duo in the direction
of the larger adventuring group.”
I like the idea of two adventuring parties meeting deep
in a dungeon. It makes one wonder if they might
attack each other for the XP & loot. Or is there a code
of ethics among the “good races” that prohibits such
flagrant opportunism? And if so, why not minimize
the risk by working together?
Supposing a departing party to be loaded with
treasure but dangerously low on HP, one can’t help
but think dungeon exits would make inviting spots for
an ambush. This reminds me of René Belloq in
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Game Tables:
Patrick Zoch (A&E 512/p1): “I began researching
game tables and found many of them.”
Nice list, but also see these videos on the Playsurface
as applied to RPGs:
• https://youtu.be/cSfxZTMwTJA
• https://youtu.be/VSNy1_KF-cI
And then imagine the Playsurface enlarged to about
this size: https://youtu.be/sGTsnooyhZM
There was a time when I was coveting something like
this, but now I’m worried that this move toward
interactive media may reduce the engagement of one’s
imagination, hence making the experience of
immersion that much more elusive. Also, it sort of
necessitates that all the maps be prepared ahead of
time, reducing the GM’s ability to deviate from the
script.
Published vs. Homemade Adventures:
Patrick Zoch (A&E 512/p2): “I custom my entire
campaign to suit the characters of my playing
group and I custom design all the adventures to tie
the characters and the campaign together.”
Yeah, I’ve come to the same conclusion. Published
adventures may contain usable nuggets, and as a way
to start a campaign, a short published adventure may
occasionally prove useful, particularly for a first
session where you as GM don’t know what the party’s
make-up is going to be, but for the most part, they
suck, and it’s not just due to TPKs.
I think a big part of the problem is that it’s hard for a
GM to fully absorb some off-the-shelf adventure
compared to one that’s homemade. For example, with
most published adventures, you have to sit there and
read through room descriptions, and so there are all
these breaks in the flow of the game. I think this is
really detrimental, because every time the GM has to
break eye-contact to read some text, it interrupts the
conversation between the GM and the players.
Furthermore, the textual description in modules often
feels overly-polished and unnatural. It’s just a
reminder that this is all make-believe.
By contrast, if you’re running an adventure you
created yourself, not only do you know it like the back
of your hand but you feel a greater liberty to embellish
or change things on the fly depending on what you
think best serves the story. And all your descriptions
are probably going to be extemporaneous, based on
some brief notes, so your eyes are focused on the
players rather than being buried in some book.