MIDlands Charater Creation

Neal,
With regards to chance of improving one's skill, I use the RuneQuest rule: You can try to improve the skill, only if you used it in the course of the adventure to achieve the positive difference and move the story forward. All the skills that were used (and that includes spells) become candidates for improvement. For a healing skill, it is not enough to cast the Cure Light Wounds Spell, you must have cast it on enough players to make a difference between players losing the melee and winning it. Healing skill has to be used to stabilize a character with zero and less HP and to keep him or her from dying. Magic Missile spell would be the candidate for improvement if it drops (or kills) an opponent. The frequency is ONCE per ADVENTURE. You can use the skill successfully to move the adventurers forward a dozen times, still, it only gets ONE shot. Another thing to consider, is how long an adventure takes place. For instance, My players just came off a two year long mega dungeon adventure that lasted from beginning of May until end of July in game time. I have a Magic User, who used a Sleep spell successfully at least a dozen times. Since the skill improvement represents a lifetime track record, that player will only get 1 chance at improving that skill. To make sure that he gets the improvement, I might reward him with an automatic maximum success, OR I can add the number he used the spell to attain critical success to his percentile die roll to see if his skill improves. Another thing to consider is that since Sleep is a first level spell, which the player has mastered. If he practiced the spell with another wizard, who has sleep spell and is of significantly higher level than the 1st level, it only takes one week's supervised practice, before the skill improvement check can be made. When assessing amount of time it takes for training, you should decide as DM how long a training period should take. To learn to walk on one's hands the player character mist have high STR and DEX of 16 and will take 3 to five training sessions. To become an acrobat might take 2 -3 years of active study. Healers and Herbalists may gain experience by working as healers. A season (winter, summer, give or take spring and fall), might be long enough to warrant a skill improvement check, OR a critical incident that is role played successfully that might last one evening. Have the player character treat a patient dying from human rabies. If they got enough wherewithal to make a positive difference, they get to roll for skill improvement. Again, this is rooted in narrativism, and is largely at DM's discretion.
So, you want to play a wealthy Princeling, why not? Write the DM a brief backstory that I will modify accordingly. Placement-wise, you are from the large MIDlands city-state of Starohrad, five days by the river away from the local produce walled town of Ryeland, that is the base city (well... a large town) for the players. I would let you be the Princeling from Ryeland, but the place is so small, quiet and backward, that it doesn't produce enough wealth to make a Princeling! MIDlands narrativism is where story balance is maintained. I make a social class roll for each player character to see how bad the DM's rewriting of your story will be. If you want to be from the top 1% of the MIDlands society, you will probably have to roll 99-00 on percentile dice to enter the game as a fully empowered princeling that you are anticipating. But let us say that you rolled something other, that brings you more to the ground level of peasants or artisans and craftsmen or freeman homesteaders. That would mean that you are a Princeling-in-exile, and a DM has to make up as to what happened. For instance, "Your mother cheated on your Leonian Nobleman father and he had her burned at the stake as a witch. The Rogue whom she cheated with was hunted down on the forest and you lovely Dad has severely beaten his man at arms, who accidentally killed him while taking him alive. You were in the way of your step mother and their new baby and they sent you to a Monastery for schooling. You thought that the priests were going to kill you and you ran away from them... (eventually becoming a thief that the player character had)... and that is how the backstory for each player character gets written, maybe less extreme than this case, but no less dramatic...
There are THREE ways the players can roll up a character to enter Midlands, and none of them let you lower some ability to increase the other, hence, no Min-Maxing! The Man On The Street; The Dilettante; and roll to get a particular character class, everybody gets to be any AD&D character class they like, remember. Man On The Street rolls 3d6 for each ability. The good news is that you get to reroll as many times as you like, until you get the stats that you crave! Because 3d6 versus ability gives you least advantages, and restricts your choice of the character class, this represents the typical upbringing without any special attention paid to the child. Because of this, the character relies more on his friends and neighbors to get along in the world. What this means is that the Man on the Street is written into the setting more, with more contacts, more recognition based on CHA and a few more background/cultural skills.
The Dilettante rolls 4d6 for each ability, and you can re-roll as many times as you like until you get the stats that you crave! In the real world, the dilettante is a dabbler, who is not involved in the field as a professional, but practices it as a hobby. This was typically, because their families had enough money, to where they did not have to earn a living and could become a dabbler. A sailor goes to sea to support his family. A dilettante goes on a sea expedition  as a self-styled naturalist, journalist, or an adventurer. By the same token, rolling 4d6 and picking 3 highest, gives you more opportunities and represents more attention paid by parents, better grub fed to the child, and better social position. That does not necessarily mean wealthier, for there are poor families that are loving and are well integrated into their community. Because the Dilettantes typically have the luxury of privacy and solitude, they get no advantages of the common men on the street. 
Finally, if the player wants to play a particular character class, they can re-roll the lacking primary requisite attributes on a special table, that while reflecting the probabilities from the 3d6 bell curve, will yield only the numbers that will qualify the player for that character class. Bards, Monks, Paladins etc. Of course there is a trade-off, and that is where the MIDlands Narrativism comes in. Unlike other games I played in, the true Sandbox exerts Lovecraftian tentacles over the players. Each character is WRITTEN into the setting via the background essay like Silva's Tale. The player character is bound into the setting by a number of acquaintances and relationship with those acquaintances. Typically, a player gets to pick a number of "friends" in the setting equal to their CHA bonus. Equally important to the campaign development is the concept of the CANON. Player and a DM create the character's biography that places the character in the sandbox. Whatever elements of the story are agreed on, become part of the canon. If the bio thingie says that you are friends with Merlin or Conan or the King, then later in the game, if you ever get in touch with these NPC's, they will act as a benefactor on your side. How much can you get out of a friendship with a King? This is where the game ceases to be linear/by the rules and expectations, and enters the non-linear narrativist turf.
The trade-off that players exchange for the amazing choices available at the start of the game is in their independence of their characters. Most fantasy role playing games are run and played by middle class suburbanites with the expectations of the relatively privileged suburbanized white males. Almost everyone takes privacy/solitude for granted. This applies to the players sense of themselves in the real world as well as that of their characters. Essentially, a typical character exists apart from the game world, typically existing in the player's imagination as a self-sufficient traveler, who advances in their chosen profession (character class) by virtue of "experience" - loot and combat kills, which have little or nothing to do with the advancement in their chosen occupation. Typical D&D adventure starts with the players arriving into a town, getting a room at the inn, that mirrors their own room in their parents' home somewhere in the suburban sprawl. Next thing they do, is go to some "tavern" where they pick up rumors about some dungeon waiting to get looted. This is the purview of the Dungeon Master's world. Somehow the locals are totally ignorant of the riches in their midst, just waiting to be taken from the hordes of the sub-human two legged creatures ripe for slaughter. If it wasn't for the Orcs and the piles of gold pieces, I would have thought that the players were some mining company employees looking to extract the wealth of some God-forsaken 4th world nation like D&D player characters taking gold from the dungeon. Of course, one of the casualties in this adventure, is the players own vision. Typical D&D play proceeds like lovemaking in the seventies after the Joy of Sex came out: During the act of copulating, everyone is working to get themselves off, while going through the motions. The player can and will, come up with a backstory for their character, usually lovingly crafted and cherished one, and it has no more chance of surviving in the dungeon adventure than those new arrivals to the Nazi death camps selected to go take a shower or the inhalation lung treatment. The only thing that matters to the DM is the player character is expressed in terms of the game statistic that make the character playable in the context of the immediate adventure. In the final analysis the independence of the player characters is illusionary, since the only thing that counts is the in-game stats, which give the player a seat on the DM's rollercoaster.
To counteract this, The player character is written into the MIDlands setting at the start of the game. The freest ones are the Dilettantes, since they get to start the game on their own terms, a few negotiated close friends and a few problems, disadvantages, issues, by agreement with the DM. The Man on the street has more immediate resources and creature comforts, but they are part of the local story and they are least likely to enjoy the scenario of the merry traveler from far away. Those who choose to play a particular character class have the least freedom. They are considered to be in the active service of whatever organization or order employs them. Rangers, Paladins, Monks, Bards, are essentially institutionalized or closely affiliated with secret and secretive orders and organizations. They don't have to worry about level advancement or getting or finding instructors, but the DM can send them on an adventure (via NPC's who are their bosses), and they can't say no without reverting to regular fighters common men etc. By comparison, MIDlands thieves and magic users can act as free agents and have to role play finding guild affiliation and it is usually quite hard to find regular employment with the entities that train them. Even fighters have to travel the fantasy world looking for fencing instructors, but they have easier time joining military organizations and can move in and out of them, if they like.
Vagaries of embedding the players in the game world aside, there is one other important dynamic. Every set of stats that was rolled and discarded by the player as unsuitable, is not thrown out, but is taken by the DM and is used to make the NPC's who will be that player's Nemesis and will go after the player character and try to kill him or her throughout the course of the campaign.
End notes:
With regards to the spell-casters wearing fighters helms into battle. Assuming that a starting chance for the 1st level wizard casting a first level spell successfully acquired is in the ideal range of 25-40 percent; Spell-caster can wear an arming cap or an open face helm with no penalty; a 3/4 helm with a 15% penalty; and a helm with a visor that can be opened and closed with a 20% penalty.
I will go over the three books in separate posts.

MIDlands Skills 2: Skills versus Non Weapon Proficiencies

In a comment to a previous post (See here: http://midlandstales.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-better-way-to-do-skill-checks.html ) , Neal commented that I panned the Runequest and later editions of D&D for their use of skills, and yet, I make the extensive use of skills myself and even boast of having 375-400 skills in my system.

One thing to consider is that the player never gets to see/choose fro the entire skill list. All of the skills are broken down into skillsets, list of skills available based on the cultural and biographical details of the character. For instance, if your character was born into a particular nobility (Whether Kraitlander, Leonian or Midlander), you have a choice of cultural skills based on ethnicity. If your character grew up on the street corner or in the wilderness, or as a peasant farming, or as a Volgan fisherman (again a setting specific ethnicity), you have a choice or none or one or more skills available to that group (such as fishing and swimming and rafting and riverine survival) basic, common sense skills. If your player character becomes a plain old Fighter, s/he has access to a skill set not available to any other character class, etc.

As to the number of skills, At the beginning each player character gets a certain number of weapon proficiencies (1 to 4 for fighters) and non-weapon proficiencies (NWP). There is a number of non-weapon proficiencies and the NWP advancement rate given in the Oriental Adventure, Dungeoneer Survival Guide and the Wilderness Survival Guide. In Addition, each player gets a number of NWP's equal to the starting number of weapon proficiencies subtracted from 8. This reflects the truth, that physical training and martial arts takes time away from other skills. In addition, players get to start with the bonus NWP's equal to the number of languages given in the INT table. The NWP offered by the 1st edition AD&D books can only be applied to the skill set particular to the character class. There are rogue, street, and outlaw living set for the Thieves, Priestly and Monastic Living skill sets for Clerics,  etc. While this might seem like a lot, it is not. Fighter starts with 4 weapons (s/he can also use them for the fighters-only skillset, which consists of the variety of medieval battlefield, combat, and tactical skills and is the largest skill set at 35 skills; 2 NWP (FGHTR Only!); and 4 bonus starting skill + between 1 and 7 skills based on the fighter's INT ( between 1 and 3 if his INT is in the average range of 9-12), so, a first level fighter will have between 6 and 13 skills (if we have an INT 18 fighter, have you seen any?) with the average range of between 7 and 9. A Magic User, by comparison, will have 1 weapon and 3 NWP (M-U) Only! plus 7 starting skills and between 3 and 7 bonus skills, so, a 1st level Magic User gets between 13 and 17 starting skills, HOWEVER: a Magic user will need to spend 7 points to function as a basic D&D Magic User casting spells from a single school of magic. Additional school of magic will take up additional skills. The basic skills are (1) Literacy; (2) Alchemy, skill covering the material components; (3) Declamation; (verbal spell component); (4) Spellcasting (somatic spell component); (5) School of Magic Knowledge; (6) Read Magic; (7) Transcribe Magic (being able to use the Magicians short hand to transcribe the magical knowledge that produces a spell effect into one's own spell book).

So, in actuality, a Magic User gets between 6 and 9 "elective" skills to really choose from. Except that, additional schools of magic cost additional skills, there are other magical skills to produce magic scrolls, make potions and other magic items; the really iconic powerful spells, the spell books of Liches and scrolls from the deepest dungeons, are written in dead languages, so to become truly unique and powerful, a Magic User... must... learn... ancient languages useless in the Sandbox except for deciphering spells!!!!!!!!!!!! In addition, I the strength permits them, Magic Users can learn any weapon and any armor up to Chain Mail, You can cast spells in chain mail if both of your hands are free! Based on this, it is easy to see, how a magic user can be absorbed in his/her magical studies and not have any outside skills worthy of note.

One last thing, professional development aside, there are no additional skill points given out on regular basis. However, a player character may elect to learn any additional skill at any time. This must be role-played. Player must spend 3 months - 2 years living in an environment where a given skill is practiced, have means of learning that skill and must be actively learning it. So, to learn juggling, you have to be accepted into a troupe of performance, who will teach it to you. It is really a role-playing/story telling mini-game and there is no limit to it per se.

Of course, I missed the post about the difference between Runequest skills and AD&D non-weapin proficiencies, but I will have to cover it another time! 

ON SKILLS, NON-WEAPON PROFICIENCIES AND ABILITY CHECKS Part - 1

Neal raised a number of interesting points regarding my use of skill checks in a previous post dated July 25, 2013, and I thought best to address it here.

One of the most fundamental questions raised is why use percentile dice in increments of five when I can use a d20 in increments of one? Well, the reason being is that it offers greater variety of possible outcomes to use a Percentile Die over a D20, but another reason is that percentile dice are used for skill checks (as in Runequest (RQ)- you must roll within the skill level to make the skill check and you must roll above it, to improve it). In MIDlands D&D, as in RQ, skills improve through successful usage, Abilities do not. It is NOT QUITE realistic that abilities remain stationary, but to be fair, adventure time keeps people from exercising and their abilities generally slowly deteriorate. So it is probably better that the character abilities stay chiseled in stone. By the same token,  strongly believe that Gygax was wrong, when he wrote that even a Wish spell could not permanently raise one's ability score(!), each casing of the Wish spell will raise the ability by 1/10 of 1 ability point. That is the prime example of the King Gygax being foolish.

In my example of Brent the Paratrooper, read here: http://midlandstales.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-better-way-to-do-skill-checks.html

I change Brent's Parachute Jumping Skill from a percentile based 43% to a d20 ability-like 8, you always round down! This was done when Brent tried teaching Jumping to buddy of his. We use the ability modifier, and for this I like Moldway's symmetrical universal ability modifier table from the ability checks and multiply it by 5 to use with the percentile dice throws typically used in skill checks. When teaching the skill to his buddy, Brent would suffer a 5% penalty since his own skill is not that strong.

How did I come up with this? Ability Checks are very useful for mediating complex social dynamics that may occur between player characters and NPC's.  Complex things, whose dynamics still challenge modern social science can best be mediated through a system of ability checks: thingslike teaching, carrying a conversation, negotiating, seducing, questioning and being questioned, falling in love, selling a used car. If facts and knowledge is involved, you do an INT check, if it is maturity and life experience that is needed to judge a situation, then it is a WIS check, when emotional issues are involved - trust, manipulation, empathy, assurance, social dominance, social graces, then it is a CHA check. If anybody wants to know the various ways of doing the ability check, just mention it I your comments and I will post on that. A complex social interaction between two participants should ALWAYS be role played and be mediated by a number of ability checks. A young magic user trying to become an apprentice to a great wizard, may try a variety of approaches as s/he role plays, and everything they do can be mediated/modified with an ability check. Attempts to seduce/impress will require CHA check, context of wits, INT, WIS ill be required to see through the game and ultimately it will be CHA when the magic user asks to be accepted. When teaching, the old Wizard will have to use CHA to establish trust and rapport with his apprentice, WIS to establish clear communication, and INT and his skills converted to the Ability scale to actually teach. Each roll will create modifiers that will express the teacher/apprentice relationship and will affect how much (if at all) the teacher will be helpful in learning a skill. When rolling to beat the skill, the student adds the teacher's success as a bonus to his percentile roll. Of course, there is role-playing and time spent, sometimes weeks and months, behind each roll.

Combat in MIDlands: Crit Hits and CRIT HITS!

In a comment from an earlier post, Neal asked me when a critical hit puts the opponent out of the fight. Let me briefly explain why I consider Critical Hits essential, even though Gygax and his AD&D rules were against it. For whatever reason, Gygax wanted a linear game, where there was a steady progression of rolls and a gradual loss of hit points, until one of the opponents was dead (well, sort of, they go unconscious and start bleeding from 0 to -10 hit points, at which time the character dies). In the mean time if the other characters stop the bleeding, the player character survives. Nice fudge to help the players live longer, but it makes sense.

Of course, there is a problem of two characters with 50-75 points each slugging away at each, and let us assume that they each have a Chain Mail, Sword, and Shield, that gives each a formidable and historically accurate AC of 5. Let us say that each is a 6th level fighter with the maximum 60hp, as player characters typically get the maximum hit points. In Gygax DMG (GDMG), a sixth level fighter needs 11 to his AC 5. Let's say that they each have a STR bonus of +1 and the long sword gets no bonuses or penalties against the Chain Mail and Shield on Gygax's infamous Weapon versus Armor chart in the Gygax PHB (GPHB). So, each fighter needs to score 10 or better or a little beter than 50% or 1 out of 2. Sword doing 1d8 damage, each fighter will score on average (1+8)/2 +1 = between 5 or 6 points of damage per hit. So, under Gygaxian combat rules, it will take an average 6th level fighter armed as a typical medieval man at arms between 10 and 12 combat rounds, or 10-12 minutes(!) to put down his opponent! Modern historians claim that sword combat had nothing to do with foil fencing as we know it today, and fights took about a minute, or 20-30 seconds until the lethal outcome. On the battlefield, several would be stabbing one and one or two hits were enough to injure, disable, and render them a casualty. More so with cut and thrust weapons, as opposed to the thrust alone rapier, on which modern fencing is based. Sword cuts severed veins, arteries, muscle and tendons, rendering the defender's hands and arms useless, before they collapsed from internal bleeding. In contrast, Gygax posits two opponents fencing for about a minute, each making feints and trying to score a hit (as in fencing). This is historically inaccurate, according to the prevailing modern scholarship.

Gygax himself must have known that the linear nature of his combat must have slowed things down, for he has put two non-linear dynamics into his rules. These were limited, with the right circumstances, they allowed one side to inflict more damage on the other. These were the surprise and weapon speed factors. Surprise I covered previously. If the party fails the surprise check, they can remain "flat-footed" in the later edition D&D parlance for up to 5 combat segments or 30 seconds, in which the opponents gets to act. I like this dynamic and in MIDlands, this can potentially let the attacker loose a bunch of arrows and spells at the hapless defenders, OR the attacker can charge the opponent, and potentially close the distance and slash a lethal sword blow or two. The second mechanic is that of Weapon Speed. In the essential GPHBK it is listed in the much reviled and least used Weapon versus Armor table. I am a big fan of that table, since it individualizes the To Hit numbers and makes the weapon choice more meaningful thus, it makes the MIDlands D&D combat more of a tactical thinker's game. The speed of some common weapons is as follows: A swod has a Speed Factor (SF): 5; Two-Handed Sword has a SF:10; Short Sword has a SF:3, Spear has a SF: 6 - 8; Pole Arm, SF: 8 - 13; Hand Axe, SF: 4. Speed Factors work in two ways. When roling for initiative (as opposed to rolling for Surprise, in the beginning of the combat encounter, you roll for the initiative once every combat round (10 x 6 second Combat Segments, to see when in the Battle Minute you get a chance to score your hit). Rolling 1d10, you add your weapon SF to the initiative roll add the Character's DEX based adjustment (negative for the Characters with high DEX). If the group acts as a team, you can roll once for the group and add the individual bonuses. If the individuals are NOT fighting as a team, each player rolls his own initiative. Obviously, longer/heavier/slower weapons will strike last. There is a Caveat to it, but these are unmodified Gygaxian rules. The second and more lethal way, in which the WEapon's SF is used is that under limited circumstances it grants one of the players additional attacks: When two opponents roll THE SAME initiative, then you compare the weapon SF of each opponent. If the difference in the weapon SF's is TWICE the SF of the faster weapon, or more than 5, the attacker wielding the faster weapon gets to strike twice - before, and after the slower opponent strikes. If the SF difference is 10 or more, the faster weapon gets THREE attacks on the slower weapon: Once before, once simultaneously, and once after the slower weapon.

In MIDlands Combat, the Weapons Speed Factor is used as a cyclic rate for the weapons. Let us say that both of our aforementioned Men At Arms rolled for initiative, and one rolled 10 and the other rolled 1. With the sword, one went on Segment 6 and the other went on Segment 15. The difference is 9, and the faster dude gets two strikes on the slower one. If the faster dude has a short sword, SF3, it would have been Segment 4 versus Segment 15, the difference of 11, and the faster player would have gotten 3 attacks in! Keep in mind, that if attacking with his short sword versus the long, the faster player would have had to close the distance before doing inflicting any damage. Since the slower player had the LONGER weapon, the faster player would have rolled to attack, and the slower player would have rolled to hit as well to keep the faster player from closing in. If the defender scored a hit, the short sword would have taken damage and not closed the distance. If the short sword attacker would have scored a hit and the defender missed, the short sword does not do any damage, but the short word closes in and gats to score damage, while the long sword fights at a penalty of -1. This model is applied only so long as the Long Sword has room to maneuver. If the Long Sword is in formation, Long Sword CAN NOT retreat and as soon as he misses the To Hit, the short sword closes in! The beauty of fighting in formation is that the swords to the left and the right of the Long Sword get to strike the short sword as well, and if the short sword is a skirmisher fighting as an individual, he is SCREWED. Thereby the monsters and the players derive the historic advantage of fighting in formation. Never forget that Ancient Roman Legionnaires had the casualty ratio of 1:19 versus the ancient Celtics during their conquest of Brittania. Us soldiers had the same ratio, incidentally, in Vietnam.

Finally, having seen this overview, we now turn our attention to Critical Hits. In D&D these evolved slowly. Gygax was against Critical Hits, ostensibly, because they should also be applied to players and they will kill the players faster! This is exactly the reason D&D needs a simple and a lethal critical hit system, to make the combat truly a deadly undertaking. Between AD&D initial notion that a To Hit roll 1 always misses and a To Hit Roll 20 always hits, there was a number of different ways to introduce the Critical Hit system. AD&D version 2.5 has introduced a hopelessly complex critical hit system, that took into account attacker and target body mass, size of the weapon, body shape, Hit Location, and finally damage and knock down. Mine is much simpler and workable, suited for DM's colorful storytelling:

There are two ways in which critical hits are scored: 1) If you make your To Hit Roll by five or more points, i,e, Man at arms rolling 15 when he needs a 10, and also, 2) When you make a critical hit number for the weapon listed in the D&D OSR document in the Weapons Table. It assumes that you typically roll a 20, or in some cases an 18-20 or 19-20 for a few weapons, to score a critical hit damage multiplier. For swords, the critical hit damage is multiplied by 2, spears by 3, etc.

In MIDlands, you can score critical hit damage bonus either way. If you made a 2HIT+5, then you automatically score the maximum damage for that weapon. If you roll the OSR crit hit, then you multiply. If your OSR is also a 2HIT+5, then you multiply the Maximum Damage! But here is the thing: Let us say that our Man at arms scored DOUBLE CRIT (a roll that is 2HIT+5 and the OSR CRIT at the same time). The amount of damage he will do is 9x2 = 18 points! It will drop the first and maybe  second level fighter, but the rest will remain on their feet. That is why in MIDlands battle, any critical hit has a chance to be the PEACEMAKER! Whenever you roll a CRIT, you must roll a second time (the BLOOD ROLL) to see of CONFIRM the critical hit, by rolling a second CRIT HIT (either type). If you don't, then you just do the bonus damage, however, if you do (roll a CRIT CRIT), and either of the two rolls is a 20, then the opponent is out of the fight! Note, does not necessarily means KILLED - enemy runs away, surrenders, or yields (Neil's idea). The opponent may or may nor be critically injured, but they lost the fight. If the attacker rolls TWO 20's (i.e. 20 the first time, and rolls a 20 to confirm), the  enemy is dead! This is the GOLIATH  KILLING  GIANT shot!  Any creature, Ancient Dragons, Giants, Wights, Vampires, Liches, CAN ALL BE SLAIN IN THIS FASHION (roll 20; roll 20 to confirm, the hit) BY ZERO LEVEL MEN WIELDING NON-M,AGICAL WEAPONS!  

During Gulf War ONE, Physicists studying probabilities of Combat found that Luck is a real measurable phenomenon, and that there are Lucky, as well as UN-LUcky soldiers, police officers, and fire-fighters. Are we in store for the Men Who Stare At Goats movie the sequel? Anyway, the MIDlands CRIT HIT system is there to account for battlefield LUCK and it represents everybody's one in a million chance at victory against all odds!

End Notes:

- There is a question of what happens if you score a CRIT-CRIT, but no 20's. Narratively speaking, the opponent is knocked off his feet, his shield is split in half! His sword breaks! Opponent is STUNNED by the blow! allowing a number of free attacks. DM's narrative improvisation call. There are deadly consequences for the defender. The reason for this is that if you score 2HIT+5 the first roll and OSR the second one, you will get your MAX damage multiplied, But if you get a 2HIT+5 the first time and a 2HIT+5 the second, you will only do MAX damage once. Ergo for the OSR CRIT rolled twice. If you roll a whammy DOUBLE CRIT, then no matter what you roll on your second "Blood Roll", you WILL NOT do any additional damage (except the narrative one). The only other additional outcome from that roll will be if you roll a 20!

- Neal, I will respond to the rest of your comments as time permits.

- Curved Sword that you mention is the same as a Scimitar, and its OSR CRIT Stats are 18-20/x2, as in all swords.

-Military Pick, the GPHB's most effective weapon against plate armor has the OSR Stats of 20/x4. In AD&D it deals 2d4 points of damage and with a +1 STR bonus to damage, it will deal 36 Points of Damage on a DOUBLE CRIT hit.

Narrativism Revisited

Narrativism can be broadly defined, and so is role-playing. Lucky for me, I evolved my ideas of what D&D should be in near isolation, and took at face value that DM tells a story of what is going on, and the players tell him what their characters do in that story, and the rules are used to make realistic outcomes.

From the beginning I realized that the D&D rules as presented, were not realistic, too abstract, too based on luck and too linear, so I broke away from it. Over years I realized the moral implications that D&D suggested, an old cop, when  I explained D&D to him, laughed and said, "your D&D adventure is basically an armed robbery - break down the door, kill the owner, take his property". Later still,   I realized that miniatures is not the most accurate way to portray combat or make the characters visualize or experience it. I became  a fan of phenomenology. And so, I became a fan of my very own historically accurate and tactically realistic, thoroughly fantasy sand-box.
Railroad adventures give narrativism a bad name. Most sand-boxes and hex crawls fizzle, because they lack the conflict and urgency of a story. Some DM's call Sign-posting, the practice of telling the players exactly where the DM wants the players to adventure in his sandbox. I reject sign-posting, and boss monsters, and power-players, and make my rules the bane of any power player who tries to figure out the optimal approach, by basing it on what is known in the real world based on research, and nothing is more complex or overwhelming than the real world.

And so, almost all the players I had have been uncomfortable about getting into character and role-playing, and I don't have a problem about players talking in the third person: "Zorg does this... Zorg does that... Zorg". One guy was stammering and was clearly uncomfortable with dying people screaming, crying and begging for mercy, or having to role-play his character comforting crying children who just lost their parents. In his case, the limits of his emotional depth interfered with him interacting with the game world. He stayed. Another quit. My best player never role-played, and when my players got into character and actually role-played, the players' agency (initiative and ability to get things done in the game world), went through the roof. So, I am not forcing the players to role-play, and can get along without any, but I sure am glad, when it happens.

I consider myself a narrativist DM, in that D&D is a storytelling game, mind, not a choose your own adventure, not a scenic train taking people from scene to scene, however, the sandbox will lose all meaning if the campaign doesn't have the beginning, middle and the end game; if the conflict and the march of events does not touch the players, and if it doesn't have some value/reward system beyond the level advancement and the loot. In my campaign, the players are egg-shells floating in the ocean near the shore, and the campaign is a breaking tidal wave that will throw the players on the shore and smash them against it. Where and how the players will end up, is up to the players.

On E. Gary Gygax and why I prefer AD&D

I left AD&D and then went back to AD&D rules when I decided to resume playing D&D as an adult. Why did I do it? Because I liked Gary Gygax's writing. It was sophisticated. He had a vision. He had gathered a lot, lots of detail to create random dungeons and dungeon dressing. The game mechanics were abstract enough to allow building upon them, and  there was enough spells, monsters and equipment to make the game vivid.

I didn't care about Gygax. It was unfathomable and sad, how quickly he lost control over his artistic creation. I didn't know all the bad things Gygax did to make D&D HIS game, and how incompetent's TSR's other BUSINESS members of the board of directors were. The profligacy of Gygax himself was amazing also. Especially, if you consider that he had a multi-million dollar company. As you read the articles, you will notice that he gave $500,000.00 USD to some author to develop the D&D movie screen-play. In a second article, dealing with Lorraine Williams, Bruce Heard expresses skepticism that TSR could have bought their own printer. The issue was that TSR paid premium prices for outside printers to print their hard-cover books. Well, I know someone in NYC, who spent 15 years working as a printer in an offset printing/binding shop, before raising $135,000.00 USD and starting his own offset lithographic print shop. This was I post 9/11 and in 1980's they couldn't have done it with half a million. Another glaring error I noticed was that TSR had a single distribution agreement with Random House and borrowed from, them against future sales. The Blume brothers packed the TSR's board of directors with three more people, two businessmen and a lawyer. I do not think that anybody took the TSR seriously and only used it as a cash cow to enrich themselves. Another interesting detail is that that Gygax hired Lorraine Williams (how can anybody with any brains trust that pit bull?) on the strength of her experience sitting on the board of directors of some hospitals and other non-profit. Wasn't he aware that rich people typically spend their time on the boards of directors of museums and hospitals? That was her qualification? Nobody thought to hire business strategy consultants? I read a 1980 or so interview with one of the Blume brothers, who were opening a company store for employees inside the TSR, and were talking about a "visionary" model, where TSR would have its own daycare and health care etc. I am not sure what he was doing - building socialism for TSR employees or building a company town, where the relatives of the board of directors members can recover some of the money paid to its employees.

What follows is the description of Gygax's time un Hollywood, and the two links to the probably thue best articles about the TSR and Gygax:

 

Gygax’s own position at TSR had become weak by 1982. In order to finance the publication of D&D in 1974, he and his partner Don Kaye had brought in a friend named Brian Blume, whose father, Melvin, was willing to invest money in the company. Kaye died in 1976, and Brian got his brother Kevin named to TSR’s board. Gygax was the president of TSR, but the Blumes effectively controlled the company; to keep Gygax further in check they brought in three outside directors, a lawyer and two businessmen who knew nothing about gaming but always voted with the Blumes. So Gygax moved to Los Angeles, and became president of Dungeons & Dragons Entertainment, which produced a successful D&D cartoon, and set out to produce a D&D movie. This was, to put it mildly, a strategic retreat. Gygax rented King Vidor’s mansion, high up in Beverly Hills, with a bar, a pool table, and a hot tub with a view of everything from Hollywood to Catalina. He had a Cadillac and a driver; he had lunch with Orson Welles, though he mentions with Gygaxian modesty that “I find no greatness through association.”[36] Here a whiff of scandal enters the story. Gygax had separated from his first wife, the mother of five of his six children; he had not yet married his second wife, Gail.[37] In the interim, well, it was Hollywood, and Gygax was in possession of a desirable hot tub. Gygax refers to the girlfriends who used to drive him around—he doesn’t drive; never has—and to a certain party attended by the contestants of the Miss Beverly Hills International Beauty Pageant. But he also mentions that he had a sand table set up in the barn, where he and the screenwriters for the D&D cartoon used to play Chainmail miniatures. This is perhaps why Gygax, unlike other men who leave their wives and run off to L.A., is not odious: his love of winning is tempered by an even greater love of playing, and of getting others to play along. He ends the story about the beauty pageant girls with the observation that Luke, who was living with him at the time, was in heaven, seated between Miss Germany and Miss Finland.

Gygax spent a lot of money in Hollywood. According to Brian Blume, he paid the screenwriter James Goldman, best known for A Lion in Winter, $500,000 for the script of the would-be D&D movie, but a movie deal remained elusive. Meanwhile, TSR had other problems: believing that it would continue to grow indefinitely, the Blumes had overstaffed the company; they invested in expensive computer equipment, office furniture, a fleet of company cars. But TSR’s growth spurt was over. By 1984, the company was $1.5 million in debt, and the bank was ready to perfect its liens on TSR’s trademarks: in effect, to repossess Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax got word that the Blumes were trying to sell TSR, and he returned to Lake Geneva, where he persuaded the board of directors to fire Kevin Blume and published a new D&D rulebook to raise cash.[38] At the same time, Gygax looked for people to invest in the company. While he was living in Los Angeles, he’d become friends with a writer named Flint Dille, with whom he collaborated on a series of choose-your-own-adventure-type novels. Flint arranged for Gygax to meet his sister, Lorraine Dille Williams, who, in addition to the Buck Rogers fortune, had experience in hospital and not-for-profit administration. Gygax asked Williams to invest in TSR; Williams demurred, but agreed to advise Gygax on how to get the company back on its feet.

http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.believermag.com%2Fissues%2F200609%2F%3Fread%3Darticle_lafarge&date=2008-10-04

http://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2013/04/lorraine-williams-killed-da-line.html

Silva's Tale

Below is the background I wrote for one of my player characters. The reason for the massive write up is that it is part of the campaign setting that can later be used as a source material for the future adventuring.

Silva’s tale as a Monk started when he was five or seven years of age. He remembers walking with his mom and dad along a deserted stretch of the road towards some large stone houses in the distance, must have been the town or city square. Strange birds in the shape of men approached Silva and his parents from the side of the road. They looked human, but their heads and faces were dark and bird-like, with black beady eyes and narrow long beaks. They had leering faces and they started talking to Silva’s mom and dad, smiling and sucking up to them and saying nice things to them. Silva’s parents forgot all about him and started walking away towards the city in the company of two birds, while two others took Silva under his arms and started walking in the opposite direction. Silva started crying and screaming for his mom and dad, but they did not hear him and just walked away, absorbed in their pleasant conversation. As Silva screamed hysterically, one of the birds in human for grabbed Silva and flew into the air. Silva was terrified beyond belief and stared in horror as the ground started falling away from him and then sailed under him. They flew for many days until they flew over a large, large forest, and they flew for several days more, and then they landed in the Monastery. Men in strange clothing walked out of the buildings and walked towards Silva and the birds in human shape. They exchanged respectful greetings and bows, each mocking the other, the birds and the men. The birds flew away and the sound of the dinner gong rang across the monastery. Silva was terrified of the strange buildings, the strange vibrating noise of the low-pitched gong, terrifying statues of fierce beasts and screamed in earnest terror. That night Silva cried himself to sleep, but as he dreamed, he was approached by the strange looking birds and fierce unfamiliar statues of the beasts and the demonic looking men, who were speaking to him. And when he woke up, the strange looking men,  the Monks, talked to him about his dreams and offered him advice on what to say and do to the demons in his dream time.

Silva did not so much snap out of the tears as he grew numb. There were paintings of demons who looked like they were really men and there were men, who had the demonic glow in their eyes. The Monastery was not so much cloisters as it was a secluded village in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trackless thickets and bogs. The forest was white birch and bright green leaves and clear blue sky. There were stone buildings with dark red wooden roofs and grass growing on top. There were clusters of these stone buildings and between them were the monks’ huts, the incense temples and shrines, statues and vegetable patches and small gardens. There were animals everywhere, except that they weren’t really animals. Some spoke in different voices, some stared demoniacally and had no fear of you. Some grinned at you and others made fun and taunted you. It was this unreality that numbed Silva more than anything else – humans that weren’t quite human and animals that were typically, more than animals. There were other children in the monastery, and the other monks treated them with cruelty and good humor. There were uncomfortable sleeping quarters and hot tea in the winter and cold water in the spring. There was breakfast gong and midday meal gong and dinner gong. There were regular audiences with the abbot and other senior monks. The regimen was strict, the work was hard and discipline severe and the monks treated it all as it was a joke. New children arrived regularly and they were typically in stages of crying, hysteria, rage and catatonic withdrawal. Monks only cared if the chores weren’t done or if any of the rules were broken. Discipline was typically harsh and given light-heartedly.

One day several older boys, around 13, came to the abbot and told him that they were leaving. The abbot shrugged okay and pointed at the surrounding forest – they can go. Anyone is free to go. The boys left and three days later they came back – the forest was too thick, the damn sneering animals were everywhere, they wandered around in circles until the gave up and decided not to leave the monastery for yet another circle. Throughout his lifetime as a monk, Silva had seen this happen more than once, except that not all of the children returned alive. Silva lost himself in his work. At first he was put to cleaning the animal pens, the pig sties and the chicken coops. He was later put on to work ploughing the field and working in the vegetable gardens. While other children cringed, Silva learned to escape into his work. The plants and the livestock were a certain kind of a constant. You took care of the plants and they grew and produced food.  For all the mean and teasing intelligent animals in the forest, the monks’ livestock still consisted of the dumb farm animals, which mooed and brayed and ate and shat, but if didn’t hit them and if you weren’t mean to them, they came to you, and if you loved them, they would trust you in return.  One day Silva was done milking the cow and was enjoying spreading fresh fragrant hay around the cow’s resting place. Unbeknownst to Silva, a older monk in charge of the dairy was observing him. When he noticed that Silva  had seen him, the monk laughed and said: “Who is more free – a man who finds freedom in his cage or a man who escapes from a cage into a bigger cage?”. Another time a bunch of twisted humanoid little creatures were encamped near the monastery and one of them tried to trip Silva, but slipped and fell himself. “Ouch! Ouch!” The little creature shrieked in pain as it grabbed its broken toe, “You stepped on my foot!”.

“I am sorry!” Silva stuttered and was jumped by a dozen of these little creatures, who broke his nose and pounded him mercilessly. Adult monks watched without interfering as the little humanoid creatures beat Silva into unconsciousness. When Silva came to, it was dark, all of the monks have left, except the abbot. 

“Don’t complain, don’t explain, and never, ever fucking apologize!!!” The abbot spat, shouted at Silva and went to sleep, leaving Silva alone with the bloody snot running from his nose. Later on, when Silva was a novice monk proper, another child used to idolize one of the elder teaching masters. Every time the elder master would score a teaching point or win an argument, he would raise his index finger up in the air as if was a king’s sword. One day in the back of the kitchen the boy was arguing with other children and he raised his finger in imitation of his favorite teacher. The teacher saw it,  dragged the boy into the kitchen, and grabbed a kitchen cleaver and cut the boy’s finger of, the one he raised in the air like his teacher. The children were left to care for the boy’s injury. The next day the boy came to religious recitation pale from pain. As he recovered from his injury, he became noticeably cooler and people said that he had given up his finger and got a life.

As Silva grew bigger, he was pulled from cleaning out livestock pens and working in the gardens and was put to hard labor first, to clearing farmland and later to carpentry, to cutting down trees, to working with a carpenter’s axe and adze to clear logs of the bark and branches and to trimming logs down to beams and to cutting planks form the smaller logs. Silva built roofs and bridges and got away to work in the gardens and to tend livestock only when he had a chance, where he was now put I charge of supervising younger boys and  to delivering calves and other baby animals.

His religious studies concerned the fate of the eternal human souls free to wander among the six hells in the great wheel of being until they choose Enlightenment and stop the great cycle of rebirth and suffering. Silva was told of the Hell of Suffering where humans were in the state of absolute pain; the realm of Hungry Ghosts, where everyone starved and the slightest bit of nourishment brought pain and suffering; of the world of animals, where animals were stupid and everyone took advantage of them, used them and hunted them; and of the world of Man, where the man had a choice of going into another one of the hellish worlds or choose Enlightenment.  And there were worlds of Demons, with never ending strife and warfare, the world in ruins, and the world of Gods, where they had everything except Love. One day Silva asked the Elder monk about his parents and why the birds in the shape of men brought him here.

“Your parents didn’t want you.” Elder Monk said, and even though Silva didn’t believe him, somehow the Elder Monk’s words sank in and Silva started forgetting his parents and where he came from. Silva was taught that it was okay for people to make their living in any way possible except by killing, by selling weapons, by sex or by selling of sex, by selling alcohol and other intoxicants, by killing animals (as a butcher might) and by selling of slaves. Anything that kept people chained and kept them from reaching Enlightenment was forbidden and was to be stopped.

Silva also heard that not all the souls in Midlands were free to wander between rebirths and seek Enlightenment, but it was a discussion beyond his abilities. One day Silva was sitting underneath a steep river bank feeding some fish in a stream, when he heard the abbot and some Elders in a heated discussion. At first, none of it made sense. The Monastery was here in the White Forest, because Midlands are on the edge of the abyss. All kinds if beings, light and dark beyond dark, fly from the abyss and they get trapped here. For some reason this edge of the abyss attracts the Enlightened beings from all over the world. Something flew from the abyss and was trapped, like most things from the abyss, except this thing will eventually destroy this world as we know it and perhaps other worlds as well. “He who breaks out finds wings, he who breaks in finds an inescapable prison.” The abbot muttered.

Silva sat perfectly still and waited for the Elder Monks to go away, and eventually they did, as the darkness and the night chill came. The next morning the Elder Monks gave Silva peculiar stares and a little after breakfast he was summoned to the Abbot’s office. “It’s time for you to venture out into the world.” The Abbot told him. “We are here to help all souls reach Enlightenment, though they may have no idea of what Enlightenment is. Others proselytize and teach, but you are here to see that even the lowliest peasants do not starve to death when their masters can not provide for them. There is a town just south of our forest several days journey from here. Strife and suffering and coming there. You are to help the common people to survive. Observe everything, and come back after the autumnal harvest.”

Silva spent a day getting his things, and left the monastery the next morning. It took him a little over a week to come out the White Forest along the banks of the Satilla River. A few miles south was a large village or a bustling small town with a Castle near the river and with prosperous orchards on the bluffs overlooking the river.

 Silva soon found the dwellings of the field hands, poor tenant farmers and poorer peasants crowding across the road from the castle beneath the orchards. Summer sowing was coming and the itinerant field hands gathered in the town from all over. All of the rooming houses were crowded, and Silva preferred to sleep in the field on the edge of town, especially since the weather was warm. Finally, he found a common room at a barn that was rented to the wandering field hands. For several days Silva was in shock, wandering around town, pretending to be looking around, making sense of it all. The squalor and the misery on the poor people’s faces, the ignorance on the faces of the men at arms and helplessness of the wealthy farmers surprised and scared him. The men at arms had the red and black livery, with a upside down Eagle’s Claw as their symbol, but they were not mean or cruel, merely content and complacent. Silva was sleeping in the barn alongside many other men when he was awakened by unfamiliar foot steps. Silva snuck out of the barn just as armed men snuck in started ordering the sleeping men to their feet at spear point. On the street he saw people being dragged from their homes and put in chains with the clanking hammers. Some people were stabbed to death, some thatched roof houses were set ablaze. People rushed out in the street and panicked as the pint-sized raiders barked at them to stand still. A Church bell started ringing at the town square. Silva left his disassembled bow as well as all his valuables in the woods outside town, for safety, now he had no weapons. These raiders were only the size of the child, but there were many of them and they had spears. There was safety in numbers. The church was a stone building and it was a sanctuary. Silva ran through the back yards and gardens and made it to the church just as the large doors were being swung shut to keep out the armed raiders. Inside were only few men, mostly women, children and old people.

 

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