Compleat Character Creation Catalog: OD&D

On the Wandering DMs a few weeks ago, we had a neat conversation about the history of generating ability scores for D&D across the various editions. This brought to mind a post I've wanted to make for a long time: in early D&D, what are the odds of qualifying for desired character classes, given the various methods presented for generating abilities? 

A few folks have worked on this problem previously. Probabilities for the 2E AD&D game rules were given by Ed Friedlander in Dragon Magazine #153, January 1990 (thanks to Dominic Brown for tracking down the reference!). One of our viewers pointed out that the Athenopolis.net blog had done basically the same thing for 1E a few years back. Actually, I think that was extremely helpful, because it gave me a nice opportunity to double-check my results -- we mostly agree on the major stuff for 1E. However, there are a few fine-print rules I think they overlooked there, and I've added more statistics, commentary, nearby editions, and so forth.

To avoid an overly long post, I've broken this up into separate articles: you'll see OD&D, AD&D 1E, and Unearthed Arcana (UA) 1E variant rules. Some opening ground rules: For simplicity, as others have done, we're basically only looking at the raw ability scores generated for single-classed human characters. We're not considering the after-the-fact racial adjustments from AD&D, the chances to qualify for multi-class combinations, dual classes, etc. All of the statistics you'll see were generated by Monte Carlo-type simulations from a C++ program, which you can see on my Github: ADnDClassAccess repository. Having noted that, let's begin:

Ability Generation Method

It probably bears without saying, Original D&D has only one way of generating ability scores, the classic 3d6-in-order procedure for all six ability scores. But some things that may be surprising about this: The rulebook says it is the referee that should be making these rolls (proto-pregens, perhaps?). There is a vague point-swapping method that allows you to trade a few points into your prime requisite, maybe (more on that in a bit). And despite many people's incorrect memory, this method was not supported in any way by the 1E AD&D books (although it was carried forward into the D&D Basic line).

The statistics for the standard 3d6 roll are fairly well known. (For example, it's the default sample roll for Torben Mogensen's excellent Troll dice roller and probability calculator). It has a symmetrical bell-shaped curve, with an average (mean, median, and mode) of 10.5, and a standard deviation close to 3 (2.958).

Okay, so about that point-swapping rule: Descriptions of the abilities say things like, "Strength is the prime requisite for fighters. Clerics can use strength on a 3 for 1 basis in their prime requisite area (wisdom)...", which would get me thinking this purely an additive bonus thing. But then the next page says, "Units so indicated above may be used to increase prime requisite total insofar as this does not bring that category below average, i.e., below a score of 9", so that makes it seem more like a points-swapping mechanism. But then the 5th printing of OD&D (at the same time as the Greyhawk supplement presented more advanced ability modifiers) added the clause "... for the purposes of gaining experience only", so maybe it's not meant to be a factor for class qualifications or combat bonuses? 

In short: the status of point-swapping rule is very unclear. As noted above, Holmes with his Basic D&D line took this as a key rule, and made the points-swapping explicitly permitted (and it was continued forward by Moldvay, Mentzer, etc.). But Gygax gave no hint of its presence in Advanced D&D. Recall that at best it's only for the very limited purpose of swapping a few points into one's prime requisite -- which as we'll see, is usually not really a requisite at all...

Classes and Requirements

Here's another thing that might be a tad surprising to longtime players of AD&D, say: in the Original D&D LBBs, there aren't any ability score minima to qualify for any of the classes. You can definitely enter any of the Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric, or Thief (from Sup-I) classes, regardless of what your ability scores are. In fact, the one example of a character being created highlights the player not picking the class according to their best ability. Moreover, the table of bonuses and penalties from ability scores includes the line, "Prime requisite 6 or less: Minus 20% from earned experience", so while that stings, it's clearly not prohibited -- and demonstrates my point that "requisite" isn't quite the right word for it (yet). 

Then, in the various OD&D supplements (I through IV) and The Strategic Review zine articles (issue #1 through #7), we sequentially start adding all of the various sub-classes that we ultimately see collected in AD&D. This is where ability-score minimum gateways come into existence, starting with Sup-I stating that lawful fighters with a Charisma of 17 or higher can gain "paladin status". Note one detail: even though Strength is their "prime requisite", there's still no actual minimum requirement for it -- under those rules you can roll all-3's but a 17 Charisma and still be a paladin. Some later sub-classes, like the Ranger (TSR #2, by Joe Fischer) and Illusionist (TSR #4, by Peter Aronson), continue to give no minima in their prime requisite, while other ones do add such a requirement.

This further highlights that swapping points into the prime requisite wouldn't make any difference in most cases for qualification purposes, while there's no allowance for swapping into the other abilities that do have requirements (like the Paladin's need for a 17 Charisma). So in conclusion, due to the great unclarity of the status of the rule, and the overall low impact on the question of qualifying for classes, we won't be considering that rule further here: it's just straight 3d6-in-order for us.

When all is said and done, here are the various classes indicated in OD&D and its supplements, with their ability score requirements, as best as I can read those rules (presented in order of publication of the classes):

Qualification Chances

At last, we can run our simulator with the straight-3d6 method against the OD&D class requirements, and derive the following chances for any new character to qualify for a desired class: 

As noted above, we see the 100% values for the four primary classes, because there's no ability-score restriction on entering those classes in the LBBs. On the other hand, the sub-classes are all generally very hard to qualify for, usually in the range of 6% or less. There's less than a 2% chance to get the divine Charisma of 17+ that qualifies you for Paladin status (justifying many of our memories about the intense celebration that would erupt if anyone ever got to play a Paladin). And the Monk is even more insanely difficult, at just a third-of-a-percent chance (thanks, Dave). Although surprisingly for AD&D fans, the OD&D Bard has fairly gentle entry requirements, and so is actually the easiest subclass to enter, with 14% of any PCs qualifying (and you can do so immediately: no need to level up through other classes first). All of this will change when AD&D overhauls the rules, of course. 

I suppose, in review, given all the complicated methods that came later to give players more fine-tuned control over the starting abilities of their characters, there's some charm in the germ of the idea that's already in Original D&D -- allowing for limited points-swapping following the straight-3d6 rolls. Say we streamlined it and made it always at a 2:1 ratio (drop 2 points in one ability to gain 1 point in another), as we see in Moldvay, not to reduce any ability below 9. We could then pick from a few options for swapping allowances: (1) only from Str, Int, Wis, Dex into one's prime requisite, (2) from any ability into one's prime requisite, or (3) from anywhere to anywhere, at the player's discretion. A rule like this has the elegance that brand-new players can simply take their 3d6-in-order without further consideration, while expert players can dig into the customization possibilities.

Anything surprising to you in those results? Are there any OD&D rules that you interpret differently than I did? Would you consider using some form of the streamlined 3d6-with-point-swap rule outlined above? More fun with AD&D next time.

OED Expanded Edition

It's been over 10 years that I've been maintaining, testing, and refining my OED House Rules for Original D&D, which you can find at OEDGames.com. Over that time, I've gotten lots of great feedback from readers & players via this blog and other sites. One of the guiding principles of that work, based on my own proclivities of course, is for it to be exceedingly minimalist -- just the barest of facts polishing up OD&D in some ways, taking up the smallest amount of page space it possibly can. Maybe sometimes it's even too minimalist.

Recently our chief aide-de-camp over at Wandering DMs, Baquies -- supporter, archivist, live-chat moderator, clip artist, etc., etc. -- created something I think is pretty amazing. For those people or places where my OED work was too sketchy or ambiguous or possibly fraught with confusion, he's written a completely expanded, "verbose" edition that lays out everything greater clarity than I had inclination to write. My few pages for Players and Judges rules have blossomed into an almost 50 page comprehensive ruleset  -- complete core rules, racial and class information in table form, equipment lists, spell rosters (from the OED Book of Spells), treasure tables, encounter tables, complete monster rosters, traps lists, and so much more. He's even added a Forbidden Appendix of his personal design that includes (gasp!) an option for Clerics and other stuff.

It's clearly your one-stop shop for all things OED. At prices like this (totally free), we've got to be crazy!

Baquies & I thought it best to host this document over at Github, in a completely open format (Open Document Text), so players can download it and modify it to taste. And make public edits, too? If you have a Github account (and know how to use it), feel free to make edits & pull requests and see if they become part of our OED campaign going forward. We're excited to see what happens next!

To view the OED Expanded rules, click the following link, then OED-Expanded.odt > Download:

OED Expanded at Github

OED Reviewed at Papier Und Spiele

It was recently brought to my attention that our OED Rules system was reviewed late last year by ahabicher at the delightful Papier Und Spiele blog. They write some very nice and thoughtful things, in my opinion -- they're a connoisseur of elegantrules for mass combat, so, a natural ally, I think.

From Original Edition Delta:

Original Dungeons & Dragons, or ODnD, has various clones or houseruled re-imaginings. One of those is Original Edition Delta, which has a very good reputation (at least as I could observe in several independent cases) and openly calls itself “houserules”, but, in general basis, follows the Original DnD; even the spells are hardly distinguishable from the original, just adding various spells, like Magic Missile and Shield at level 1. Re-rolling HP at 1 or 2 is usually optional, here it is the norm...

And from Book of War – Playtest:

The system fails when it handles less than 100 combatants, but with 600 or more is works very well, and it is so closely related to Old School DnD that the transition from one to the other is, while not seamless, so still easy enough … If a full battle session is fine for the players, one can only recommend the Book of War of Original Edition Delta.

I'll say that ahabicher tests Book of War in ways that I never anticipated (including mixed units, figures splitting off from units, even use of firearms!), but that's fine -- Book of War is at its root meant to be so minimalist that you can spiral off in a bunch of different ways, and honestly that's great to see it tested here. 

Recommended: reading the whole reviews at the links above. And if you want to see more of Book of War being playtested, check out our playlists on YouTube for Book of War: Season 1 and Season 2 in the last year or two. And we're planning to have more live plays coming up this fall, so watch for us on the Wandering DMs channel! Plus, more news bout OED coming next week.

Previous Next D&D

You may have seen last week that Wizards of the Coast announced draft rules and and call for playtests and feedback on the Dungeons & Dragons edition to follow 5E. Some excerpts from the release:

One D&D is the codename for the future of D&D... One D&D will take what we love from fifth edition and create an experience that is not only backwards compatible with the adventures and supplements you enjoy today but that will evolve the game for years to come. You’ll see updates to just about every facet of the game, from player classes to backgrounds and even to how we lay out books and present game information. Our goal is to improve on everything that has made D&D the best tabletop roleplaying game in the world...

I can't help but recall how much of this announcement resembles the one for 5E almost exactly 10 years ago (including the plan at the time that it wouldn't be called 5E, but rather "D&D Next"):

The Next Edition for D&D is currently on open playtest. Wizards of the Coast decided to create the next edition hand to hand with players, in order to create a game that would appeal to most. They have stated that the next would not be called "Fifth Edition", though they have not yet stated what they will call it, simply referring to it as "D&D Next". The game plays very similar to the 3rd Edition, though maintaining the simplicity that made 4th Edition appealing."

 IGN

On January 9 [2012], the game's publisher, Hasbro-owned Wizards of the Coast, announced that they have begun development of the fifth edition of the Dungeons & Dragons rules. A rewrite of a not-even 40-year-old game might seem trivial, but Wizards' has set an ambitious goal: To create, with the help of their fans, a "universal rule set" which unifies all players under one single system. "We're focusing on what gets people excited about D&D, and making sure we have a game that encompasses all different styles," says Mike Mearls, group manager for the D&D research and development team. "Even if you haven't played in 20 years, we want you to be able to sit down and say, 'this is D&D.'"

Forbes

When it does finally arrive, expect the game to look something like a "classic" version of D&D. Mearls and his team have spoken repeatedly about their desire to emphasize the core D&D experience --adventure, exploration, and storytelling. Early versions of the playtest rules featured simplified rules and stripped down mechanics. That said, fans of newer editions of the game shouldn't fret: Mearls has also been aggressive about promoting the new rules' "modularity," which should allow players to plug in or drop out rules to match their preferred style of play."

Forbes

Obligatory comic (you knew this was coming):

xkcd

How I Started with D&D

Our friend Ash reminded us about David Chapman's RPGaDAY 2022 over a his Autocratik.com blog. In particular, the daily prompt for Wednesday of last week (the 3rd of the month) asked, "When were you first introduced to RPGs?" -- which leads to a short anecdote I've been meaning to share for some time. (Also, it answers a handful of other questions for RPGaDAY 2022 at the same time.)

I've said a number of times that the stock dogma of, "everyone needs a mentor to learn D&D" doesn't apply in my case -- indeed, I learned from the printed books and nothing else. Here's the full story:

By September/October of 1978 (when I turned 8 years old), my great uncle was laid up after a medical scare, and someone had given him a subscription to a new publication, Games magazine. He lived in a house nearby with his two elderly sisters, and they already had a good stock of puzzle books, math texts, games, and the like. Supposedly at some earlier time he'd been a pretty sharp poker player -- and his sister was one of the first women in the country to get a higher degree in math, wrote questions for the first SAT test, etc. (I still have her copies of college algebra & calculus texts dated 1929 and 1933, now with handwritten notes from both of us all through the margins). So all that's pretty well in character.

Anyway, my uncle was handing off his issues of Games to me once he was done with them. At this point TSR Hobbies was running full-page ads for Holmes Basic D&D on a regular basis... it caught my eye, but very conservative with money as we all were, it would take more than that to make the jump. This came in the November/December 1980 issue when the editors included it in their first-ever Games 100 feature of their current favorite games. Dungeons & Dragons was included on their alphabetically-ordered list. Here's the entirety of what they said about it:

D&D is actually a series of books and rules to help players design a fantasy world replete with treasures and perils. A Dungeon Master (DM, or referee) creates the world, which players explore under his direction. The more players, the merrier.

That clinched it -- I asked for this particular game for Christmas, and did indeed unwrap it that holiday. (Complete with chits -- this being the crunch where dice weren't available - so for quite some time I was spending hours pulling paper out of cups, with the idea polyhedral dice still only a flight of fantasy in my mind. At some point my mom surprised me with a set of dice and that still might be the best, most unexpected gift I ever got.)

Anyway, to this point in my community I was the only person who's ever heard of Dungeons & Dragons. I read the Holmes rulebook & Gygax's inserted Keep on the Borderlands adventure intently, and -- never imagining there was any other option -- started running my friends through games based on those books, teaching everyone I knew how to play. Everything I knew came from the printed text. 

As I look at that 1980 blurb for D&D, I'm a little surprised but how deeply that exact pitch is still the root of what I expect from a D&D game today -- "a fantasy world... treasures and perils... DM or referee... creates the world... The more players, the merrier". Also, it bears reflection on how much harder it was to discover, learn about, and acquire niche media like D&D in the past -- often taking several years, as it happened for me. But it was worth the wait!

Ad for Dungeons & Dragons from TSR Hobbies in Games Magazine, Sep/Oct 1978

Pool of Remonstrance

As I play through the well-loved 1988 AD&D computer game, Pool of Radiance (which launched the very successful "gold box" line of games), on the Wandering DM channel late nights Thursdays -- I'm reminded of the hard fact, for computer game developers, of how many ambiguities in classic D&D the programmers need to hammer down judgements for and back-fill in to complete the software. And this in turn leads to many surprises in store for the player who's become used to particular table rulings with their friends. I'm sure there's a similar phenomenon when players move between different human play groups. That's somewhat ironic, as AD&D was partly held out as a unifying solution to exactly those problems.

I'm still in the early phases of Pool of Radiance, but here's a small sampling of things that have jumped out at me as a surprise, many cases of which I've needed viewers to helpfully point out the novel ruling before I got in too much trouble. Keep in mind this is even while the designers and programmers have in very many cases been huge sticklers for hewing to the 1E books as written:

• Initiative is in a different order for each party, and intermingled between parties, on every round; i.e., it seems to have an individual initiative mechanic. (To me the 1E DMG seems clear that party-based initiative is in order.)
• Attacks against the back are determined not by position but by number of attackers -- one or two count as front attacks; the third or more attackers, or thief across from an ally, count as rear attacks. (This somewhat conjures the 3E flanking rule, abstracting where the "back" is on a figure. The 1E DMG kind of wants it both ways, arguing in some places for fully abstracted randomized-opponent melee dustups, and in others very exacting charts for the angle of flank or rear attacks. A chronic problem in D&D.)
• When in melee, you can actually run circles all the way around an opponent without triggering free attacks -- the free attacks only occur when you step fully out of contact. (Which is a legitimately narrow reading of the DMG language, but perhaps doesn't make sense in the spirit of the tactical game.)
• You can exchange items in hand -- weapons, shields, scrolls, etc. -- freely within any round. (This seems to butt up against the examples of rummaging in a pack or exchanging weapons in a fight; see 1E DMG p. 71.) Likewise you can thoughtfully look at all your gear and select any number of items to drop at your leisure within a fight (counter to the harrowing tale of Dimwall & Drudge in DMG Appendix O). 
• Diagonal moves on the grid are measured 1-2-1-2, etc., spaces. (There's no whisper of this rule in 1E; prior to playing Pool of Radiance, I thought that was a 3E novelty.)
  
• There's a "guarding" action option, in which you give up your action, but get a free attack if any enemy thereafter comes in contact with you. Likewise one can "delay" and wait for others to go first in a round. (Again, these are mechanics I associate with later editions.)
• One can cast spells freely in melee contact, except if you've taken any damage previously within the same round. (This is sort of the reverse of the DMG rule on p. 65 which dictates advance declaration of spells, before rolling for initiative, and then the results of that initiative possibly allowing interrupting attacks. Like Pool of Radiance, I actually do prefer not dealing with advance-casting; but I wouldn't want to track who took damage at what point in a round.)
• On the other hand, no missile attacks can be when one is adjacent to any enemy. (Which is quite sensible, but not in the books, and easy to confuse with the spell-casting rule which cuts the opposite way. You can't even shoot a missile if you're next to a sleeping enemy!)
• Having had to painstakingly fight the trolls on the 1st level of the dungeon, I'm still not sure if fire is needed only as the final blow, or at some point in the combat, or what, to prevent regeneration. Also: preventing troll regeneration by standing on the body is not a ruling I think any DM would come up with (although maybe necessary here just for the issue of not having multiple figures active in one space). Also: having a downed troll get back up with full hit points was a real shock to me! (But: It seems basically in tone with Poul Anderson's original regenerating troll encounter, and I actually plan to have trolls play possum like that until fully healed in my future games -- watch out.) And of course trolls breaking morale, so critical to that fight in the Pool of Radiance slums, is exactly opposite to where they're labeled as "fearless" in classic D&D texts.
• Also there's flaming oil which can be freely thrown, but there's no splash damage from misses (per the DMG). 
• Training to advance a level costs a fixed 1,000 gp (as opposed to the greater expense by level in the DMG; a saving grace in Pool of Radiance).
• The "option" the let characters go below zero hit points and possibly be resuscitated is in use (making combat much more survivable that if it was not). But the DMG dictate that a week's rest is then required is not used (although healing a downed PC in a fight does not let them get active again within that encounter). 
• Casting hold person allows you to individually select the multiple targets (whereas Gygax said more than once that spells of that nature would affect random targets). 

I could go on. None of these are bad rulings -- it's just that it provides a neat opportunity to re-experience the game as a "new" player at a fresh DM's table, in some sense, and think about all the ways I get to be surprised and think about different legitimate ways of running classic D&D.

Of course -- the thing that grabs my attention the most sometimes is 1E's very wonky relationship with scaling of distance and time. Pool of Radiance almost manages to hand-wave that away, but not quite. AD&D "inches" of scale directly convert to "squares" in Pool of Radiance for movement and missile fire. Many spells follow the PHB ranges and areas, but others were significantly modified. For example, the sleep spell in 1E PHB has a range of 3" + 1"/level, but I've discovered that in Pool of Radiance (without any ranges being listed in the game manual), the range is 3" + 4"/level. That's a big difference, and would probably have changed a few fights if I knew my Nirjarini, my 3rd-level magic-user, could cast it 15 squares, instead of the 6 that I expected.

Furthermore: Simon Wood on YouTube helpfully pointed out that the Pool of Radiance Clue Book (which I'd been avoiding) has a Spell Parameters Chart on its last page. I observe that the range given for every spell there exactly matches what's listed in the 1E PHB (except in two cases of 0-range spells, the area is swapped in instead: i.e., prayer and friends). So now I wonder: Are there other spells than sleep that are secretly off-book? Was the Clue Book author working directly from the 1E PHB and not the game, or an earlier design document? Is the sleep spell range change a conscious design decision, or an outright programming error? (Note that 4 is directly above 1 on a numeric keypad.)

Finally, exactly how big is a battlemap square in Pool of Radiance? Consider the following. A one-square wide corridor in the strategic view converts to four-squares wide in the tactical view (i.e., 4 characters standing abreast). So how big is that corridor, really? If we think it's 10' wide (standard for 1E dungeons), then the tactical squares are 2.5 feet wide. Or if we say the corridors are 20' wide, then the tactical squares are a 5 feet each (in line with later edition sensibilities). But neither of those options are present in the 1E core rules. Of course, the 1E PHB states that all indoor ranges and areas are a scale of 1" = 10 feet, whereas the DMG says that 10 feet will be represented by 3 actual inches on the tabletop (i.e., 1 inch = 3⅓ feet). So everything's up in the air with that math, as usual.

Party in a 1-square corridor in Pool of Radiance strategic view.

Party fighting NPCs in that corridor, with both sides packed 4 characters across.

I think the Pool of Radiance manual almost managed to expunge any reference to "feet" distance, except oddly for two spells interacting with invisibility -- detect invisibility and invisibility, 10' radius both have their area of effect stated in terms of feet, not squares. (I mean: obviously it's embedded in the name of that latter spell. But for the former, the 1E PHB & POR Clue Book give the range as 1"/level, while the manual says 20 feet per level instead, so that seems like a conscious addition by the video game designers, and another thing not reflected in the Clue Book?) So when I get higher level I kind of want to prioritize acquiring invisibility, 10' radius so I can test how many squares its 10-foot radius area encompasses. Maybe someone's already done that?

Edit: I got to use silence, 15' radius as a test case, and found that it has a radius of 1 square in each direction around its target. So that suggests each space is intended to represent 10' -- which matches a lot of the 1E book rules, but contradicts the rule that one can fit 3 figures across a ten-foot span (1E DMG p. 10). It also means that the "standard" corridors, as shown above, must nominally be 40' wide. As I've often said, the inconsistency and weird scaling of 1E rules always make something unsatisfiable like that.

Dragon Inflation Through the Ages

In the Wandering DMs aftershow chat last Sunday, several of our patrons started swapping classical illustrations of dragons with us. The moral: Dragons have undergone a radical inflation in recent years with the rise of the mass-market fantasy game. Here's a quick perusal over the last few centuries (everything to 1914 being depictions of the same scene, Saint George and the Dragon):

Anonymous, Ms. of Legenda aurea, 1382

 

Bernat Martorell, 1434

Albrecht Dürer, 1501

Johann König, 1630

Unknown, early 1700's

Gustave Moreau, 1889

Briton Rivière, 1914

J.R.R Tolkien, 1936 (Bilbo the Hobbit on right)

1st Edition cover to Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight, 1968

Clyde Caldwell, Dragons of Despair, 1984

Jaime Jons, 2014 (5E D&D Starter Kit cover)

My, how quickly they grow up!