Vanilla Classes and Sub-Classes in Labyrinth Lord

As I mentioned before I started planing for a Swords and Wizardry campaign and am in the process of shifting everything over to Labyrinth Lord. I had come up with a lot of good ideas for house rules that have no place in the better defined world of LL. However, I'm still going to add a few touches, especially to the character classes.

I've long felt the vanilla character classes don't receive the respect they ought and are overshadowed by the more imaginative sub-classes. I'm going to spice things up a bit by making a minor addition to each class and put some restrictions on the popular and over powered sub-classes. Actual house rules will be written on another page of the blog, but here is the general outline...

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Cleric
Gains the skill Oratory which can be use in any neutral setting where the Cleric can address a large audience. The effects can vary, but all face these restrictions. The audience must be able to hear the Cleric and not become distracted during the oration. Also they must be willing to listen to the Cleric so NPCs of diametrically opposed alignment are not affected. This skill has no effect on other player characters.
Sermonize: Player dissuades audience from following a course of action.
Preach: Player can advise the audience or encourage them to adopt a new idea.
Harangue: Player whips some audience members into a fighting rage.

Fighter
Has Defensive Fighting which represents the martial skills of the trained warrior. The Parry option is very badly written and has no effect for most players since it relies upon the Strength bonus for effect (I'm going to make it have a value of at least 1 regardless for all classes). When not attacking in a round the Fighter gains a -1 bonus to AC which stacks with the STR bonus expressed as a negative number. A Zone-of-Control exists around the Fighter which enemies may not pass; 5' radius with a normal weapon or 10' radius with a polearm or oversized weapon. A Ripost attack may be made at -2 against one attacking enemy for each normal attack the Fighter gets each round.

Magic-User
Generally has great power later in the game, but needs help early on so they will receive an item. An Apprentice Wand is given to the Magic-User which contains one 1st level spell from their spell book or Magic Missile. The wand has a maximum of 1d4+2 charges and may be recharged the normal way, by casting the spell into it. When recharging roll 1d20 and on a fumble the maximum number of charges is reduced by 1.

Thief
May use Combat Stealth to get behind an enemy. A player may opt to use the skill instead of attacking he/she may move around an opponent who is engaged in melee with another character. It does not result in a Backstab, but in a rear attack which is against the raw AC (no Dexterity or shield bonus).

Sub-Classes
As a whole they do not have individual restrictions, but as a group they have role play requirements in the form of Story Obsessions. Every so often the player will encounter a mundane situation that has special relevance to their sub-class. A special herb may exist in this region, or a desecrated shrine might need to be restored, or maybe a rare book is seen on a shelf. Whatever the specifics the player must succeed in gaining the item or finishing the activity. If they do not accomplish this in one week they will act as a character 1 level below their current experience until they do so.

Censorship and Sensibility, With a Side of Realism

Hi ho, I'm back from my big trip and thought I'd make a few quick comments on what's been going on in gaming news since I've been away.

We've seen big brouhaha around 5e and also around censorship as well. I feel like my previous post about sexism was quite prescient coming as it did before Stuart's piece in his blog Strange Magic about how graphic fantasy art should be and why. There are many questions to be answered when making a piece of art for an RPG. What's appealing? What's practical? What's realistic? What's appropriate for the audience? And when the item is question is for a commercial product there are also questions of propriety and age considerations.

In his post to Mythmere's Blog, Matt talks about the 2 depictions of a statue in the Black Monastery module from Frog God Games. The S&W version appears in it's original depiction of the member in question, while the Pathfinder version has a censorship block over it. Reasons for the change have to do with publishing restrictions for the two games and of course the "right" answer isn't so simple as either "Save the children," or "Free to be you and me."

When my friend SBG asked me to change the banner art for this blog (see last post) I didn't feel it was censorship at all. It was a reasonable request and it was the result of my audience changing. From a personal space for myself alone to a conduit where I share information and opinion this blog was transformed and the indulgent (and blatantly unrealistic and perhaps somewhat offensive) art was not acceptable.

I'd like to argue against setting standards by specious appeals to realism. Yes, the chain mail bikini is ridiculous as armor, it's only possible explanation is for sex apeal. However, historic barbarians probably did wear fur loincloths, and the Spartans certainly did excercise in the nude. Was Franzetta necessarily that far off? As for practical, well, even in a fantasy setting it requires a monumental suspension of disbelief to consider trudging for miles through underground caves in full plate mail. Imagine spleunking in a spacesuit and you'll see how absurd that would be.

In games we want a model, not the real thing itself. At Hack & Slash there is a good post on the evils of realism and while it might go a bit overboard it is a point well taken. In fantasy RPGs we differentiate between damage for daggers and swords, often by making 1d4 and 1d8 rolls respectively. Is this realism, or merely flavor? We could say all weapons do the same damage, or we could make all kinds of rules for weight, penetration, damage versus various sized targets, etc. Who's to say which is most realistic? While many seem to think more rules equals more accurate representation, I think it's only multiplying a missinterpretation.

We can segue neatly into the new 5e contraversy on the lines of rule bloat and loss of fun to minutea overload. Personally, I'm unlikely to move to the new version. Now, I have not played paper 'n pencil games with 3e and 4e rules, but I have played many computer games based on them. My main complaint isn't the complexity but the ease of failure when leveling. These games require hours of number crunching to get a good character build. I've probably spent longer researching perks and bonuses than I have playing. It's not that the later versions of popular fantasy RPGs are too hard, it's that they are too easy to mess up. If 5e can address this and make character development more organic rather than mostly a series of deadends I for one will be very interested.

Labyrinth Lord, Sexism, and Atribute Rolls

Well, the people have spoken! It looks like I may get to run a campaign this spring. And the people want Labyrnth Lord. I should have guesed, S&W is a DM's playground with house rules galore and near infinite space for rule by fiat. It isn't really all that reassuring for players, after all they are always at the mercy of the DM, even the bossy ones. Stuck in someone else's dream, they can't be blamed for fighting for all the control they can.

"I attack the monster."
"No, your sword is stuck in the scabbard."
...
"I cross the street"
"No, your shoelaces are tied together."
...
"I drink some water."
"No, your canteen is a mimic! Bwahahahahaha!"

So, Labyrinth Lord it is! Fewer house rules and more atribute bonuses. Which brings up another issue. You may have noticed a change in my art. My friend SBG who is putting together the player group from her friends told me I had embarrasingly bad taste in banner art. Indeed, I had a buxom blond female warrior bedecked in a very impractical and not very restrictive chain mail bikini. I said, "Oh OK I'll change it." So I used a brunette warmaiden in a much more effective plate mail bikini with fire effects. She said, "Look dude, you forgot her armor, and since half your visitors are me, do something about it." Instead of being a jerk I made a picture of a fully clothed man and woman adventuring duo.

Which brings up the issue of sexism and gaming. There is plenty of conscious sexism like my afore mentioned art choices which turn off perfectly geeky and intelligent young women from the gaming scene to which they would otherwise be quite well suited. But there is also unconscious sexism and a very deep level of bias in RPGs which are largely made by men. In the Labyrinth Lord Advanced Edition Companion which I'll be running there are gender restrictions for racial atributes. Specificaly female Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Halflings, and Half-Elves have lower maximum Strength than their male counterparts. Interestingly, this is not so for Humans and Half-Orcs.

Now you may sound perfectly reasonable when you argue that women have less upperbody strength and this is a reasonable restriction since female weight lifters do not match males. Perfectly reasonable, but for the purposes of the game perfectly sexist as well. It has been shown in military testing that women have better reflexes than men and make good pilots. Famously in Heinlein's Starship Troopers, all the space pilots are women and the mobile infintranty are men. What if I made a rule that the racial maximum for male dexterity was one less than women? Maybe I will and see what hapens... I'll probably get a lot of arguments. Of course in the Human race the maximum male Wisdom score is a lot more than one below women.

How Heavy Is Your Gold Piece?

I have seen a number of articles on the weight of coins in the standard D&D fantasy setting. In general the "10 coins to a pound" standard does seem to me rather weird. I've seen articles defending it for aesthetic and practical reasons. Either they should be BIG coins to let you know this is FANTASY. Or people will say a 45gr coin (about 9 US quarters) is perfectly reasonable. An interesting article in Footprints #1, the magazine from Drangonsfoot.org, even covers size and density. Although Mike S. shows that many changes had occured in the system.

The one thing no one seems to mention is convenience. No DM wants to make odd calculations on the spur of the moment to figure out "how much does it weigh". Really the question for the player is how much can I stuff into my pack and it turns out that 1,000 gp will be hard to move, put 100 lbs (or 45 kg) of dense metal in your pack and it will probably break. It would explain why there is so much treasure sitting around. No one can carry out all that loot, so it's pretty well stationary without a full excavation.

Even weirder is the value ratio: 10 silver pieces is no where near the value of 1 gold piece of the same weight. Currently gold is worth about 50x more than silver by weight. As has been pointed out in many places the whole structure of equipment cost is out of whack. In the S&W rule book Plate Armor costs 100gp, so that's 10 lbs of gold or $250,000 in current US money. People can argue about scarcity, craftsmanship or gold rush pricing, and MAYBE make me believe that, but it makes a 2gp Dagger worth $3000 so that's a stretch.

So I do like easy calculations and maybe a bit of realism even. No one ever minted a 45gr coin for regular use and most gold coins were relatively small. But who feels like multiplying in base 8? I'll present my house rules for coinage in my new campaign...

House Rule
Real gold coins are extremely expensive items that no one is likely to see in daily interaction. Gold is also hugely more valuable than silver, so a 10/1 ratio is impossible for coins of the same weight. At curent cost is about 50/1 ratio. Actual gold coins in the classical and pre-classical age were small, about 4 grams.

In my game basic coins are Brass or Bronze, for durability. The Bronze piece or simply a "Bronze" is 1/10 lb. (~45 grams) as is the Silver piece. A standard Gold piece is an alloy (actually electrum, 50% gold & 50% silver) weighs 1/50 lb. (~10 grams, or 50 to the lb.). A pure gold coin called a "King's piece" is minted at 1/10 lb and is worth 10 standard gold pieces, this system was initiated by the Empire of old and was initially called an Emperor.

For simplicity: 100 Bronze = 10 Silver = 1 Gold

For completeness: 1,000 bp (0.1 lb ea.) = 100 sp (0.1 lb ea.) = 10 gp (0.02 lb ea.) = 1 Kp (0.1 lb ea.)

Here are some comparisons:
Cent - 2.5 grams
Nickel - 5 grams
Dime - 2.27 grams
Quarter - 5.67 grams
Half Dollar - 11.34 grams
Dollar (SBA) - 8.1 grams
1 oz = 30gr
1 lb = 450gr

Initial gold for the new player is limited, (1d6)x10 gp seems a bit harsh but they really need to go on an adventure to get some money.

Dice Rolling, Character Creation and Bonus Inflation

I've been reading some interesting articles on character generation and the bonus increases from 0e onwards. As Philotomy wrote in his post, OD&D characters don't need high rolls. In later editions the bonus became bigger at the upper range of atributes, so to does the drive for exceptional rolls when making a character. Many DMs will say "suck it up and play." Indeed, that is part of role play; to play the rolls you get. Back in the day everyone expected to play a weak wizard, or clumsy cleric, etc. But should we really force players to take characters with multiple bad rolls?

I have come around to the "low bonus" way of thinking, and it is changing how I think about classes. In S&W there are very few stat based bonuses that go beyond +2. Notably, the Fighter's Parry modifier for AC and maximum spells for Magic-Users. Making more of the rolls based on class or level rather than atribute will negate the need for great scores. Obviously, if the atribute bonus is minimal the players can worry less about getting good rolls.

Still this raises the question of how to roll up a new character. I think Lord Kilgore makes an interesting point when he says, 'it's easier to change character creation than to change the bonus structure.' With all the OSR blogs I'm surprised that the ways we used to roll up characters are no longer even mentioned. They aren't as limiting as roll 3d6 in order, but still don't hand the player 18s for everything. So here are some old school character generation rules from way back...

3d6, Reroll 1s
This was probably the most common way to do it and it has an interesting effect on the bell curve. Unlike, 4d6 and toss the lowest, this has no effect on the high end of the spectrum. However, it does push up the low end, effectively making the range 6-18 for players. Either roll in order or roll and assign will work. I usually go with roll and assign, mainly to let the players choose their class.

Roll 2 Characters
A real classic, have each player roll up 2 characters with straight 3d6 in order. You let the player choose which one to use. In exceptionally dangerous campaigns you can have the unused character become an NPC henchman.

Roll (3d6)x7, Toss the Lowest
Another very common system was to make an extra atribute roll. The player uses the highest 6 rolls for the atributes and assigns them at the end. Might be able to use this with a roll in order system and replace a score of your choosing with the last one.

Note that none of these were used with the 1-for-2 point buying system.

Balancing Classes in Swords & Wizardry

I'm working on modified classes for my S&W campaign. One thing is for sure they need a little help, as written the classes in the Complete Handbook are perhaps authentic but also a bit thin and even contradictory. I am not a min/max stat head that thinks each class needs to be able to deal equal damage at all experience levels. I don't even mean power balance exactly... I mean balanced for fun.

I can tell you that a 1st level Magic-User is not that much fun to play, epically in a large party. Go ahead and cast your one spell, then watch the fighters beat on monsters for several hours until the party can be persuaded to sleep. Sure creative use of flaming oil and darts can make up for some of it. But you're always falling back on tactics anyone could use, but don't generally bother to because they can... I don't know... use a sword or a bow.

Once you get to 5th level it all changes. The DM tells the Magic-User, "You can now cast Fireball." Well, if you can find a scroll at any rate. With a decent number of 1st and 2nd level spells you are a much more survivable combatant with the ability to buff armor and damage. What does the DM tell the fighter in vanilla S&W? "You can... um... attack with a roll one better than last level." The fighter might ask if he can still chainsaw his way through minor monsters, but... well no, these are HOBgoblins and 1+1HD monsters so sorry.

Gamers may say that the Magic-User is supposed to hard to play in the begining and gets more fun later. While Fighters are great from the start and are a more equipment based class rather than skill or ability based. OK so who wants to play the not-fun class up front? Who wants to wait for whatever the DM feels like handing out later? I mean how easy is it to find a player willing to go Cleric? And at least on paper it's a viable early game power house with armor, spells and decent To Hit rolls.

Thieves are crazy too, I know the skills model isn't popular with everyone. Players like it because they can easily imagine using these actions. However, I'm not even sure I know how to DM these rules as written. One really bizzar effect is persistent bad armor class. Without the heavy Dexterity bonuses of later versions of the game a Thief is quite defenseless. Of course they are supposed to hide, but with scores like 30% at 5th level who would rely on that? It seems weird that a 1st level Thief with 13 Dex is is hit by the same roll as a 10th level Thief with 18 Dex.

I want to balance the player fun in the classes, between each other, as well as between low and high levels. Here are my basic requirements for re-designing the classes, which I'll be working on in future posts.

• Fighter: More high level benefits, extra attacks are popular, maybe even perks or abilities based on weapons.
• Magic-User: Some low level benefits, giving the player something to do besides hiding, but not making them into psuedo-warlocks which always seemed like flashy archer replacements.
• Cleric: Anything to make them more fun, perhaps holy symbols with magical effects, or sermons and prayers, which might make them more like Bards.
• Thief: Re-configure the skills to make them more consistent and usable, though maybe fewer, and do something about the armor class.
• Sub-Classes: I haven't mentioned them yet, and I don't really like most of them, and they seem over-powered, especialy at high level, but I will do something with them.

If you're interested, let me know what you think. I'll start posting my new class descriptions soon.

RPGs, CRPGs and the OSR Revolution

Back in the day we were all "old-school" by default. In the early 1980s AD&D was new, a new way to play a game, a new way to socialize, a new way to solve problems. Back then everything was created from scratch, sure we had modules and supplements and Dragon Magazine, but the tropes and mainstays of the genre had yet to be defined. The formulaic solutions to well defined problems were still being invented; every foetid stink from the mouldering dungeon was a breath of fresh air in creative terms.

You can see the effect most easily in CRPGs and especially in the terminology used in MMORPGs to discuss tactics. Of course CRPGs have always been less nuanced than paper & pencil games, but even through the end of the 1990s there was a sense of possibility, of emergent behavior through combination of play styles. A great example is UserUnfriendly's Cheese Guide for Baldur's Gate 2. This guide is no mere list of exploits, it explores unintended effects and creative solutions to tough situations. Another example is NetHack, which has more surprises and inventive interaction than many table top campaigns I played in my youth.

With the rise of more tactical fantasy games and the limited communication available to MMO players, games like EQ and WoW created a short-hand for the techniques they use to win battles. This method of thinking has come back to RPGs through reverse osmosis. Since people who play CRPGs (MMO or not) are often the same ones who now play the paper & pencil games a general feel and mindset has settled on game rule sets and on gamers themselves. Of course 4E and the proliferation of feats and perks is an example, players want fun things for their characters to do. An easy way for the games to provide this is through explicit rules. "Hey my character has Expert 2-Weapon Fighting so I get a bonus of ..."

It isn't only the vast number of special attacks, class builds, and unique equipment that have changed the games. The very nature of thinking about playing has changed too. Of course everyone in the 1980s knew the fighter had to stand in front and protect the party, but the thinking was rudimentary. Now we have, "pulling aggro", "damage soaking", "DPS builds," and many other very precise methods for efficiently defeating enemies and players expect these to be equally valid in any rules-based RPG, computer or otherwise.

Can I unknow these concepts? Is there a way to be a naive, and less constrained player? Does moving away from the current highly defined rules sets mean moving back to an earlier era? Some games defy the trend without "retro" solutions, and provide other models to combat and character. Diceless systems like Amber take an entirely different approach and have rules-based, but non-randomized conflict. Another example I would recommend is In A Wicked Age which is even further into the story-telling end of the continuum. However, I'm not really familiar with the paradigm of diceless games and while I like the ideas behind it, it seems to take a special kind of RPG gamer.

What does all this have to do with the Old School Revival? I recently decided to take the plunge and get into the retro-clone world and I bought the Swords & Wizardry Complete Handbook (cheap on PDF).  I wanted something that I could pick up and play, that was easy to explain, and left a lot of room for variety. So part of it is my comfort zone as a DM, but I also think that the minimal structure will allow me to present a more creative campaign and give my players a better experience. There's an interesting article by Tavis that discusses some of these issues. I originally assumed I'd be playing Labyrinth Lord, as that was closest to my experience, but something funny happeded. I was drawn to the simpler system of S&W and the creative juices began to flow. I'll be blogging about my campaign ideas and house rules here so stay tuned.

Next up, Balancing Classes in Swords & Wizardry...