Friday, April 16, 2021

Random Roll: DMG, p. 59

The ability of several demihuman races to see in the dark is firmly established in Dungeons & Dragons. My first encounter with the game was through the Holmes-edited Basic Set and its rulebook calls this ability "infravision" without any explanation. The AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, though, goes to some length explaining the nature of infravision.

As explained in PLAYERS HANDBOOK, infravision is the ability to see light waves in the infrared spectrum.

To say that I have disliked this definition for decades is an understatement. While I am on record as not being opposed in principle to the mixing of science fiction and fantasy, Gygax's explanation of infravision leans a little too heavily, in my opinion, on real world science, with infelicitous consequences, as we shall see.

Gygax elaborates with the following:

Characters and various creatures with infravisual capability out to 60' (standard) are basically picking up radiation from their surroundings. Therefore, they note differences in thermal radiation, hot or cold. They do not "see" things which are the same temperature as their surroundings. Thus, a room in a dungeon might look completely blank, as walls, floor, ceiling, and possibly even some wooden furniture are all of the same temperature. Openings in the walls should show up rather plainly, as space anywhere else will, and if you are generous, you can allow different substances to radiate differently even if at the same temperature, i.e. the wood in the example above would be discernible if care was used in scanning the room infravisually.

Leaving aside the not insignificant matter of what this does to the "magic" of D&D, the conception of infravision Gygax advances here seems intended to limit its utility. If an elf's ability to see in the dark is akin to 1970s era IR goggles, it's a rather narrow ability, almost to the point of uselessness. I imagine that's the point, though. He continues:

Except where very warm or very cold objects are concerned, vision of this sort is roughly equivalent to human norm on a dark or cloudy night at best. Note also that monsters of a very cold or very warm sort (such as a human) can be tracked infravisually by their footprints. Such tracking must occur within two rounds of their passing, or the temperature difference where they had trodden will dissipate. 

The ability to track via infravision is certainly handy, though, as one might expect, Gygax places limitations on it, which given his explanation of how the ability works, is not unrealistic. Of course, what he gives with one hand, he takes with the other.

Light sources which give off heat also absolutely prevent infravision from functioning within their sphere of illumination. (Explain this as the effect of trying to see into the dark when the observer is in a brightly lot area.) It requires not less than two segments to accustom the eyes to infravision after use of normal vision. 

Again, this makes sense, given his conception of infravision, but it's a potentially serious drawback when one notes that it takes two segments to shift between normal and infravision. A lot can happen during those 12 seconds of temporary blindness.

The section ends by noting that creatures with infravision with a range of 90' or more – the sort possessed by "most monsters inhabiting underground areas" – see much more clearly than those with standard infravision. 

Such creatures can easily distinguish floor, ceiling, wall, and other areas, as well as furnishings within the area.

Talk about stacking the deck in the monsters favor!

This whole section makes me unhappy, or at least disappointed. I much prefer granting certain creatures, like dwarves, elves, and many monsters, the magical ability to see in the dark without restriction. This is more or less what's implied in OD&D and the way I've always handled infravision (a term I now reject, owing to the scientific associations Gygax foists on it here). Chainmail, I believe, grants magic-users the power to see in the dark too and it's something I've long considered giving player characters of that class as a basic ability. 

My point, ultimately, is that I think this whole section reeks of an attempt by Gygax to rein in an ability he thought too useful. Since I neither share his likely concern nor like his reframing of infravision as thermal vision, there's not much here I would use. 

17 comments:

  1. I really like what they have done with Darkvision in 5E, basically it extends the distance one can see with available light, and only a few races can see in absolute darkness, sbd even then only out to 10 feet. I'd rather just get rid of it all, myself, but so many players expect ut as a demi-human perk its almost impossible to exclude...

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  2. I'll stick to the norm established in 3/3.5, where many demi-humans get Low-Light Vision (ie see as well as a cat would in dim light where a human would be at a disadvantage, but not in total darkness) and a very few (Dwarves and Half-Orcs, IIRC) got Darkvision (ie see in black & white out to 60' with no light required). No silly pseudo-science, no getting blinded by light or heat, and having at least some small amount of light still mattered in most parties.

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  3. This has been an area of consternation while working on my OD&D clone. To me, there is a clear difference between Infravision, Thermal vision, and what is now called Darkvision. In context, what was meant was Darkvision but described as Infravision (the Infravision spell does this directly by saying "This spell allows the recipient to see infrared light waves, thus enabling them to see in total darkness..."). I changed this to say "...see differences in heat..." but I'm not really satisfied with that as it opens a huge can of worms and can makes the referee's job more difficult. I'm probably going to switch to Darkvision, but I'm not certain if that is covered by the OGL, so I may need to wordsmith it to something else.

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  4. I ditch this too, in favor of something that works. I'd rather cut it out than gimp it to something of no consistent benefit. If you have infravision, you can see in the dark for the specified range. End of story.

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  5. (another provocative topic, but here again, I lack requisite academia to participate. Is this like arguing the merits of a left-handed dwarf?)

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    1. Presumably left-handed Dwarves make good southpaw pitchers. :)

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  6. I just ditch infravision altogether. I want the elf and dwarf PCs relying on torches and lanterns, the same as humans.

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    1. Me too. Tolkien's dwarfs couldn't see in the dark. I don't know how this idea ever got started.

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  7. As a player I always found Humans annoying because of their need to have torches and light spells and such. lol

    As a GM, I created a setting in which Elves and a number of other species have 'Dark Vision', the ability to see fairly well in the dark. Adapted from my own experience that my eyes adjust to darkness well but not quickly. It isn't perfect but it gives them some semblance of shapes, movement, etc.

    Halflings (called Wilders in my setting), Kobolds, and others with animal-like traits have 'Night Vision'. They can see exceptionally well in low or dim light but without any light source they're as blind as any Human.

    Dwarves and Dragons have 'Lantern Vision'. Low beams of light, like twin flashlights or (in the case of Dragons) searchlights, emit from their eyes as outside light fades. It is most effective and obvious in pitch darkness. The light comes from the fires within them; for the Dwarves it comes from their souls and for Dragons it burns in their bellies.

    Lantern Vision makes it very easy to see in the dark but it also makes it very easy to see you. Many Dwarf Adventurers wear helmets with hooded visors to lessen the effect.

    The idea that Dwarves, who supposedly live deep under mountains, don't have some sense that enables them to get around is just ridiculous. If you aren't going to give them the ability to see in the dark, give them sonar or something. I wouldn't do that as it's too 'Science-y' for my Fantasy worlds but c'mon, make it make some sense.

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    1. I liked the take Runequest had on Dwarves ("Mostali") where they had an extra sense called Earthsense. Didn't give them the ability to see in the dark, but combines sensitivity to heat, air pressure, and movement to give them what's effectively a ranged sense of touch - but only works properly in underground locations, and best in places they've built themselves or at least occupied for a long time. On the surface it's really unreliable but better than nothing.

      Their trolls ("uz") have Darksense, which is pretty much bat-style echolocation. They make up for it by seeing very poorly in bright light, particularly daylight.

      Both senses are partly tied to their owners' connection to elemental runes, notably Earth and Drakness.

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  8. Almost no one I know has ever used Infravision as written. The majority of DMs simply allowed nonhumams to see in the dark as if by daylight

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    1. When I ran AD&D, I played by the torch/lantern light negating it. And we're playing that way in the AD&D play by post I'm in. Us non-humans regularly scout out ahead of the rest of the party to be able to utilize our longer distance infravision.

      On the other hand, I don't think I played by ALL the details Gygax enumerated.

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  9. Considering Gygax's preference for human PC's (and increasingly mine too), and it makes sense what he is trying to do here.

    Sometimes hobbyists speak about how difficult it is to get that feeling of "horror" or general fear-of-the-unknown when monsters (small 'm')---instead of being night-terrors---are categorized and indexed.

    One way is to take away the light. If you have been hand-waving away darkness in your games as I once did (i.e. too many demi-humans with infravision/darkvision that works perfectly), then consider making a change. It has a big impact on the mood.

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    1. Agree. Fear of the dark, and all its mysterious uncertainty, helps the mood tremendously.

      Pulp fantasy, like Howard's Conan stories, is steeped in the horror tradition.

      Why would you shoot a horror movie in broad daylight?

      Get rid of infravision. Demihumans have enough advantages already.

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    2. I could never understood why demihumans natural skills(e.g. dark vision, heighten hearing, stealth movement, ect) in the early editions were never evenly split up.

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  10. I was never much for infravision either, though I started playing with 3e so I always liked their interpretation of darkvision and that's what I tend to use.

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  11. I wonder if the level of familiarity with IR among the average player affected how "magical" they saw teh concept? I would imagine, if you did not work with this sort of tech/info then your best conceptualization is that one scene in Westworld.
    Then Predator comes along and suddenly everyone is an expert on how infravision "should" work.
    I have moved into the camp that most PC races (even dwarves) should basically be limited to "sees real good in starlight/lamplight" and seeing in the dark is something monsters do.

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