Random Roll: PHB, p. 32.

 A close reading of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks often reveals little details that are easy to overlook. In most cases, these details are rules-related, but one occasionally finds details that pertain to the implied setting of the game. I came across one of these just recently while re-reading the description of the monk class found in the Players Handbook.

There can be only a limited number of monks above 7th level (Superior Master). There are three 8th level (Master of Dragons) and but one of each higher level. When a player character monk gain sufficient experience points to qualify him or her for 8th level, the commensurate abilities attained are only temporary.

The above is, I think, well known and has been an aspect of the class since its first appearance in the pages of OD&D's Supplement II. Like the druid, the monk is a class that advances to higher levels only through the defeat of the current holder of that level in a trial by combat. I know that, even back in the early days, some players and referees disliked this aspect of the class, both because of its seeming unfairness – why don't other classes have to do this? – and because it introduced an additional layer of complexity to leveling up. For myself, I liked it precisely because it was unique; it gave the monk a bit of flavor to distinguish it further from other classes.

The next sentence of this section of the PHB also contains a bit of flavor, but one that I must have somehow overlooked, because I honestly cannot recall ever reading it before.

The monk must find and defeat in single combat, hand-to-hand, without weapons or magic items, one of the 8th level monks – the White, the Green, or the Red. 

For a moment, the colors baffled me. I quickly realized that they were connected to the fact that the title of 8th-level monks is "Master of Dragons," of which there are only three. Thus, it would seem that these monks consist of the Master of White Dragons, the Master of Green Dragons, and the Master of Red Dragons. How had I never seen this detail before? It's baffling to me and yet I have no recollection of ever having seen it, let alone making any use of it in all the years I played AD&D.

The detail makes a certain amount of sense, since, unlike levels above 8th, there are three 8th-level monks, so there ought to be some way to distinguish them. Of course, I soon find myself wondering: Why only three? Why not one for each color of dragon? Is there some special significance to the three dragon colors chosen? Why are they only evil dragons? Thinking about and potentially answering these questions are the stuff from which a fantasy setting is made. I have no idea if Gary Gygax intended there to be a logic behind the three Masters of Dragons or not, but I enjoy puzzling out matters like this regardless. I doubt I'm alone in this regard.

Random Roll: DMG, p. 12

 Page 12 of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide includes a short section of "Starting Level of Experience for Player Characters," which I found interesting. Gary Gygax begins by stating the obvious:

As a general rule the greatest thrill for any neophyte player will be the first adventure, when he or she doesn't have any real idea of what is happening, how powerful any encountered monster is, or what rewards will be gained from the adventure.

True words have not been written! I think, on some level, we're all hoping that, one day, we might re-experience this "greatest thrill." I further suspect that this hope plays a big role in why we continue to try out – and buy – new RPGs: "Maybe this game will remind me of what it was like when I first ventured into the Caves of Chaos when I was 10 years old."

This assumes survival, and you should gear your dungeon to accommodate 1st level players. If your campaign has a mixture of experienced and inexperienced players, you should probably arrange for the two groups to adventure separately, possibly in separate dungeons, at first. 

I'm unsure if Gygax's use of the phrase "1st level players" is intentional or merely another example of the conflation between "player" and "player character" that can be found throughout the DMG. 

Allow novice players to learn for themselves, and give experienced players tougher situations to face, for they already understand most of what is happening – quite unlike true 1st level adventurers of the would-be sort, were such persons actually to exist. 

Combined with what Gygax wrote in the sentence immediately before this, I'm struck by how different my own early experiences were. In those days, it was not uncommon for neophyte players to join an already established campaign, bringing their newly-minted 1st-level characters to a party consisting of higher-level ones. I don't think this was anyone's preference, mind you, but it was a fairly standard practice and one we simply accepted as "the way of things." After all, if your 1st-level fighter survived even a single session adventuring with the higher-level party, he wouldn't be 1st level any longer.

If you have an existing campaign, with the majority of the players already above 1st level, it might be better to allow the few newcomers to begin at 2nd level or even 3rd or 4th in order to give them a survival chance when the group sets off for some lower dungeon level. I do not personally favor granting unearned experience level(s) except in circumstances such as just mentioned, for it tends to rob the new player of the real enjoyment he or she would normally feel upon actually gaining experience levels by dint of cleverness, risk, and hard fighting.

I completely agree with Gygax here. In the past, I have occasionally allowed an already experienced player to join a campaign with a higher-level character, but that's no longer my practice. Whenever a new player has joined my House of Worms Empire of the Petal Throne campaign, his character started at 1st level, even though the other characters were more experienced. I'm not sure I can justify this practice of mine beyond saying that I simply prefer that all characters earn their levels in the same fashion. After nearly seven years of continual play, it's worked out quite well and I see no reason to change it.

It has been called to my attention that new players will sometimes become bored and discouraged with the struggle to advance in level of experience, for they do not have any actual comprehension of what it is like to be a powerful character of high level. In a well planned and well judged campaign, this is not too likely to happen, for the superior DM will have enough treasure to whet the appetite of players, while keeping them hungry still, and always after that carrot just ahead. And one player's growing ennui can often be dissipated by rivalry, i.e. he or she fails to go on an adventure, and those who did play not only had an exciting time but brought back a rich haul as well.

My qualms about the phrase "the superior DM" to the contrary, Gygax speaks truly here – or at least it comports with my own experience as a referee over the years. I'd only add that it's not only treasure that can serve to whet the appetite of players. Just as often knowledge and other rewards are every bit as motivating. (Gygax's reference to rivalry between players is something I haven't experienced since I was a kid, but I concede it may well serve as a motivator in some groups.)

Thus, in my opinion, a challenging campaign and careful refereeing should obviate the need for immediate bestowals of levels of experience to maintain interest in the game. However, whatever the circumstances, if some problem such as this exists, it has been further suggested that allowing relatively new players to participate in a modular campaign game (assuring new players of characters of high level) would often whet their appetites for continued play at lower level, for they can then grasp what it will be like should they actually succeed in attaining proficiency on their own by working up their original characters and gaining high levels of experience.

By "modular campaign" does Gygax mean the use of adventure modules? If so, this would seem to suggest that he saw the purpose of these pre-made adventures to be, at least in part, to serve as a "training ground" for players in what it would be like to play at various levels. If that's right, I don't believe I've ever seen this sentiment expressed anywhere else before. Even if that's not what Gygax meant, it's nevertheless an intriguing idea and one I'm not sure I'd ever considered before. If nothing else, it possibly sheds some light on why TSR often published modules whose suggested levels were much higher than anything typically achieved in most campaigns. 

Random Roll: DMG, pp. 57–58

At the bottom of page 57 of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, there's a section entitled "Travel in the Known Planes of Existence." The section continues onto page 58, but, even so, it's relatively brief, occupying only five paragraphs in total. Nevertheless, it's Gary Gygax's lengthiest discussion of this topic in the DMG and is thus worthy of some attention.

He begins:

The Known Planes of Existence, as depicted in APPENDIX IV of the PLAYERS HANDBOOK, offer nearly endless possibilities for AD&D play, although some of these new realms will no longer be fantasy as found in swords & sorcery or myth but verge on that of science fiction, horror, or just about anything else desired.

Gygax says something here I'd like to comment upon. Significantly, I think, he notes that the Planes "offer nearly endless possibilities for AD&D play." Over the course of his time overseeing AD&D, he regularly said similar things, often adding that he saw the Planes as the next logical step in the progression of a campaign beyond domain-level play. Yet – much like domain-level play, actually – Gygaxian AD&D provided almost no real guidance on how to run adventures in these otherworldly realms. Nearly everything written about the Planes in 1e was penned by someone else, starting with 1980's Queen of the Demonweb Pits, the first AD&D adventure set beyond the Prime Material Plane.  

Now, I understand the historical reasons why Gygax likely did not do so. The demands of running TSR during the height of the D&D fad, not to mention his later sojourn to California, no doubt distracted him. Even so, I can't help but feel that if, as he repeatedly said, he considered the Planes to be the locales of D&D's ultimate adventures, he should have prioritized discussion of the matter. It's especially puzzling that he didn't given that we know that he refereed adventures of this sort in his own Greyhawk campaign. It's a pity we don't know more about them, as they'd probably have given us some insight into his view of high-level campaigns and scenarios.

The known planes are a part of the "multiverse". In the Prime Material Plane are countless suns, planets, galaxies, universes. So too there are endless parallel worlds. What then of the Outer Planes? Certainly, they can be differently populated if not substantially different in form.

As a younger person, I found it quite fascinating the Prime Material Plane, as conceived by Gygax, is so vast in scope. If it is so then surely the Outer Planes are similarly vast.

Spells, magic devices, artifacts, and relics are known ways to travel to the planes. You can add machines or creatures which will also allow such travel. As far as the universe around your campaign world goes, who is to say that it is not possible to mount a roc and fly to the moon(s)? or perhaps to another planet? Again, are the stars actually suns at a distance? or are they the tiny lights of some vast dome? The hows and wherefores are yours to handle, but more important is what is on the other end of the route?

Re-reading this paragraph still inspires wonder in me. The idea of mounting a giant bird and flying into space, for example, is delightful and in keeping with very expansive notion of fantasy that once reigned supreme, before the crabbed demands of marketing contracted it. 

For those of you who haven't really thought about it, the so-called planes are your ticket to creativity, and I mean that with a capital C! Everything can be absolutely different, save for those common denominators necessary to the existence of the player characters coming to the plane. Movement and scale can be different; so can combat and morale. Creatures can have more or different attributes. As long as the player characters can somehow relate to it all, then it will work.

Have we ever seen a conception of the planes like this in any version of Dungeons & Dragons? If so, I cannot recall it. For example, Roger E. Moore's article on the Astral Plane, which appeared in the pages of Dragon, could have and indeed should have been a step in this direction, but instead it was interminably dull, saved only by the accompanying adventure, Fedifensor by Robert Allen, which takes some advantage of the weird "geography" of the place. It's a pity, because, as Gygax rightly notes, the planes are indeed the referee's ticket to creativity.

This is not to say that you are expected to actually make each and every plane a totally new experience – an impossibly tall order. It does mean that you can put your imagination to work on devising a single extraordinary plane. For the rest, simply use AD&D with minor quirks, petty differences, and so forth. 

While I am sympathetic to Gygax's larger point, I nevertheless feel that he did referees a disservice by not exhorting them to greater heights of creativity and providing examples of how he did this in his own campaign. I can't help but imagine that the subsequent history not just of D&D but of the pop cultural fantasy descended from or influenced by it might have been different if he had – a less earthbound and more fantastical "vanilla" fantasy perhaps!

If your players wish to spend most of their time visiting other planes (and this could come to pass after a year or more of play) then you will be hard pressed unless you rely upon other game systems to fill the gaps. Herein I have recommended that BOOT HILL and GAMMA WORLD be used in campaigns. There is also METAMORPHOSIS ALPHA, TRACTICS, and all sorts of other offerings which can be converted to man-to-man role-playing scenarios. While as of this particular writing there are no commercially available "other planes" modules, I am certain that there will be soon – it is simply too big an opportunity to pass up, and the need is great.

Would that there had been more such modules! Regardless, I do find Gygax's suggestions regarding to use other RPG rules compelling, as they go some way toward demonstrating just how different another plane might be. Instead, most commercially available treatments of the planes have reduced them to, say, modifying how magic spells work rather than something much more ambitious and genuinely wondrous.

Astral and ethereal travel are not difficult, as the systems for encounters and the chance for the hazards of the psychic wind and ether cyclone are but brief sections of APPENDIX C: RANDOM MONSTERS ENCOUNTERS, easily and quickly handled. Other forms of travel, the risks and hazards thereof, you must handle as you see fit. For instance, suppose that you decide that there is a breathable atmosphere that extends from the earth to the moon, and that any winged steed capable of flying fast and far can carry its rider to that orb. Furthermore, once beyond the normal limits of earth's atmosphere, gravity and resistance are such that speed increases dramatically, and the whole journey will take but a few days. You must then decide what will be encountered during the course of the trip – perhaps a few new creatures in addition to the standard ones which you deem likely to be between earth and moon. 

That's exactly what I'd have liked to see more of!

Then comes what conditions will be like upon Luna, and what will be found there, why, and so on. Perhaps here is where you place the gateways to yet other worlds. In short, you devise the whole schema just as you did the campaign, beginning from the dungeon and environs outward into the broad world – in this case the universe, and then the multiverse. 

This is excellent. I only wish he had teased this out just a little bit more – not to mention produced a fuller example of such a setting.

You need do no more than your participants desire, however. If your players are quite satisfied with the normal campaign setting, with occasional side trips to the Layers of the Abyss or whatever, then there is no need to do more than make sketchy plans for the eventuality that their interests will expand. In short, the planes are there to offer whatever is needed in the campaign. Use them as you will. 

I am perhaps greedy (and ungrateful) in wanting a much longer section devoted to this and related topics from the pen of Gygax. It is clear he had ideas for the planes that he was prevented from ever publishing and I would very much like to have seen what he had in mind. If this small section of the Dungeon Masters Guide is any indication, I think his conceptions of the planes would have been quite inspiring and very different from what other authors would produce later.

Random Roll: DMG, p. 90

I've written a previous post in this series about page 90 of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, which discusses economics, broadly defined. One of the sections on this page bears the lengthy title "Duties, Excises, Fees, Tariffs, Taxes, Tithes, and Tolls." Despite the seeming dryness of that title, the section contains some interesting details that, I think, offer us a few insights into Gary Gygax's conception of the game and campaign play. 

He begins this section by asking

What society can exist without revenues? What better means of assuring revenues than taxation, and all the names used in the title of this section are synonymous with taxes – but if it is called something different perhaps the populace won't take too much umbrage at having to pay and pay and pay . . .

Joking aside, he then wastes no time to explain why he's actually including this section in the DMG.

It is important in most campaigns to take excess monies away from player characters, and taxation is one of the better means of accomplishing this end.

I really like Gygax's directness on this point. If you take a look back at the earlier post linked above, you'll see that he mentions by name "mythical heroes such as Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Kothar, [and] Elric." These names were well chosen, since an important element in the stories of these characters is their regular need for influxes of cash. The books mentioned in Appendix N might well have been simply those that Gygax most liked, but that's not all they are. AD&D in Gygax's mind is reflective of the content of those books, including the impecuniousness of the characters.

The form and frequency of taxation depends upon the locale and the social structure. Duties are typically paid on goods brought into a country or subdivision thereof, so any furs, tapestries, etc. brought into a town for sale will probably be subject to duty. Excises are typically sums paid to belong to a particular profession or practice a certain calling; in addition, an excise can be levied against a foreign currency, for example, in order to change it into the less remarkable coin of the realm …

Gygax goes on at great length, defining each of the types of taxes mentioned in the section's title, along with the circumstances in which player characters might encounter them. I won't reproduce everything he says here, in the interests of space, but the section I just quoted should suffice to give a sense of what he intends. The whole paragraph is genuinely useful to the referee, if only because it demonstrates the wide variety of options available to him when it comes to extracting money from characters. I think it's also worth noting that Gygax reminds us that "the form and frequency of taxation depends upon the local and the social structure." It's a helpful reminder of the necessity for such details in any campaign setting.

If the Gentle Reader thinks that the taxation that he or she currently undergoes is a trifle strenuous for his or her income, pity the typical European populace of the Middle Ages. They paid all of the above, tolls being very frequent, with those trying to escape them by use of a byway being subject to confiscation of all goods with a fine and imprisonment possible also. Every petty noble made an extraction, municipalities taxed, and the sovereign was the worst of all.

I am no historian, but I think Gygax exaggerates slightly here – or at least he errs in treating the real medieval economy, which was largely agricultural in nature, with later cash-based economies. Even so, his large point stands that there were a considerable number of different taxes to which medieval folk were subject. He then offers an example of how he might use medieval-style taxation in an AD&D campaign.

As you can see, Gygax is quite inventive here – but also quite tedious. I completely agree with the notion that the referee ought to use taxes and similar levies to separate the characters from their wealth, but the system he puts forward here, though perhaps simpler than that at use in the actual Middle Ages, would be a pain to adjudicate in a campaign. I simply can't imagine making use of this more than a couple of times before I decided to give up, but perhaps I simply lack the necessary intestinal fortitude to be a properly Gygaxian AD&D DM.

Much more intriguing to me is what Gygax says about foreign currency and money changers.

The town does not encourage the use of foreign currency. Merchants and other business people must pay a fine of 5% of the value of any foreign coins within their possession plus face certain confiscation of the coins so they will typically not accept them. Upon entering the town non-residents are instructed to go to the Street of the Money Changers in order to trade their foreign money for the copper "cons," silver "nobs," gold "orbs," and platinum "royals".

I find this section interesting for a couple of reasons. First, I've long been a fan of the idea that there ought to be specific currency for each kingdom. In my old Emaindor setting, I took great pains to elucidate the currencies of every realm, along with their value in the standard AD&D monetary system. I never used generic "silver pieces" or "gold pieces" in my games after a certain point and I'm glad to see that Gygax suggests something similar here. The second thing I find interesting is the list of names Gygax offers for the various local coins. These are, so far as I know, unique to the DMG and don't reflect, say, the coins of the Free City of Greyhawk. I suppose they might be the names adopted in some other locations on Oerth, but, if so, I can't place them. Anyone with greater knowledge of the setting should feel free to school me in the comments.

Random Roll: DMG, pp. 111-112

Toward the middle of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, there's a section entitled "Intervention by Deities" that has long fascinated me. In it, Gary Gygax addresses several questions pertaining to the action of gods in an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign. He doesn't treat the topic at any length, but what he has to say is nevertheless provocative in places.

If the supernatural powers of the various Outer Planes could and would continually and constantly involve themselves in the affairs of the millions upon the Prime Material Plane, they would not only be so busy as to get neither rest nor relaxation, but these deities would be virtually handling their own affairs and confronting each other regularly and often.

This long opening sentence comes close, I think, to laying out Gygax's broad perspective on the gods and their activities: the gods, by and large, have better things to do than meddle in mortal affairs on a regular basis. This makes sense from a, shall we say, dramatic perspective, in that it ensures that mortal actions – such as those of the player characters – have their unique weight. This also makes sense from a logistical perspective, as he explains.

If an entreaty for aid is heard one time in 100, surely each and every deity in the multiverse would be as busy as switchboard operator during some sort of natural disaster. Even giving each deity a nominal number of servants able to supply aid to desperate adventurers, the situation would be frenzied at best. Add to this the effects of various spells – commune, contact other plane, gate – it is obvious that intervention by a deity is no trifling matter and it is not to be allowed on a whim, even if the characters are in extremis. 

There are a couple of things to note here. First, Gygax does not envision the gods of AD&D to be in any sense omnipotent, let alone omnipresent. Instead, they are limited beings, albeit extremely powerful ones, on par with, say, the deities of classical myth. Second, I think it's fair to surmise that Gygax's vision of the gods is at least partially grounded in his concern that the player characters deal with their own problems rather than looking to Heaven to aid them, this being the better basis for a game of heroic fantasy. That said, he is not entirely opposed to the idea of divine intervention.

This is not to dictate that deities will never come to characters. Serving some deity is an integral part of AD&D. 

That second sense is a remarkable one, particularly in light of occasional statements elsewhere that suggest or even outright state otherwise.

The mighty evil gods, demons, and devils are prone to appear when their name is spoken – provided they stand the possibility of gaining converts to their cause. The forces of good might send some powerful creature of like alignment to aid characters on a mission in their behalf. Certainly in the case of some contest between opposing deities all sorts of intervention will take place – but always so as not to cause the deities themselves to be forced into direct confrontation! 

The gods of AD&D prefer, it seems, to work at a distance and/or through intermediaries rather than directly. Again, this makes sense from a dramatic perspective, since it ensures that mortal actions are meaningful in their own right. Likewise, I might argue, this is in keeping with the traditions of pulp fantasy, where the gods, with some notable exceptions, rarely take center stage.

Otherwise, the accumulation of hit points and the ever-greater abilities and better saving throws represents the aid supplied by supernatural forces.

That's quite a statement! Yet, it's simply a reiteration of something Gygax has repeatedly maintained, namely, that the increase in a character's abilities, most especially his hit points and saving throws, represents, among other things, the favor of the gods. One might well quibble about this from a variety of points of view, but this is not a new statement by Gygax.

In most cases, therefore, you will have to determine the involvement of deities as you develop the scenario or series of scenarios of your campaign. (In my own Greyhawk Campaign there have been 9 demigods, 3 demon lords, and a handful of Norse and other gods involved in the course of many years of play. Once or twice there has been divine intervention – and twice the powers of the infernal region have at the mention of a certain name . . . .) 

I assume the 9 demigods mentioned are those imprisoned beneath Castle Greyhawk by the mad archmage Zagyg. More intriguing to me is the reference to "a handful of Norse and other gods." Did Gygax's campaign include the Norse pantheon before he created his own unique pantheons? In any case, Gygax then lays out a rough system for handling the likelihood of divine intervention.

Spur of the moment intervention can be handled as follows: If the character beseeching help has been exemplary in faithfulness, then allow a straight 10% chance that some creature will be sent to his or her aid if this is the first time the character has asked for help. If 00 is rolled, there is a percentage equal to the character's level of experience that the deity itself will come, and this chance is modified as follows:

Each previous intervention on behalf of the character                           –5%

Alignment behavior only medial                                                            –5%

Alignment behavior borderline                                                              –10% 

Direction confrontation with another deity required by the situation                                                                                                                                –10%

Character opposing forces of diametrically opposite alignment            +1%

Character serving deity proximately (through direct instruction or by means of some intermediary)                                                                     +25%

As you can see, Gygax clearly felt that, except in extraordinary cases, divine intervention, even of an indirect sort should be very rare indeed.

Note: Deities will not intervene on the planes which are the habitation of other deities, i.e., the Outer Planes. They will neither venture to involve themselves in the Positive and Negative Material Planes. Intervention in the Elemental Planes is subject to DM option, based upon the population he or she has placed there. (If there are elemental gods, the deities from the Outer Planes will NOT go there.) Intervention occurs only on the Prime Material, Astral, or Ethereal Planes in most cases. 

Whenever I read passages like this, I get wistful for the lost Gygaxian second edition of AD&D, which would surely have expanded upon his conception of the Planes. Judging from some of his later work, I think it certain that Gygax had begun to develop an elaborate understanding of the Planes, their inhabitants, and relationships to the mortal world, an understanding I would have liked to see. The Planes were, in my opinion, an underdeveloped aspect of AD&D and it's a pity Gygax was never able to present a fuller vision of them in print. 

Random Roll: FF, p. 3

I will in future return to highlighting choice passages in the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, but I recently came across a section of the Fiend Folio that I thought worthy of attention. In the foreword to that tome of creatures malevolent and benign, editor Don Turnbull talks about the process of putting together this "companion" to the Monster Manual. In doing so, he makes a number of intriguing statements, starting with the passage where he explicitly compares the FF to its predecesssor.

There is one major difference between the two volumes – the source of their contents. The Monster Manual is very largely the work of one person – Gary Gygax – who not only created and developed most of the Monster Manual monsters himself but also developed those he did not personally create.

Remember, this is 1981, by which point Gary Gygax reigns supreme over all things AD&D and I suspect that Turnbull's statement needs to be considered in that light. Even so, there is nevertheless merit to what he says about the contents of the Monster Manual. One can rightly quibble about how many of the MM's entries were created solely by Gygax. Yet, the larger point remains that Gygax's influence over that first published AD&D book was considerable.

The new monsters in the FIEND FOLIO Tome, however, are the creations of many people. Some time ago, the editor of a UK magazine asked readers to submit their monster creations to a regular feature which became known as the Fiend Factory. The response was quite enormous and many worthwhile contributions reached the editorial offices.

There are several things of note here, starting with the fact that the name of the "UK magazine" referenced above – White Dwarf – is never mentioned. This is despite the fact that the Fiend Factory feature of that periodical is mentioned. Likewise, one assumes, since White Dwarf was never owned by TSR, some sort of financial and legal arrangement had to be arranged whereby some of the content of the Fiend Factory feature would appear in this book. I wonder if the establishment of TSR UK played a role in the circuitous way that Turnbull speaks here (Games Workshop, publisher of White Dwarf, having previously been the distributor of TSR products in the UK).

Also notable is the fact that, while the text bolds the titles of TSR game book (and, in the case of the Fiend Folio, capitalizes them as well), there are none of the ubiquitous trademark or registered trademark symbols that started to appear in 1980. In any case, Turnbull continues:

As editor of the feature, I never lacked for new and interesting monsters to fill the Factory pages each issue – indeed (for a magazine has inevitable limitations on space) it very soon became evident that many worthwhile creations would not be published until long, long after their submission, if at all. At the same time, the readers were praising the feature and demanding more! So there was a goodly supply of, and strident demand for, additional AD&D monsters – and these two factors gave birth to the FIEND FOLIO Tome of Creatures Malevolent and Benign.

This volume therefore contains an overwhelming majority of monsters which were originally submitted for the Fiend Factory feature. A small fraction of them already appeared in the Factory (though not in as developed a form as they appear here) while a larger number have come straight from creation via development to this book without pausing at the Factory en route.

The second paragraph is very interesting to me. It's regularly stated that the Fiend Folio is largely a compilation of Fiend Factory monsters. If I'm reading Turnbull correctly, he's saying that many of them never appeared in the pages of White Dwarf at all and that he drew upon his large "slush pile" of submissions for many of the monsters that appear in the FF.

Later in the foreword, Turnbull talks about his own role in producing the book.

My own task has been quite a simple one – to select monsters for inclusion, to develop them as necessary and write the statistics and texts, to assemble them in coherent form and to produce the various tables. Perhaps selection was not so easy a task after all, for there were over 1,000 contributions to consider; I have been quite ruthless in selection to ensure that the monsters which finally did appear were of the highest quality and originality.  

"Over 1,000 contributions?!" That's considerably more than I would have expected.

To have sacrificed quantity for quality in this way is, I believe, what discerning AD&D enthusiasts would want me to have done. On the development side my efforts have been variable. Some "originals" were almost fully developed when they reached me and not a great deal of work was required to add the final touches to them. At the opposite end of the development spectrum, other contributions arrived incomplete and embryonic, with the tip of a good idea just showing above the surface, as it were; these needed development to "flesh them out" into complete and coherent form. A few names have been changed and a few characteristics altered (most for good and sufficient reasons, some out of sheer instinct) but substantially the task has been to build on creations rather than re-work them entirely. 

 Had I greater love for the Fiend Folio's monsters, I might take the time and compare their original appearances in the Fiend Factory feature to the versions that later appeared in the AD&D book. I may still do that, as part of my ongoing examination of the early issues of White Dwarf, but, if so, it will be in a haphazard fashion. Regardless, I think Turnbull's admission of the extent to which he was involved in the development of the book's monster entries is important. It's a pity he's been dead for nearly two decades, as I'd love to talk to him about the nitty gritty details of his shepherding the Fiend Folio to its final form. I suspect he'd have a few additional surprises to share with us regarding both the process and the extent of his own creative contributions.

Random Roll: DDG, p. 11

In a change of pace, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at a section from AD&D's Deities & Deimgods. On page 11 of that book, there's a section entitled "Divine Ascension," which I recall attracted a lot of attention among players I knew in my youth. 

As study of the various mythologies will show, it is remotely possible for mortals to ascend into the ranks of the divine. However, there are certain requirements that must be fulfilled before such a thing could happen.

While I suppose it's possible that the players interested in seeing their characters ascend to godhood did so in imitation of Greco-Roman style apotheosis, I suspect the vast majority of them did so for far less historically-grounded reasons.

First, the character in question must have advanced to an experience level that is significantly above and beyond the average level of adventure-type characters in the general campaign. (This includes all such non-player types as military leaders, royal magic-users, etc.) For example, if the average level of characters in a campaign, both player and non-player, is around 5th level, then a candidate for ascension should be something like 9th or 10th level. If the average level is something like 15th level, then a character would have to be in the realm of 25th–30th level!

Given the overall premise – divine ascension – this seems reasonable. The fact that it specifies level ranges is surprisingly practical. That those levels are scaled to the average level of the campaign is fascinating.

Second, his or her ability scores must have been raised through some world-shaking magic to be on par with the lesser demigods. (Should such an act be lightly considered, remember that a wish spell is the most powerful magic that mankind can control, and such an average increase in abilities would literally take the power of dozens of wishes! Each use of that spell weakens the caster and ages him 3 years into the bargain, so they are not easy to come by.)  

A quick perusal of the demigods described in the DDG suggests that even the "lesser" ones have multiple – if not all – ability scores above 18, usually in the 20–22 range  Given that, this second requirement is particularly onerous and, in any reasonably run AD&D campaign, probably completely out of reach of most player characters. 

Third, the personage must have a body of sincere worshipers, people convinced of his or her divinity die to their witnessing of and/or belief in the mighty deeds and miracles which he or she has performed (and continues to perform). These must be genuine worshipers, honest in their adoration or propitiation of the person.

Again, this seems reasonable, though, in a world in which magic is, if not commonplace, a well-established and widely known thing, what constitutes a "miracle?" "Mighty deeds" are probably easier to quantify, though these too are probably defined in a relative fashion. 

Fourth, the person in question must be and have been a faithful and true follower of his or her alignment and patron deity. It is certain that any deviation will have been noted by the divine powers.

The most notable thing about this last requirement is the implication that being "a faithful and true follower" of one's alignment is not the same thing as being such of one's patron deity. The relationship between alignment, the Outer Planes, and the gods in AD&D is a vast topic with no clear answers, so I won't delve into it here. However, I do want to draw attention to it, since I think there are some rich possibilities to mine.

If all of the above conditions have been met, and the character has fulfilled a sufficient number of divine quests, then the character's deity may choose to invest the person with a certain amount of divine power, and bring the character into the ranks of the god's celestial (or infernal) servants.

"Divine quests?" Are these the same as the mighty deeds and miracles mentioned earlier or something else entirely? I assume the latter, though the text is not clear.

This process of ascension usually involves a great glowing beam of light and celestial fanfare, or (in the case of transmigrating to the lower planes), a blotting of the sun, thunder and lightning, and the disappearance of the character in a great smoky explosion.

Perhaps it's just me, but I find the description of ascension rather tacky.

Characters thus taken into the realms of the gods will serve their patron as minor functionaries and messengers. After several centuries of superior service and gradual advancement, exceptional servants may be awarded the status of demigod, which includes have an earthly priesthood and the ability to grant spells (up to 5th level) to the demigod's clerics. 

The bit about demigods being able to grant spells of up to 5th level is an interesting expansion/clarification of a section in the Dungeon Masters Guide that talks about the acquisition of clerical spells.

Naturally, ascension to divinity effectively removes the character from the general campaign, as the person will become a non-player member of the DM's pantheon.  

I think this final sentence pretty well sums up the general tenor of this section: yes, it's possible for a character to ascend to godhood, but it's really hard to do and, in the end, your character becomes an NPC who might, in a few centuries be recognized by mortals for his divinity. In short: why bother?  

Random Roll: PHB, p. 7

As I mentioned in a previous post, I mentioned a section at the start of the AD&D Players Handbook entitled simply "The Game." It's a fascinating section, because it lays out, over the course of about a dozen paragraphs, Gary Gygax's understanding of not just AD&D but roleplaying – and RPG campaigns – in very broad terms. There's a lot of insight to be gleaned from this section, which is why I'm returning to it again this week.

As with most other role playing games, this one is not just a single-experience contest. It is an ongoing campaign, with each playing session related to the next by results and participant characters who go from episode to episode.

The importance of the campaign is something I've been emphasizing over the course of the last year. I've grown ever more convinced that it's the key to understanding Gygaxian (and probably Arnesonian) D&D and that that understanding can in turn be applied to many other early roleplaying games (like Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller, to name two with which I am very familiar). In fact, I am increasingly of the opinion that it's impossible to play D&D as intended outside of the context of a long campaign. 

As players build the experience level of their characters and go forth seeking ever greater challenges, they must face stronger monsters and more difficult problems (and here the Dungeon Master must likewise increase his or her ability and inventiveness).

This and what immediately follows is an echo of things Gygax says in the Dungeon Masters Guide. I wish to draw attention to his invocation of "inventiveness." He is absolutely right to do so, as it's one of the keys to ensuring continued player interest over the course of months and years. I very much doubt that my House of Worms campaign, now just shy of six and a half years of active play, would have lasted as long as it has had I not continually demonstrated the kind of inventiveness Gygax recommends. 

While initial adventuring usually takes place in an underworld setting, play gradually expands to encompass other such dungeons, town and city activities, wilderness explorations, and journeys into other dimensions, planes, times, worlds, and so forth. 

This is a superb summation of the expected development of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign and the one for which the game's design works best. That's not to say that other approaches cannot be used successfully – they certainly can – but the progression that Gygax outlines here is, I think, the surest path to campaign longevity and enjoyment. I think it noteworthy that he mentions "journeys into other dimensions, planes, times, worlds" as the kinds of places where higher-level characters seek adventure. 

Players will add characters to their initial adventurer as the milieu expands so that each might actually have several characters, each involved in some separate and distinct adventure form, busily engaged in the game at the same moment of "Game Time." This allows participation by many players in games which are substantially different from game to game as dungeon, metropolitan, and outdoor settings are rotated from playing to playing. 

This is another aspect of old school play that I think is forgotten nowadays: the play of multiple characters. In my House of Worms campaign, this is not unusual. Most of the players have several characters whom they can play at any given time, depending on what is happening in the session. For example, the player of the scholarly priest of Sárku, Keléno, played a crotchety navigator named Váshur when some of the characters set off on an extended sea voyage around the east coast of the Achgé Peninsula. Months went by as that voyage continued and Keléno, though one of the original characters of the campaign, was not played. Eventually, focus shifted back – both in space and time – to the city of Linyaró, where Keléno remained, and his player again took him up again (and the other players assumed the roles of others who remained behind with him). This "back and forth" is quite common in our campaign and has, I firmly believe, contributed to its health and longevity.

And perhaps a war between players will be going on (with battles actually fought out on the tabletop with miniature figures) one night, while on the next, characters of these two contending players are helping each other survive somewhere in a wilderness. 

Now, this is something I've yet to see in any of my recent campaigns. The characters of the House of Worms are a tight-knit bunch and, for the most part, their disagreements are ephemeral. That said, Tékumel is full of secret societies and clandestine factions, some of whom have attempted to recruit the PCs. It's certainly possible that, one day, as they continue to rise in power and influence within the Tsolyáni Empire, they might come to blows. 

In the meantime, though, what's very clear – and what Gygax alludes to here – is that, in a good campaign, the players can take on many roles, each distinct and each adding to the depth and texture of the whole. While I am very fond of saying that "the referee is a player too,"  a corollary to this is that "players are world-builders too." By this I mean only that no campaign should be so tightly controlled that there is not room for creative contributions by the players. If anything, a referee should welcome such contributions and afford opportunities for them whenever possible. This has happened too many times to count in the House of Worms campaign and it's all the better for it. 

Random Roll: PHB, p. 8

Beginning on page 7 of the AD&D Players Handbook, there's a lengthy section entitled simply "The Game," in which Gary Gygax lays out something approximating his understanding of what Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is and how it's meant to be played. It's actually a very good section, devoid of most of the bluster and bombast that unfortunately accompanied many of Gygax's other forays into this topic. I could easily devote many posts to this section (and might well do so in the future), but, for the moment, I wish to focus on a single paragraph toward the end of this section, in which Gygax talks about the role of the referee in using the AD&D rules to create and maintain a campaign.

This game is unlike chess in that the rules are not cut and dried. In many places, they are guidelines and suggested methods only. This is part of the attraction of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, and it is integral to the game.

Chess is a frequently used reference point in Gygax's discussion of the rules of AD&D, most infamously in his November 1982 essay, "Poker, Chess, and the AD&D System." Here, chess represents a game with clear, objective, and unchanging – perhaps even unchangeable – set of rules, in contrast to AD&D whose rules include many "guidelines and suggested methods only." I find this interesting, because, it initially seems as if the general tenor of what Gygax is saying comports with that of OD&D, but, as we shall see, there are significant differences.

Rules not understood should have appropriate questions directed to the publisher;

So much for "why have us do any more of your imagining for you?" seen in the afterword of Volume 3 of OD&D. It's quite a sea-change in approach.

disputes with the Dungeon Master are another matter entirely. THE REFEREE IS THE FINAL ARBITER OF ALL AFFAIRS OF HIS OR HER CAMPAIGN. Participants have no recourse to the publisher, but they do have ultimate recourse – since the most effective protest is withdrawal from the offending campaign.

That said, I can't help but agree with Gygax here, even if I wouldn't have deployed all capitals in stating it. His advice about dealing with bad referees is practical and effective. I have seen it used several times over the course of my years in the hobby (never against me, of course!). I sometimes think that, had this advice been followed more readily, fewer gamers would today have so many stories of tyrannical referees.

Each campaign is a specially tailored affair. While it is drawn by the referee upon the outlines of the three books which comprise ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, the players add the color and details, so the campaign must ultimately please all participants. It is their unique world.

I like this, though I am fairly certain that Gygax intended a greater degree of uniformity between campaigns than his reference to "specially tailored" might suggest. Nevertheless, his statement that "the campaign must ultimately please all participants" is important. I doubt he meant that it's the duty of the referee to assume that everything always goes the preferred way of the players (and their characters). Rather, he seems to mean that everyone involved, players and referee alike, should have a stake in the campaign and its continuance. That is eminently good advice and true, at least in my own experience.

You, the reader, as a member of the campaign community, do not belong if the game seems wrong in any major aspect. Withdraw and begin your own campaign by creating a milieu which suits you and the group which you must form to enjoy the creation. (And perhaps you will find that preparation of your own milieu creates a bit more sympathy for the efforts of the offending referee …)

I like this as well. Truly, I think more players should try their hands at refereeing, not merely for the reasons Gygax includes in parenthesis but also because I sometimes feel as if many players expect campaigns to cater to their own preferences. Over the years, I've played in several campaigns that, for various reasons, weren't to my taste. In every instance, I ultimately bowed out of the campaign rather than attempting to sway the referee to change those aspects of it that I didn't like. That strikes me as both polite and, dare I say it, adult. If you don't like something, don't partake of it; make your own thing that you do like and have fun with it. Life is too short to bother with games (of all things) that you don't enjoy and whining to get your own way does you no credit.

Random Roll: PHB, p. 101

Page 101 of the AD&D Players Handbook contains a long section entitled "The Adventure," in which Gary Gygax the "three major types" of locales in which player characters might find adventure, namely the dungeon, the wilderness, and the town. He then discusses each of these locales separately, highlighting not only what makes them unique but what a character venturing into them ought to consider before doing so. Though his comments on each are short, I think they're nonetheless worthy of a closer look.

Adventures into underworld mazes are the most popular. The party equips itself and sets off to enter and explore the dungeons of some castle, temple or whatever. Light sources, poles for probing, rope, spikes, and like equipment are the main tools for such activity.

I think the equipment Gygax mentions by name is telling: not weapons or armor but torches, poles, rope, and spikes. This is indeed an "expedition," as he terms it elsewhere, one on the model of archeological excavations or perhaps the Victorian adventure tales of H. Rider Haggard (or even "The Tower of the Elephant").

And since none of the party will know the dungeon's twists and turns, one or more of the adventurers will have to keep a record, a map, of where the party has been. Thus you will be able to find your way out and return for yet more adventuring. As you party is exploring and mapping, movement will be slow, and it is wise to have both front and rear guards.

Do RPG campaigns regularly include a mapper anymore? In my youth, it went without saying that someone should be keeping a map. Otherwise, as Gygax says, how would you find your way out again – or, just as importantly, take note of unusual features that suggested there might be hidden chambers nearby? In my House of Worms campaign, the players are blessed to have a professional cartographer in their company, but, even if they didn't, I'm pretty sure they'd keep track of the underworlds they explore.

In the dungeons will be chambers and rooms – some inhabited, some empty; there will be traps to catch those unaware, tricks to fool the unwise, monsters lurking to devour the unwary. The rewards, however, are great – gold, gems, and magic items. Obtaining these will make you better able to prepare for further expeditions, more adept in your chosen profession, more powerful in all respects. All that is necessary is to find your way in and out, to meet and defeat the guardians of the treasures, to carry out the wealth …

That's a very succinct way of describing the gameplay of Dungeons & Dragons, don't you think? More than that, it also draws our attention to the things Gygax considered the essential elements of a dungeon: rooms (including empty ones), monsters, treasure, traps, and tricks – a good list!

Adventuring into unknown lands or howling wilderness is extremely perilous at best, for large bands of men, and worse, might roam the area; there are dens of monsters, and trackless wastes to contend with. 

The wilderness is where Gygaxian naturalism lives – literally – hence the following admonitions:

Protected expeditions are, therefore, normally undertaken by higher level characters. Forays of limited duration are possible even for characters new to adventuring, and your DM might suggest that your party do some local exploration – perhaps to find some ruins which are the site of a dungeon or to find a friendly clan of dwarves, etc.

One "problem" with D&D, it's that the wilderness surrounding a dungeon is frequently far more dangerous than the dungeon itself, given the lack of an artificial level-based framework for assessing threat to the characters. Gygax's comments here remind us of that.

Mounts are necessary, of course, as well as supplies, missile weapons, and the standard map-making equipment. Travel will be at a slow rate in unknown areas, for your party will be exploring, looking for foes to overcome, and searching for new finds of lost temples, dungeons, and the like. 

Once again, mapping and slowness are mentioned – but then D&D is primarily a game of exploration. Nevertheless, Gygax quickly notes that that's not all the game is about.

Cities, towns, and sometimes even large villages provide the setting for highly interesting, informative, and often hazardous affairs and incidents. Even becoming an active character in a campaign typically requires interaction with the populace of the habitation, location quarters, buying supplies and equipment, seeking information. 

Though not intended as such, these sentences could serve as a rebuke of critics who deride D&D as a purely "hack 'n slash" game. Some of my favorite moments in D&D (and other RPGs) have arisen from interactions with NPCs in a settlement as the characters sought out rumors, lodging, or equipment. 

These same interactions in a completely strange town require forethought and skill. Care must be taken in all one says and does. Questions about rank, profession, god and alignment are perilous, and use of an alignment tongue is socially repulsive in most places.  

Everything Gygax says here demonstrates the need for the creation of a social structure and culture for the campaign setting. Without these, there can be no context for adventures and many opportunities for fun interactions will be missed.

There are usually beggars, bandits, and drunks to be dealt with; greedy and grasping merchants and informants to do business with; inquiring officials or suspicious guards to be answered. The taverns house many potential helpful or useful characters, but they also contain clever and dangerous adversaries. Then there are the unlit streets and alleys of the city after dark … 

If this section has made anything clear, it's that, in a good campaign, adventures can be found anywhere.  

Random Roll: DMG, p. 90

On page 90 of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide, there's a brief section that sheds much light on how Gary Gygax viewed the game's economic system. He begins:

There is no question that the prices and costs of the game are based on inflationary economy, one where a sudden influx of silver and gold has driven everything well beyond its normal value.

This is a widespread interpretation of AD&D's equipment prices, so it's fascinating to see that Gygax outright confirms this in this passage. He even gives the rationale behind this approach.

The reasoning behind this is simple. An active campaign will almost certainly bring a steady flow of wealth into the base area, as adventurers come from successful trips into dungeon and wilderness. 

This is an important section, because it suggests that the activities of the player characters are not exceptional. The exploration – and looting – of dungeons is, if not commonplace, not unusual and, therefore, has lasting economic consequences. It also suggests to me that the game's economic assumptions are more akin to, say, 16th or 17th century Spain than the earlier medieval period. Gygax seems to have anticipated criticisms of this approach.

If the economy of the area is one which more accurately reflects that of medieval England, let us say, where coppers and silver coins are usual and a gold piece remarkable, such an influx of new money, even in copper and silver, would cause an inflationary spiral. This would necessitate adjusting costs accordingly and then upping dungeon treasures somewhat to keep pace. If a near-maximum is assumed, then the economics of the area can remain relatively constant, and the DM will have to adjust costs only for things in demand or short supply – weapons, oil, holy water, mean-at-arms, whatever.

In the early days of the Old School Renaissance, a regular subject was the "gold piece economy" of Dungeons & Dragons and how "unrealistic" it was. Many a blog post was written on the subject and a fad of substituting silver pieces for gold pieces in one's campaign arose. Games such as Lamentations of the Flame Princess even incorporated it into their rules. I don't feel strongly about this subject, but, unless my – and Gygax's – understanding of economics is mistaken, the matters he raises in the preceding paragraph strike me as reasons not to abandon gold pieces as the standard coinage in AD&D.

The economic systems of areas beyond the more active campaign areas can be viably based on lesser wealth only until the stream of loot begins to pour outwards into them. While it is possible to reduce treasure in these areas to some extent so as to prolong the period of lower costs, what kind of a dragon hoard, for example, doesn't have gold and gems? It is simply more heroic for players to have their characters swaggering around with pouches full of gems and tossing out gold pieces than it is for them to have coppers.

Gygax here says two notable things. The first is his usage of the adjective "heroic," which he will soon elaborate upon. The second is his assertion that he expects player characters in AD&D to have "pouches full of gems" and lots of gold coins. The latter is especially notable, for it gives us some insight into how he saw the "world" of Dungeons & Dragons.

Heroic fantasy is made of fortunes and king's ransoms in loot gained most cleverly and bravely and lost in a twinkling by various means – thievery, gambling, debauchery, gift-giving, bribes, and so forth. The "reality" AD&D seeks to create through role playing is that of the mythical heroes such as Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Kothar, Elric, and their ilk. When treasure is spoken of, it is more stirring when participants know it to be TREASURE!

We can see here that "heroic" in the previous section was in reference to the genre of "heroic fantasy," what I usually call "pulp fantasy." His references to the protagonists of such tales is telling and a further buttress of my longstanding contention that Dungeons & Dragons is ill suited to epic or high fantasy of the sort exemplified by The Lord of the Rings or even Dragonlance. With one agrees with that thesis or not, one should also take note of the means Gygax enumerates by which loot may be "lost in a twinkling." We see here is that even AD&D's economic assumptions support the idea that player characters are meant to be rascals and rogues.

You may, of course, adjust any prices and costs as you see fit for your own milieu. Be careful to observe the effects of such changes on both play balance and player involvement. If any adverse effects are noted, it is better to return to the true and true. It is fantastic and of heroic proportions so to match its game vehicle.

This is typically Gygaxian in its approach: feel free to change whatever you like but don't surprised if your changes make the game worse. Take note, too, that he reiterates that the game is "fantastic and of heroic proportions." This is another instance where Gygax shows his hand somewhat, revealing his own preferences and vision for the game. Agree or disagree with that vision, there can be little question that it exists and draws strongly on a very particular strain of fantasy literature, one he calls "heroic fantasy" and that I call "pulp fantasy."

Random Roll: DMG, p. 65

"Spell Casting During Melee" appears on page 65 of the Dungeon Masters Guide and is a surprisingly eye-opening read, both in terms of understanding how magic works in AD&D and how Gary Gygax viewed its place in the game he created. His brief introduction to this section concludes with the statement "Being struck by something during casting will spoil the spell," which I think pretty well sums up his overall feelings on the matter. As we shall see, Gygax strongly felt that magic, particularly as wielded by player characters, needed to be reined in and one would not be wrong in seeing this section as a buttress to that thesis.

His tone is adversarial from the start: "Spell-casters will always insist that they are able to use their powers during combat melee." To prevent the players of spellcasters from getting away with anything, he reminds referees of the following:

Consider this: The somatic (movement) portions of a spell must be begun and completed without interruption in a clean, smooth motion. The spell as a whole must be continuous and uninterrupted from beginning to end. Once interrupted, for any reason whatsoever, the spell is spoiled and lost (just as if used). Spells cannot be cast while violently moving – such as running, dodging a blow, or even walking normally. They are interrupted by a successful hit – be it a blow, missile, or appropriate spell (not saved against or saveable against). 

Those are quite a few limitations on the successful use of spells in AD&D! I freely admit that I have never played AD&D completely by the book, but, if the above is any indication, I don't believe I've ever encountered anyone who did so either. Common sense judgment would certainly suggest that spells could be interrupted, especially those with somatic components, but I'm not sure I'd ever be as stringent as Gygax suggests above.

Thus, casting a spell requires that a figure be relatively motionless and concentrating on the effort during the entire course of uninterrupted casting. For example, a magic-user casting a fireball must be in sight of the intended area of effect during the course of the spell (although an associate could be there to open a door intervening between caster and target area at an appropriate time – provided the timing was correct, of course).

Gygax's use of "figure" for "character" is an interesting atavism. More interesting, though, is his insistence that a spellcatser must be "relatively motionless." That's a huge impediment to casting during most combats.

The caster cannot begin a spell, interrupt it just prior to completion, run to a different area, and then complete the spell; interruption instantly cancels it. Unless a spell has no somatic components, the caster cannot be crouching, let alone prone, during casting. 

The scenario presented in the first sentence makes sense to me. The second sentence does too, though it serves to highlight just how restrictive spellcasting is in AD&D as written. (It's worth noting too that there are very few spells in AD&D that have no somatic components, at least when compared to those that do.)

It can thus be understood that spell casting during a melee can be a tricky business, for a mere shove at any time can spoil the dweomer!  

Again, I'm not sure I've ever played the game this way, nor have I encountered anyone who does (cue a deluge of comments suggesting otherwise). Still, it's a consistent point of view, even if it's not one I share or indeed that I think contributes much enjoyment to the playing of the game. 

Gygax then elucidates the procedure a referee should use during melee in determining whether a spell is successfully cast. It's a five-step process that stacks the deck, in my opinion, heavily against the successful casting of a spell. Gygax emphasizes the slowness of casting, as well as the fact that intelligent monsters are "able to recognize the dangers of spells" and will therefore "direct attacks against spell casters." Furthermore, spellcasters cannot use their Dexterity bonus to armor class, since that represents active dodging and would interrupt the spell. In the end, he states that "any successful attack, or non-saved-against attack upon the spell caster interrupts the spell."

His last word on the matter is a doozy, one that makes sense within the context he's just established but that runs counter to most of my experience playing any form of Dungeons & Dragons:

Because spell casting will be so difficult, most magic-users and clerics will opt to use magical devices whenever possible in melee, if they are wise. 

I think that pretty well clinches it: Gary Gygax hated spellcasters (he said, tongue firmly planted in cheek). At the very least, he saw them as potentially overpowered if firm boundaries were not placed on their ability to use magic in combat. I can certainly see the logic of his position and am even sympathetic to certain elements of what he says. However, as presented in this section, I think he was being unnecessarily restrictive, to the point that I'm not sure I'd want to play a spellcaster at his table. But perhaps that was the point.

Random Roll: DMG, p. 110 (Part II)

 (Part I of this section can be found here)

In the middle of a long section on page 110 of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide entitled "Conducting the Game," Gary Gygax includes three paragraphs under the header "Handling Troublesome Players." This is a topic of some interest to me, as I've been very fortunate over the decades in almost never having to deal with players of the certain he describes here. Why that should be is probably worthy of another post, but, for now, let's turn to what's stated in the DMG. 

Some players will find more enjoyment in spoiling the game than in playing it, and this ruins the fun for the rest of the participants, so it must be prevented. 

The idea that "some players will find more enjoyment in spoiling the game than in playing it" is baffling to me. I don't doubt that such players existed in Gygax's time (and in ours), but I have never encountered one in the flesh. 

Those who enjoy being loud and argumentative, those who pout or act in a childish manner when things go against them, those who use books as a defense when you rule them out of line should be excluded from the campaign. Simply put, ask them to leave, or do not invite them to participate again.

If this is what Gygax means by "spoiling the game," I have occasionally encountered such players, particularly of the "loud and argumentative" sort. The same goes for those "who use books as a defense," but not so much the pouting and childishness. But then we have the Internet now, so it's probably not so difficult to find plenty of examples of the kind of behavior about which he's talking.

Peer pressure is another means which can be used to control players who are not totally obnoxious and who you deem worth saving.

"Deem worth saving" is a strange turn of phrase, but, again, I get what he's saying here.

These types typically attempt to give orders and instructions even when their characters are not present, tell other characters what to do even though the character role they have has nothing to do with that of the one being instructed, or continually attempt actions or activities their characters would no knowledge of. 

This is truly fascinating. I can certainly understand a certain displeasure at "back seat driving" in a roleplaying setting, though it's generally been my experience that this is meant helpfully by those who engage in it. Indeed, it's often welcomed by some players. Clearly, though, Gygax considered it disruptive. I even get the sense that he might have considered it "cheating" on some level.

When any such proposals or suggestions or orders are made, simply inform the group that is no longer possible under any circumstances because of the player in question. The group will then act to silence him or her and control undesirable outbursts. The other players will most certainly let such individuals know about undesirable activity when it begins to affect their characters and their enjoyment of the game.

 I will pass over this without comment, because I'm not quite sure what to say.

Strong steps short of expulsion can be an extra random monster die, obviously rolled, the attack of an ethereal mummy (which always strikes by surprise, naturally), points of damage from "blue bolts from the heavens" striking the offender's head, or the permanent loss of a point of charisma (appropriately) from the character belonging to the offender.

I suspect it's passages like this that contributed to the – largely false – perception that Gygax was a capricious, authoritarian referee. Leaving that aside, though, none of these suggestions strike me as the kind of thing that might positively reform the behavior of a troublesome player – quite the opposite, it seems to me. 

If they have to be enacted regularly, then they are not effective and stronger measures must be taken. Again, the ultimate answer to such a problem is simply to exclude the disruptive person from further gatherings.

This further clarification puts the foregoing into a better light, I think. Even so, I find myself wondering how common truly disruptive players were (or are). The fact that Gygax saw the need to include this section in the Dungeon Masters Guide implies that it was – or at least was seen to be – a genuine concern. As I said at the start of this post, that's not been my experience, but is it yours? Has your experience as a roleplayer included regular encounters with players so disruptive to your enjoyment that strong measures were needed to deal with them? I'm genuinely curious. 

Random Roll: DMG, p. 230

The afterword of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide, found on page 230 is another one of those passages that bears examination. In it, Gary Gygax attempts to present a summation of his overall philosophy toward both AD&D and gaming in general. He begins by stating that

IT IS THE SPIRIT OF THE GAME, NOT THE LETTER OF THE RULES WHICH IS IMPORTANT. NEVER HOLD TO THE LETTER WRITTEN, NOR ALLOW SOME BARRACKS ROOM LAWYER TO FORCE QUOTATIONS FROM THE RULE BOOK UPON YOU, IF IT GOES AGAINST THE OBVIOUS INTENT OF THE GAME.

These two sentences are reminiscent of similar passages in OD&D, which not only establish that the referee is the final arbiter of how the rules are to be interpreted in his campaign but also to resist being bullied by players in making such interpretations. I think statements like these can be easily misinterpreted and exaggerated to give the impression that Gygax was a dictatorial referee who would brook no dissent, which is not only untrue but unfair. Speaking of which, he offers us another such sentence.

AS YOU HEW THE LINE WITH RESPECT TO CONFORMITY TO MAJOR SYSTEMS AND UNIFORMITY OF PLAY IN GENERAL, ALSO BE CERTAIN THE GAME IS MASTERED BY YOU AND NOT BY YOUR PLAYERS. 

From context, I think it's pretty clear that what Gygax is counseling here is simply that a good game rests on a foundation of consistency, both in its rules and its rules interpretations, hence his notion that "the game is to be mastered by you," which is to say, the referee. Though Gygax often presented himself, for business reasons, as a champion of rules uniformity in AD&D, I can't shake the feeling that, in his heart of hearts, his concern was simply that games have rules that provided an intelligible basis on which to make decisions for their characters. The referee plays a vital role in ensuring this – indeed it is his primary occupation.

WITHIN THE BROAD PARAMETERS GIVEN IN THE ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS VOLUMES, YOU ARE CREATOR AND FINAL ARBITER. BY ORDERING THINGS AS THEY SHOULD BE, THE GAME AS A WHOLE FIRST, YOUR CAMPAIGN NEXT, AND YOUR PARTICIPANTS THEREAFTER, YOU WILL BE PLAYING ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE. 

I think it interesting that Gygax pairs "creator" with "final arbiter." Clearly, he considered both to be important parts of the referee's job. The act of creation is not passive; Gygax did not see the referee of AD&D as simply a rules arbiter and interpreter but as an active participant on par with the players. It's also interesting that Gygax nevertheless places "the game as a whole" ahead of the referee's campaign in terms of "ordering things as they should be." I'm not quite sure what to make of that. Is this an instance of "TSR Gary" intruding or is something else going on? 

MAY YOU FIND AS MUCH PLEASURE IN SO DOING AS THE REST OF US DO!

Ultimately, this is why I retain a fondness for Gary Gygax, despite all those times when he spoke in a way that reinforced people's worst opinions of him. At the end of the day, Gygax loved games and derived a great deal of pleasure playing them with others. I recall that, on several occasions, when publicly asked how he wanted to be remembered, he said something very close to what I just wrote. He wanted to be remembered as someone who loved playing and making games. I have no doubt that, when you strip away everything else – the business success, the cranky commentary, the disputes with others – that's what we're left with. It's something that comes through often in Gygax's writing in the Dungeon Masters Guide and I'd like to try and highlight it a bit more often, because it's important to recall.
 

Random Roll: DMG, p. 61

Page 61 of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide features a lengthy section entitled "Encounters, Combat, and Initiative." The section is so long and so full of fascinating asides that I'm going to focus only on those paragraphs that address the sometimes contentious topic of the one-minute combat round. Before starting, it's important to remember that, while the one-minute round is most well known is AD&D, it's not unique to it. Both OD&D and Empire of the Petal Throne, two games with which I am quite familiar, also make use of it. However, other versions of D&D, most famously Tom Moldvay's 1981 revision, do not, preferring shorter lengths of time. I'm genuinely agnostic on the matter myself, not seeing it as a hill to die on one way or the other. For this post, my interest is solely on Gygax's reasoning behind one-minute combat rounds.

He begins:

Combat is divided into 1 minute period melee rounds, or simply rounds, in order to have reasonably manageable combat. "Manageable" applies both to the actions of the combatants and the actual refereeing of such melees.

Right off the bat, Gygax suggests that one-minute rounds exist primarily for practical reasons. He continues:

It would be no great task to devise an elaborate set of rules for highly complex individual combats with rounds of but a few seconds. It is not in the best interests of an adventure game, however, to delve too deeply into cut and thrust, parry and riposte. The location of a hit or wound, the sort of damage done, sprains, breaks, and dislocations are not the stuff of heroic fantasy. The reasons for this are manifold.

In typical Gygaxian fashion, these sentences are at once commonsensical and querulous. I think his general point that "highly complex" rules for combat get in the way of the running of "an adventure game" (a term he uses often in the DMG – but that's a possible topic for another post). My own decades-long experience is that, with a few exceptions, I personally prefer simple, straightforward, and easy to adjudicate combat systems over those with more detail. That said, I can't wholly sign on with Gygax's contention that more complex systems "are not the stuff of heroic fantasy," which almost seems like a calculated slight against other RPGs with different priorities than AD&D.

In any case, Gygax uses this as an opportunity to talk about hit points and how AD&D's conception of them ties into the one-minute round. 

As has been detailed, hit points are not actually a measure of physical damage, by and large, as far as characters (and some other creatures as well) are concerned. Therefore, the location of hits and the types of damage caused are not germane to them. 

Again, perhaps I am an outlier, but this makes perfect sense to me, especially in light of the one-minute combat round. If an attack roll does not represent a single cut or thrust but rather an abstraction of many such actions over the course of a minute, I think it quite reasonable that hit points should be similarly abstracted. Oddly, he immediately follows up with this: "this is not true with respect to most monsters, it is neither necessary nor particularly useful." I'm not sure how to read this. Is Gygax suggesting that, for most monsters, hit points are a measure of physical damage or is it that the location of hits and types of damage caused would be germane to them? 

In any case, he quickly gives us more to unpack.

Lest the purist immediately object, consider the many charts and tables necessary to handle this sort of detail, and then think about how area effect spells would work. In like manner, consider all of the nasty things which face adventurers as the rules stand. Are crippling disabilities and yet more ways to meet instant death desirable in an open-ended, episodic game where participants seeks to identify with lovingly detailed player-character personae? Not likely! Certain death is as undesirable as a give-away campaign. 

I think Gygax starts off with an excellent point about charts and tables. If one prioritizes speed in handling combat, too much detail can be a serious impediment. D&D in all its forms has always tended toward the fast and abstract. That's either a bane or a boon, depending on one's own interests, but I don't think it's a "flaw" in the game's design. I've played – and enjoyed – RPGs with more complex combat systems and would happily do so again. There are many unique pleasures in that style of play, just as there are in D&D's. I take no issue with anyone who prefers one over the other, so long as we all recognize the subjectivity of such a preference.

More remarkable, I think, is Gygax's description of D&D as an "open-ended, episodic" game. I don't find that description at all controversial, but I still take note of Gygax's use of it nonetheless, just as I do of his claim that it's a game "where participants seek to identify with lovingly detailed player-character personae." This certainly seems at odds with the popular belief that, for Gygax, player characters were little more than "pieces on a board" to be discarded and replaced with ease. In like fashion, the implication that instant death was not desirable is further evidence that he was no "killer DM" of the sort players have been whining about for as long as I've been involved in the hobby.

With complex combat systems which stress so-called realism and feature hit location, special damage, and so on, either this option is severely limited or the rules are highly slanted towards favoring the player characters at the expense of their opponents. (Such rules as double damage and critical hits must cur both ways – in which case the life expectancy of player characters will be shortened considerably – or the monsters are being grossly misrepresented and unfairly treated by the system. I am certain you can think of many other such rules.) 

Again, I think this comes down to taste. In my House of Worms campaign, I've made use of EPT's critical hit rules since I begin it more than six years ago and I've used it equally against PCs, NPCs, and monstrous enemies. My experience is that it's occasionally proved decisive in a combat but that, by and large, it's not upended things to such an extent that I'd caution against using it. No PC has died due to a critical hit in this campaign (though a couple did in my Dust of Gold campaign set in Mu'ugalavyá). On balance then, I don't share Gygax's concerns about critical hits.

One-minute rounds are devised to offer the maximum of choice with a minimum of complication. This allows the DM and the players the best of both worlds. The system assumes much activity during the course of each round. Envision, if you will, a fencing, boxing, or karate match. During the course of one minute of such competition, there are numerous attacks, which are unsuccessful, feints, maneuvering, and so forth. During a one-minute melee round many attacks are made, but some are mere feints, while some are blocked or parried. One, or possibly several, have the chance to actually score damage. For such chances, the dice are rolled and if the "to hit" number is equalled or exceeded, the attack was successful, but otherwise it too was avoided, blocked, parried, or whatever.

This is a very helpful section, because it makes more clear what Gygax saw as happening during the course of a single one-minute round. He elaborates on this later, explaining that "a round of combat is not a continuous series of attacks," nor is it "just a single blow and counter-blow affair." That has long been how I conceptualize a round; it's also why, when refereeing a combat, I generally don't describe it in any detail, preferring instead to speak of it in very broad terms. 

I should end here, but Gygax makes one brief aside that I think worthy of attention. He talks about monsters and their hit points. 

With respect to monsters such damage is, in fact, more physically substantial, although as with many adjustments in armor class rating for speed and agility, there are also similar additions in hit points.

For some reason, this doesn't sit well with me, perhaps because Gygax had just previously indicted critical hit systems for treating characters and monsters unequally. Now, he is admitting that he does the same with hit points. Is this an unforgiveable or game-breaking design choice? Hardly. Yet, it does make much more explicit the extent to which all combat systems need to make concessions of one sort or another in order to make them playable and fun. The question is simply what aspects of combat one wishes to emphasize and where one draws the line between "simple" and "complex."

Random Roll: DMG, p. 28

Page 28 of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide contains numerous short sections about the minutiae of combat. I'm not going to discuss them all in this post. Instead, I'm going to focus on those that I find noteworthy for one reason or another, starting with the section on helmets.

It is assumed that an appropriate type of head armoring will be added to the suit of armor in order to allow uniform protection of the wearer. Wearing of a "great helm" adds the appropriate weight and restricts vision to the front 60' only, but gives the head AC 1. If a helmet is not worn, 1 blow in 6 will strike at the AC 10 head, unless the opponent is intelligent, in which case 1 blow in 2 will be aimed at the AC 10 head (d6, 1–3 = head blow).

I've mentioned before that this is one of my favorite obscure rules in AD&D. It was certainly one I regularly sought out, because I knew it was in the DMG somewhere; I just couldn't always remember precisely where. For the most part, this rule makes sense and is probably an improvement over OD&D's silence on the subject, despite the fact that a helmet is included in the equipment list. 

Next up are magic armor and shields, which have interesting properties.

When magic armor is worn, assume that its properties allow movement at the next higher base rate and that weight is cut by 50%. There is no magical elfin chain mail.

Again, this is reasonable. I only note that Unearthed Arcana, penned by Gygax himself, includes magical elfin chain mail. 

Magic shields are no less weighty than their non-magical counterparts, but they are non-bulky with respect to encumbrance. 

I wonder why magical armor is less weighty but not magical shields. I don't object to the ruling, but I am curious as to Gygax's thinking. In any case, he continues to talk about shields and their use. Gygax begins by noting that

The shield can be used fully only to the left or front of the right handed individual. Attacks from the right flank or rear negate the benefits of a shield.

As a southpaw myself, I appreciate the acknowledgment of left handed combatants! More interesting, though, I think are his combats about large shields.

Therefore, large shields are treated as but +1 to armor class rating without a shield. Optionally, you may allow them to add +2 to this armor class with respect to small (non-war engine or giant hurled) missiles

The last point Gygax addresses is one that I've struggled with many times, namely the matter of weapon versus armor class adjustments. This is something I want to include, because it seems obvious to me that different weapons were created and wielded precisely because some were more effective in certain circumstances than in others. At the same time, the complexity likely required to address this worries me, which is why I've generally never found a system I fully embraced. AD&D includes such a system, but I've never found it very workable, for reasons Gygax discusses.

If you allow weapon type adjustments in your campaign please be certain to remember that these adjustments are for weapons versus specific types of armor, not necessarily against actual armor class.

This is something that's also stated in the Players Handbook, but I think it's important that Gygax reiterates it, lest the table there be misunderstood. That said, he also reiterates another point that I think militates against the system's ultimate utility.

In most cases, monsters not wearing armor will not have any weapon type adjustments allowed, as monster armor class in such cases pertains to the size, shape, agility, speed, and/or magical nature of the creature.

This is exactly why I was never able to adopt the weapon adjustments. If they generally don't apply to attacks against monsters, the most common opponents of characters in Dungeons & Dragons, what's the point of such a system? Worse still, I think Gygax's statement that monster armor class is reflective of size, shape, agility, speed, and so forth throws into question just what "armor class" in a broad sense means. This tension has always existed in D&D's combat system, to be sure, but I can't help but feel that, in trying to include and make sense of weapon adjustments, Gygax has opened up a can of worms that threatens to undermine the entire system. That's why, despite my keen interest in modeling differences between weapons, I nevertheless favor a simple and abstract combat system, which, while not "realistic," at least avoids being incoherent.