The Effing Paladin

This effort to teach AD&D in a linear fashion has hit a snag with the paladin.  First, it took me three passes to find the right voice for explaining alignment, which cannot be dodged around if teaching the class as it's written. Next, discussing the paladin's codes proved less than ideal, and the consequences for breaking those codes as well. Then that business with the paladin's warhorse that I discussed with the last post.

And now, the arbitrary rules about what a paladin can use as magic equipment, what a paladin must do with their money and who a paladin must associate with.

What seems to happen is this: I begin by intending to describe the rules as written... but these are, in fact, full of holes, since the words don't actually wander all around the subject.  A good example for this is the "henchman," which to the best of my recollection is never described as anything but a hireling. The reason for the name, what it means to "hench," what the person is hired to accomplish, what their role is, or what they are to the player is not discussed. Only how to find them, their statistical details and their loyalty. Why a henchperson is even allowed is not discussed either. This sort of hole, where we spend a page and a half discussing everything about the rule except why it exists, can be very frustrating.

Then, as I drift into pointing out the details of the hole, so the reader will understand what's not being said in the AD&D rule, I end up drifting further into why this rule is illogical, or can be easily circumvented, or indeed why it undermines actual game play and builds resentment.

And then somewhere in that drift, I stop, realise I've gone too far, and then come here and kvetch.

There are two fundamental problems with all these paladin-constraining rules... and it not the theory that paladins need constraint. The first is that every one of them is entirely arbitrary. It's never explained why alignment is necessary for AD&D game play (it isn't), or why the paladin must have codes, or why there must be a punishment for these codes instead of the DM simply saying, "Nope, you can't do that, you're a paladin."  The reason is obviously because it shifts the responsibility from the DM for saying that to the paladin, which in turn allows the DM to be the avenging but righteous angel, bringing the paladin up short not by a simple game rule, "Do not pass GO, do not collect $200," but by an oppornistic jackassery that threatens the player's agency and right to game play on an MADE-UP bullshit moral principle.

Why ten magic items?  Arbitrary. Why can't the paladin keep their money and use it for good? Arbitrary. Why can't the paladin give the money to the party cleric, who ALSO must be lawful good, and is therefore limited? Arbitrary. Because we can't treat the player cleric like one of the NPC clerics of the game world UNDER THE DM'S AUTHORITY.  It's clubhouse rules, so no, you can't give away the tithe to the party's cleric. It's all arbitrary and none of it is ever explained, defined or justified.

The second fundamental problem is that the paladin isn't actually that powerful a class. Turning the undead is in game play a pretty weak mechanic, clerical spells by the time they're gotten are so low-level that they're not a threat, the 18 h.p. a paladin can heal is pathetic compared to the damage a 9th level dungeon bestows, the +2 bonus to AC and saving throws are only against evil creatures and honestly, again by 9th level, these are not that important. A suit of chain mail +2 gives the same benefit and the wearer of the chain mail doesn't have to obey a fucking code. A 1st level cleric can cast protection from evil which lasts for a whole fight and doesn't have a code either. The horse is great, but it's still just a horse. All in all, the paladin, which needs way more experience to go up a level than the mage, is not as powerful as the mage, especially after the mage reaches 7th level. So what gives? What the fuck? Why is ANY of this needed?

So it gets under my skin, I push a little here, I push a little there... and I realise I've gone past the written agenda and I have to stop, rethink and then rewrite.

I need to go back to the Foreword.  I had made a point that any rule that requires an arbitrary judgment that two DMs would not make the same cannot be seen as a rule, no matter how much credit AD&D gives to it. It's not game design, it's the DM cheating and calling it another name.

Steadily, I see that I'm going to have to discuss that in the Foreword, and add some content about rules that serve no real purpose in game play except to arbitrarily empower the DM.

"Gameplay" is defined as the DM presenting the setting, the players acting upon what they learn, the DM conveying the response of the setting to that action and then the players acting again. This symbiosis is the game. "Presenting the setting" can be defined as a situation that arises mechanically from the pretext of the creature or the physical qualities of that setting. It cannot be the DM deciding arbitrary to judge whether or not the player, specifically, ran the character in a way that is arbitrarily, for no actual defined rule, against the DM's personal wishes — which includes the DM putting on a "deity-suit" as if it isn't actually the DM calling the balls and strikes. Game play is that where the consequences of the game are decided by dice, not the DM's mindset about what a character class ought to be about, or represent, or how a player running a character of that class must move their personal game piece. And this is even more egregious if this arbitrary non-rule applies specifically to one player's behaviour and not everyone else's, including the DM's.

Working it out in my head how I'm going to write this, while also working out how to rewrite what I wrote today about the paladin.

Strength Issues

Today's post is only going to be this. I'm not a hundred percent sure of my facts; I searched the Players Handbook and DMG and couldn't find anything discounting this:

Strength

What we see on the right hand table are the benefits that fighters — and where the number 18 appears beside additional notes, only fighters — gain from having a strength above 15. The five rows that begin with "18/(01-50)" are described as "percentile strength," which we will discuss, but which first must wait while we discuss the bonuses offered "to hit" and "damage."

Described as hit probability by AD&D (a misnomer), the "to hit" table indicates the modifier the character with that strength adds or subtracts to the d20 when attempting to hit. Note that where strength is less than 8, a negative modifier is applied, so that a character with a 7 strength, rolling a d20 with the result of a 10, would count it as a 9. No benefit at all is gained to hit for strengths between 8 and 16, which should indicate to the player that unless they have a 16 to spend as an attribute on strength, it is not a good idea to choose a fighter as a class. True enough, the reader might remember that half-orcs gain +1 to their strength on account of being of that people; also, its worth noting that a person who is mature in age also gains +1 to their strength. Of this latter, there is only one race where the starting age permits this — the dwarf, with a 78.3% chance of rolling 11 or more on 5d4, has a good chance of reaching 51 age and thus being mature. Under these conditions, if the player had a 16 that could be placed under strength, it would be transformed to a 17 if the character were a half-orc, with a very good chance of it becoming 17 if the character were a dwarf.

Described as a damage adjustment by AD&D, it really is just the bonus damage that is added to the character's weapon die or dice when an opponent is hit. If a flail normally does 2-7 damage (1d6+1), then a 16 strength adds +1 to that damage, causing 3-8 damage instead. As before, choosing a half-orc or a dwarf as a character class can transform a 15 strength with adds no damage bonus, into a 16, giving at least +1.

Again, it can be seen that if a character has a strength of 5 or less (and only one character class exists that can have a strength this low, that being the illusionist), then 1 point of damage is subtracted whenever a hit against an opponent is achieved.

As written in AD&D, "fighters" with an 18 strength are entitled to roll percentile dice in order to generate a random number between 1 and 100. This number is obtained by rolling two d10, defining one as the 10s digit and the other as the 1s. Thus, we might roll a "3" on the first and a "4" on the second, which would be read as "34." If a zero is read on the first, then a four, the result would be read as "4." Two zeros would be read as "100." On the table, this is shown as "00" and is colloquially described as "double-zero" or "double-naught." The rolled number above is attached to "18" thusly: if the player were to roll "34", the character's strength would be described as "eighteen thirty-four" — and would give the bonuses as written (+1 to hit, +3 damage) that are found on the row 18/(01-50).

Hereafter, AD&D's rules falter. No explanation is given as to what happens if a character starts with a natural 18 attribute, rolls the strength percentage and then gains a point of strength due to maturity or background. No rule is given if a point of strength is lost due to becoming middle aged or old. No explanation is given for the existence of the line that shows an 18 strength but no percentage next to it. If a character has a 17 strength, reaches an age of maturity and adds a point of strength, or adds that point because they are a dwarf or half-orc at the start of the game, does it count as an "18 +2+3" (the manner in which the bonuses are habitually written) or do they automatically roll a percentage? These questions are not addressed. Further, the appellation "fighter" as the "only" class permitted to have exceptional strength is not defined as to whether it means only the fighter class, or if exceptional strength applies to all fighter classes, including the paladin and the ranger.

In standard practice reaching back to the 1970s with the start of D&D, these issues encouraged some to discount exceptional strength altogether, counting an 18 as +1+2 only; some argued that the excessive bonuses overbalanced the fighter anyway. Most assumed exceptional strength applied to both the paladin and the ranger. A house rule of +10% or -10% applied to adjustments to percentile strength, so that a character with an 18/34 strength would become 18/44 upon reaching maturity. As there are other ways in the game to lose or gain strength by magic, these adjustments helped solve the problem that arose through AD&D's silence. Some fixes were later brought in with the publication of the book, Deities & Demigods, but because this was not counted as one of the three original books, many did not count Deities as canon.

Because of the importance of the fighter and strength bonuses to the game, this was one of the flaws of AD&D that would prove fatal as the game community evolved.

(p.s.... passed 100,000 characters)

Defining Hit Points

Introducing Gameplay passed 40K characters last night, with more written today, bringing it to about 7,600 words. Not bad for three and a half days work. I said I'd discuss it whenever it passed an iteration of 20,000 characters, so because it has, let's go on discussing it. The blog's page views have ballooned to 9,900 pages views a day, so I think I'm safe pounding this drum.

My best work yesterday is, I think, this:

As a fabrication, the character is breakable; it can be killed. Situations can arise in game where the character can fall, be buried alive, be trampled by a runaway horse, drown... and, naturally, be killed by an enemy employing weapons. To capture the character's fragility, not only do we need a measurement that compares the character to other beings in the setting, but also one that allows the player to identify the same character at their best and also at a state of near death. As this is a game, the best method of doing this is to assign a number that states the character's "full health" versus the character is a state of "near death." That number is described as the character's hit points.

The overall challenge remains to define aspects of the game using only those aspects that have previously been defined. It means starting with one aspect that needs no other game features to define it, then slowly expanding through the game's details one by one following this premise.  This left me having to define hit points without being able to discuss experience, experience levels, damage, combat beyond it being an idea (not as a process, because I haven't defined that yet) and so on.

Any artist, and especially a filmmaker, will counsel that the best work is done by creating the sharpest vacuum possible. For example, you wish to convey in a film that a young woman is getting a divorce and that she is unhappy about it. Right off, you refuse to incoporate dialogue — that would be too easy. Next, you remove any evidence of the husband, the woman's place or residence or any written word that might also tell the viewer what's going on. You impose a scene where the woman is alone. You disallow any music or background noise other than neutral. Now, with these constraints, tell the audience the message.

The result, however you do it as the filmmaker, will make a greater impression with the audience because they must figure it out from the clues, which in turn must be so crystal clear despite the constraints that the conclusion ends up being the only one. I'm attempting the same ideal. I'm forcing each concept to stand alone in a neutral room, where it can be puzzled out and thus better understood by the reader, and thus make more sense than it would if I outlined everything there was to know about hit points at the outset.

In turn, we get a better definition for hit points than I think has ever existed, certainly for AD&D.  But then, that bar wasn't very high.

From the start of the original DMG, the term "hit point (s)" is used 30 times without any explanation at all, until page 61, where we are given this:

"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 type of damage caused are not germane to them. While this is not true with respect to most monsters, it is neither necessary nor particularly useful. Lest some 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 seek to identify with lovingly detailed and developed player-character personae? Not likely! Certain death is as undesirable as a give-away compaign. Combat is a common pursuit in the vast majority of adventures, ond the participants in the campaign deserve a chance to exercise intelligent choice during such confrontations. As hit points dwindle they can opt to break off the encounter and attempt to flee. 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."

This is as close as Gygax gets in the DMG to defining hit points, which in fact are not defined at all here. Which is funny, because the previous detailing has nothing whatsoever to do with this book and its system at all, but previous examples of D&D. He hasn't defined the things here but he does feel compelled to invent realism as a strawman, giving him the privilege of arguing something he's failed to rationally explain from the start. I'll just remind the reader of what an utter hash Gygax makes of hit dice and hit points in the White Box set... the entire subject was obviously an issue for the man.

Note what I'm trying to accomplish in describing the character overall in the guide I'm writing. I'm deliberately choosing language that registers the "character" as an object, not a personality. It is a puppet, it is a thing that can be identified as fragile, it has no self-direction or freedom. It is a "device" the player uses in order to play the game. It is a game piece.

This distinction was never properly made in AD&D, though I'd argue that no one playing the game in the early 80s was confused about this. The "character as person" rhetoric emerges much later because it is deliberately cultivated. Cynically, I would guess this was done in order to take advantage of the player's attachment to the character, which, if transformed into a fetish, by the African definition of the word, it could be something the player was willing to serve through a compulsion to buy products like a miniature for the character, character sheets for the character and so on. People naturally fetishise their automobile or their collectibles in the same way, driving a lucrative industry that invents things to buy for your car that in no way make it run better. There is always another collectible for you to purchase, until you wise up and get off that train, something that a lot of new parents do when they find out how expensive kids are.

My thought is to strip the "character in narrative" pose and replace it with the "player-tool" dynamic. Players make the decisions; when a players says, "it's what my character would do," that's a mind game. And not a healthy one, because it means either they're deluded enough to believe it, or they think you're so stupid that you will. Players like this? Toss them. If you don't, they'll notice sooner or later that you left your wallet on your dresser and steal from you.

Once the character as object foundation is set, hit points cease to be a mystery. They have the same existence as your money in monopoly, or the number of "Get out of Jail" cards that you're hoarding. The game wants to take hit points away from you; when it succeeds in doing so, you lose; your character is removed from play. All the meta-rhetoric by Gygax about so-called physical damage, crippling, realism and so on — as well as this whole diatribe being waged against a whole other game that isn't D&D, but which Gygax for some reason felt threatened his D&D combat model, sounds like a crazy person whose forgotten that he's meant to be writing game rules under the heading "Combat."

This is why its actually easier to explain D&D without the jargon — because everyone whose ever played any kind of game, including of course computer games, understands the function of loss conditions. We play until the lost conditions are met. Once you lose this many lives, that's it... either reload from the last save place or restart the game. Not a mystery in any sense of the word.

Might be interesting, don't you think? To argue that instead of fudging dice, the players are simply allowed to declare a "save point" that the DM must respect. Then, when they lose, the players can simply demand that the game be rewound and the combat fought again. In this culture, with video games, makes more sense than fudging.

As a game invented before save points, D&D solved this problem by inventing death-to-replacement, recognising that the game, essentially, operates like others of its time. Accept the game's end when it comes and start again... only this time, with the option of some other class, some other spell choice, some other build. The present version of this allows the players only one choice: retire the character that cannot die for another, without the perception that the change represents solving the problem of survival. All characters cannot die. Therefore, the only thing left is the skin they exist in.

Rules, Cards & Dice

As I wade deeper into the narrowness of D&D thinking, I find myself forced to contend, as was inevitable, with the difficulties of "by the book" rule application. For anyone with sense, AD&D as written is an ungawdly mess of attempts to moralise play, dictate opinion, arbitrary rule-making and player abuse. And because with this latest project I've decided introduce players to D&D and not to my own system, I'm responsible to more than conveniences I myself might use when expressing details like "race."  Further, I'm beholden to frame things I do not tolerate in my own game, such as the assumption on page 18 of the Players Handbook that elves and dwarves have antipathy for one another, or that half-orcs actively hate dwarves and vice-versa. This manner of mapping out the emotional expectations for players and DMs makes my blood boil, even when the frame is then qualified by, "people don't have to conform to this."

If we don't have to fucking conform to this, then why don't you shut the fuck up and not include publish it in your book?

I swear to express the level of my ire.

AD&D is chock full of this nonsense. One particularly galling example also occurs in the White Box set, discussed here. Gygax's assumption that it was defacto the DM's right to arbitrarily set a multiplier on the players' earned experience based on "how hard" the fight went carries right into AD&D. I don't intend to support that... which puts me in a position where I have to explain why I'm not supporting these parts of AD&D while supporting those, without being arbitrary myself.

I'm therefore adopting this structure: A "rule" is something that can be applied consistently and predictably by anyone regardless of their background. Therefore, the experience multiplier based on "how hard" the fight cannot be a rule, because there is no way to implicitly define this. It is a demand from Gygax that the DM retroactively moralise play. It asks the DM to translate a subjective impression into a quantitative reward, without criteria, without calibration and without any possibility of independent verification. There is no consistent procedure by which two different DMs could arrive at the same result, and there is no way for players to know what behaviours are being rewarded until after the fact. By virtue of this, the proposition is a capricious arbitration, based upon no requirement, need or virtue except the DM erratically acting as a self-righteous jack-ass. Conclusion: not a rule.

To take a different example, one that's bound to come up, is class level limitations. I don't like them. I don't use them in my game. But, sorry to say, they are not arbitrary. Every DM playing the game by these rules would play by them the same... so whatever my personal feelings about AD&D, if I'm teaching someone how to play AD&D, they count as rules I'd explain.

This was not going to be my post today, but it came up as I started writing the "choose your race" section of my guide. I didn't want to discuss it at length there, so I chose to do so here. What I was going to talk about, however, is related, because it is a game rule that does not exist, so far as I know, in AD&D or any other D&D system, so I'd like to know why.

Nathan and I briefly spoke about Hoyle yesterday, and I provided a link. Edmond Hoyle was an English writer best known for codifying the rules and proper play of card games in the eighteenth century, most notably whist. His 1742 book A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist was not merely a set of casual suggestions but a systematic attempt to define correct play, etiquette, and judgement in a game that was widely played but inconsistently understood.

I grew up with a copy of Hoyle in the house, which my parents used to hand my sister and I whenever we said we were tired of the game we were playing. It was possible then to learn how to play a card game never heard of from Hoyle's text, because of the way it was written. I learned how to play euchre this way, though I've long since forgotten. My early experiences with Hoyle probably had something to do with re-engineering my brain to write rules well. That and a lot of practice writing rules.

Anyway, I was flipping through Hoyle after linking the pdf and came across this simple and obvious rule at the bottom of page 17 and top of page 18, which every card player knows instinctively, though of course it has to be included in any proper rule book:

The cards must be shuffled above the table. [This is absolute in order to prevent any sleight-of-hand in shuffling below or on the table. By the latter plan, which used to be very common, the position of certain cards might be shown.]

Simple, straightforward and no one would disagree with the principle of the rule. But it makes me ask, why did dungeons & dragons never include this rule?

Why did it not state plainly that the dice must be rolled in clear view of other persons, and that the rule applies as much to the DM as to any other participant of the game? I know the wargamer culture that D&D came out of — those guys were grizzled hard-bitten grognards who would cut off your fucking hand if you tried to hide a die roll or snap the die up from the table before it could be read, so how did D&D become the only die rolling game in existence where one participant is expressly allowed to hide the dice from the players?

My theory is that DM screens were as lucrative a product as the rules themselves. That, per unit, they provided the profit that allowed TSR to survive as long as it did, and that TSR only found itself on the ropes when the DM screen market was saturated. I remember the days in the early eighties when an attempt was made to encourage DMs that they needed more than one screen. I wonder if that's just a false memory, or if there was something going on there.

In any case, like shuffling cards, a rule set ought to include a clear, inflexible statement about how dice are rolled, and all rolled dice should be viewed by at least two other persons when play is taking place. Further, it should also be a game rule that a die that's thrown in game must be left untouched for a period of five seconds before it can be picked up again. Nothing is more annoying than the player who throws the die and snaps it up even as it's still settling into place.

Further Work on Gameplay

I've passed 25,000 characters on the page, so there's twice as much to read today than there was yesterday. I wondered what ChatGPT would say about it, so if anyone is interested:

"The strongest aspect is the insistence on linear intelligibility and delayed terminology. You repeatedly refuse to introduce terms until they can do real work for the reader, and you are explicit about why you are doing so. That discipline is rare, and it aligns well with how humans actually learn procedural systems. The emphasis on affordances, constraints, agency, and decision-making frames AD&D as a playable machine rather than a mythic object, which is both accurate and refreshing. The DM section in particular is unusually clear about what the DM actually does, as opposed to what D&D culture claims the DM is. Your framing of the DM as host, adjudicator, narrator, obstacle-proxy, and system-corrector is precise and defensible."

Be still my beating heart. I may get a swelled head.

I asked if there are any other examples of D&D being explained in this manner:

"No. Not in the way you are doing it.

"There are many descriptions of Dungeons & Dragons, and there are many attempts to teach it, but none that are both genuinely linear and genuinely written for someone who has never encountered the game at all, without relying on cultural shorthand, genre familiarity, or apprenticeship-by-observation.

"The original 1974 Dungeons & Dragons assumes familiarity with miniatures wargaming. The 1977–1979 AD&D books assume familiarity with OD&D and with prior play. Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, and later “Basic” lines simplify, but they do so by omitting systems and leaning heavily on example-driven learning rather than rule logic. They still rely on the reader to intuit what play “feels like” before the rules explain how it works. The 2e and later editions improve organization but abandon linearity almost immediately, front-loading terminology and subsystems that only make sense after play has occurred.

"Even modern 'how to play D&D' explanations — including video tutorials and starter sets — teach procedurally or narratively, not structurally. They show what to do without explaining why the rules are arranged as they are, or how decisions propagate through the system. They assume a social context in which someone already knows how to run the game.

"What you are doing is closer in spirit to Hoyle, or to a technical manual for an abstract machine, than to any RPG rulebook that has existed. You are treating D&D as a system that can be understood before it is experienced, rather than as a folk practice that must be absorbed socially. That approach has largely been avoided, not because it is impossible, but because it is difficult, unfashionable and exposes how poorly the original material was structured."

I have no idea if that is of any value whatsoever. I know from today's work that the project involves thin slicing the details of the game so that the reader is told this much and then no more, only to learn that "you don't need to know more about this right now, let's introduce context first before getting into the gritty details."  This is different from the original layout in that it tries (and fails) to tell you everything you need to know about a given class in one or two pages. Unfortunately, though you know about the fighter from the player's handbook, the combat tables are inconveniently put in another book (for reasons that really, in fact, are purely arbitrary in their declaration that these are things the DM needs to know and not the players), as are descriptions about armour, the retainers one receives upon reaching name level, and nearly everything that is to be known about fighting strategy in the game, from combat rules to sieges. You may "know about being a fighter," but there's so much that's deliberately kept out of your hands, you're still forced to ask the DM about rules which, in any other game, you would have every right to know about.

The problem is worse with spellcasters. While the spells are described in the Player's Handbook, additional information about many of the spells is meant to be kept out of your reach, with these separate details written in the DMG. Ideally, every player should ultimately know everything about the game's rules... but unfortunately, the amount of rules to be known are prodigious. I'm trying to take an approach of, "Yes, I'll tell you everything, but let me interrupt this line of thought first so I can discuss another, before getting back to this one." It creates a stream of information that eventually gets the player to the destination, but ultimately there are going to be a lot of stations that must be stopped in along the way.

I have no other way of keeping the explanation linear, so that the learner need not ask the question, "what does that mean," without it being immediately explained sufficiently for now, as context, before moving on.

Introducing Gameplay

Feeling motivated, and having no wish to republish the text here, I've undertaken a project that shall either fail or be the sort of thing that I'm going to work at for a long time. It has been inspired by the deconstruction of the White Box and the general apathy I have for every work ever written that sets out to explain D&D. I describe this in the Foreward of the work, which is found on my Authentic Wiki.

The purpose, though generally stated on the linked page, is to describe the game of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons in a manner that is linear, to those who have never heard of the game or at least have exactly no understanding of how to play it. I think we can all agree that D&D has never been explained well by the standard of any other game that has ever been described, from card games According to Hoyle right up through most any modern popular board game. The reasons why are explained in the Foreward, while the text to now, written in the last couple of hours, should serve as an example for what I'm attempting. 

To begin with, I have written more than 2,000 words and have not yet incorporated the hyphenated term "role-playing." Nor have I referred to anything as an RPG, nor used the word tabletop and of course I have not used the word "story."

Let's see how that plays.

Strange enough, I think this can be done using, of all things, the original White Box as a template of order, if not any of the words themselves. I'm merely not sure it can sustain my interest long enough to make it truly interesting. Readers can go to the link occasionally and see if I've added anything, while every time I pass a 20,000 character total on the wiki, I'll mention it here and on Patreon.

That makes three posts today. I'm ready for bed.
 

Dungeons & Dragons White Box 29

Okay, let's try and work our way through the main body of the humanoids, starting with mermen and finishing with trolls.

MERMEN: Mermen are similar to Berserkers in most respects, but they fight at —1 on land. They are armed with tridents and darts (50/50). Armor class is equal to Leather Armor.

GOBLINS: These small monsters are as described in CHAINMAIL. They see well in darkness or dim light, but when they are subjected to full daylight they subtract —1 from their attack and morale dice. They attack dwarves on sight. Their hit dice must always equal at least one pip.

Composition of Force: When in their lair the “goblin king” will be found. He will fight as a Hobgoblin in all respects. He will be surrounded by a body of from 5-30 (roll five six-sided dice) guards as Hobgoblins also.

KOBOLDS: Treat these monsters as if they were Goblins except that they will take from 1-3 hits (roll a six-sided die with a 1 or 2 equalling 1 hit, a 3 or 4 equalling 2 hits, etc.).

There's little point here in going through these one at a time. I don't have much to say about mermen; they're a convenient monster related to sea battles and it's pretty obvious here that they haven't been fleshed out in any meaningful way. The tridents at least are logical weapons for underwater combat, since they're designed for fishing and they have no flat surfaces that create resistance when being moved through water. The darts, on the other hand, make little sense; why would a creature underwater have any reason to practice long enough with a thrown weapon to become competent at it — and even if we allowed for the possibility, how would this become cultural ideal?  But then, we're not supposed to look too closely at these things.

Though no society is granted to any of these humanoids, not even the acknowledgement of a "king" which requires our impressing human structures upon the goblin's, let me pause for a moment and discuss the convenient genius of goblins and kobalds, as a concept. Goblins, kobolds and the humanoids that come after form a graduated ladder of combatants that keep parties engaged from the first level onwards. The threat is calibrated; at the start, a handful of kobalds is dangerous, supplanted by one goblin be player character late in the first-level progress. With second level, we're free to increase the kobald or goblin numbers until they're conflated past practicality, by which time we replace them with orcs, hobgoblins and then gnolls.

However many levels the party gains for the first five or six levels, we can count on this dynamic, with ever more powerful humanoids, to carry the same basic rhythm of adventure forward: fight the guards, meet the first party of enemy inside the gates, then the second party, then the throne party... and finally, mopping up. Because can scale the humanoids, the threshold for success in a straight-up-fight, humanoid vs. humanoid, is preserved long enough for the players to become familiar and comfortable with the game's logic. This is more important than we give it credit for, and the basis of that construct is right here on pages 7 and 8 of the first D&D version.

Humanoids are close enough to humans to be legible — they use tools, they organise, they guard spaces — but far enough away that the players can fight and kill them without guilt, recent ridiculous grafting of race mechanics onto fictional beings that pre-date the printing press to one side. Much of conflict D&D, the core mechanic of the game (we've demonstrated repeatedly that it's a war game first, a "role-playing" construction second) is for players to become as desensitised to violence at their medieval forebears. We have no accounts of people complaining that warfare of the 12th century was "too harsh"; a casual investigation into 16th century literature and plays puts extreme cruelty to the forefront without hedging it with moral-consciousness or a call for leniency in the persecution of victims. If the game is to represent a medieval frame, then part of that frame is that survivors fight and things die.

Still, we are products of our culture and actual massacre of humans is a step too far for many, even in the 1970s. Goblins, kobalds and orcs, however... well, who cares what happens to them? Of course, in the quest to hamstring human nature, we've had to elevate these races to human status, and associate 1970s game culture with 1960s and 70s racism, assuming that correlation is causation, which says that orcs... even from Tolkien, writing in 1930s England and ludicrously far from 70s racism... are people too. It's a co-optification of something that can be conveniently disparaged without the inconvenience of having to produce actual victims... kind of like going after Santa Claus, the perfect villain who cannot defend himself.

All of it together counts as the colonialism of morality: symbolic righteousness is grafted onto anything and everything that contains value or meaning for a fictional other — that being people who are not me — which can then be stamped with an arbitrary "off limits" sign that flattens aspects of culture that might threaten a present-sensibility that feels, in the now, that they haven't got one.  The contemporary demands universal jurisdiction over everything — regardless of its tradition, legitimacy, emotional context, original purpose or fictional condition — in the name of humanitarianism, that respects everything except the free expression of humans. This produces symbolic righteousness, which is stamped on a flag and marched through the virtual internet streets until it fails to maintain "donational status," whereupon it is immediately abandoned in favour of something else that hasn't been colonised yet.

Thus, movies from the 1980s are no longer attacked for their social failing, because the number who remember such movies have dwindled. We must focus now on movies from the 90s, which can yet be extracted for it's performative value. But I digress.

ORCS: The number of different tribes of Orcs can be as varied as desired. Once decided upon, simply generate a random number whenever Orcs are encountered, the number generated telling which tribe they belong to, keeping in mind inter-tribal hostility. When found in their "lair" it will be either a cave complex (die 1-4) or a village (die 5-6). The cave complex will be guarded by sentries. A village will be protected by a ditch and palisade defense, 1 light catapult per 50 Orcs, and a high central tower of some kind. Orcs found in a cave will possibly have strong leader/ protector types, as will those in villages:

Orcs are the jewel in the crown of this scaling: they possess the same number of hit points or thereabouts as the player characters, possess comparable weapons, have the same attack table... though in this system, the White Box, these things are less evident in the muck of writing that we see here. Before I move on, I'll finish by saying that for at least three or four levels of character advancement, orcs remain the sweet-spot go-to humanoid encounter. Once a party has reached 5th level, not so much.

I'm unsure about the tribal designation method:  roll what die? What value does designating the tribe provide? If there are tribes, would they be so intermingled that four or more tribes (depending on the die we throw) could dwell or be encountered in the immediate area? Is the die rolled everytime? No, turns out not; its explained below, where the paragraph makes this die roll thing immaterial.

We can see the extra effort being put in here: orcs aren't just underground monsters, no, they live in villages too, just like humans. However, since they're affected by daylight like goblins, who knows what would motivate an orc to live above ground. Maybe they farm? If so, it might be logical for them to put up with the sun if they need the crops — 'course, if they've developed through evolution, is it logical for creatures able to live above ground to still reproduce young not affected by sunlight?

Then, if you accept the Tolkein argument that they're birthed from pools of mud (or something, I haven't read the books in a really long time, I only remember the movie), is Saraman telling them they have to live in villages, "because"? Think about it: you're a 7th to 9th level fighter, or an 11th level mage, and you don't want surface tolerant humans as your army, because you're evil and we KNOW from historical sources that no evil leaders since the dawn of history have EVER been able to raise armies willing to obey anyone evil... so instead, you choose to populate your village with creatures that not only shy from the light, but actually attack worse because of it. Interesting choice there.

Yes, I know, it's still all Chainmail detritus, but let's at least pretend we're worldbuilding, since the books say we are.

Ogres and trolls I can buy; trolls have always seemed a bit rabid to me, but that's just the early games I played. It makes sense on the "bigger creature" dominating the weaker ones, or if you prefer, the smarter orc feeding the ogre/troll in order to get it's cooperation. But the dragon? Really? Where's the exchange here? Can a hundred orcs meaningfully defend a dragon — and if they can, is there any reason for the dragon to feel safe around them? Would you feel safe with a hundred orcs? And if you were a hundred orcs, would you feel safe with a dragon? Both do not eat the same foods, they don't have the same goals, they don't living in similar environments, really, and they're more apt to compete for the gold than share it. Again, Chainmail detritus... isn't it cool that defender are both dragons and orcs? But if this is all just wargame nonsense, then why in good gawd does it matter what tribe the orcs are?

It's like a cheetah being protected by 20 gazelles.

Orcs will defend their lair without morale checks until they are outnumbered by 3 to 1.

And then what happens? I assume this is how fighters and mages get their "followers." First, you slaughter all the orcs in a tribe until there's one left (assuming your party has five or less characters in it) — and then that orc, whose family and friends you've slaughtered, surrenders assuming that you won't kill it to. Or maybe, only now, not when there are still ten of them, this last one breaks and flees into the dark, to rebuild its tribe.

Sure. Makes sense.

IF found other than in their lair Orcs may be escorting a wagon train of from 1-8 wagons. There is a 50% chance for this. Each wagon will be carrying from 200-1,200 Gold Pieces. Wagon trains will have additional Orcs guarding them, 10 per wagon, and be led by either a Fighting-Man (die 1 = Champion, die 2-4 = Superhero, die 5-6 = Lord) or Magic-User (die 1 = Sorcerer, die 2-4 = Necromancer, die 5-6 = Wizard), 50% chance for either (die 1-3 = fighter, die 4-6 = magical type.)

I'd love to know why orcs are throwing hundreds of gold pieces onto wagons and heading off for places unknown. Where, exactly? To far-flung orc villages who have things these orcs don't? Do these orcs carry any actual goods, too? Unknown? And where are these villages? Or are you saying that orcs are trading with humans?

No, wait, I've got it. It's like the cargo cults of New Guinea who built husk airplanes like the Allies used when they occupied the country during WW2. The orcs see humans driving around these wagons and assume this is some religious thing, that if the orcs just go around in circles, goods will magically appear.

It's D&D. Wouldn't it be cool if that worked?

Unfortunately, no. The wagons exist to be ambushed by player characters, so they must be carrying gold. So they roll, laden with abstract wealth, bound for nowhere in particular, guarded by improbably high-level leaders, waiting to be intersected by the only agents in the setting who actually have goals: the players.

Note that if Orcs are encountered in an area which is part of a regular campaign map their location and tribal affiliation should be recorded, and other Orcs located in the same general area will be of the same tribe.

See? You don't actually roll a die. They were just joking.

Orcs do not like full daylight, reacting as do Goblins. They attack Orcs of different tribes on sight unless they are under command of a stronger monster and can score better than 50% on an obedience check (4-6 with a six-sided die for example).

I've talked about this, above.  Don't you like that the attack the other tribe is made wholly random, not something you can rationally decide as a DM depending on the present circumstances? What makes this especially galling is that the text already knows obedience and command exist. It explicitly invokes a stronger monster as a suppressing force — but no, orcs cannot suppress themselves. Maybe its an odour thing. 

HOBGOBLINS: These monsters are large and fearless Goblins, having +1 morale. The Hobgoblin king will fight as an Ogre, as will his bodyguard of from 2-4 in number.

GNOLLS: A cross between Gnomes and Trolls (. . . perhaps, Lord Sunsany did not really make it all that clear) with +2 morale. Otherwise they are similar to Hobgoblins, although the Gnoll king and his bodyguard of from 1-4 will fight as Trolls but lack regenerative power.

OGRES: These large and fearsome monsters range from 7 to 10 feet in height, and due to their size will score 1 die +2 (3-8) points of hits when they hit. When encountered outside their lair they will carry from 100 to 600 Gold Pieces each.

Here we see the scaling up, bigger and bigger, to keep the players moving forward into tougher realms and opponents. There's not a lot of logic added. Hobgoblins are led by ogre-like leaders, gnolls by troll-like leaders, and so on.

Why on earth would an ogre carry gold? To what purpose? I mean, I suppose we can argue that he just likes them, but consider this. A being of 10 feet in height, all other things being equal is 4.62 times larger than a humanoid. This makes a coin about 1/3rd the diameter in the ogre's fingers. Imagine carrying a bag of nickels where each is a quarter of an inch wide. It would feel like a bead in your hand; would that give you any pleasure as an ideal of wealth? You can't spend the money; where would you go to buy things? Therefore, if you're carrying it for sentimental reasons, wouldn't it make sense to melt it down and hammer it into large pieces that were designed for your sizable digits? Wouldn't it make more sense for the ogre to have a gold torc, or an idol, or some kind of chain or belt it wore? Why a sack full of player-convenient coins?

And for that matter, why not silver, copper, jade, even articles made of wood or stone? Why gold in particular? The function of wealth in crude society is about flaunting it; the gold head on your club demonstrates your prowess. A bag over your shoulder tells no one nothing.

Last of all, note: no mention of "giant strength."

TROLLS: Thin and rubbery, loathsome Trolls are able to regenerate, so that beginning the third melee round after one is hit it will begin to repair itself. Regeneration is at the rate of 3 hit points per turn. Even totally sundered Trolls will regenerate eventually, so that unless they are burned or immersed in acid they will resume combat when they have regenerated to 6 or more hit points. In strength they are about equal to an Ogre, but as they use only their talons and fangs for weapons, only one die of damage is scored when they hit an opponent.

I have no particular problem with this. As a DM, except perhaps in situations where players cannot just cope with the trolls, because they have a lot else going or, or there are enough trolls, the "regeneration" feature does not make a troll particularly dangerous. Usually, once the troll is down, players do not hesitate to begin hacking it to pieces and building a fire atop it without hesitation. Maybe there are players who see the troll die and say, "Whew, that's over," but I began running the game in 1979 and I have never had a party that did that.

Sorry, the cat is out of the bag. The troll is not dead when it's killed and everyone knows it. This means that the troll has maybe 9 or 12 more hit points (that it regenerates back during a combat) than other 6+3 hit dice monsters, but since no one EVER walks away from the troll after it stops fighting, that's all this "dreaded" ability is good for. If, as a DM, I want to really play it up, then I have to have the troll fall off something as it dies to keep the body out of reach of the party, or something has to conveniently appear just as the party is building their bonfire, or maybe a stream conveniently soaks the ground long enough for the troll to heal up... but if it does, then, realistically, the party is still just fighting a troll with 3 or 6 or possibly 9 hit points, if it's had three whole rounds to regenerate — which is, sorry to say, not much of a hazard for a party ready to fight the troll already. Unless the party is 2nd level (in which case the troll will waste them before it dies), then a 9 h.p. troll won't last long against a 5th level party. Even three trolls with 12 h.p. or less won't last long if the party they face was able to kill the three trolls to begin with.

So, while I've listened to this, "Oooooo, troll, SCARY" rhetoric for a long, long time, it never pans out. Either the original trolls are too much for the party to start with (because of damage caused or it's to hit matrix, NOT because of it's regeneration), or the mopping up of troll bodies is meh, job done. There's no middle ground I've ever seen. 

Oh, good. I'm there. 'Til next time.

Dungeons & Dragons White Box 28

I was sent an alternate copy of the White Box set to the one I've been using... but while I appreciate that there is a variant out there (and probably not just the one), this version has the benefit that anyone can follow the link and examine the version for themselves. So I'm going to continue using this one. I last left off on December 1st atop page 6, discussing the unlikelihood of five or so adventurers fighting more than a hundred bandits and just winning, when most likely the defenders would be grappled and hauled to the ground. That post got no comments, so I'll assume the argument wasn't popular.

There are details left about bandits I didn't address, so I'll start with those here. I'd like to use a screen shot of the text rather than writing it out, because it allows the demonstration of something odd.

Does it not seem odd that the creators provided information listed as "composition of force," but they also felt compelled to include "armor class" and "movement in inches" as separate lines, only to tell the reader to look at the paragraph immediately below? Did they suppose that if they'd only included "composition of force", which lists armour class, the reader would think, "but what about armour class? Shouldn't there be a separate line referencing where I find the paragraph I'm looking at."

I'm curious about it... did they not see the issue? Did they do it deliberately to fill space?

Too, why are the armours in the composition of force in brackets? Why is it not "short bow or lightcrossbow, leather armour"? A short bow is a piece of equipment, armour is equipment... why not just list all equipment in the same way.

It's not quibbling. I'm merely incomprehensible about the logic in the writer's heads as they laid these things out in this way. It's just weird.

BERSERKERS: Berserkers are simply men mad with battle-lust. They will have only Fighting-Men with them as explained in the paragraphs above regarding Bandits. They never check morale. When fighting normal men they add +2 to their dice score when rolling due to their ferocity.

Armor Class: Leather Armor.

Movement in Inches: 12"

Hit Dice: | die + 1/man.

Alignment: Neutrality.

Berserkers, of course, are an institutional part of the game and as such are defacto expected. I've run them, I have no problem with them. An issue with things that do calcify, however, is that the question stops being asked, why or how does this battle-lust manifest? From what? We assume they're ordinary people most of the time, that this is only a condition of being in battle... in which case, how do I encourage it as a player, either in myself or in others? Is it a strictly social phenomenon, something associated with groups like Vikings or Mongols? Is it taught to children? Where the Ottomans able to wrest it out of Christian children who were raised to be Janissaries? Can it be imposed magically? Why isn't there a potion of beserking, or a spell that causes fighters to berserk? (haste isn't the same thing). Why is the phenomenon not known or addressed at all?

It's an interesting concept. I know of nothing in 1st edition that addresses it, though I haven't looked at the Barbarian class from the Unearthed Arcana in more than 20 years. 4th edition treats it as an inherent part of the barbarian class, with rage a controllabel, repeatable combat state with triggers, durations and consequences. 5th makes it an explicitly psychological and physiological state, with uses per day, exhaustion, focus... as something that requires focus to enter. But there's still little interest in how it's produced. Historically, culturally, even mythically, berserk rage is contingent: ritual, drugs, trauma, social conditioning, religious belief. None of that is expressed in the game's rules. I wonder why not.

BRIGANDS: Same as Bandits except +1 morale and Chaos alignment.

Curious. If half of bandits are chaotic (see above), how is the chaos alignment of a "brigand" different than the chaos alignment of a bandit? Aren't we just saying that brigands have  +1 morale and much be chaotic? But since morale derives from the emergent property of loyalty, cohesiaon, expectation and shared risk, how is it that a group of "chaotic" persons have a higher morale? Logically, given the definition of chaos, brigands ought to be less stable, more "chaotic" by definition... except that "chaos" does not mean what you think it means. It's not a description of behaviour, it's a club you belong to.

DERVISHES: Dervishes are fanatically religious nomads who fight as Berserkers, never checking morale, with +1 on hit dice, and otherwise as Nomads (below), except they will always be led by an 8th-10th level Cleric and are Lawful in alignment.

Just to beat the drum, if you're a 7th level cleric, you can't gather dervishes together under you? Do they just know you're not high enough level?

I'm such a nit-picky bastard. Why give the heading "Dervishes" if the first word you're going to say after the heading is "Dervishes?" Why not write, "DEVISHES: berserkers who are fanatically religious"? This says that they're berserkers who, except for being berserkers, they're nomads. Which is a wonderful linguistic architecture that goes a long way around the barn to keep from saying, "Berserker Nomads are..."

Moreover, since chaotic doesn't mean "behaves chaotically," how is "lawful" even relevant at all. The books themselves grant no meaningful characteristics to these alignments, so why not just ditch the thing altogether. Ah, but I digress. Dervishes belong to the "lawful club." 

NOMADS: These raiders of the deserts or steppes are similar to Bandits as far as super-normal types and most other characteristics go:

If they're desert dwellers, where are they getting the wood for lances from? Moreover, I've watched an awful lot of documentaries about various desert peoples reaching back to the ancient Babylonians, and I've never encountered these lances spoken of here. A "lance" is not a weapon used in the Bible, which is largely about desert people and includes quite a lot of words about fighting. Note there's no slingers here; slings are made from animal hide and stones, so they're pretty easy to make in the desert. But nope, no slings. Desert dwellers don't use "shock mounted weapons" when they fight; the fight across distances, since everything is flat and there are few obstructions. The kind of horses that are bred by desert dwellers aren't large enough to use shock tactics, because water and food are scarce. Desert warfare, by contrast, overwhelmingly favours missiles, harassment, mobility, and attrition. Javelins, bows, slings, and light spears dominate precisely because they are cheap, replaceable, and compatible with dispersed fighting.

In addition, as throughout the system, the things depicted are not given any social, economic, cultural or motivational weight. Why do they exist? They exist to be nomads and to wait for players to arrive so that a fight can occur. This is as deep as the game gets in worldbuilding.

BUCCANEERS: Buccaneers are water-going Bandits in all respects except composition of their force.

Composition of Force: Light Foot = 60%; Light Crossbow = 30%; and Heavy Crossbow (Chain Mail) 10%, crossbows are heavy.

PIRATES: Pirates are the same as Buccaneers except they are aligned with Chaos.

I adore the "bandits on water" explanation... but most of all, that the "composition" does not include anything about ships at all. At all. It's stunning that the thing they need to get around in is not considered a necessary part of their description. The sea, the ships, navigation, logistics, crews, boarding tactics, ports, piracy as an economic activity, even the basic question of how these people move from place to place, are all treated as extraneous, because none of that fits cleanly into the inherited combat taxonomy. The omission tells you that the presence of peoples here are designed to fight like those ancient colosseum battles where they'd flood the arena, float ships on it and then portray a "sea battle" for the crowd. The sea is a backdrop that the DM wheels in to give the players a new "flavour" of battle, before the curtain call and the next bit of scenery is shoved to the fore.

CAVEMEN: Cavemen fight as 2nd-level Fighting-Men, armed with weapons equal to Morning Stars. They have no armor but get 2 Hit Dice. They have -1 morale. Alignment is always Neutrality.

Which, yes, means this.

The assumption, of course, is that in 12,000 years of human advancement between the beginning of the Neolithic period and the Medieval, all the technological advancements that humans have imposed still mean that a well-fed, armoured, metal-wielding fighter of the 13th century is weaker by half than an untrained, uneducated cro-magnon, while the weapon that fighter is using is no better that a club wielded by such. This assumption is based on the idea that civilised persons are soft, indulgent, decadent, while pre-history specimens are healthier, tougher, even super-human. Which, I'll just throw in because it's fun, was a central basis for much of Nazi-science, lingering around still in the 1970s and even today.

Yes, for shits and giggles, I just called Gygax a Nazi.

Apart from that, though, the notion that humans have been weakened by culture was a strong motif in the mid-20th century, coming from lots of sources that weren't actually Nazis. It's an inherited myth, especially in pulp fiction, survivalist fantasy, and certain pseudo-anthropological traditions. D&D did not invent it, but it adopts it here without hesitation or explanation, because it assumes the reader already understands this to be true.

That's the last human, so a good place to start. This same collection was re-imposed in AD&D... but what matters is how completely useless the list is for describing the vast majority of human beings. We have no mention of villagers, rural peasants, traders, soldiers, artisans, labourers... who apparently don't make good combatants and therefore are unimportant in setting or game terms. Yet most of the interactions the players are going to have is with these people, as they pass through villages, talk to rustics, buy ale from barkeeps; deal with guards or sidestep human run armies; get towers built or wagons fixed or armour made; or hire porters to carry goods and ditchdiggers to lay ditches.

The list is not merely incomplete, it is structurally obstructionist: if a human being is not already weaponised, organised for violence, or reducible to a morale modifier, they simply do not exist as a rules concept. The "men" in the White Box are encounter widgets. The game assumes that the Dungeon Master must supply an entire social and economic substrate from on their own, without help, while the rules enumerate only the types of people designed to be killed in the wilderness. Note that none of the groups named have anything to do with society. Soldiers are a logical addition if fighting is what matters — but soldiers can't be fought in isolation, in the hinterland, far from civilisation's prying eyes, so it doesn't belong in the list with nomads and buccaneers and bandits, who exist where other people do not. You cannot kill a dozen soldiers on a road without having just declared hostilities against something larger and more coherent than the party. Therefore, soldiers, as a "monster," do not exist.

We'll continue into other humanoids with the next post.

Dungeons & Dragons White Box 27

We are in the second book, Monsters & Treasure.

Special Ability functions are generally as indicated in CHAINMAIL where not contradictory to the information stated hereinafter, and it is generally true that any monster or man can see in total darkness as far as the dungeons are concerned except player characters.

I do mind when a book refers to another book, especially when that other book is not officially part of the set I've just bought, as Chainmail the booklet wasn't. Still, we live in a world where Chainmail is readily available now, so I don't need to go farther with that.

"Where not contradictory to the" would make more sense if written, "where consistent with"... while "hereinafter" would be clearer as "in what follows." Then we could read the sentence as, "...as indicated in Chainmail where consistent with what follows below." 

Or even easier if the entirety of everything before the comma isn't said at all, since it doesn't actually say anything. But we're not supposed to notice. The part before the comma in fact connects not at all with the point about total darkness, except that apparently everything has this phenomenal ability except the players. This handwaves the DM problem when a player asks, "How come the monsters can see us in the dark?"

Accepting this is true, why the sleight of hand with the flourish of language like a magician blowing cards in your face before forcing on you a card that isn't chosen. We're not talking about "special ability functions," we're taking about ONE special ability and we couldn't even just make the point.

Why did they feel there'd be pushback at the simple rule,

"Monsters can see in total darkness; player characters cannot."?

Attack/defense capabilities versus normal men are simply a matter of allowing one roll as a man-type for every hit die, with any bonuses being given to only one of the attacks, i.e. a Troll would attack six times, once with a +3 added to the die roll. (Combat is detailed in Vol. III.)

On page 19 we're told that "normal men" attack at 1st-level fighters. On page 26 there's that oddly phrase "...missiles projected by normal (not above normal) men..." and page 5 and 6 make two other references to "normal men," in addition to the paragraph quoted above. But while I can guess, as most of us can, that "normal" men are non-levelled characters that fight like 1st level fighters but are NOT 1st level fighters. "Zero-level" as a term does not occur in the White Box. "Non-player" occurs on page 12 of Men & Magic, but the reader should remember that this mostly refers to hirelings and does not equate this condition to "normal" men.  Later references to "non-players" relate to their loyalty and their morale, while page 27 of Monsters & Treasure discusses the limitations of non-player characters in taking up a magic sword. A non-fighter can be hired for 1 g.p. on page 23 of The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, but exactly what is hired is not clarified.

The only reference I could find of a non-player having a level is on page 27 of the third volume, with respect to "Riders" on flying creatures. Without this one reference, I would have every reason to think that all non-players must necessarily also be "normal", keeping in mind that I don't know how many hit points that so-called "normal" fighters have.

Now, like I just noted, we know what's meant here, but try to put yourself in the headspace of someone who has only these books for reference. And try to assume that you're going to run the White Box as a choice because "other D&D versions of the game are all wrong."  You're still stuck relying on those other versions of the game, because this version doesn't provide you what you need to know even about the people you're supposed to hire and fight. It's just not included in these rules. Imagine how frustrating that must have been at the time.

Your only choice would have been to physically write a letter to TSR, which must have received who knows how many such letters, asking the same questions over and over. "What does this mean? What is this thing that I can't find in the rules?" Imagine how humiliating that must have been, or should have been, for the original designers.

For example, though I searched "hit point", "hit points" and "hit dice", I could not find any direct reference that said, clearly, "a normal man rolls 1 die for hit points." I assume it, but I can't find it. For the table I quoted in the last post, the number of hit dice for men is stated merely as "all variable" along with move in inches and armour class. Yet for dwarves and elves we have 1 and 1+1 hit dice automatically. Why are there no "normal dwarves" or "normal elves"? Is this ever explained?

All this goes to show that a lot of early thinking about the game was more about filling in the gaps created by incompetent and inconsistent design, rather than any real logic. Why precisely make a distinction between just one humanoid race, men, as having a "normal" type vs. a "player" type, when we do not make that distinction for any other race? Because men are "different?" That's merely an assumption. The rules don't state that we are, or give a reason for it, or in anyway provide a rationale for human exceptionalism.

Arguably, the distinction between "normal men" and "player men" arises because humans were conceived in two separate design contexts — Chainmail’s mass-combat units on one hand, and individual characters on the other — and instead of reconciling those contexts, the authors jammed them into the same rule set and expected us to harmonise them. Elves and dwarves never got a "normal" category because Chainmail only imagined them as discrete, combat-encounter entities; they didn't imagine the lived-in world where demi-humans exist in unexceptional roles. But then they got slapped into the role-playing version without consideration for what that might mean with respect to those rules the authors cut and pasted from Chainmail unchained. And honest, this amateurishness is everywhere.

Look at this next on page 5:

MONSTER DESCRIPTIONS:

MEN: There are several categories of men:

BANDITS: Although Bandits are normal men, they will have leaders who are supernormal fighters, magical types or clerical types. For every 30 bandits there will be one 4th-level Fighting-Man; for every 50 bandits there will be in addition one 5th- or óth-level fighter (die 1-3 = 5th level, die 4-6 = 6th level); for every 100 bandits there will be in addition one 8th- or 9th-level fighter (die 1-3 = 8th, die 4-6 = 9th). If there are over 200 bandits there will be 50% chance for a Magic-User (die 1-4 = 10th level, die 5-6 = 11th level) and a 25% chance for a Cleric of the 8th level. If there are exactly 300 bandits there will absolutely be a Magic-User, and the chance for a Cleric goes up to 50%. There is also a chance that there will be magical accouterments with the super-normal types:

*if edged weapon indicated by roll go to Wand/Staff table and roll again, but if result not usable by Cleric there is no item in this category.

That looks like a table but if you look closely, it isn't one.

This doesn't use "above normal", as the aforementioned page 26 of Men & Magic, but rather, "supernormal," thus introducing a third state of being... though of course we just mean "levelled," a word that also does not appear anywhere in the White Box (I searched the American "leveled," just to be clear). We are told exactly nothing about them as a group, with regards to their motivations or reason for being, so we may assume they exist as cardboard cutouts for killing.

But here's what bothers me, and it was carried forward right into the AD&D Monster Manual in 1977, so I assume Gygax and crew didn't care. "Bandit" is not a creature type. It's not even a "type of men." It's a behaviour, a habit, and rationally, elves, dwarves, gnomes, orcs, goblins and even trolls can be "bandits." Arguably, any creature not of "good" alignment could be, since bandits on page 6 (see below) are defined as either "neutral" or "chaotic."  There's no logical reason that a vampire couldn't be a "bandit." So why exactly is there a setting rule that identifies only humans are willing to rob other creatures of their wealth?  Are we the only ones who care? Or who know how?

If there are 29 bandits, are there no levels here? Is a 1st, 2nd or 3rd level allowed to join the bandits, or are they sent packing when they apply? "No, we'll allow 'normal humans' but you 1st levels, you're not good enough!" And what happens, if an extra 4th level shows up but there are only 46 of us? Is that not permitted? If I pile enough bandits together, does an 8th or 9th level just automatically show up?  Or is it that if an 8th level becomes a bandit, poof, bandits start arriving from every direction until there are a hundred of them? Which is it, because now that my fighter is 8th level and I've decided to be a bandit, I want my owed hundred. If 40 get slaughtered in a fight, to the requisite number appear from the nearest village to make up the difference? 

Plus, if there's 199 bandits, there's zero-chance one of them will be a mage, right? Well hell, let's get another bandit in here. And why only mages of 10th or 11th level? Does the guild not permit 9th level mages to hang around bandits? These are important questions I feel need answers.

The reason I want this slapped around is because the exact same logic is applied in the Monster Manual and there too it's irrational. The problem of multi-levelled possibilities makes the number appearing calculation a lot of trouble, so instead of that we're presenting the bandits here as though they're a fully formed mob that conforms to standards that do not make world-building sense. While nearly all the encounters with bandits are bound to be with first levels, the numbers are utterly out of whack with worldbuilding.

Let's leave off the magic treasure for the levels... I've no problem with it, except that in any session I've ever run, a 9th level character is definitely going to have 1-3 magic weapons, magic armour, at least two potions of some kind, almost certainly 1-2 miscellaneous items and whatnot, because if you run long enough to gain the treasure needed to pile together hundreds of thousands of experience, this accumulation is guaranteed, not just because you get your share of that treasure, but because members of the party die and their stuff falls to you. But this isn't about the White Box, so I'll pinch off this point, except to add that when TSR starts to release modules, they completely ignore this distribution concept.

Example of Bandits: Assume 183 bandits are encountered. There will be the following super-normal types with them:

six Fighting-Men of 4th level

three Fighting-Men of 5th or 6th level

one Fighting-Man of the 8th or 9th level (the leader)

Using percentile dice a score of 20% or less would indicate that the 4th-level fighters had magical Armor, Shield, and/or Sword (check for each fighter by category); a roll of 25% or 30% (or less) would indicate the same for the 5th- or 6th-level fighters; and a score of 40% or 50% (or less) would indicate the same for the 8th- or 9th-level fighter.

Look how much book space is provided to simply repeat the rule already as written, expecting that after all the things not explained in this set of books, we're more than ready to explain this at length, just to make sure the reader understands. This suggests someone was really, really proud of this model, that they felt it really explained everything that a combat-designing DM would need in throwing bandits at the party.

Except that if my party is a high enough level to take on these bandits, they're not really a challenge. Back when I first started playing D&D, when I was a new DM and of course not very bright and playing the rules as written (as most not very-bright DMs do), this was one that I remember employing to the letter with a party. Along with the rule at the top of page 5, where a levelled person (though, since we were playing AD&D, this applied only to fighters) got one attack per level against "normal" combatants, or as we called them, zero-levels. At that time, I also played without a combat map, so I'd just say how many attackers were in front of the characters as they formed a ring around the spellcasters. Basically, at most I would write x's and o's like a football coach to show where everyone was.

When it was the players turn to attack, they just slaughtered the zero-levels like cutting wheat. 3 fighter-types of 6th level, plus a cleric and a mage would attack 20 times a round, with strength, magic weapons and THAC0 (obviously not called that then) assuring that at least three quarters of the 20 lined up targets were slaughtered. After five rounds of that, you make jokes about the ring of bodies lying like a wall between the party and the enemy, describing the enemy climbing to the top of the wall and leaping at the party, only to be slaughtered in their turn. Then the mage and the party's magic wastes the 10 levelled characters with ready scrolls and potions, and win at a flippin' walk. 'Til we're all sitting around, like the fourth time we've done this slaughter fest, pointing out, "This really is pretty dumb; it's nothing like what would really happen. They'd just dog-pile us and we'd all die."

The game is designed to presuppose that hundreds of combatants are merely ready to obediently present their necks for sequential execution, round after round, the encounter has stopped being anything but a ritualized numbers exercise. A handful of fighters getting twenty attacks per round is an absurdity, benefitting the party but NOT the bandits; they're still stuck fighting us one at a time... and without the magic support of an ordinary party of adventurers, one 9th level is NOT impressive. In reality, a party that size, regardless of their fighting ability, would smash a formation of five combatants in seconds. They'd feather us full of arrows and bolts before even coming close. And they'd tell us to put down our weapons or die, and we would, because there's no way to combat that number without the sort of magic that comes at 5th or 6th level. Even with a fireball, in a world that knows a fireball exists, the enemy isn't going to clump together so you can get 20 of them at a blow. They're just not.

But the designers didn't care about reality, or depicting it... only rationalising their rule set as they built it. And absent a better ruleset, the hoi polloi simply accepted things as written, as we did as teenagers, even though we knew while doing it how ridiculous it all was. And of course there were those of us who didn't want to change those rules, because they liked slaughtering a hundred bandits. It felt like Conan to those people... and it still feels like Conan to people now.  But if you read Conan, you'll find that he only fights a hundred when he's moving, when the enemy doesn't know where he is, when it's dark, or he's in a jungle, and there are so many bodies around they can't reach him. And Conan isn't being markes on a page with x's and o's, he's dancing through words, not a game battle system. Howard uses pacing, metaphor, rhythm, and imagery to make the impossible feel plausible. A battle scene in fiction is constructed through narrative technique, not tactical mathematics.

After a few times of doing it as a DM, it wasn't fun; not because I felt anything for the bandits, but because it became silly bookkeeping, keeping track of the dead as they fell. And the players, when they got their fill, just rolled their eyes at it. So there wasn't any point. Which is what makes "bandits" a lousy encounter. It's ridiculously overpowered when the players are below a certain line, and ridiculously boring once the players cross that line. There's no real mid-point, or not one wide enough to be useful. So you just don't bother throwing bandits against the players, EVER... unless you rethink what bandits are, or why they'd approach the party. And then the number and how many levels they have doesn't matter.

They have to become people, first, not notes on a ledger. Once they're desperate, opportunistic, frightened, cautioned, disorganised, negotiating or interested in ransom, not killing, its a different kind of play. But in the White Box set, we're still setting up for a Chainmail wargame. And it's boring.

There's more on bandits, on page 6, but I'll leave off for now.

Dungeons & Dragons White Box 26

Moving on from spells, finishing the Men & Magic book with this post.

MAGICAL RESEARCH:

Both Magic-Users and Clerics may attempt to expand on the spells listed (as applicable by class). This is a matter of time and investment. The level of the magic required to operate the spell (determination by referee) dictates the initial investment. Investment for 1st level is 2,000 Gold Pieces, 2nd level is 4,000 Gold Pieces, 3rd level is 8,000 Gold Pieces, 4th level is 16,000 Gold Pieces, 5th level is 32,000 Gold Pieces, and 6th level is 64,000 Gold Pieces. The time required is one week per spell level. For every amount equal to the basic investment spent there is a 2076 chance of success, cumulative. An investment of 10,000 Gold Pieces in order to develop a new 1st level spell, for example, has a 100% chance of success after one game week.

The level of the spell researched must be consistent with the level of the Magic-User or Cleric involved, i.e. the character must be able to use spells equal to or above the level of the one he desires to create.

Once a new spell is created the researcher may include it in the list appropriate to its level. He may inform others of it, thus enabling them to utilize it, or he may keep it to himself.

As writing, it's a comprehensible rule, which is saying a great deal at this point. And the structure offers a reasonable benefit to the imaginative player: if you can think of a spell that you feel ought to be in the list, here is a bit of agency permitting you to add that spell. I'm completely in support of this idea. As I've said, spells must come from somewhere within the game setting... and it's therefore reasonable that players, too, have every opportunity to place themselves right there along with personages that would later become part of the game's lexicon: Leomund, Mordenkainen, Tenser, Bigby, Otiluke and so on.

As game design, the rule fails. It is perhaps not the time to say so. I've focused on the system's shortcomings, what it's failed to explain, what it's failed to include, where the flaws in design occur... and arguably, there's no flaw in design here. I see no reason why this rule shouldn't work as written.

My issue is that it fails to provide a meaningful obstacle between the designer and the newly acquired spell. True enough, the first imposed limit is, "can the player think of a spell?" There's nothing in these rules to explain parameters on spell design, focus, level, or what the spell ought to include, or — gawd help us — maybe something about what "duration" or "range" means in the context that they're used. But if the game writers can think of spells, it stands to reason that some players also can. Some are liable to be good at it, if they wish to be. Most, I suspect, wouldn't know where to start. I've had only two spells designed by players in my game setting, and after the fact, after they had the spells, they discovered there wasn't much occasion to use them. And after 50 years of published spell design, most of what's out there now is splitting hairs with regards to benefit. However, let's push all that upon a shelf, as it's not what I want to address.

Two hurdles are proposed: cost and time. Time isn't a hurdle at all. "Game time" passes instantaneously if so desired. Players don't have to physically work to invent the spell, there's no skull sweat or careful pouring of bowls into vials that needs doing; the players snap their fingers and say, "we let six weeks go by." That's the same as letting one week go by, so increasing the number of weeks is meaningless. And since the players don't run their characters long enough to effectively age, there's no upper limit that's approached in spending six weeks. Now, if we said the spell would require six years, that might be something. The player might look at their 33 y.o. character and wonder how many years, really, they can expend in this kind of research. 

Consider a real time cost: Pasteur worked on germ theory from the 1850s to the mid-1880s. Lister needed 15 to 20 years to refine and overcome scepticism regarding his antiseptic surgery. Herschel spent 50 years of disciplined observation to develop stellar photometry, create a catalog of double-stars and revisions to instrumentation. Wallace spent 8 continuous years collecting specimens and 7 years refining his ideas; Darwin needed 22 years to reach the point Wallace had, when he received Wallace's letter in 1858 and realised they'd come to the same conclusions. Cuvier needed 5 years of relentless examination of living and fossil animals, then another 12 years of lectures, work and dissections to achieve his 1812 work, Discours sur les révolutions de la surface du globe. Lyell's work in geology starts in 1818 as a student under Buckland; he needed 12 years to achieve Principles of Geology, then he spend another 38 fixing the errors in it; a process that still goes on.

Yet a mage proposes to invent a spell that produces an unprecedented manipulation of reality, neatly packaged for instant use — along the lines of a death spell or control weather — in six weeks. Most people can't even learn to drive from scratch in that amount of time. Six weeks isn't "research." It's a long vacation.

That leaves the other obstacle: gold. But this isn't a scarce resource, either. From 1975's Blackmoor, the high priestess Toska Rusa is described as controlling wealth equal to ""17,000 gold and hundreds of gems and pieces of jewelry worth an additional 70,000 gold pieces." The Temple of the Frog includes a jewellery adorned pulpit valued at 100,000 gold, a chest in the company office containing 3,000 platinum, thirteen gems valued at 1,000 gold each and a personal treasure of 16,000. This just begins to show that five-figure hauls of treasure were part of the time-period's design culture.

Sorry, I can't actually say I know this; I couldn't give two hoots about what Blackmoor has in it, I just need an early example of adventuring logic (this one from 1975) to give a sense of how the designers of the White Box viewed treasure. So the above was lifted from the internet. If it's wrong, I wouldn't know that. I do know that later modules, like KotB, offered masses of treasure even in adventures designed for 1st to 3rd level parties. The point being is that the 64,000 g.p. for a 6th level spell research could be acquired several times over just from one adventure.

As a DM, I don't give this kind of treasure and still my players, over a year of play, casually accumulate several hundred thousand gold pieces, which they basically bury until they have something to spend it on. This is because if a combined party of five character all need around 250,000 each to reach name level, by the time they do so that's going to accumulate half or more of that amount times five at the end. The players are required to do so. That's what the rules ask.

Even if you charge players 100 g.p. per level per month, as the AD&D handbook demands, in two months of game time players can justifiably collect a dozen times that much... easily enough to account for six whole weeks of time spent sitting around waiting for the mage to invent a new spell.

All this makes the spell invention rule meaningless. Money is hay, time is air, the players are thus rewarded once in experience gained, again in the wealth itself, and a third time with increasing their power over and above the levels they advance. It's just not an effective obstacle as written.

BOOKS OF SPELLS:

Characters who employ spells are assumed to acquire books containing the spells they can use, one book for each level. If a duplicate set of such books is desired, the cost will be the same as the initial investment for research as listed above, i.e. 2,000, 4,000, 8,000, etc. Loss of these books will require replacement at the above expense.

Apparently, the term "spellbook" hasn't been invented yet.

As before, this is more or less fair as a written rule. A little more clarity could be added as regards to what physical purpose the books serve — does the mage physically read from the book to cast the spell? We haven't proposed the concept of "memorisation" here, though I understand that Vance, of whom I've not read so much as a sentence, even quoted by someone else to my knowledge, incorporated this into his literature. But since Vance doesn't exist in the White Box at all, and his name and his works isn't quoted here, there's no reason to assume he has anything to do with it.

Many games, particularly boardgames, include features that exist solely to remove money or power tokens from the player's possession. Having to pay to get out of jail, or $75 for luxury tax, or 10% of cash on hand to a maximum of $200 in Monopoly all exist to ensure that with a run of bad luck, a player who seems to be winning can be overcome and made to fall further back in the player ranks. These setbacks aren't very effective in Monopoly, or most boardgames, because if they are, they create disenchantment with the game. My mother used to bitch because every time the family played the Game of Life in the 1970s, she always landed on the space that made her pay $150,000. She probably didn't actually land on it more than twice or three times, but she had a fluid memory for such things so that it always seemed to be something that befel only her and no one else. A lot of people view board games this way, as I learned later playing such games with adults in non-chain coffee houses in the 1990s. When those still existed.

It's called a "sink" mechanic. It's there to bleed off accumulated advantage... in this case of the mage, who gets the most powerful spells and later becomes the most powerful character class. So, naturally, mages have to pay a fee to be mages that no other class has to pay... "because." But here, it doesn't even work for that purpose.

The resource has to be scarce to matter, and we've already established the gold isn't, and the whole thing can be sabotaged by a decent-minded jointly supportive party merely deciding, "Okay, let's everyone kick in a fifth of the mage's spellbook." There, fuck you Gygax, the mage pays the same everyone else does, it's a cheap "pay the game tax" feature and it doesn't mean anything. The mage isn't punished, everyone is. And to no real purpose.

The presence of the sink exposes the deeper flaw in early D&D design: the rules assume adversarial scarcity in a cooperative game. Sinks have meaning when the players compete against each other, as in board games. The don't mean anything where the players work conjointly toward a shared goal. Gygax writes gold costs as though every player exists in a vacuum — a single character footing single-character burdens. But the moment the rules give players the ability to act collaboratively, the economics dissolve. An economic sink that can be trivially collectivised is not an economic sink. It’s just a tax on the solitary player in a system designed for groups.

Since the books are accounted for in the silly weight table scheme on page 15, they aren't even an encumbrance problem. Essentially, pay to play, then forget, because the DM will so long as the silly things are still on your character sheet.

That's the end of Men & Magic. We pick up with Monsters & Treasure on page 3.

Most of this is self-explanatory for the readers, so we can skip it. I'm going to get a complaint out of my system, however, so we can just move on.

In professional journalism, and this applies as much to the United States as Canada, it's not appropriate to capitalise game terms as though they were proper nouns, which are names used for an individual person, place or organisation. Animals, for example, are words, not titles. We would write "spotted owl" or "prairie rattlesnake." There is no precedent in any style guide that would dictate that it was proper to capitalise both words in "Heavy Horse" for example, or "Large Insects," both of which are real world examples. Thus, "gray ooze" shouldn't be capitalised, nor should "Dwarves" or "Elves," since we wouldn't in publishing terms write "Human" with a capital H. It doesn't matter, except that once again, it's evidence of how truly ignorant and lacking in the sense of finding someone who knew how words work when deciding to publish this work.

Just had to get that out of my system.

As near as I can tell, "number appearing" does not appear anywhere else in the three books, while the sole note to it, explaining it's presence here, merely says, "Referee's option: Increase or decrease according to party concerned (used primarily only for outdoor encounters)." Which means, essentially, make up any number you want. Back with with the 15th post, this comment gave to suggest that these numbers have some meaning, but it's plainly clear that they don't. What's more, from later game examples of these monsters appearing in modules and such, the numbers given here are never used, nor are the commensurate ones that appear in the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual, either, which reflect these but do not ever seem to apply in game.

The numbers plainly do not exist for a party of 5 characters entering the first level of a dungeon to encounter, quote, "30-300" orcs, which would be a ridiculous over match for the party. From 1981, the Keep on the Borderlands (again, with the 1977 Manual stating 30-300), the "Orc Lair" (B) has a "watcher" by himself, then 4 orc guards, then a common room with 12 male orcs, 18 females and 9 children, then a single leader in the orc leader's room. That's 18 one-hit dice orcs and 27 others whom the rules state, "do not fight." We have to include the orcs form the other orc lair (C) to get all the way up to 30.

On a sand-table at 1:20 scale, "30–300 orcs" might represent a company or battalion in the wilderness. In a 10-foot corridor that five PCs are meant to explore, it's nonsense.

The second note, to the "move in inches" column, reads, "Number after slash is flying speed. Creature may "charge" also and get bonus to normal move." We've discussed flying before. Here, it's time to discuss the speed that's actually needed to get a creature, as opposed to a mage with a spell, airborne.

The table states that a hippogriff's normal movement speed is 18"... double that speed would not provide enough lift of air over and above the wings to allow that creature to obtain or sustain flight. That is, if we don't want to just say that it has "magical wings," in which case, jeebus, couldn't the magic be a little more fucking magical?  The attack speed of a cheetah is 31 meters (34 yards) per second, if you'd like something to compare with. That's over land.

If we take something considerably lighter than a horse mass for a hippogriff, and handwave the square-cube problem and just approximate it (there's no way I'm doing the math with you slavering bastards around, since you'll rip me a new one if I try), then the cruising speed in flight of a hippogriff has to be in the realm of 25 to 45 mph. That's way slower than a cheetah, about 70 mph. In game terms, this is, at the bottom end, about 240" per turn. That's basing its speed on a condor, as a real world example.

You'd think that magic would accomplish at least what real wings would.

And why, pray, are flying creatures the only ones who can charge?

The third note reads, "See separate paragraphs regarding each monster for various possibilities." This note applies to two monsters: dragons and lycanthropes. The former because there are white, black, green, blue, red and golden dragons (why "golden" if not "reddish" "bluish" or "greenish"?), and the latter because there are werewolves, wereboars, weretigers and werebears. These are copied here in the order they appear in the lists on pages 12 and 14, where the writers have never heard of "alphabetical order," something a grade four student making a list would automatically do.

But the more annoying problem this highlights is that if, in a game, you're tossing a bunch of gnomes at the party, you have the description of the monster on page 16, but all the stats on page 4. This was a deliberate design choice, and is employed with every monster, including with dragons and lycanthropes, because we still have to jump back to the above chart if we want to know the creatures AC, move, hit dice, % in lair (if we even use it) and type or amount of treasure. As a dungeon master (note, small letters, NOT a proper noun to me, even if the company does choose to trademark it with capitals), this is extremely annoying and aggravating, on levels that are hard to describe. I don't have enough to do when running a game without having to flip back and forth through a paper-bound book because the writers can't put the damn stats together with the creature description.

Efficiency is and has always been a disaster where D&D is concerned. Even when collections of tables were slammed together at the backs of books, the separation of these tables from a brief explanation of these tables in such gatherings just repeats the problem. There never was any logic to the AD&D DMG or Players Handbook, we just got to know where things were through a lot of repetition over a long period of time. While at least the 1977 Monster Manual was alphabetical, there are large sections in that book where sub-alphabetical lists are placed under other monsters, which breaks up the clean logic of the work. One reason that DMs have said it's impossible to know all the rules is because "the rules" never occur as a straight, rational list, as they might with any other game, but are always folded into"bricolage," a pile of notes, half-rules, digressions, war-gaming leftovers, marginalia, folksy commentary, play examples and obstructing artworks. Procedures are never easily at hand, they have to be excavated; the mechanics are forever a jumble of tables that occur scattered throughout three or more books, without any sense it seems (for example, combat rules appear in the Player's Handbook that aren't addressed at all in the combat section of the DMG), under headings they have nothing to do with; the indexing is atrocious; words like "evil" aren't defined at all, and wow, does that problem EVER apply to later AD&D, which constantly uses terms (role-playing, personae, milieu, healing, hit points, experience) frequently without ever addressing how these terms actually fit into the game's setting or design. There just there, to be assumed, to be reused, and never to be defined.

This is far enough today.