Sigh. The battle goes on.
Some of my readers may remember that I wrote a few months ago that my father's doctor suspected that he had contracted Alzheimer's disease. This diagnosis has since been confirmed. After much struggle, we were able to get my father into a proper long-term care facility, where we expect that he will be for the remainder of his life. He moved into this facility on Monday.
He managed to come to the wedding, but it was clear to most of the family who hasn't seen him in the past ten weeks that he had come down a long way, both physically and in his mind. On the whole, the emotional response was shock. I felt some of that myself.
Starting on Monday evening and ending yesterday, my sister, my brother and I, along with my daughter and her husband, have taken turns to walk through my father's house and see what is salvageable. My sister has had more opportunity to do that; she came to live with my father about two weeks ago; unfortunately, she also withheld a lot of information from my brother and I because, well, my sister is living in denial and has trouble expressing herself when in an emotional state.
As such, we didn't discover that my father got rid of all the beds in the house about four weeks ago and has been sleeping on the floor. We didn't know that mice had proliferated in the basement and have now gotten to the point where lyme disease is a real danger. We didn't know that the contractors who were to come in and make the house ready for sale were set to fumigate the house today, so that instead of having two weeks (as we had been told) to deal with things in the house, we only had two days. We didn't know that my father has been steadily demolishing the house, doing so right in front of my sister, who was so distraught by this that she simply kept it to herself.
My parents bought the house in early 1967. My first memories start later than that date, so I don't remember a time when they did not live in the house. Throughout my father's life, he has steadily rebuilt and renovated the house, regularly replacing the siding, repainting, updating the plumbing and the wiring, rebuilding sections of the house, expanding it three times from its original form, making it into something wholly unique. Four years ago, when my mother passed away, the house was pristine; both my parents were high-strung, fanatical clean freaks, keeping the 3,100 square foot house neat as a pin. As of yesterday, while picking over the devastated remains of the furnishings and fixtures, while cleaners were stripping everything off every wall and out of every closet, the house is a shambles.
My father has apparently thrown away thousands upon thousands of dollars of porcelain, artworks, collectables of every kind, including about 1,000 vinyl records dating from 1948 to 1962, a hundred hours of 8 mm film, stamps collected by my grandfather up to 70 years ago, first edition books owned by my grandmother and only the devil knows what else. We shared notes and searched for things that have simply vanished. We know that before losing his ability to drive that he was regularly making trips to the city dump, to "simplify" the house, we were told.
The whole thing is a bloody tragedy. There are no words for it. My brother and his wife were able to save some of the most valuable furniture and tools, table-saws and drills, on the whole worth about $10-12 thousand new. I don't like my brother but I don't begrudge him these things and I'm glad he was able to find a place for them. My son-in-law preserved some as well. My daughter has rescued four royal Dalton porcelain dolls from the 1960s; my brother's wife and my sister shared three others. I don't know what else my sister took before my father was moved to the home. My father was not able to completely destroy the record collection ~ about half of it remains. I found a few of my lost, deeply adored treasures from my childhood, but most everything was gone. It was tremendously hard to feel motivated to dig too deep into piles of garbage, cans of paint and oil and such, seeing evidence of mice chewing, so no doubt some things were missed.
I feel sad. I still feel in shock. And angry ~ dreadfully, bitterly angry. I know it is the disease, and I know that the final appearance of the house was due to that. But my father was also an intensely selfish person. He had plenty of opportunity years ago to request help in organizing his home and his life, but instead he adopted a "self-reliant" pose and in the process, managed to abuse his children one more time for good measure.
At least, this is done. One more rock turned over and the pestilence redressed. There's just one more miserable act in this miserable drama, the one that comes on the day he dies.
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Monday, November 14, 2016
A Game
While we're waiting for me to get myself together after much too much fun over the weekend, let's play a game.
Fundamentally, it is a role-playing game, but one that is personal to each of us. It begins with a choice, where both options are a flight of imagination, quite impossible, but both are full of possibilities.
Let us say that I'm able to alter your reality in one of two ways.
In the first option, you would be able to return to your 12-year-old self, at the time, the place, the world you knew back then, without any changes save one: you will retain all the knowledge and experience you have right now. Like you never could the first time around, you could play the system; assuming you could find a way to lay bets, and do so with the memory you have right now (no making lists of winners in advance, I'm going to send you off in the next three minutes), you can make a ton of money, you can decide to change things and do things differently than you did the first time.
The upside is that, of course, everything will be familiar. For some, perhaps their family life at 12 isn't something they'd want to return to, but for many it would be an opportunity to see relatives and friends again, to return to the comfort of a mother and father who took care of you, to see a world that is now long past or forgotten ~ particularly for those of us for whom 12 was a long, long time ago.
There are a couple of downsides. Forget new music, movies or television for awhile; and if you're going far enough back, forget the internet and easy access to media. To you, everything will be old. There won't be anything new for a long time, unless you invent it . . . not until you catch up to today.
As well, it will be hard to get the right timing on meeting those friends you knew after 12; hard to make your marriage happen again, if you're happily married right now . . . and forget your children. Even if you knew the day your son or daughter was conceived, even if you actually succeeded in conceiving a child on that day, it wouldn't be the son or daughter you know now. It would be someone similar, someone that looked much like the child you had, that behaved much like the child you had, but the child you have right now would be lost forever. There's nothing you could do to change that.
In the second option, I make you 12 right now. It's today and you're still the same person you were, but you're in a 12-year-old body. Perhaps you'll be able to identify a surrogate mother or father in the next few minutes, explaining the situation for them, or perhaps you'd like to take your chances on your own. You won't be able to play the system like in the first option, because the future will still be unknown ~ but at least you'll have the potential to begin again and do it better than you did the first time around, plus you'll have all these extra years of life. That is, assuming you're not hit by a bus.
Which would you pick? And once you picked an option, what would you do with it? Be brave, imagine this is a role-playing game and you've just been transformed or reanimated, whatever you want to call it, and the DM is asking, "What do you want to do?"
Tell me in the comments.
Fundamentally, it is a role-playing game, but one that is personal to each of us. It begins with a choice, where both options are a flight of imagination, quite impossible, but both are full of possibilities.
Let us say that I'm able to alter your reality in one of two ways.
In the first option, you would be able to return to your 12-year-old self, at the time, the place, the world you knew back then, without any changes save one: you will retain all the knowledge and experience you have right now. Like you never could the first time around, you could play the system; assuming you could find a way to lay bets, and do so with the memory you have right now (no making lists of winners in advance, I'm going to send you off in the next three minutes), you can make a ton of money, you can decide to change things and do things differently than you did the first time.
The upside is that, of course, everything will be familiar. For some, perhaps their family life at 12 isn't something they'd want to return to, but for many it would be an opportunity to see relatives and friends again, to return to the comfort of a mother and father who took care of you, to see a world that is now long past or forgotten ~ particularly for those of us for whom 12 was a long, long time ago.
There are a couple of downsides. Forget new music, movies or television for awhile; and if you're going far enough back, forget the internet and easy access to media. To you, everything will be old. There won't be anything new for a long time, unless you invent it . . . not until you catch up to today.
As well, it will be hard to get the right timing on meeting those friends you knew after 12; hard to make your marriage happen again, if you're happily married right now . . . and forget your children. Even if you knew the day your son or daughter was conceived, even if you actually succeeded in conceiving a child on that day, it wouldn't be the son or daughter you know now. It would be someone similar, someone that looked much like the child you had, that behaved much like the child you had, but the child you have right now would be lost forever. There's nothing you could do to change that.
In the second option, I make you 12 right now. It's today and you're still the same person you were, but you're in a 12-year-old body. Perhaps you'll be able to identify a surrogate mother or father in the next few minutes, explaining the situation for them, or perhaps you'd like to take your chances on your own. You won't be able to play the system like in the first option, because the future will still be unknown ~ but at least you'll have the potential to begin again and do it better than you did the first time around, plus you'll have all these extra years of life. That is, assuming you're not hit by a bus.
Which would you pick? And once you picked an option, what would you do with it? Be brave, imagine this is a role-playing game and you've just been transformed or reanimated, whatever you want to call it, and the DM is asking, "What do you want to do?"
Tell me in the comments.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
After Wedding Blues
Three days of partying, speech-making, rushing about, dressing, undressing . . . marriages are wonderful things. The sun is down this Sunday afternoon and we are all lazing about, occasionally debriefing about all that's happened and feeling a great need to rest.
The speech went just fine, the day went just fine. My daughter is married. I feel as if I have just closed a book somehow, on a great many things. It is a fine thing to be a parent.
I haven't forgotten the blog. I will come around to writing on it again soon.
The speech went just fine, the day went just fine. My daughter is married. I feel as if I have just closed a book somehow, on a great many things. It is a fine thing to be a parent.
I haven't forgotten the blog. I will come around to writing on it again soon.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
Piety
My daughter's wedding is just two days away, Saturday, so things are scattered and far too busy to do any real work this week . . . so I am relaxing by kicking out a few things in the wiki. I've finished the changes I intend to make to medicine at this time (I have no one above authority level in my games), so now I am working on a paladin skill, piety, chosen by a 6th level paladin in my game by the name of Zephan.
This surprised me a little, as the player who operates Zephan (my son-in-law as of this Saturday) is something of a munchkin. Zephan is a phenomenal character, generated with four naturally rolled 17s, placed under strength, wisdom, dexterity and charisma. It is particularly funny since, in more than 8 years of play, the fellow has never rolled an 18 for a character stat, not once.
However, reasoning that piety would be a way to round out the natural power of the character and produce opportunities, the player opted out of increasing power in favour of status. I really respect that. I have made a point of telling him so.
This brings us to the problem of how to create piety in a game setting without travelling down the road of telling players how to have their characters behave, something I simply don't do. From the beginning I have allowed paladins to act as they will, trusting the terrific amount of experience needed to go up a level to restrain their awesome power ~ that, and not rushing to give them +5 holy swords any time before the 20th level. In fact, I've only given one holy sword away in a campaign, to a 7th level; it was not in a campaign I am running now and the sword was merely +1, +2 against malevolent creatures. The player was very happy and it did not upset the apple cart of the campaign.
As such, any sage ability the paladin possesses must fit two criteria: it must not function in a way that undermines the struggle of the players vs. their environment and it must allow for total free action and agency for the player running the paladin.
With this in mind, I have three new skills with which I will try to thread that needle. I'll try to talk about the value and limitation of each.
Prostration is an act of demonstrating humility ~ which might mean any number of physical positions, depending on the part of the world and, of course, the religion of the paladin. It is not an act of submission, but rather something like a proof of credit. The paladin, through body language, tells witnesses that "I am to be trusted, my goals are your goals, my motives are pure."
The difficulty, of course, is that without the restriction of telling the paladin that they must actually BE pure, there's every opportunity for the paladin to gain the trust of others and then subvert that trust for cruel, unjust and certainly impious purposes.
Or is that really the case? The issue here is not that the skill can be used to dupe a trusting official into freely giving information into the hands of an unworthy paladin ~ I argue that it can and that this is a legitimate use for the skill. This issue is how does this define the paladin with respect to the paladin's deity? It is sadly always assumed that paladins must obey the commands of "good" deities. Why? Is there no evil in the world equally in need of a warrior pious for their causes? And does it not stand to reason that the paladin that is ready to exploit a skill for the benefit of malevolence is rightly to be found in that camp? Naturally, it would mean that the forces of good would quickly drop said paladin from their good books, meaning that the paladin's natural +2 bonus against malevolence would have to be reworked ~ not revoked, but merely differently directed. A paladin makes enemies like any other character . . . this doesn't mean losing their paladinhood.
So I'm fine with prostration being used for evil, along with the consequences of a character who unwittingly or wittingly finds themselves in that camp, potentially to their dismay. It's not something I would punish a player for but it isn't as easy getting along with evil people as it is with good. They tend to be, well, evil.
Propitiation is the act of standing in on behalf of someone else that has sinned, acted against the faith, seeks divine atonement or divine recognition. Like Lancelot acting as the moral center for King Arthur or Baby Doll sacrificing herself in order for Sweet Pea to get away. In Christianity, the obvious example is Christ himself, who died so that everyone else could be saved. We don't need to expect a character to go that far ~ a quest or two is probably enough.
I like this particular skill. It fits right into the D&D paladin character and is full of rich adventure opportunity, self-sacrifice and empathic role-playing. The principal drawback is, I think, how much is needed for propitiation to occur? There's no standard I can think of creating, meaning that I'll just have to deal with this one on a case by case basis. As well, for the most part the ability requires that I think of situations in which a non-player character needs some kind of help. Yes, from time to time, an actual PC might get themselves into a situation where the party paladin needs to step in and handle this one, but I don't see that happening often enough to make the paladin feel like this is a hugely important sage ability. For it to have verve, the campaign is going to have to occasionally inject some poor soul in need of having their excommunication dropped or getting one of their seven deadly sins forgiven.
That's great fodder for a railroaded campaign, but I don't run like that. Sadly, I think this one might get shelved a lot of the time, which means one less thing the paladin can do having gained the authority level of knowledge. I find that disappointing. Still, perhaps the character will think of some way to actively seek out such persons, acting on their agenda and not mine, making the ability work.
Prayer is an act that serves to create a rapport between worshipper and deity, requesting knowledge and seeking divine intervention. I don't doubt that most campaigns have played with having both clerics and paladins pray, since it is "in character" . . . but we all know that there is a serious lack of guidelines for how much intervention a character can expect in exchange for getting on their knees for less than sixty seconds of game time. I've even played with the concept of the player actually having to get on their knees, using the institution of public shame (players are notoriously sensitive to looking foolish) in order to control the seeking of boons and benefits, both of which were failed rule ideas (pre-sage era) that I threw out decades ago.
I'm not sure how to solve this one. It isn't good enough to go on a case by case basis. There has to be a solid guideline both for what can be adjusted and what can be learned . . . and neither can have the power or influence of a spell of any variety, as this is knowledge, not magical power. Still, the ability belongs here, in this category and at this level. I will just have to think of something in the next few days to make it work.
Hah. The next few days. Yes, so simple.
Anyway, there's a few thoughts on the subject. I'll be working on this wiki page in the days ahead, in bits and drabs, as this has lately been the most solid work I seem to be able to do at any one time.
This surprised me a little, as the player who operates Zephan (my son-in-law as of this Saturday) is something of a munchkin. Zephan is a phenomenal character, generated with four naturally rolled 17s, placed under strength, wisdom, dexterity and charisma. It is particularly funny since, in more than 8 years of play, the fellow has never rolled an 18 for a character stat, not once.
However, reasoning that piety would be a way to round out the natural power of the character and produce opportunities, the player opted out of increasing power in favour of status. I really respect that. I have made a point of telling him so.
This brings us to the problem of how to create piety in a game setting without travelling down the road of telling players how to have their characters behave, something I simply don't do. From the beginning I have allowed paladins to act as they will, trusting the terrific amount of experience needed to go up a level to restrain their awesome power ~ that, and not rushing to give them +5 holy swords any time before the 20th level. In fact, I've only given one holy sword away in a campaign, to a 7th level; it was not in a campaign I am running now and the sword was merely +1, +2 against malevolent creatures. The player was very happy and it did not upset the apple cart of the campaign.
As such, any sage ability the paladin possesses must fit two criteria: it must not function in a way that undermines the struggle of the players vs. their environment and it must allow for total free action and agency for the player running the paladin.
With this in mind, I have three new skills with which I will try to thread that needle. I'll try to talk about the value and limitation of each.
Prostration is an act of demonstrating humility ~ which might mean any number of physical positions, depending on the part of the world and, of course, the religion of the paladin. It is not an act of submission, but rather something like a proof of credit. The paladin, through body language, tells witnesses that "I am to be trusted, my goals are your goals, my motives are pure."
The difficulty, of course, is that without the restriction of telling the paladin that they must actually BE pure, there's every opportunity for the paladin to gain the trust of others and then subvert that trust for cruel, unjust and certainly impious purposes.
Or is that really the case? The issue here is not that the skill can be used to dupe a trusting official into freely giving information into the hands of an unworthy paladin ~ I argue that it can and that this is a legitimate use for the skill. This issue is how does this define the paladin with respect to the paladin's deity? It is sadly always assumed that paladins must obey the commands of "good" deities. Why? Is there no evil in the world equally in need of a warrior pious for their causes? And does it not stand to reason that the paladin that is ready to exploit a skill for the benefit of malevolence is rightly to be found in that camp? Naturally, it would mean that the forces of good would quickly drop said paladin from their good books, meaning that the paladin's natural +2 bonus against malevolence would have to be reworked ~ not revoked, but merely differently directed. A paladin makes enemies like any other character . . . this doesn't mean losing their paladinhood.
So I'm fine with prostration being used for evil, along with the consequences of a character who unwittingly or wittingly finds themselves in that camp, potentially to their dismay. It's not something I would punish a player for but it isn't as easy getting along with evil people as it is with good. They tend to be, well, evil.
Propitiation is the act of standing in on behalf of someone else that has sinned, acted against the faith, seeks divine atonement or divine recognition. Like Lancelot acting as the moral center for King Arthur or Baby Doll sacrificing herself in order for Sweet Pea to get away. In Christianity, the obvious example is Christ himself, who died so that everyone else could be saved. We don't need to expect a character to go that far ~ a quest or two is probably enough.
I like this particular skill. It fits right into the D&D paladin character and is full of rich adventure opportunity, self-sacrifice and empathic role-playing. The principal drawback is, I think, how much is needed for propitiation to occur? There's no standard I can think of creating, meaning that I'll just have to deal with this one on a case by case basis. As well, for the most part the ability requires that I think of situations in which a non-player character needs some kind of help. Yes, from time to time, an actual PC might get themselves into a situation where the party paladin needs to step in and handle this one, but I don't see that happening often enough to make the paladin feel like this is a hugely important sage ability. For it to have verve, the campaign is going to have to occasionally inject some poor soul in need of having their excommunication dropped or getting one of their seven deadly sins forgiven.
That's great fodder for a railroaded campaign, but I don't run like that. Sadly, I think this one might get shelved a lot of the time, which means one less thing the paladin can do having gained the authority level of knowledge. I find that disappointing. Still, perhaps the character will think of some way to actively seek out such persons, acting on their agenda and not mine, making the ability work.
Prayer is an act that serves to create a rapport between worshipper and deity, requesting knowledge and seeking divine intervention. I don't doubt that most campaigns have played with having both clerics and paladins pray, since it is "in character" . . . but we all know that there is a serious lack of guidelines for how much intervention a character can expect in exchange for getting on their knees for less than sixty seconds of game time. I've even played with the concept of the player actually having to get on their knees, using the institution of public shame (players are notoriously sensitive to looking foolish) in order to control the seeking of boons and benefits, both of which were failed rule ideas (pre-sage era) that I threw out decades ago.
I'm not sure how to solve this one. It isn't good enough to go on a case by case basis. There has to be a solid guideline both for what can be adjusted and what can be learned . . . and neither can have the power or influence of a spell of any variety, as this is knowledge, not magical power. Still, the ability belongs here, in this category and at this level. I will just have to think of something in the next few days to make it work.
Hah. The next few days. Yes, so simple.
Anyway, there's a few thoughts on the subject. I'll be working on this wiki page in the days ahead, in bits and drabs, as this has lately been the most solid work I seem to be able to do at any one time.
Addiction
Addiction in my game describes the compulsion that characters possess for hard drink or for stimulants and hallucinogens (such as tobacco, opium or qat), the dependency upon which can require a character to daily partake, at some expense, or to become stressed and less effective when these substances are not available.
Most often, a character will acquire an addiction through the character background generator, due to a negative roll against a middle to low wisdom. Addictions are reckoned as a measurement of material that must be drunk, eaten or smoked within the space of a day or a week. When addicted characters fail to obtain their dose, they can temporarily lose ability points or combat ability until such time as they can acquire a 'fix.'
To get rid of an addiction, a character must make a wisdom check each day to abstain from use of the substance. Success at this roll will not, in the short term, suspend the negative consequences of failing to partake, it is the only path that will, in the long run, end the dependency. The character must, initially, succeed at a wisdom check for seven days running. All wisdom checks are presumed to have been made at sunrise of a particular day. For each successful string of seven days, a character will receive a +1 bonus to all further wisdom checks with regards to their addiction, provided they do not fail to make a wisdom check and attempt to relapse. In relapsing, the character will immediately take steps to acquire the substance they need and use it. If this occurs, the character has lost all ground gained and must begin their resistance anew.
It should be obvious that this makes it almost impossible for a character to become free from an addiction on their own. It is so easy to relapse that, if the substance they need is available, they will certainly fail again and again to kick their addiction. There are, therefore, only two real paths to kicking their addiction:
Thus, the path of success will mean that the character, with the help of friends and a physician, will steadily improve their bonuses week by week until it is impossible for them to fail a wisdom check.
Note, however, that friends must be vigilant in keeping a watch on an addicted character, as the character will give no sign of intending to relapse. As well, the player, having spent multiple sessions with a character of lowered strength, dexterity or other ability statistic will likely want to quit their treatment, returning to their use of whatever substance. These negative consequences, difficult as they are, do not go away until characters have truly freed themselves of the dependency.
Finally, a character can be compelled to fight other characters (though I do not support player-vs-player, this is a special case) from a sort of madness, if physical restraint is applied against a character's will. In cases where a character is in a town, where these substances are easily available, this may be necessary.
To determine a character's success at obtaining a substance in a town or city (where anyone might possess the substance), the character should make an intelligence check; success would indicate that the character has somehow met an individual willing to pass the substance quietly into the character's possession (addicted persons help each other). One other random character in the party, keeping watch on the addicted character, should make a wisdom check to see if this exchange is observed. If it is not, consider this:
The character may obtain this substance on a day when they have not failed their wisdom check - just in case they may want it later. Therefore, the character may already be ready to use the substance with a wisdom check is failed . . . potentially within minutes of sunrise. Thus, a failed wisdom check by the party will mean the relapse has occurred, even in the wilderness. Occasionally subjecting the addicted character to a search could prevent this, but any such searches that occur when the character is actually in possession (make the intelligence check to know) should result in a player-vs.-player conflict. Suffice to say that choice of weapons is left up to the characters.
Last, it must be noted that each time a character wants to relapse and fails to do so, the character should make a system shock survival roll (see Player's Handbook). Failure to succeed at this roll will mean the character will fall to a random disease of random nature and degree.
Most often, a character will acquire an addiction through the character background generator, due to a negative roll against a middle to low wisdom. Addictions are reckoned as a measurement of material that must be drunk, eaten or smoked within the space of a day or a week. When addicted characters fail to obtain their dose, they can temporarily lose ability points or combat ability until such time as they can acquire a 'fix.'
Kicking an Addiction
To get rid of an addiction, a character must make a wisdom check each day to abstain from use of the substance. Success at this roll will not, in the short term, suspend the negative consequences of failing to partake, it is the only path that will, in the long run, end the dependency. The character must, initially, succeed at a wisdom check for seven days running. All wisdom checks are presumed to have been made at sunrise of a particular day. For each successful string of seven days, a character will receive a +1 bonus to all further wisdom checks with regards to their addiction, provided they do not fail to make a wisdom check and attempt to relapse. In relapsing, the character will immediately take steps to acquire the substance they need and use it. If this occurs, the character has lost all ground gained and must begin their resistance anew.
It should be obvious that this makes it almost impossible for a character to become free from an addiction on their own. It is so easy to relapse that, if the substance they need is available, they will certainly fail again and again to kick their addiction. There are, therefore, only two real paths to kicking their addiction:
- The first is for others to take steps, often combative steps, to ensure that the character cannot relapse even if the character attempts to do so. If it happens that the character, failing to make a wisdom check, is kept from relapsing until sunrise the following day, they will be entitled to another wisdom check. If this succeeds, the character will not attempt to relapse that day, the crisis will be past and the character's forward accumulation of days is not compromised.
- Secondly, the character can put themselves under the care of a physician able to aid in detoxification. This will give a +3 bonus to all wisdom checks made under the physician's care, in addition to bonuses gained by repeated weeks of success.
Further Issues
Finally, a character can be compelled to fight other characters (though I do not support player-vs-player, this is a special case) from a sort of madness, if physical restraint is applied against a character's will. In cases where a character is in a town, where these substances are easily available, this may be necessary.
To determine a character's success at obtaining a substance in a town or city (where anyone might possess the substance), the character should make an intelligence check; success would indicate that the character has somehow met an individual willing to pass the substance quietly into the character's possession (addicted persons help each other). One other random character in the party, keeping watch on the addicted character, should make a wisdom check to see if this exchange is observed. If it is not, consider this:
The character may obtain this substance on a day when they have not failed their wisdom check - just in case they may want it later. Therefore, the character may already be ready to use the substance with a wisdom check is failed . . . potentially within minutes of sunrise. Thus, a failed wisdom check by the party will mean the relapse has occurred, even in the wilderness. Occasionally subjecting the addicted character to a search could prevent this, but any such searches that occur when the character is actually in possession (make the intelligence check to know) should result in a player-vs.-player conflict. Suffice to say that choice of weapons is left up to the characters.
Last, it must be noted that each time a character wants to relapse and fails to do so, the character should make a system shock survival roll (see Player's Handbook). Failure to succeed at this roll will mean the character will fall to a random disease of random nature and degree.
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Watching the Election
I like statistics.
The Guardian has a nice site.
UPDATE
9:25 Mountain Time and this is turning out to be a real nail-biter. I figure She has to take three of Michigan, Nevada, Iowa and Arizona . . . though just MI and AZ would be enough. I would far rather this had been won at a walk, but not so much.
Damn, the pollsters all year have had it so wrong. Polling is a dead art.
UPDATE #2
10:51 Mountain Time and I feel that I have to say something. Pennsylvania is going to be called for Trump any moment and when that happens, this is over.
I have a lot of readers who are Americans . . . and I know that for some of them, this is going to be a very hard time. As such, I am prepared to make a pledge: or, if some would prefer, to take an oath.
I won't talk about Trump. I won't express my opinion on this blog or on any site connected with this blog or with Dungeons and Dragons. I will just let it go. Whatever comes of it, whatever the consequence, I won't discuss the matter, not obliquely or in any other capacity. I so vow.
UPDATE
9:25 Mountain Time and this is turning out to be a real nail-biter. I figure She has to take three of Michigan, Nevada, Iowa and Arizona . . . though just MI and AZ would be enough. I would far rather this had been won at a walk, but not so much.
Damn, the pollsters all year have had it so wrong. Polling is a dead art.
UPDATE #2
10:51 Mountain Time and I feel that I have to say something. Pennsylvania is going to be called for Trump any moment and when that happens, this is over.
I have a lot of readers who are Americans . . . and I know that for some of them, this is going to be a very hard time. As such, I am prepared to make a pledge: or, if some would prefer, to take an oath.
I won't talk about Trump. I won't express my opinion on this blog or on any site connected with this blog or with Dungeons and Dragons. I will just let it go. Whatever comes of it, whatever the consequence, I won't discuss the matter, not obliquely or in any other capacity. I so vow.
Monday, November 7, 2016
White Males
This is not a post about the American election.
I have a wise friend who warns me not to enter any public discussions about politics ~ in this he has my interests at heart. It is simply too easy to offend people who might be instrumental in assuring my greater success, who may happen to have strongly held opinions different from those I could express in a moment of inspiration on the blog. Better, it is suggested, to keep quiet on the subject; to focus on what is really important: role-playing and my writing.
Today, I had a discussion with a white male co-worker who quite candidly told me that "racism doesn't matter" and that it "isn't important," given that we're having our freedom of speech and equality stripped from us by feminists who have so many more rights and privileges that it's obvious the system is broken. Though expressed as a rant, there's no question in my mind that the fellow's purpose was to educate me with the best of intentions. Unquestionably, my being a male and white was relevant to his rant.
On several occasions, the fellow explained that he was very liberal in his outlook ~ however, he had begun to feel that his party, the one he had supported and even worked for to get them into power here in Alberta, had changed "out from under him." That party is the NDP, an unquestionably socialist party . . . yet one that has fallen prey to political correctness, telling us what to think and how to think, threatening the free exchange of ideas in favor of an ideology that has been perpetrated upon us: namely, the slow and steady decimation of male rights. This, see, is why racism doesn't matter - he was much, much more worried about the damage being done by feminists.
Most strangely of all, he was educated, sincere . . . and, I think, highly concerned about his country. The angry rhetoric came far more from fear than from hate ~ easy to dismiss, if we will not look past the fellow's words. It was clear to me, as we shot conversation at each other for an hour, that there was nothing egregious in his motives.
I listened, I pointed out facts as we went on but I suspended expressing any judgement for what he said. A judgement would have been wasteful. He was undeniably intractable. He's been caught in his thought processes for a time and it was clear he feels under siege. I've run into that before . . . but on this particular occasion, I found myself coming to a small realization about white males who find it so unfair that the courts overly favor women in divorce or in situations of marital violence; who resent the laws that have been passed in favor of "fair and equal treatment"; who resent the little rules about speech or the panels that decide on university campuses what's a subject for legitimate discourse. Several of these things deserve examination, just as everything does, as that is the whole point of living in a political world . . . but what astounds me is the particular ire expressed towards the pains and troubles of university professors being expressed by males who do not attend university, or who have not been forced to pay alimony and child support because they have not been married or become parents, or do not work in occupations where they are subjected to how an inter-office memo's language is expressed.
I don't mean to say that they don't have a right to an opinion on these things . . . but it does seem strange that this particular passion is being expressed by people who have, by and large, managed to avoid the parts of society where they would be forced to submit. Then again, perhaps they haven't "avoided" ~ perhaps they have been pushed out.
I think it is fair to say that for some white males, they have grown up being told that they are unfairly "privileged" and "specially compensated" for being this race and this gender, only to see for themselves that nothing about their lives feels anything like how it is described. They see themselves without any power, without any status, without compensation ~ and at the same time, they see everyone else getting the attention: they see rich black sports stars and musicians crying about "Black Lives Matter" and they see rich, pampered women screaming on the internet about their misery and it causes these white males to feel they're getting the short end of the stick.
It is a question of perspective. There are liberals who feel, "It's enough that I treat others equally; that's as far as any of us have to go. What has happened in the past, what continues to happen, that hasn't come from me; I'm haven't asked for anything from them, therefore they're not entitled to ask anything from me."
This is "equality" for them. This is enough for them.
I personally don't feel it is enough. I don't feel anything can be enough, ever. People get too wrapped up in measurements, in deciding who gets how much and who's entitled to what, who needs and how much we're supposed to give. I can't find too much fault with women who feel threatened on university campuses, as I've lived on campus and there is legitimate reason for them to feel threatened. I cannot find fault with peoples who are angry about what their fathers and mothers were forced to do because of race. I am more ready to find fault with those who want to draw a line, who want to say I'm willing to do this much and no more, I'm willing to concede this suffering but not that suffering, I'm willing to define, according to my standards, what degree of comfort you're entitled to and I expect you to deal with it.
Screw all that. If it is in my means, I will try to help. If I see others helping, with greater resources than mine, I will join in or get out of the way. I won't fight for a cause that says "freedom of speech" argues that racism doesn't matter or that women aren't entitled to legislated protection. I believe in my government, even the government I didn't vote for. I feel strongly that if the majority argues for a thing, votes for a thing, continues to support a thing for decades, that is fundamentally helping people, that is not stripping me of my rights.
My rights are not dependent upon what other people are given or how other people are viewed. My rights depend upon how freely I'm allowed to express what I want to express and do what I want to do.
I'm 52 and living in Canada. The government in this country has never gotten in my way. They have caused me trouble from time to time . . . but as it happened, all that trouble came from my making a mistake, my taking the wrong action, my failing to act as I should. I was penalized because I deserved to be penalized.
Rarely, I find, are others prepared to admit the same. I wish they would, however.
I have a wise friend who warns me not to enter any public discussions about politics ~ in this he has my interests at heart. It is simply too easy to offend people who might be instrumental in assuring my greater success, who may happen to have strongly held opinions different from those I could express in a moment of inspiration on the blog. Better, it is suggested, to keep quiet on the subject; to focus on what is really important: role-playing and my writing.
Today, I had a discussion with a white male co-worker who quite candidly told me that "racism doesn't matter" and that it "isn't important," given that we're having our freedom of speech and equality stripped from us by feminists who have so many more rights and privileges that it's obvious the system is broken. Though expressed as a rant, there's no question in my mind that the fellow's purpose was to educate me with the best of intentions. Unquestionably, my being a male and white was relevant to his rant.
On several occasions, the fellow explained that he was very liberal in his outlook ~ however, he had begun to feel that his party, the one he had supported and even worked for to get them into power here in Alberta, had changed "out from under him." That party is the NDP, an unquestionably socialist party . . . yet one that has fallen prey to political correctness, telling us what to think and how to think, threatening the free exchange of ideas in favor of an ideology that has been perpetrated upon us: namely, the slow and steady decimation of male rights. This, see, is why racism doesn't matter - he was much, much more worried about the damage being done by feminists.
Most strangely of all, he was educated, sincere . . . and, I think, highly concerned about his country. The angry rhetoric came far more from fear than from hate ~ easy to dismiss, if we will not look past the fellow's words. It was clear to me, as we shot conversation at each other for an hour, that there was nothing egregious in his motives.
I listened, I pointed out facts as we went on but I suspended expressing any judgement for what he said. A judgement would have been wasteful. He was undeniably intractable. He's been caught in his thought processes for a time and it was clear he feels under siege. I've run into that before . . . but on this particular occasion, I found myself coming to a small realization about white males who find it so unfair that the courts overly favor women in divorce or in situations of marital violence; who resent the laws that have been passed in favor of "fair and equal treatment"; who resent the little rules about speech or the panels that decide on university campuses what's a subject for legitimate discourse. Several of these things deserve examination, just as everything does, as that is the whole point of living in a political world . . . but what astounds me is the particular ire expressed towards the pains and troubles of university professors being expressed by males who do not attend university, or who have not been forced to pay alimony and child support because they have not been married or become parents, or do not work in occupations where they are subjected to how an inter-office memo's language is expressed.
I don't mean to say that they don't have a right to an opinion on these things . . . but it does seem strange that this particular passion is being expressed by people who have, by and large, managed to avoid the parts of society where they would be forced to submit. Then again, perhaps they haven't "avoided" ~ perhaps they have been pushed out.
I think it is fair to say that for some white males, they have grown up being told that they are unfairly "privileged" and "specially compensated" for being this race and this gender, only to see for themselves that nothing about their lives feels anything like how it is described. They see themselves without any power, without any status, without compensation ~ and at the same time, they see everyone else getting the attention: they see rich black sports stars and musicians crying about "Black Lives Matter" and they see rich, pampered women screaming on the internet about their misery and it causes these white males to feel they're getting the short end of the stick.
It is a question of perspective. There are liberals who feel, "It's enough that I treat others equally; that's as far as any of us have to go. What has happened in the past, what continues to happen, that hasn't come from me; I'm haven't asked for anything from them, therefore they're not entitled to ask anything from me."
This is "equality" for them. This is enough for them.
I personally don't feel it is enough. I don't feel anything can be enough, ever. People get too wrapped up in measurements, in deciding who gets how much and who's entitled to what, who needs and how much we're supposed to give. I can't find too much fault with women who feel threatened on university campuses, as I've lived on campus and there is legitimate reason for them to feel threatened. I cannot find fault with peoples who are angry about what their fathers and mothers were forced to do because of race. I am more ready to find fault with those who want to draw a line, who want to say I'm willing to do this much and no more, I'm willing to concede this suffering but not that suffering, I'm willing to define, according to my standards, what degree of comfort you're entitled to and I expect you to deal with it.
Screw all that. If it is in my means, I will try to help. If I see others helping, with greater resources than mine, I will join in or get out of the way. I won't fight for a cause that says "freedom of speech" argues that racism doesn't matter or that women aren't entitled to legislated protection. I believe in my government, even the government I didn't vote for. I feel strongly that if the majority argues for a thing, votes for a thing, continues to support a thing for decades, that is fundamentally helping people, that is not stripping me of my rights.
My rights are not dependent upon what other people are given or how other people are viewed. My rights depend upon how freely I'm allowed to express what I want to express and do what I want to do.
I'm 52 and living in Canada. The government in this country has never gotten in my way. They have caused me trouble from time to time . . . but as it happened, all that trouble came from my making a mistake, my taking the wrong action, my failing to act as I should. I was penalized because I deserved to be penalized.
Rarely, I find, are others prepared to admit the same. I wish they would, however.
 |
| "I'm half naked, surrounded by the other sex . . . and I feel protected, not intimidated. I want the same for them." |
Sunday, November 6, 2016
Thoughts Before a Wedding
It is my daughter's wedding this Saturday, the 12th. That has certainly been a long time coming - but as the actual date approaches, a mere six days away, it is certainly much on my mind.
It was thirty years less three days that I married my daughter's mother, on November 15, 1986. That sure feels like a long time ago. I remember my state of mind: confident, sure of myself, no concerns whatsoever that I was doing the wrong thing. I loved Michelle and I had no doubts whatsoever about wanting to spend the rest of our lives together.
I do remember the night before. There was a terrible storm. I was resting, wide awake, in my best man's basement apartment. The window was over my head and I could hear the sound of sleet pounding against the glass. I was pondering the absurdity that I was doing something so "adult" - I was all of 22. I did not feel like a kid but I definitely did not feel in the least way like my father and mother. I supposed at the time that it was like that for everyone . . . that the fact of doing something big and final is a sobering moment, especially those moments that have the social consequence associated with tradition, the law and such.
Now I find myself in the equally strange place of being the Father of the Bride. The process of walking the daughter down the aisle, giving the daughter away ~ and naturally the speech. I've been working on the speech in my head for months now. I haven't written a word, not yet ~ and as yet, I don't know how that speech is going to end. I'm at sixes and sevens with it, my mind is all over the place and I find that I am waiting, as ever, the epiphany that will pull it together.
That is in part what drives me to write this post. Epiphanies often help those who help themselves . . . and writing about wanting a moment of clarity is doing more than merely hoping it comes along of its own accord. So all of you, O Gentle Readers, are caught up in this moment as I argue with myself. This makes a strange post for a D&D blog, but surely the readers must notice that the vicissitudes of life must interfere from time to time with the writing process. Choose to stay and listen, or feel free to await the next post.
My thoughts have gravitated towards "requited" love. "Unrequited" is more commonly the adjective associated with love, but this being a wedding we are dealing with the antonym. The word itself is interesting, as it does not refer to love. It refers, specifically, to debt. Middle English defines "quite" as to pay up, and "requite" as to pay back. In effect, to be quit of the debt that is owed, which my etymology dictionary describes as something that is done "for good or ill."
An interesting phrase, unquestionably, given the phrase more commonly being for richer or for poorer. But while I do find amusement in it, I wonder if a wedding is really the time and the place to be speaking of debts, given the negative association we make with such things and the unquestionable desire to express joy on the day of a wedding and not the crass elements of pecuniary obligation.
Over the decades, I have been to many a wedding and heard the speeches of many brides' fathers. We will talk of young people finding their way, we will talk of learning to get on with one another, we will talk of the difficult times and the better times, we will advise, we will subtly threaten, we will be funny. I've heard it all. I could stand up and give a cookie-cutter speech like that, I could steal lines from all over, I could punch the patently obvious buttons of the reality-show addicted rabble that passes for my family, channeling the mix of Barney the Dinosaur and Real Wives of Orange County into a sappy confection that ~ provided I am able to hold my gorge in check ~ will bring on tears. That would be the smart route. The friendly route. The route most likely to surprise these people who have known me a long, long time.
I am the black sheep of my family. My daughter is as black as me, to boot, but being a girl she gets away with far more than I did. Besides, she looks quite charcoal grey standing beside me. Were it possible, if my daughter would agree to it, I'm quite sure that my family would be happy to hire a father to stand in on Saturday . . . so we have a sense of what I'm up against, standing up to give a speech about what I think a marriage is, my supposedly last chance to weigh in.
Ridiculous, of course. My last chance to weigh in came something like 13 or 14 years ago, when she was still in Junior High School ~ that's the reality most of us don't want to face. Only there's no grand ceremony for the "last day your daughter takes Dad at his word" . . . that day just sort of passes without fanfare. It would be nice if we had a little warning, but it's up and gone before the chance comes to think a little longer about what should have been said when the chance was still there.
But . . . we pretend that the speech is going to mean something, we pretend that someone in the room is going to remember it a year hence or that any of the advice is going to be taken. We pretend, because it is nice to pretend, it is sweet, it plays into the whole "joy" thing and hell, why rock the boat?
So there I am, thinking about debt, thinking about a room full of discord (thankfully, they almost hate each other as much as me), thinking about my daughter already being long past Daddy's advice, thinking that I'm glad of that. I like that she does it her way, takes names and kicks ass, without any help from me. That was the plan from the start, after all.
She has a t-shirt that says, "Personally, I think Romeo and Juliet could have handled the situation better."
There's a speech in there. Somewhere.
It was thirty years less three days that I married my daughter's mother, on November 15, 1986. That sure feels like a long time ago. I remember my state of mind: confident, sure of myself, no concerns whatsoever that I was doing the wrong thing. I loved Michelle and I had no doubts whatsoever about wanting to spend the rest of our lives together.
I do remember the night before. There was a terrible storm. I was resting, wide awake, in my best man's basement apartment. The window was over my head and I could hear the sound of sleet pounding against the glass. I was pondering the absurdity that I was doing something so "adult" - I was all of 22. I did not feel like a kid but I definitely did not feel in the least way like my father and mother. I supposed at the time that it was like that for everyone . . . that the fact of doing something big and final is a sobering moment, especially those moments that have the social consequence associated with tradition, the law and such.
Now I find myself in the equally strange place of being the Father of the Bride. The process of walking the daughter down the aisle, giving the daughter away ~ and naturally the speech. I've been working on the speech in my head for months now. I haven't written a word, not yet ~ and as yet, I don't know how that speech is going to end. I'm at sixes and sevens with it, my mind is all over the place and I find that I am waiting, as ever, the epiphany that will pull it together.
That is in part what drives me to write this post. Epiphanies often help those who help themselves . . . and writing about wanting a moment of clarity is doing more than merely hoping it comes along of its own accord. So all of you, O Gentle Readers, are caught up in this moment as I argue with myself. This makes a strange post for a D&D blog, but surely the readers must notice that the vicissitudes of life must interfere from time to time with the writing process. Choose to stay and listen, or feel free to await the next post.
My thoughts have gravitated towards "requited" love. "Unrequited" is more commonly the adjective associated with love, but this being a wedding we are dealing with the antonym. The word itself is interesting, as it does not refer to love. It refers, specifically, to debt. Middle English defines "quite" as to pay up, and "requite" as to pay back. In effect, to be quit of the debt that is owed, which my etymology dictionary describes as something that is done "for good or ill."
An interesting phrase, unquestionably, given the phrase more commonly being for richer or for poorer. But while I do find amusement in it, I wonder if a wedding is really the time and the place to be speaking of debts, given the negative association we make with such things and the unquestionable desire to express joy on the day of a wedding and not the crass elements of pecuniary obligation.
Over the decades, I have been to many a wedding and heard the speeches of many brides' fathers. We will talk of young people finding their way, we will talk of learning to get on with one another, we will talk of the difficult times and the better times, we will advise, we will subtly threaten, we will be funny. I've heard it all. I could stand up and give a cookie-cutter speech like that, I could steal lines from all over, I could punch the patently obvious buttons of the reality-show addicted rabble that passes for my family, channeling the mix of Barney the Dinosaur and Real Wives of Orange County into a sappy confection that ~ provided I am able to hold my gorge in check ~ will bring on tears. That would be the smart route. The friendly route. The route most likely to surprise these people who have known me a long, long time.
I am the black sheep of my family. My daughter is as black as me, to boot, but being a girl she gets away with far more than I did. Besides, she looks quite charcoal grey standing beside me. Were it possible, if my daughter would agree to it, I'm quite sure that my family would be happy to hire a father to stand in on Saturday . . . so we have a sense of what I'm up against, standing up to give a speech about what I think a marriage is, my supposedly last chance to weigh in.
Ridiculous, of course. My last chance to weigh in came something like 13 or 14 years ago, when she was still in Junior High School ~ that's the reality most of us don't want to face. Only there's no grand ceremony for the "last day your daughter takes Dad at his word" . . . that day just sort of passes without fanfare. It would be nice if we had a little warning, but it's up and gone before the chance comes to think a little longer about what should have been said when the chance was still there.
But . . . we pretend that the speech is going to mean something, we pretend that someone in the room is going to remember it a year hence or that any of the advice is going to be taken. We pretend, because it is nice to pretend, it is sweet, it plays into the whole "joy" thing and hell, why rock the boat?
So there I am, thinking about debt, thinking about a room full of discord (thankfully, they almost hate each other as much as me), thinking about my daughter already being long past Daddy's advice, thinking that I'm glad of that. I like that she does it her way, takes names and kicks ass, without any help from me. That was the plan from the start, after all.
She has a t-shirt that says, "Personally, I think Romeo and Juliet could have handled the situation better."
There's a speech in there. Somewhere.
Friday, November 4, 2016
More Work on Poisons
If there is a part of the game that I wish I could wave a magic wand and eliminate, it is the use of poisons. It isn't just that they're potentially super-powerful and able to unbalance a game in the extreme (as a many a DM has discovered if the poison rules don't effectively restrain an assassin from causing havoc), it is also that the actual detail involving poisons is exhaustive and extremely difficult to define. Pliny the Elder describes over 7,000 different poisons, not to mention that anything has an LD50 level if enough is ingested. Add to this the difficulty in defining the game effects of each kind of poison, it's specific lethality and consequent difficulty in manufacture and it gets even harder. Of course, many incredibly deadly poisons are obviously very easy to make, if someone difficult to get someone to swallow willingly.
I have never liked the "save or die" option. Poison simply doesn't affect people this way. Many poisonings give plenty of time for people to get to the hospital and be saved, as we well know. A person could easily spend a full year building up a very complicated system and set of rules to describe all the variable forms of poison, but for what? A method of killing that is, frankly, somewhat dull compared to hacking people to death with a sword.
Still, poison has to exist so waving it away is not an option. I've been steadily working up my own rules to deal with poison, partly on the wiki and partly in my head. I've gone an extra step today (in keeping with
working on medicine/physician rules) to codify these rules further. I include part of the relevant wiki page below:
Poison Damage
Because poison attacks a creature from the inside, the amount of damage that is done is PER hit die or level, meaning that creatures with a high number of hit dice or levels are no safer from poisoning than creatures with less. A 1st level character, therefore, has as much chance of surviving being poisoned as a 10th level creature. This keeps in line with my rules defining biological units (see Hit Points). Most poisons range from a lethality of 1 to 10 points per hit die or level.
For example, a 5th level fighter and a 1st level fighter are each poisoned by a substance with a lethality of 5 hp/HD & Level. Because leveled creatures do possess 1 HD in addition to their levels (see Hit Dice), the 5th level will suffer 6 x 5 hp (30 damage) and 1st level will suffer 2 x 5hp (10 damage). In my game, an average 5th level NPC fighter would have 32 total hit points: a d8 (for mass, counting as the character's 1 HD) + 5d10. The 1st level NPC fighter would receive a d8 + 1d10, for 10 hit points. Each would suffer an amount of damage that would seriously threaten their survival, particularly if either had already suffered damage from other means. Any constitution bonus would greatly increase their chance of survival.
Likewise, we might compare an Indian elephant with 10 hit dice to the above, encountering the same poison. The elephant would suffer 50 total damage - but because the elephant weighs about 5 to 6 tons, it has an average of 9.5 hp/HD, or an average of 95 hit points.
Time of Effect
The damage caused by poison does not affect the victim all at once. To begin with, the poison must have time to enter the bloodstream and spread through the body: this alone will require 1 to 3 rounds, during which time the poison will cause no damage of any time. Once this time has passed, the actual damage caused by the poison is then a random roll from round to round, according the following formula:
For example, consider the 5th level fighter described above (we'll call him Ethan). We begin by rolling 1d3 to determine how long it takes the poison to take effect, with a result of 2. This will mean that Ethan begins to suffer damage in the 3rd round. We calculate the PME at half of 30 damage, a total of 15. In the 3rd round we roll 1-15 to see the damage and get the result of 4. This isn't enough to stun Ethan, so although he doesn't feel "well," he is able to continue acting freely.
With the 4th round we roll a 2 and Ethan's free action is still unaffected. In the 5th round, however, we roll an 8 and Ethan is now definitely stunned. He has taken a total of 14 hit points so far, so in the 6th round the PME is unchanged: Ethan takes another 6 damage and is in trouble. Thankfully, however, he is probably past the worst: because he has taken 20 damage so far, the PME is reduced to 10 points. In the 7th round we roll 1-10 and Ethan suffers another 5 damage. We reduce the PME again and in the 8th round, we roll 1-5 and Ethan suffers 4 more damage. This leaves only 1 left, so that in the 9th round he takes this last damage and the poison has run its course.
While this does impose a more complicated procedure where calculating the damage done by poison, it does increase the game's tension where it comes to the character being unsure of how bad the poison really is. There is also time to give aid, allaying the damage caused by the poison with spell, potion or salve while it is happening, casting slow poison or neutralize poison if possible. Therefore, it is possible for a character to suffer more damage than initially possessed at the start of being poisoned. It also means that multiple poisonings (from monster attacks or consuming more than one dose before realizing the poisoning has occurred) could produce multiple PME rolls per round.
Saving throws against poisoning will reduce the total damage of the poison (and the PME as well) by 50%. Recognizing that a substance is poisoned before drinking is not considered part of a saving throw, but is a sage ability in its own right.
I have never liked the "save or die" option. Poison simply doesn't affect people this way. Many poisonings give plenty of time for people to get to the hospital and be saved, as we well know. A person could easily spend a full year building up a very complicated system and set of rules to describe all the variable forms of poison, but for what? A method of killing that is, frankly, somewhat dull compared to hacking people to death with a sword.
Still, poison has to exist so waving it away is not an option. I've been steadily working up my own rules to deal with poison, partly on the wiki and partly in my head. I've gone an extra step today (in keeping with
working on medicine/physician rules) to codify these rules further. I include part of the relevant wiki page below:
Poison Damage
Because poison attacks a creature from the inside, the amount of damage that is done is PER hit die or level, meaning that creatures with a high number of hit dice or levels are no safer from poisoning than creatures with less. A 1st level character, therefore, has as much chance of surviving being poisoned as a 10th level creature. This keeps in line with my rules defining biological units (see Hit Points). Most poisons range from a lethality of 1 to 10 points per hit die or level.
For example, a 5th level fighter and a 1st level fighter are each poisoned by a substance with a lethality of 5 hp/HD & Level. Because leveled creatures do possess 1 HD in addition to their levels (see Hit Dice), the 5th level will suffer 6 x 5 hp (30 damage) and 1st level will suffer 2 x 5hp (10 damage). In my game, an average 5th level NPC fighter would have 32 total hit points: a d8 (for mass, counting as the character's 1 HD) + 5d10. The 1st level NPC fighter would receive a d8 + 1d10, for 10 hit points. Each would suffer an amount of damage that would seriously threaten their survival, particularly if either had already suffered damage from other means. Any constitution bonus would greatly increase their chance of survival.
Likewise, we might compare an Indian elephant with 10 hit dice to the above, encountering the same poison. The elephant would suffer 50 total damage - but because the elephant weighs about 5 to 6 tons, it has an average of 9.5 hp/HD, or an average of 95 hit points.
Time of Effect
The damage caused by poison does not affect the victim all at once. To begin with, the poison must have time to enter the bloodstream and spread through the body: this alone will require 1 to 3 rounds, during which time the poison will cause no damage of any time. Once this time has passed, the actual damage caused by the poison is then a random roll from round to round, according the following formula:
- Divide the total damage caused by the poison in half: this indicates the potential maximum effect (PME) of the poison per round.
- Each round, roll a die equal to the PME and remove the damage that has been done from the initial total.
- When the PME is less than the total damage remaining, reduce the PME to equal this remainder for each round that remains.
- Continue to roll each round until all damage has been suffered.
With the 4th round we roll a 2 and Ethan's free action is still unaffected. In the 5th round, however, we roll an 8 and Ethan is now definitely stunned. He has taken a total of 14 hit points so far, so in the 6th round the PME is unchanged: Ethan takes another 6 damage and is in trouble. Thankfully, however, he is probably past the worst: because he has taken 20 damage so far, the PME is reduced to 10 points. In the 7th round we roll 1-10 and Ethan suffers another 5 damage. We reduce the PME again and in the 8th round, we roll 1-5 and Ethan suffers 4 more damage. This leaves only 1 left, so that in the 9th round he takes this last damage and the poison has run its course.
While this does impose a more complicated procedure where calculating the damage done by poison, it does increase the game's tension where it comes to the character being unsure of how bad the poison really is. There is also time to give aid, allaying the damage caused by the poison with spell, potion or salve while it is happening, casting slow poison or neutralize poison if possible. Therefore, it is possible for a character to suffer more damage than initially possessed at the start of being poisoned. It also means that multiple poisonings (from monster attacks or consuming more than one dose before realizing the poisoning has occurred) could produce multiple PME rolls per round.
Saving throws against poisoning will reduce the total damage of the poison (and the PME as well) by 50%. Recognizing that a substance is poisoned before drinking is not considered part of a saving throw, but is a sage ability in its own right.
I intend to add this last (the ability to be able to smell/locate poison) to the assassin character's poison study ability.
Thursday, November 3, 2016
Bring Enough for Everyone, Did We?
Of course, the first thing that most role-players think when finding rules for practicing medicine without the use of magic is, "why bother?" After all, magical spells are much faster and less problematic, yes? What party doesn't have a regeneration scroll just kicking around?
Well, my parties, for one. Regeneration is a 7th level spell and requires a 16th level cleric to cast. 16th level clerics are ridiculously rare and invariably very busy. Think of it this way: the pope can easily lay his hand on your shoulder and bless you . . . but given that there are a billion other people who want the same thing, the simple act of receiving a personal blessing is probably not going to happen for you.
In short, even if the party in an everyday munchkinish game has enough of every kind of healing spell available to ensure never having to worry about getting their hands dirty with ~ shudder ~ surgery, most of the other people filling all the towns and rural countryside of the world probably have little choice about it.
But why should that matter? Why concern ourselves with what the simple people do ~ we're busy adventuring here! We can't worry about what limbs or diseases the common folk care to die from ~ right?
This thinking expresses a kind of bubble that most campaigns simply ignore, one where the setting is built wholly upon the party's specific needs. If a member of the party catches a disease, no problem: we have a spell for that. If a member loses a limb, boom, here's another. If a member slips and falls among a patch of razor cactus, we have a handy rod of resurrection right here. The important thing is that we survive, we keep going, we get the adventure done. Other people don't matter.
Suppose the party, having just come from killing off an otyugh in some slime filled trough five miles into the forest, returns to the nearest village, all safe and sound. Quite by surprise, by the middle of the first night, half the inn's residents are mysteriously down with some sort of malady. The party is awoken by the tramping of twenty pairs of feet going up and down the stairs and with doors opening and shutting, because all of these poor souls have the trots.
The next day, finishing their breakfast, the party notices the bartender and the barmaid are clearly pale and in poor shape. As they collect their horses from the stables, they see signs of a spreading ailment everywhere: there are slop buckets full of vomit and rumours that half the village has been infected. As the party is saddling their horses, the chief magistrate approaches them, saying, "Within a single night, there are more than a hundred people who have some sort of disease! You must have brought it with you, you're the only outsiders here! What are you going to do about it?"
Well? What are they going to do? There isn't enough disease-curing and resurrection to go around for everyone, is there? And since the party are clearly carriers, as they are unaffected themselves, are they really going to go to another place and spread whatever they've got there, too? If they leave this horror behind, someone is going to have to deal with it. Sooner or later, someone is going to have to deal with the party, too, before their selfishness kills half the kingdom - just how hard do they think it will be to identify them and follow the trail of disease and death they leave behind them.
But this sort of thing never happens in most campaigns, because DMs don't think of it. Evil is something that happens to the party, not to the innocents . . . and the party is never at fault, never put in a position where their clumsy indifference to the world where they live eventually turns up some consequence they can't wave away with a single cleric.
I'm steadily coming to the conclusion that "simple rules" work for most campaigns because the adventures ~ and the problems ~ are kept as two-dimensional as possible. Simplistic adventures don't demand many rules. On the other hand, complicated situations and catastrophes can't help but challenge the magic parachute most parties depend upon, because usually they involve more than a population of just three to five persons.
Yes, I do know about the ridiculous healing rules that have been included in the Pathfinder system. They have been explained to me. Even those, however, falter when dealing with thousands of people suffering from large scale disasters and holocausts. No party, ever, has enough resources for everyone.
It's a question of how hard do we want to bring this home for them. It's hard to feel like a hero when we're lambing it out of town to avoid admitting that we'd rather just let people die rather than risk contracting the disease ourselves ~ even as we make excuses for our behaviour. Excuses, however, are a lot easier than performing ordinary, mundane, non-magical surgery for 42 hours at a stretch because we are able . . . long after the spells have run out.
Just for a little perspective:
Well, my parties, for one. Regeneration is a 7th level spell and requires a 16th level cleric to cast. 16th level clerics are ridiculously rare and invariably very busy. Think of it this way: the pope can easily lay his hand on your shoulder and bless you . . . but given that there are a billion other people who want the same thing, the simple act of receiving a personal blessing is probably not going to happen for you.
In short, even if the party in an everyday munchkinish game has enough of every kind of healing spell available to ensure never having to worry about getting their hands dirty with ~ shudder ~ surgery, most of the other people filling all the towns and rural countryside of the world probably have little choice about it.
But why should that matter? Why concern ourselves with what the simple people do ~ we're busy adventuring here! We can't worry about what limbs or diseases the common folk care to die from ~ right?
This thinking expresses a kind of bubble that most campaigns simply ignore, one where the setting is built wholly upon the party's specific needs. If a member of the party catches a disease, no problem: we have a spell for that. If a member loses a limb, boom, here's another. If a member slips and falls among a patch of razor cactus, we have a handy rod of resurrection right here. The important thing is that we survive, we keep going, we get the adventure done. Other people don't matter.
Suppose the party, having just come from killing off an otyugh in some slime filled trough five miles into the forest, returns to the nearest village, all safe and sound. Quite by surprise, by the middle of the first night, half the inn's residents are mysteriously down with some sort of malady. The party is awoken by the tramping of twenty pairs of feet going up and down the stairs and with doors opening and shutting, because all of these poor souls have the trots.
The next day, finishing their breakfast, the party notices the bartender and the barmaid are clearly pale and in poor shape. As they collect their horses from the stables, they see signs of a spreading ailment everywhere: there are slop buckets full of vomit and rumours that half the village has been infected. As the party is saddling their horses, the chief magistrate approaches them, saying, "Within a single night, there are more than a hundred people who have some sort of disease! You must have brought it with you, you're the only outsiders here! What are you going to do about it?"
Well? What are they going to do? There isn't enough disease-curing and resurrection to go around for everyone, is there? And since the party are clearly carriers, as they are unaffected themselves, are they really going to go to another place and spread whatever they've got there, too? If they leave this horror behind, someone is going to have to deal with it. Sooner or later, someone is going to have to deal with the party, too, before their selfishness kills half the kingdom - just how hard do they think it will be to identify them and follow the trail of disease and death they leave behind them.
But this sort of thing never happens in most campaigns, because DMs don't think of it. Evil is something that happens to the party, not to the innocents . . . and the party is never at fault, never put in a position where their clumsy indifference to the world where they live eventually turns up some consequence they can't wave away with a single cleric.
I'm steadily coming to the conclusion that "simple rules" work for most campaigns because the adventures ~ and the problems ~ are kept as two-dimensional as possible. Simplistic adventures don't demand many rules. On the other hand, complicated situations and catastrophes can't help but challenge the magic parachute most parties depend upon, because usually they involve more than a population of just three to five persons.
Yes, I do know about the ridiculous healing rules that have been included in the Pathfinder system. They have been explained to me. Even those, however, falter when dealing with thousands of people suffering from large scale disasters and holocausts. No party, ever, has enough resources for everyone.
It's a question of how hard do we want to bring this home for them. It's hard to feel like a hero when we're lambing it out of town to avoid admitting that we'd rather just let people die rather than risk contracting the disease ourselves ~ even as we make excuses for our behaviour. Excuses, however, are a lot easier than performing ordinary, mundane, non-magical surgery for 42 hours at a stretch because we are able . . . long after the spells have run out.
Just for a little perspective:
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
Amputation
A procedure in which a part of the body is removed, possibly resulting in death. Amputation is sometimes used to control the spread of disease or necrosis moving outward from an affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. It may also be necessary to separate a creature from a limb if the creature is trapped and cannot otherwise be freed.
When performed by any person without sufficient medical knowledge, the chances of a creature surviving the loss of a limb is extremely low. To determine if a creature survives an amputation, the creature will need to roll on the amputation shock survival chart (see below). If survival occurs, the creature will also suffer a severe injury.
Shock
The amount of shock a creature suffers from an amputation depends upon the limb that is severed. For the purpose of this system, amputations have been broken down into five categories, from the least invasive to the most extreme, from the least likely to result in death to the most likely:
It must be noted that the success or failure of the procedure is not always one that can be determined in a matter of minutes. For that reason, there are two stages in determining the survival of the patient. The first is where the chance of surviving the initial surgery is checked on the amputation shock table below:
This indicates the patient's chance to survive the procedure. Note that these numbers are unchanged even if the amputation is performed by an ordinary person - so long as every possible measure (with or without the use of magic) is made to reduce the bleeding and care for the patient's welfare. If the roll is made under the percentile shown, the patient has not died on the table and is very likely to survive (see post-surgery infection, below).
If the patient has failed the amputation shock roll, however, and the operation was performed by an unskilled surgeon, then the patient will be dead in just a few minutes. Note that nothing can be done to save the patient short of a heal spell. Because the amputation was bungled by a physician with less than an authority medical knowledge, the patient will bleed out or die from shock no matter what other cure spells or procedures are employed.
However, if the amputation was performed by a character with a medical knowledge of at least 30 points (amputation is a medical sage ability for authorities), then there is still a chance of saving the patient. If this is the case, the patient is assumed not to die immediately, unless the amount of knowledge needed is greater than the medical skill of the physician. To determine this, the DM rolls a d100 in secret. If this number is greater than the number of knowledge points possessed by the physician, the patient will still die - but they will linger for a time before death occurs.
For example, a character with a 15 constitution, Bertrand, has a hand removed at the wrist by a physician with 46 points of medical knowledge. With a 71% chance of surviving outright, Bertrand rolls a 74. The DM then rolls a d100, with the result of 37 - meaning that Bertrand will survive, as long as he continues to receive care from a physician with at least 37 points of knowledge. At this point, we consult the Survival Time table to see how long Bertrand's life remains in jeopardy:
Bertrand's amputation was major, so he will need 2-5 weeks of recovery. If it proves that no physician of sufficient knowledge can look after him, he will die at the end of the period rolled - it is simply a matter of course that his body fails in some manner to adjust to the damage done. On the other hand, if he gets sufficient care, he will absolutely survive once the time period has passed.
Note that if the original roll of d100 resulted in a number that an amateur (or even less than an amateur) had enough knowledge points to look after Bertrand, he would not actually need an authority physician to ensure his good health.
Infections
Regardless of who performs the amputation, all patients must make a constitution check against acquiring a disease of some kind. This is a random roll, determining the area of infection, nature and degree of the ailment; the amount of time necessary to survive this disease is then added to total recovery time for both disease and amputation survival. If a disease is contracted and the patient failed their initial amputation shock roll, they will need the care of a physician, with the necessary knowledge, for the combined recovery time. And, of course, there is always a chance that the disease might end in death.
Injury
Naturally, the amputation is in itself an injury, meaning that hit points are lost and the amount of time to heal is greatly increase (see Injury rules). For the amount of damage suffered, consult this table:
Returning to Bertrand, imagine that he has a maximum total of 36 hit points at the time of the amputation (always use the character's full health as the guideline when determining the amount of damage). We'll remember that Bertrand had his hand removed at the wrist. Because the amputation was major, he suffers a total of 32 damage from the removal of his hand. Of this, 18 of this damage will be injury damage, meaning that he will need to regain a total of 196 hit points before he is at full (180 from the injury and the additional 16 ordinary damage he suffered. This damage can be healed by any form of spell, magic item, healing practice or rest to which the character has access.
Note that where 105% of total hit points is indicated, this will mean that the character is reduced to negative hit points (Bertrand would take his full 36 hit points plus 1.8 more - rounded down to 1 additional hit point, putting him at -1 total).
If the number of hit points caused by the amputation is sufficient to kill the patient, then no amount of medical care can help the patient survive the procedure. Somehow, the patient's hit points must be raised sufficiently to allow the patient to survive the amputation.
See Medicine
When performed by any person without sufficient medical knowledge, the chances of a creature surviving the loss of a limb is extremely low. To determine if a creature survives an amputation, the creature will need to roll on the amputation shock survival chart (see below). If survival occurs, the creature will also suffer a severe injury.
Shock
The amount of shock a creature suffers from an amputation depends upon the limb that is severed. For the purpose of this system, amputations have been broken down into five categories, from the least invasive to the most extreme, from the least likely to result in death to the most likely:
- Incidental: fingers and toes, ears, nose and teeth.
- Minor: partial hand or foot, tongue or eyes.
- Major: wrist or ankle, through the forearm, at the elbow, below the knee, at the knee.
- Radical: above the elbow, at the shoulder, above the knee, at the hip, removing the genitals or the breasts.
- Drastic: cutting through the torso or decapitation (remembering that many creatures have more than one head).
It must be noted that the success or failure of the procedure is not always one that can be determined in a matter of minutes. For that reason, there are two stages in determining the survival of the patient. The first is where the chance of surviving the initial surgery is checked on the amputation shock table below:
 |
If the patient has failed the amputation shock roll, however, and the operation was performed by an unskilled surgeon, then the patient will be dead in just a few minutes. Note that nothing can be done to save the patient short of a heal spell. Because the amputation was bungled by a physician with less than an authority medical knowledge, the patient will bleed out or die from shock no matter what other cure spells or procedures are employed.
However, if the amputation was performed by a character with a medical knowledge of at least 30 points (amputation is a medical sage ability for authorities), then there is still a chance of saving the patient. If this is the case, the patient is assumed not to die immediately, unless the amount of knowledge needed is greater than the medical skill of the physician. To determine this, the DM rolls a d100 in secret. If this number is greater than the number of knowledge points possessed by the physician, the patient will still die - but they will linger for a time before death occurs.
For example, a character with a 15 constitution, Bertrand, has a hand removed at the wrist by a physician with 46 points of medical knowledge. With a 71% chance of surviving outright, Bertrand rolls a 74. The DM then rolls a d100, with the result of 37 - meaning that Bertrand will survive, as long as he continues to receive care from a physician with at least 37 points of knowledge. At this point, we consult the Survival Time table to see how long Bertrand's life remains in jeopardy:
 |
Note that if the original roll of d100 resulted in a number that an amateur (or even less than an amateur) had enough knowledge points to look after Bertrand, he would not actually need an authority physician to ensure his good health.
Infections
Regardless of who performs the amputation, all patients must make a constitution check against acquiring a disease of some kind. This is a random roll, determining the area of infection, nature and degree of the ailment; the amount of time necessary to survive this disease is then added to total recovery time for both disease and amputation survival. If a disease is contracted and the patient failed their initial amputation shock roll, they will need the care of a physician, with the necessary knowledge, for the combined recovery time. And, of course, there is always a chance that the disease might end in death.
Injury
Naturally, the amputation is in itself an injury, meaning that hit points are lost and the amount of time to heal is greatly increase (see Injury rules). For the amount of damage suffered, consult this table:
 |
Note that where 105% of total hit points is indicated, this will mean that the character is reduced to negative hit points (Bertrand would take his full 36 hit points plus 1.8 more - rounded down to 1 additional hit point, putting him at -1 total).
If the number of hit points caused by the amputation is sufficient to kill the patient, then no amount of medical care can help the patient survive the procedure. Somehow, the patient's hit points must be raised sufficiently to allow the patient to survive the amputation.
See Medicine
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