Rethinking Dungeons & Dragons: An Alternate "Original D&D" Combat System

As you might have noticed, I've been on a bit of a Dungeons & Dragons history and prehistory kick of late. My past two posts have discussed articles from the old British Miniature Soldier Society's Bulletin and the Society of Ancients Slingshot Magazine and how those relate to the early development of D&D. I'll be returning to that series of pre-D&D influences in the British gaming scene soon, but I recently read a very interesting conversation over on the OD&D discussion boards regarding the combat system for David Arneson's Blackmoor Campaign.

As most of you know, Dungeons & Dragons is over 40 years old and though the game has changed a lot over the decades one thing has remained the same. In every edition since the Little Brown Books first introduced the "Alternate Combat System" the basic mechanic of the game has been for players to roll a Twenty-sided die to determine success or failure when attacking in combat. That term "Alternate Combat System" has always intrigued me. While the original Little Brown Books recommend using Chainmail as the combat system for D&D play, it isn't evident that this was the system that either Arneson or Gygax were actually using in their pre-publication D&D games. Writers like Jason Vey, Jason Cone, and Daniel Boggs (as Alderron) have all examined how to run D&D using the Chainmail system. Jason Vey's Spellcraft & Swordplay Core Rulebook and Daniel Boggs' Champions of ZED: Zero Edition Dungeoneering have gone even further an attempted to create and play games that are similar in style to the game David Arneson may have played in the pre-publication days of D&D.

The recent conversation on the OD&D discussion boards was started by Daniel Boggs who was inquiring what David Arneson's post-Chainmail game sessions might look like. According to Boggs' post, Arneson's crew may have played using rules adapted from an Ironclads rule set Arneson had designed for American Civil War ship to ship combat. I initially confused Arneson's Ironclad rules with Tom Wham's Ironclad rules and some large sum of cash spent at Noble Knight Games later, I discovered that these were not the rule Boggs was referencing.

The discussion board conversation inspired me to play around with a "pre-D&D-esque" combat rules set of my own based on a system of rolling 2d6-2 for the combat rolls. If you read the Boggs' led conversation, you'll see that 1-10 rolls (or 0-10 rolls) might have been used by Arneson's team. My goal here is to open a conversation and get feedback before playtesting. I'm in the process of adapting the Chainmail rules outright, but this would be another alternative system.

The original Chainmail man-to-man combat system, as Boggs/Vey and others have pointed out Chainmail has at least 3 combat subsystems, uses a comparison of a person's weapon and an opponent's armor to determine the to hit roll. For example (looking at the table below), a person with a dagger would need to roll a 12 on 2d6 to hit a person wearing Plate Armor and Shield. Any blow struck kills the target, or deals 1d6 damage in D&D's adaptation of the rules.

This is a very workable system that has a lot of granularity and is one that I'm looking forward to playing with my regular game group, but it is also one that is more "fiddly" and combat table based than many modern gamers are used to in their games. If you look at the table above, you'll see that Chainmail used an ascending Armor Class much like the modern game. This was reversed in original D&D and Armor Class was rescaled so that lower Armor Classes were better and Plate Armor and Shield was given an AC of 2, while No Armor was given an AC of 10.

Under a d20 system, I have come to prefer ascending ACs as being more intuitive for players, but in the system I'm about to propose I'm going to recommend keeping the reversed ACs of the Original Little Brown Books.

What is my alternative system? It's fairly simple and is essentially what was discussed in the OD&D boards. I want to experiment with rolling 2d6-2 where the characters hit if they roll less than the AC of the defender. You can see a breakdown of the probability of success below. I've selected "less than" rather than "equal to or less than" because I want to have some potential for automatic failure.

You'll notice that this system makes it very difficult to hit opponents with a good armor class. A player would only have an 8.33% chance of hitting an opponent with an AC of 2 (Plate Mail) and only a 2.78% chance of hitting an opponent with an AC of 1 (Plate Mail and Shield). This won't be too big a deal if GMs ensure that such armors are expensive and doesn't give too many creatures an Armor Class that low. Such a strong defense should be limited to Dragons and the like.

Now that I've established the base to-hit numbers, I've got two D&D related questions to answer.

1. How does level advancement affect to hit rolls for both monsters and character?
2. How much damage is done on a hit?
   

Keeping the basic classes of the first three Little Brown Books (Fighting Men, Clerics, and Magic Users), I think that these classes improve in their ability to bypass armor as they increase in levels by having the ability to modify the Armor Class they are rolling against. In essence, higher level characters are more able to see and exploit the weaknesses in armor and thus can treat Armor Classes as a higher Armor Class as they gain levels. I would propose an advancement that looks like the one below. Fighting Men begin play with a slightly better chance to hit opponents than other classes and start with a bonus where other classes have to wait and have a lower total bonus at higher levels. Keep in mind that the Armor Class Adjustment is added to the Opponent's Armor Class and not to the die roll. Thus a 13th Level Fighting Man would attack Plate Mail and Shield (AC 1) as if it was Leather and Shield (AC 6) and would hit that 58% of the time. This may seem pretty radical, but keep in mind this is a very high level Fighting Man and that it is only a single hit.

The second question is what to do about damage. In Chainmail a single hit equals death, but "Heroes" and "Superheroes" are able to take multiple hits before dying. This is reflected in the Little Brown Books in two ways. The first is the "Hit Points" with which gamers are well familiar. The second is by counting characters as multiple "Men" as they progress. A high level Fighting Man might eventually fight with the ability of "8 Men" at the "Superhero" rank. Essentially, the ability to fight as multiple people is reflected in the Hit Points of the characters as they have a number of d6 Hit Dice that are essentially equal to the number of "Men" the character can fight as. Given that all weapons in the Little Brown Books do 1d6 damage, each successful attack does enough damage to kill a level 1 character (1 Hit Die of 1d6 vs. 1 attack of 1d6 damage), it doesn't really matter whether you want each attack to do 1 "Man" of Damage or 1d6 of damage. It's only when you add the rules for Magic, and this is D&D after all, that it becomes evident that the damage should be 1d6 per hit.

But how many "attacks" does a character get? Looking at the Fighting Capability, you can see the references to a number of "Men" for each class. That's what I would use to determine the number of attacks. Yes, this means that I'd have a high level fighter making 8 attacks against opponents. You might think that this affects game balance, except when you compare it to the damage that high level Magic Users are capable of dishing out I think it's more than warranted.

These are some preliminary thoughts on a Alternative to the "Alternative Combat System" that captures a bit of the miniature inspired play while being a bit more freeform than a strict adherence to Chainmail.

What are your thoughts?

When Discussing Early RPGs and Wargames, Let's Not Forget the British Scene Part 2: Did Tony Bath Influence the Famous Appendix N?

B.M.S.S. 6,7, and 8 (1956) from Author's Private Collection

This is the second in a series of posts about the British Wargaming Scene's influence on D&D. The first entry in the series can be read here.

We've long known that Tony Bath's rules for medieval combat influenced the creation of Chainmail, and thus D&D. Tony Bath was one of the most influential members of the growing British wargaming hobby in the middle of the 20th century. But I think historians and fans often overlook how much he influenced not only the mechanics of play, but the genre of play as well.

Tony Bath's "War Game of the Middle Ages and Ancient Times" was first published in 1956 in the June/July and August/September issues of the British Model Soldier Society's The Bulletin. A critique by Charles Grant and rules "errata" were published in the October issue that same year. These ancient rules were significant in a couple of ways. They are among the early rules sets to innovate by using dice to determine combat outcomes and they are one of the earliest rules for medieval and ancient miniatures combat.

Bath also wrote an article in July 1966 issue (51) of Wargamer's Newsletter, an issue that had "1066" as its theme and which contained Phil Barker's influential medieval rules.  Wargamer's Newsletter was published by Donald Featherstone, who is arguably the most significant evangelist for the wargaming hobby, and had frequent contributions from Tony Bath, Charles Grant, and others. Featherstone discussed the importance of Bath in the hobby, and shared an abbreviated form of his rules, in his 1962 book War Games. Interestingly, Featherstone's discussion of Bath's rules in that book includes references to Bath's Hyborian campaign in which Bath used Robert E. Howard's fictional setting as the foundation for a wargaming campaign. This allowed players in Bath's gaming circle to mix and match armies from antiquity and the middle-ages in "what if" battles that wouldn't be possible in a more historically focused environment. The fact that Bath's rules were known to Gygax, and that Bath used a Howardian setting (though one without magic), might serve as sufficient evidence that Bath provided a kind of pre-Appendix N inspiration to incorporate fantasy into gaming that was picked up and expanded upon by Gygax. Such an assertion would be limited though due to the fact that Bath's campaign didn't use magic and that Howard was surging in popularity in the 60s.

There is, however, additional evidence of Bath's potential influence on Gygax's selections in Appendix N and in D&D in general. In fact, in many ways it might be argued that Bath provided a road map of influences that Gygax followed in selecting the appropriate fantasy milieu to incorporate into table top gaming. Where is this road map? In the pages of the Society of Ancient's house magazine Slingshot.

Tony Bath founded the Society of Ancients in 1965 with a small membership of around 20 members. The Society was created as a way for those interested in ancient battles to share their research, gaming rules, and insights with one another. Amazingly, the Society is still around today and readily makes available back issues of their in house newsletter. One of the things that really amazes me about the British gaming scene, at least the wargaming scene, is how keen they are to maintaining records of the history of the hobby and making available content to the "non-collector" audience. Between the John Curry's History of Wargaming Project and The Society of Ancients, one can access a lot of older material at very reasonable prices.

In issue #9 of Slingshot, published in January of 1967, Tony Bath wrote an article of particular interest to fans of Dungeons & Dragons. In an article entitled "Campaigning with the Aid of Fantasy Fiction" (Page 10), Bath provides a relatively detailed account of the fiction that can serve as inspiration for miniature wargaming campaigns. 

What was contained in Bath's article? In the article, he argues that players will find playing wargame campaigns in fantasy worlds of their own creation to be superior to strictly historical play and argues that one of the advantages of using fantasy fiction as a foundation is the fact that many fantasy worlds come with detailed maps which can be used to track campaign activities. Additionally, he provides a number of recommended literary works. Instead of publishing excerpts of the article, I'll provide a quick list of inspirational sources in the order Bath provided them in his article.

• Robert E. Howard's Hyboria
• Tolkien's "Lords of the Ring" (sic)
• Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars and Venus Books
• Fritz Leiber's Nehwon stories
• Robert E. Howard's Almuric.
• L. Sprague de Camp's Tritonian Ring, Queen of Zamba, Hand of Zei.
• Leigh Brackett's Mars stories.

Following the discussion of influential works, Bath discusses "kingdom structures" in a manner that both seems to advocate for proto-roleplay and predicts the later focus on domain creation/rule by name level characters in D&D as the leadership hierarchy in his discussion is similar to discussions in D&D publications.

What do we notice about the list of inspirations above? Other than Tolkein, whom Gygax claimed had minimal influence on the milieu of D&D, all of these authors feature heavily in early D&D writings and Appendix N.

I cannot, and do not, claim that Gygax based his readings on Bath's recommendations. There isn't evidence for that and many ideas come to people at the same time. What I am claiming is that it is possible that Bath's love of the same fiction as Gygax, the fact that Gygax's own gaming rules were influence by Bath, and that Gygax himself had articles published in Wargamer's Newsletter, might suggest that Bath's list might have inspired Gygax to create games based on the fiction he loved.

D&D Rangers Through the Ages (Part 1): The First D&D Ranger

About a month ago, Cam Banks began a discussion on Twitter regarding his thoughts on the Ranger class and how he didn't think that the Ranger class in 5th Edition D&D captured his concept of what the class should be. Cam and I are acquaintances, and one of my favorite game designers having designed some fantastic material for the Dragonlance setting, a Marvel role playing game, and the highly underappreciated Smallville role playing game (a game I mentioned during Dungeons and Dilemmas segment of this week's episode of Geekerati), so I thought it might be interesting to present his concept and discuss the evolution of the Ranger class over the editions. This isn't going to be a Jon Peterson-esque history filled with insider information. Rather, it's going to be a simple look at each edition's version of the Ranger class with some insights from a long-time player.

I think the discussion will be interesting for new gamers who may not be familiar with some of how the Ranger evolved over time and for older gamers who take certain things about the class for granted.

Cam's basic argument is two fold, an assertion that the Ranger is a part of an archetypical tradition and that the current version has abandoned a lot of this tradition because of the popularity of one character within the tradition.

His initial statement is about what he sees as the quintessential tradition that inspired the class.

In D&D, rangers should be guerrilla fighters, adept at striking targets quickly and with expertise, operating as scouts and archers and guides. Legolas and Aragorn are iconic rangers to me. Neither of them has an animal companion. Tarzan and Jack the Giant Killer and Ulysses too.

— Cam Banks (@boymonster) June 19, 2019

For Cam, the prototypical Ranger is a part of a tradition that includes characters from the Lord of the Rings, the fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Greek/Roman Mythology, and Fairy Tales. It's a nice list and you can see a coherent archetype within it of the lone warrior fighting from the shadows to defend the weak. In the case of Aragorn, this was done during his days as a "Ranger" prior to his appearance in the Lord of the Rings when he and others wandered the lands keeping the roads and distant communities safe from various threats. Legolas accompanied Aragorn on many of these adventures. Fans of the Tarzan books can find numerous examples of him engaging in guerilla fighting against threats that included Soviet Communists in Tarzan the Invincible. And we are all familiar with the various tales of Jack the Giant Slayer who climbs the beanstalk and battles...GIANTS...something that will be seen as a big influence in a moment, but first let's look at the second part of his argument.

I also blame Drizzt entirely for two weapon fighting rangers. There is no other precedent for it in fiction unless you count Nasir from Robin of Sherwood (who may have inspired Drizzt; but only Bob Salvatore could answer that.)

— Cam Banks (@boymonster) June 19, 2019

In the second part, Cam focuses on how the character of Drizzt Do'Urden has influenced the Ranger class in more recent editions of D&D. Cam's earlier mention of Aragorn's lack of animal companion is another example of Do'Urden's influence. Cam is arguing here that he believes an iconic character from D&D fiction, has influenced how designers implemented the class in future editions. I think Cam is on to something here. Robert Salvatore's character of Drizzt has an animal companion and he fights with dual scimitars. Prior to his introduction in the Icewind Dale Trilogy, most Rangers were using weapons that were more effective against "Large" creatures and none had animal companions. So it seems at first glance that Salvatore's iconic Ranger is now "the" iconic Ranger.

What's interesting about this development is that Salvatore has always written the character of Drizzt in a way that conformed to the rules of the edition being used at the time the individual volume was being written. Drizzt has an animal companion because he's was in possession of a Figurine of Wondrous Power and his dual wielding of scimitars was because all Drow had that ability in 1st edition D&D. If you want a great example of how Drizzt was a quintessential 1st Edition Ranger in the Icewind Dale trilogy, I recommend you check out the scene where Drizzt and Wulfgar are fighting giants. Drizzt goes completely berserk. Why? Is there some deep back story where giants killed his family? C'mon, Drizzt would be celebrating if giants killed his family. No. Rangers got bonuses to damage against giants and giant kin in 1st edition. You can also see Drizzt follow the "dual class" rules of 1st/2nd edition when he formally becomes a Ranger and leaves his past as a Fighter behind. He literally becomes worse at fighting until he "gains enough levels" to surpass his former level as a fighter. Never mind that dual class rules were supposedly only usable by humans, Drizzt follows them in the Dark Elf Trilogy. I'm actually grateful that Salvatore hews so close to the rules, even as he takes liberties, because it helps readers who become players transition more easily. They don't encounter any moments of disappointment as they try to adapt the character to the rules. The character was written with the rules in mind.

Sorry for the brief digression there, but I think it was an important side conversation. Cam's point isn't that Salvatore adheres to the rules, rather that the rules have come to reflect Salvatore's vision. Now Rangers are viewed as having animal companions and dual wielding BECAUSE that's what Drizzt does. The class has transitioned from an archetype based on many characters, an archetype that then influenced Salvatore's writing of the character Drizzt, to a class influenced by a particular expression unique to D&D. This has actually happened with a lot of D&D. The rules were originally created to emulate the stories Gygax and Arneson read as kids, many of which are referenced in the famous Appendix N. Now D&D rules are more geared at emulating the stories told in D&D novels, which are their own brand of fantasy fiction. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, so long as D&D novels cover a wide variety of milieu, but it can be constraining if there is too much Forgotten Realms and not enough Eberron, Dragonlance, Mystara, Dark Sun, Birthright, Greyhawk, and Appendix N in the mix. Is D&D a roleplaying game of the fantasy genre, or is it a roleplaying game of the D&D fantasy genre? That's a question for another time, but one worth considering.

Whew!

Okay, so I've argued that Salvatore's initial Ranger was influenced by the older Ranger class and that subsequent Ranger classes are based on Salvatore's Ranger as it developed through stories, but where's the evidence? After all, Nazir was pretty badass in the Robin of Sherwood series. Maybe Drizzt didn't shape things to come. The only way to know is to see the development of the class, which is the entire reason for this series of posts in the first place. So let's take a look at the initial Ranger class.

The Ranger first appeared in The Strategic Review vol. 1 no. 2 newsletter published by TSR in 1975. Wizards of the Coast hasn't reprinted all the early newsletters yet, so unless you own the Dragon Magazine Archive like me, you're stuck with less legal means of finding the information.
<![endif]-->The Ranger was created by Joe Fischer, who was a player in Gary Gygax's D&D game group and was initially designed as a "sub-class" of Fighting Men. Remember in Original D&D, there were Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, and Clerics. Thieves were created by California gamer Gary Switzer, the late owner of the excellent Aero Games (which is still open).  The formal introduction of Thieves to D&D came in the Greyhawk Supplement, which also introduced the concept of "sub-class" with the / Paladin the first sub class of Fighting Men.
 

Fischer introduces the Ranger in the following way:

Rangers are a sub-class of Fighting Men, similar in many ways to the new sub-class Paladins, for they must always remain Lawful or lose all the benefits they gained (except, of course, experience as a fighter).

Note that Fischer's Ranger is a specifically heroic class, with a required alignment of "Lawful," and that the character loses abilities if it acts out of alignment. While the alignment rules of modern D&D are flexible guidelines, the rules in earlier editions of D&D were very inspired by Michael Moorcock, Poul Anderson, and Henry Kuttner. In this fictional tradition, the forces of law and chaos have physical manifestations and are real things not just ethical constructs. One might argue that Tolkien's Ring Cycle fits with Morgoth and Sauron representing Chaos, but that would be an interpretation. Moorcock, Anderson, and Kuttner expressly state that Chaos is a living and tangible thing. D&D's early rules reflected a similar mythopoetic setting.

So other than being champions of "Law," what kinds of people where Rangers?

Like Fighting Men they had Strength as their "Prime Requisite," but they also required Intelligence and Wisdom scores of at least 12 and a Constitution of at least 15. These are pretty strict requirements as one only has a 9.26% of rolling a 15 or higher on a given statistic (assuming 3d6 in order as was the old school way). Players would want a high Strength, so the requirements mean that only about 1% of rolled up characters would qualify. This was one of the ways that older D&D balanced classes for play. The abilities of a class might be "unbalanced" or OP compared to other classes, but the rarity of rolling them up was designed as a counterpoint. Of course, Rangers are really cool, so the fact that I just "happened" to roll a 15, 16, 16, and 18 is totally believable. What's key here is that in earlier editions, you don't choose to be a Ranger so much as being a Ranger is something that chooses you.


Players of D&D know that each class has a certain number of hit points they gain each level. This was one of the ways that the early ranger was set apart from other Fighting Men. Most Fighting Men started with one hit dice (either 1d6 or 1d8 depending on which version of the combat rules you were using), the Ranger started with two. Right away, they are tougher but that doesn't tell us anything about their origin. The "level names" however do. Early editions of D&D had descriptive names for each level of character, that way a player could say "I'm a Ranger Scout" instead of "I'm a 3rd Level Ranger." I actually like the old system. It lessens the sense of "gaming" and increases the narrative element of play. The first few levels of Ranger are: Runner, STRIDER, Scout, Guide, Pathfinder...

Did you see the STRIDER? So yeah, it's totally Aragorn. Cam's on the money here. Additionally, as the character hits "name level," they are able to cast spells. Is case, starting at 8th level a Ranger gets access to one 1st Level Cleric spell. At 9th Level, they are able to cast 1st Level Magic-User spells. Eventually being able to cast spells of up to the 3rd Level in each class at 13th Level. For the record, at 13th Level a Ranger knows Three 1st Level, Two 2nd Level, and 1 Third Level spell from each of the Cleric and Magic User Spell Lists. That's pretty OP, but they require A LOT of experience to get there.

In order to "pay" for these benefits, as if the restrictions on scores weren't enough (they weren't because "rollling"), Rangers had several restrictions. All of which fit within Cam's description of his prototypical Ranger. Here's an incomplete list:

• They may own only that which they can cary with them, and excess treasure or goods must be donated to a charitable cause.

Let's just say that if you're using encumbrance rules, which players weren't but DMs were, this is a pretty big restriction.

• They may not hire any men-at-arms or other servants or aides of any kind whatsoever.

A strict DM would have this apply to the whole party. Let's just say that a lot of player groups had expendable henchmen and that Rangers couldn't have them.

• Only two of the class may operate together.

Legolas and Aragorn are okay. Ranger Squad Six isn't. Not that you could have honestly rolled those stats in the first place

So much for the restrictions, all of which fit the loner type Cam describes though I'm wondering where Tarzan put all his spells. Clearly Tarzan's spells are things like Comprehend Languages...yep, that's it. Rangers also had additional bonuses, beyond the additional hit points and spell casting ability...so...OP.

They didn't receive Prime Requisite experience bonuses, instead they gained "4 experience points for every 3 earned" at low levels. Holy cow! That's a 33% experience bonus! Unheard of. Why bother listing the high experience requirements, when they get a 33% bonus? Thankfully, they lose this at the same time they gain spells.


They also had the ability to track creatures outdoors and in dungeons and were dificult to surprise.

Here's the big one, one that partially explains why Drizzt goes berserk in the Icewind Dale trilogy.

• All Rangers gain a special advantage when fighting against monster of the Giant Class (Kobolds -- Giants). For each level they have gained they add +1 to their damage die against these creatures, so a 1st Level Ranger adds +1, a 2nd Level +2, and so on.

Good Grief! Sorry Mr. Kobold. You may only be 3 feet tall and have 1 to 3 hit points, but our Runner gets +2 damage against you for being a "Giant" and he REALLY hates Giants.

They can't acquire henchmen, but at 9th level they gain "Followers" that can include Werebears, Stone Giants, and Gold Dragons. How's that for an animal companion? The Werebear I get. Beorn in The Hobbit is a Werebear and Bard is clearly a Ranger, but the Gold Dragon?


What you see here is a class that is influenced by the fiction of Tolkien (Aragorn has some small access to magic) and Tarzan (he has a large group of loyal henchmen and we'll say that a Jad-bal-ja the lion is kind of like a Werebear), and Jack. Did you see how much they hate Giants? That's totally Jack. There's no guarantee of an animal companion, but it's a possibility. It's also one determined at random and not chosen.

The class very much fits within the scope of Cam's description, but you can still see hints of the modern Ranger. It also makes interesting reading for the Drizzt series, though his character is based on the AD&D Ranger and you'll have to wait for the next post to see how the class changes. Notice that there are no armor restrictions, no dual wielding, just hatred of Giants which eventually became "favored enemy."

Dungeons and Dragons: 5th Edition and "Zones of Control"

Back in 2012, I wrote a blog post discussing how every edition of Dungeons & Dragons had miniature use as a part of its default mechanics assumptions.

Let me repeat that in clearer language. Every edition of Dungeons & Dragons is a miniatures based tactical role playing game.

As I wrote in the earlier post, this doesn't mean that those playing without miniatures were "playing the game wrong." I've played in at least one adventure in every edition of D&D and there are plenty of rules my gaming groups have either ignored or added to make our own experience more fun. Here are just a few ways my groups have modified game play:

1) None of the 1st Edition AD&D campaigns I've played in has ever used the Weapon Speed Factors or the Modifications for Armor Class.
2) I've played in 1st Edition games that used "Spell Points" for spell casters.
3) As a Game Master, I've disallowed non-Lawful Good Paladins in 3.x and 4e.
4) I had a DM who used Arduin's Damage System in his AD&D Campaign.
5) I've never used the initiative system from Eldritch Wizardry.
6) I give every race a second wind as a minor action (Dwarves get it as a free action) to speed up play.
7) One campaign I played in had us set our miniatures on the play mat in "Marching Order." No matter the shape of the room our characters were attacked based on that formation in Bard's Tale-esque fashion. We could have been in the center of a room 100' x 100' and all of the melee attacks would have been targeted at either the front row or the back row without anyone attacking our Magic Users in the middle.

Every one of the games I played with these groups was fun and thus none of these groups was playing "wrong." None of these groups played games to the rules as written either. No one - with the exception of organized play - should play to the rules as written. Role playing games are written to be adapted to play for your local gaming group. There are two key elements that allow for this without "breaking" the game. First, there are no winners and losers in D&D. The only way to win is to have fun and changing the rules for your local group is one way to create fun. Some changes are fun for a short time before they create more boredom than fun - in general - so there is room for advice regarding power scaling and Monte Haul campaigns, but the aim is to maximize fun. Second, most role playing games - excepting a couple of innovative Indie games - have a Game Master who moderates the game and who has absolute authority in rules interpretation in the local gaming group. So long as the Game Master is fair and focuses on keeping the game entertaining for the players in his or her group, then what rules are included or left out don't matter much.

Man...that's a lot of prefatory information. You can read the older post to see how each edition of D&D has implemented the use of what are called "Zones of Control" or "ZoCs" in great detail in the older post. The short version is this:

Original Edition (Chainmail): Once engaged in melee a unit was stuck until death or a failed morale check.

Original Edition (Alternate Combat): Not locked in combat, but adds "flanking" rules in Greyhawk Supplement. Swords & Spells supplement adds attacks of opportunity.

D&D Basic (Holmes): Attack of Opportunity against those leaving combat.

D&D Basic (Moldvay): Adds "Defensive Withdrawal" similar to "5 foot move" or "shift" in later editions.

1st Edition AD&D: Attack of Opportunity for withdrawal and Rear Attack Rules (Page 69 & 70 of DMG)

2nd Edition AD&D: Similar to 1st (Pages 81 to 84 of Revised DMG)

3rd Edition D&D: See image below.

3.5 Edition D&D: See image below.

Pathfinder: See image below.

4th Edition D&D: See image below.

Each of these editions demonstrates the influence of tactical wargames on the combat systems of each edition. It should also be noted that each edition of the game adds new layers of complexity regarding what affects whether you are in a Zone of Control and whether you are flanking an opponent. Pathfinder, 3rd Edition, 3.x, and 4th edition all have creatures with reach that expands their Zones of Control and each of those games has specific rules regarding how conditions influence your ability to flank other combatants. If you read the earlier article and examine the pages of the 1st Edition DMG you will see that there are rules similar to those implemented by later editions, but you will also wish that the earlier edition had created cool graphic representations like those of later editions.

5th edition (in the Basic Rules) takes a big step away from the trend and is even more abstract than the earliest editions of the game with regard to flanking. I would argue that 5th edition is the first edition with takes "no position" with regard to miniatures and carefully crafts descriptions so that combat can be run either way without house rules or dropping rules -- though it does still refer to "squares" from time to time. The new edition still includes Opportunity Attacks - a firm Zone of Control concept - as described on page 74. But instead of listing a specific amount of distance moved as in Moldvay, 1st AD&D, and later editions it merely lists the need to use the "Disengage" action. The Disengage action can be used with a tactical map, but doesn't require one as it is more narrative in its description than the older "Defensive Withdrawal."  The Rogue class on page 27 hints at the flanking rules for 5th edition which does not seem to entail a good deal of examining to see if combatants align properly on opposite sides of an opponent in a way that require illustration. Under Sneak Attack, the Basic rules state that you can deal extra damage if you have advantage OR "if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn't incapacitated, and you don't have disadvantage on the die roll." That's a pretty big shift toward simplicity and away from map use. While it could be argued that the 5 foot rule implies the use of maps, one could easily assume that a creature engaged in melee has an enemy within  feet. If this replaces needing opposite sides for advantage, this is a boon for mapless gaming. It is easily adaptable regardless. So what does this make 5th edition's Zone of Control rules based on the Basic Set?

5th Edition D&D: Attacks of Opportunity (strong ZoC) and potentially with Flanking if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it. 

Dungeon Roller -- Tranforming Random Tables into Tabletop Fun

In March of 2012, Paul Hughes of blog of holding launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his illustrated rendition of the old "random dungeon" charts from the original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide. The Kickstarter was successful and raised close to $28,000. The additional funds allowed Hughes the time to create rules for a quick and easy Dungeon Crawl board game based on the poster and to begin work on a flash based version of the game called Dungeon Robber that would be hosted on the web and free to play for anyone who wanted to experience a narrative "rogue-like."

That game is now available and it is everything one could hope for from such a game. Players begin with very limited choices of career...they can only be Dungeon Robbers. New character classes, items, and the ability to recruit henchmen are unlocked with the successful retirement of past Dungeon Robbers. Do you want to be able to purchase food, and thus be able to heal at certain spots in the dungeon? Then you need to have a character retire as a Yeoman. Do you want to hire henchmen? Then some lucky sap needs to adventure long enough to become an innkeeper.

The game is tough and quite arbitrary due to its random nature, but it is fun in the classic Ken St. Andre way. Life is cheap and death is just around the corner. Going down a level in a dungeon is almost certain suicide unless you're of high enough level. Game play is similar to older text based games like Zork, but the results of the interface are more akin to playing a game of Dungeon Hack or another rogue-like. The game is good fun and I recommend playing the game on the website (just click the image above). If you like the game as much as I do just buy a copy of the poster and make sure that Paul gets a couple of ducats for his trouble.

Is a "True" Dungeon Master a "Fire in Which Players are Consumed?"

Wednesday's Penny Arcade comic completed their "Conflux" storyline in which Tycho convinces Gabe to run a Pathfinder game for a group of 4th Edition D&D players. A theme of the storyline has presented a "Pathfinder is hardcore like older editions of D&D" narrative, one that ends with Gabe now knowing the horrors of edition wars and why they happen. We as players have preferences. We like what we are used to, and changes are sometimes hard to adapt to.

I have always found it interesting that most players I know are willing -- if not even tremendously eager -- to try new game systems, but will react in horror when their favorite role playing game is released in a new edition. With the exception of Call of Cthulhu, it seems that if a game has a new edition it has a schism within its player base. It has happened several times for D&D. It happened with Traveller, Hero System, Vampire/World of Darkness...and on and on.

In the case of D&D, some of those who disparage the newest edition of the game often wax nostalgic for an era in which the players and the DM were almost akin to foes. For these players, the past was an era where players died cruelly at the whims of a harsh Dungeon Master. It was the challenge of succeeding in spite of such DMs, or failing spectacularly because of them, that was what made the Old School Games so great. You can find such nostalgic tales throughout the OSR sphere. You can also find tales of how great it was when the game assumed that the players would backstab each other and betray each other at any given moment. It is this point of view that is expressed by Tycho in the Conflux storyline. To quote Tycho in the storyline's finale, "A True Dungeon Master is a Fire in Which Players are Consumed!"

This was certainly the attitude the first person who I ever had as a DM had. He didn't hesitate to transform my Wizard into an Axe-beak -- a bizarre combination of Ostrich and mythic beast. I felt humiliated. The character wasn't my own, my friend Sean had rolled the character up. He had named the character Gandalf, I had high hopes for the young mage. In all honesty, after this first gaming experience -- which I have blogged about before -- it is really a miracle that I play these games to this day.

But that adversarial DM was just playing the game the way it was intended to be played, right? Old School D&D is cutthroat and the DM is your enemy, right?

What do the old rule books actually say is the role of the DM?
One almost finds a quote supporting this position on page 9 of the first edition AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. On that page, when discussing how to use "wandering monsters," Gary Gygax uses the phrase "if a party deserves to have these beasties inflicted upon them..." which seems to imply a cruel whimsy underlying the job of DM. But taking that phrase out of context leaves out his advocacy of making the game fun. To quote, "if your work as a DM has been sufficient, the players will have all they can handle upon arrival, so let them get there, give them a chance. The game is the thing, and certain rules can be distorted or disregarded altogether in favor of play."
It seems here that Gary Gygax is arguing that the DM's job is to make the game fun for the players...including by bending the rules in their favor. To quote page 110:

Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. In the long run you should let such things pass as the players will kill more than one opponent with their own freakish rolls at some later time. Yet you do have the right to arbitrate the situation. You can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye or invoke an reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done. It is very demoralizing to the players to lose a cared-for-player character when they have played well.

Here Gygax argues to not let dice get in the way of a player's enjoyment. Though I find the use of player and character to be clumsy in the above paragraph. It is no wonder some people thought that D&D was about "real" magic, when you write that "a player will die through no fault of his own." Player?! Holy!
Okay, so the AD&D DMG has some comments on making sure the focus is on fun and not competition between the DM and players, but what about the other old school books?

The Underworld and Wilderness Adventures (Original D&D)

(p.6) The fear of "death," its risk each time is one of the most stimulating parts of the game.  It therefore behooves the campaign referee to include as many mystifying and dangerous areas as is consistant (sic) with a reasonable chance for survival ...For example, there is no question that a player's character could easily be killed by falling into a pit thirty feet deep or into a shallow pit filled with poisoned spikes, and this is quite undersirable in most instances.

Even in the advice scarce Original D&D rulebook, Gygax goes out of his way to point out how traps with guaranteed lethality are "undesirable" in most instances.

Holmes Basic

(p.22) In setting up his dungeon, the Dungeon Master should be guided by...so that the adventurers have a reasonable chance of survival. (p.40) Traps should not be of the "Zap! You're dead!" variety...

It appears as if Dr. Holmes agrees with Gary that the adventures should be challenging, but not adversarial through his use of language.

Moldvay Basic

(p.B60) It is important that the DM be fair, judging everything without favoring one side or another.  The DM is there to see that the adventure is interesting and that everyone enjoys the game.  D&D is not a contest between the DM and the players! The DM should do his or her best to act impartially when taking the part of monsters or handling disputes between characters.

 Unlike earlier quotes, the bold and italicized emphasis in the Moldvay quote are straight from the book.  It's as if he is reacting to what he saw as a trend in the DM-ing styles he was seeing in the day. 

I don't believe that the rules of D&D ever advocated an adversarial relationship between DM and players.  I think they always viewed the DM as the arbiter of the rules and the facilitator of fun.  In my opinion, it was individual egos, and the natural desire to win sometimes, that created the killer DMs who believe as Tycho shouts.

My own credo is that a great DM has to be a great loser.  Yes, there are times when the monsters will win, but the DM is required to make it exciting for the players when the monsters are losing as well as when the monsters are winning.