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According to the original rules, characters are created by the referee, but in my experience, it was always done jointly by the player and the referee.
During character generation, you can swap any pair of requisites once.
The player does not have to choose the highest requisite to determine which class they will become, however, the player also knows that choosing a lower prime requisite will cause progression within that class to be slower.
Characters and NPCs will be limited to the races: human, elf, dwarf, and hobbit.
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Our local RPG culture used the following table to map the percentile score to a strength requisite greater than 18.
| D100 | Strength |
|---|---|
| 1-20 | 18 |
| 21-40 | 19 |
| 41-60 | 20 |
| 61-70 | 21 |
| 71-80 | 22 |
| 81-90 | 23 |
| 91-95 | 24 |
| 96-99 | 25 |
| 00 | 27 |
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Alignment is a curiosity. As defined in the rules document, it seems like no more than a personality attribute describing whether characters are predictable or unpredictable, or their view of order vs. chaos. Therefore, alignments will be minimized if mentioned at all.
The moral continuum will be recognized. The same moral absolutes that function in our world, function in the game world.
Alas, the original rule books did not define what alignments are, so we are left to guess. Apparently alignments were derived from the Elric of Melnibone novels (Michael Moorcock).
Lawful characters believe in the merit, promotion, and adherence to rules, laws, and regulations. They strive to be truthful and honorable. Everything should follow some sort of plan. This sounds alot like being "good".
Neutral characters do what they can to make it in the world without upsetting the natural balance of things. If it was useful they would lie. Contracts could be made, but broken as well. They would be "fence sitters" without ambition. In once sense, law and chaos were locked in a grand cosmic struggle and they were trying not to get hit by any of the shrapnel.
Chaotic characters viewed the world as theirs for the taking. They would do what they wanted when they wanted if they could get away with it. Honor, contracts, rules were all for the weak. Sounds alot like being "evil".
The following table is derived a paper written by Gary Gygax entitled The Meaning of Law and Chaos in Dungeons and Dragons.
| Law | Chaos |
|---|---|
| Reliability | Unruly |
| Propriety | Confusion |
| Principled | Turmoil |
| Righteous | Unrestrained |
| Regularity | Random |
| Regulation | Irregular |
| Methodical | Unmethodical |
| Uniform | Unpredictable |
| Predictable | Disordered |
| Prescribed Rules | Lawless |
| Order | Anarchy |
Note that the lawful/neutral/chaotic continuum should be different from the good/evil continuum.
Alignments don't seem to add much other than giving lawful characters an excuse for committing genocide on chaotic characters, content that they were merely exterminating Chaos.
Thanks to lizard, Peter Lubke, and grimbunny2 in the rec.games.frp.dnd news group for the content in this section.
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Note that in my local RPG culture, once you got to about 4th level, you pretty much threw away the silly Class Level Names and just went by "45th level fighter" or whatever. We also used the following formula for figuring out the EP needed for each level:
( 2 (level - 1) ) * 1000
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Note that in my local RPG culture, once you got to about 2nd level, you pretty much threw away the silly Class Level Names and just went by "128th level magic-user" or whatever. We also used the following formula for figuring out the EP needed for each level above 8th:
(level - 8) * 100000
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Note that in my local RPG culture, once you got to about 2nd level, you pretty much threw away the silly Class Level Names and just went by "128th level cleric" or whatever. We also used the following formula for figuring out the EP needed for each level above 8th:
((level - 8) * 50000) + 100000
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Formulas have been provided in the section for each class that allow the calculation of each experience level beyond the tables.
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Most of our local elves seem to prefer wearing woodland camo BDUs.
Elves have good rapport with all animals.
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Since most of my campaigns take place in medieval Europe, the common tongue is Latin. In addition, each character speaks at least their ethnic tongue. Since most modern Europeans are multi-lingual, most characters may speak one or more languages immediately bordering their home region, or languages of regions that they have dwelt in continuously for at least 2 years, depending upon the intelligence of their character.
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Elementals are affected only by magical weapons and attacks.
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Only silver or magical weapons or attacks affect lycanthropes.
Our assumption was that since lycanthropy was passed on by infection (usually through combat, sometimes through needle exchange), that there were no such thing as "family groups" as lycanthropes were not a normal biological creature that reproduced as other creatures do.
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Our local gaming culture gave monsters alittle more credit. If they were carnivorous and of animal intelligence, then they would automatically attack, assuming that food was scarce in their ecosystem. If herbivores, the referee would roll for a reaction. If they were intelligent, it would depend on the situation. This led to less "hack and slash" gaming.
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Combat is based on
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Energy levels can only be regained by fresh experience, but common wounds can be healed with the passage of time (or the use of magic spells). On the first day of complete rest no hit points will be regained, but every other day thereafter one hit point will be regained until the character is completed healed. This can take a long time.
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Hit Points indicate how much damage (how many hit points) a character (or monster) can take before dying. Pluses are merely the number of points to add to the total of all dice rolled (not to each die).
For example, a character just becoming an 8th level fighter has 8+2 hit points. to find out how many hit points they would have, roll 8D6 and add 2 points to the resulting dice roll.
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In the real world, magic is demonic in origin. We explicitly make the assumption that in the Dungeons & Dragons® world that magic is different: it is merely a way of manipulating the environment in the same way that we use technology to manipulate ours (with the same consequences of mis-use). People with great strength (fighter-types) use their strength (sometimes via their weapons) to affect the environment; people with lesser strength (magic-users) use spells to do the same.
As D&D evolved into AD&D, magic spells also evolved into complexity involving components and rituals. My campaigns do not follow this trend. No components, no rituals. Spells are quick and dirty.
Even though psionics appear in later books, no psionics will be played in the game world.
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Our local RPG culture played the following "spells" as prayers.
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You can use the following formula for figuring out the cost for each spell level:
2level * 1000 GP
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This section will define commonly used abbreviations.
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According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, addiction has to do with a "compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; or persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful". Sometimes this type of behavior can be exhibited without the use of habit-forming substances. Sometimes all it takes is a game like Dungeons & Dragons®.
Addiction to anything is wrong. If you're addicted to something, you are the slave of that thing. Christians are to be slaves only to God.
If you find yourself wanting to prepare for or play Dungeons & Dragons® when you should be studying, working, or exercising, then you may be addicted. Stop playing the game. Ask for help.
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All of the information in this web page Copyright (c) 2000 Bruce W. Mohler and should be distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Thanks to the Web Design Group for their excellent on-line HTML references. Yes, I did use 1 deprecated feature ("‹img src... align=right›"). Thanks to the House of Style for guidance on Cascading Style Sheets.
This document was last modified on 30th October 2000.