Campaign News October 20

CLUB BUSINESS 

The next question that will be on the ballot in December is #5 which sets limits to the "time spread" between the future-most characters and those lagging furthest behind in time. Unlike all the other rules we're voting on, this one has not been in use. We've had a few discussions about the pros and cons of enforcing this in a general sense, but we haven't specified what the rule is or used it in the game yet.

The rules which we will be voting on are:

1. Character creation rule variations: minimum and maximum ability scores by sex and minimum hit points at first level
2. Family background rule extension
3. Secondary skills rule extension 
4. "Smoothed" and reversed combat matrices.
5. Time-tracking rules, specifically constraining the "spread" in time between the future-most characters and those furthest in the past.
6. Overland movement rate rules contradiction resolution. 
7. Loan rules extension and elaboration.
8. Class wealth restrictions as they related to character upkeep costs.

Please bring up any questions, suggestions, debate, etc. that you have, either in the #rules-discussion channel on our Discord, the comments on this page, in person, or whatever, although the more public the discussion, the better.

We will vote on these in December, so please get any discussion in early and please understand these rules so that you can make an informed vote.

Rules Question #5: Shall the club adopt restrictions to character timelines such that those more than 30 days past the median character time are in "time jail," that is ineligible for session play, and such that those more than 30 days behind the median time are automatically advanced to be only 30 days behind?

I've toyed with the idea of location timelines as well, so that everyone in say, Killarney, has to be on the same time line and if session players advance the date there all the other characters are forced to catch up to it. An advantage I see to that are that any setting events which happen in Killarney can simply be shared with all the players. This is actually already the case, but technically some of the characters are hearing about things weeks before their character could know, which is awkward. It also prevents characters in the future from "eating up" the mercenaries for weeks ahead of when laggards might be looking for them and saves the referees from having to keep track of that. It would also let a player potentially protect his character from automatic time catch-ups by getting out of town.

Anyway this one needs a lot more discussion and maybe shouldn't even be on the ballot this year.

Please let me know what you think! Let's debate the shit out of this one.

 

Campaign News October 18

CLUB BUSINESS 

To continue preparing for the vote on our rules in December. I'll dive into the next one now. This is not to close down discussion on the first three item. Thank you, Jeff, for engaging in discussion about those on Discord. I hope others with whom I haven't previously discussed these will weigh in or ask questions, and even if we have talked about these before, that's no reason not to reopen the discussion in anticipation of the voting.

The rules which we will be voting on are:

1. Character creation rule variations: minimum and maximum ability scores by sex and minimum hit points at first level
2. Family background rule extension
3. Secondary skills rule extension 
4. "Smoothed" and reversed combat matrices.
5. Time-tracking rules, specifically constraining the "spread" in time between the future-most characters and those furthest in the past.
6. Overland movement rate rules contradiction resolution. 
7. Loan rules extension and elaboration.
8. Class wealth restrictions as they related to character upkeep costs.

Please bring up any questions, suggestions, debate, etc. that you have, either in the #rules-discussion channel on our Discord, the comments on this page, in person, or whatever, although the more public the discussion, the better.

We will vote on these in December, so please get any discussion in early and please understand these rules so that you can make an informed vote.

Rules Question #4: Shall the club adopt the "smoothed" and "reversed" combat matrices?

There's a lot to explain with this one, but the short answer is that this results in combat tables that are mathematically equivalent to the original tables, just with "skipped" columns added and the target number to roll being the defenders armor class or lower.

Consider the original combat matrix for fighters from DMG p. 74.

 

The "smoothing" part of this rule is explained in the "Special Note" at the bottom. According to the table a 1st or 2nd level fighter needs to roll a 10 or higher to score hit on a defender with armor class (AC) 10 and a 3rd or 4th level fighter needs only to score an 8 or higher. The special note indicates that instead of following that table exactly, the game may be played whereby a 1st level fighter needs a 10, a 2nd level fighter needs a 9, a 3rd level needs an 8, and so on. Put another way, instead of improving the fighter's ability by 2 on the roll only every 2 levels, the fighter may improve his ability by 1 each level.

Similar "smoothing" columns have been added for the other classes and monsters. In the chart below these smoothed tables have been combined into a single matrix.

The last line on this chart shows the "reversed" aspect. Notice that in the original table, a 1st level fighter needs to roll 10 or higher to hit armor class 10 and that is 11 chances in 20 since only 1 - 9 would miss. To give the 1st level fighter the same odds of rolling to hit AC 10 by rolling that number or lower, he enjoys a -1 to his roll so that only rolls of 1 - 11 would hit. This provides mathematically equivalent odds for every character and monster to the original chart, but requires less effort, and offers fewer opportunities for mistakes, during play to resolve to hot rolls.

Hopefully just looking at these tables makes the rule clear, but please pose any questions you have. Likewise, if there are objections or a desire for discussion, we should have those out before the voting. 

 

Campaign News October 14

PLAYERS & CHARACTERS

We have a mix of good and bad news this time. Bad news first, Monica T has decided to retire from the game, at least for now. She lives quite far away and also the between-session demands that 1:1 time sometimes makes of players don't mesh with her schedule and responsibilities right now. Those of us who had the opportunity to play with her will miss her.

For the good news, we had a new player join last night's session, Jeff B. Jeff is an experienced and skillful player and I'm optimistic that he will continue to be part of this club for a long while.

SCHEDULE

Our next scheduled game is on Thursday, 22 Oct. Please remember to review and provide any feedback you have for the 2027 schedule posted in the 9 Sep newsletter.

CLUB BUSINESS 

We will be having a vote on our rules in December. We've agreed to play AD&D "by-the-book" in this group, but "the book" doesn't cover all of the situations we have run into during play in an unambiguous way. As a result, there have been a number of rules extensions and interpretations that the referees have been following to cover these. It is essential to our style of play that we all agree on those rules, hence the upcoming vote.

Although there are several rules we are using whose interpretations might be debated, this year's ballot will address what the referees (that's just me Barry and me at the moment) consider to be the top priorities to agree upon. These are:

1. Character creation rule variations: minimum and maximum ability scores by sex and minimum hit points at first level
2. Family background rule extension
3. Secondary skills rule extension 
4. "Smoothed" and reversed combat matrices.
5. Time-tracking rules, specifically constraining the "spread" in time between the future-most characters and those furthest in the past.
6. Overland movement rate rules contradiction resolution. 
7. Loan rules extension and elaboration.
8. Class wealth restrictions as they related to character upkeep costs.

In this and the next couple of newsletters I'll detail each of these. Please bring up any questions, suggestions, debate, etc. that you have. Ideally, we will have this as a club-wide discussion in the #rules-discussion channel on our Discord, but I invite this feedback from you in whatever form you're most comfortable bringing it.

We will vote on these in December, so please get any discussion in early and please understand these rules so that you can make an informed vote.

Rules Question #1: Shall the club adopt both of these character creation variants:

All characters use the male values for ability score minimum and maximum on PH pp. 9 & 15 regardless of sex.

At first level, the minimum hit point roll is ½ the hit die or dice, rounded up. That is, 3 for d4, 4 for d6, 5 for d8, 6 for d10, and 9 for 2d8. Lower rolls are adjusted to this minimum before any bonuses or penalties are applied.

Rules Question #2: Shall the club adopt the character creation rule of rolling for family social standing and professional background as detailed in Character Family Background Rules?

Rules Question #3: Shall the club adopt the secondary skills rule extension, if the Character Family Background Rules are adopted, as detailed in Secondary Skills Extension?

In a few days I'll post another couple of the questions. Please, please, please ask questions and debate these rules!