That's an important find, but you're reading too much into it: the one-minute melée round existed right from the start (book III, bottom of page 8.) But it means the same thing as "melée turn", and in the OD&D days (as you've shown,) Arneson, Gygax, Kuntz, and others saw no need to be pedantic and use strictly separate terms when describing spells and the like. A turn's a turn; the time a turn lasts depends on what you're talking about.
Some people don't like their peas touching their mashed potatoes. As more people entered the hobby, we got more people like that, who wanted strictly-defined terminology, so AD&D had to cater to them and strictly define a turn as 10 minutes, only using the term "round" for the 1-minute duration. Gygax didn't give in on some other issues, like use of the term "level" for four different things, but in other ways, AD&D is about stricter definitions and compartmentalization, to make those people happy.
Definetly agreeing with you John in regards to the loose usage of the term "Turn". I wonder if Gygax even really kept it straight in his own mind, really.
But, I see no evidence for the equivalance you are seeing in the terms "round" and "turn" in the text. I do see (nice work for pointing that out Falconer) that some 4 years later (1978) in Dragon 15, Gygax says "Combat, however, stayed at the CHAINMAIL norm and was renamed a melee round or simply round." But to be honest, I'm not sure how trustworthy this "memory" is given that Gygax is essentially neck deep in developing and promoting AD&D. If the one minute round was the intention in OD&D then all those instances when turn is written and one minute is clearly meant, go back to being mistakes.
OTOH, CHAINMAIL distinguishes round from turn. Round is always assumed to be equal to or less than a turn. In other words, there may be multiple rounds of combat in a turn, but there are never multiple turns in a round. I don't think OD&D ever used round and turn as synonyms.
What cooper has established convincingly is that the D&D term "Turn" is not solely 10 minutes in duration, but is sometimes a lesser period of usually about 1 minute, as per CM. "10 rounds per turn" read in this context yields 6 second rounds, not 1 minute rounds. The quote in Greyhawk reaffirms the 1 minute combat turn.
Sure, we've always interpreted "10 rounds per turn" to mean the 10 minute "exploration" turn, and that's still a possible reading but it now seems less likely that was what was intended at the time, being contradictory to the meaning of turn given in CM and often as used in OD&D.
Re: Lenght of a Combat Round « Reply #17 on Nov 11, 2011, 12:17am »
I always interpreted the passage on pg 8 of U&WA in the same manner as Talysman, but I had noticed those "melee turns", and now I can see this other way of interpreting it that you are talking about, aldarron. It's very close to the Holmes system, the only difference being 10 sec rounds instead of 6 sec rounds (perhaps they were rounded up?). It makes me wonder whether Holmes viewed U&WA in this fashion on his own, or based on communication with Gygax.
So - are all the spell durations in Men & Magic in melee or movement turns?
"Story tellers are always careful to point out that the reputed dungeons lie in close proximity to the foundations of an older, pre-human city, to the graveyard, and to the sea.” - Holmes rulebook
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I always interpreted the passage on pg 8 of U&WA in the same manner as Talysman, but I had noticed those "melee turns", and now I can see this other way of interpreting it that you are talking about, aldarron. It's very close to the Holmes system, the only difference being 10 sec rounds instead of 6 sec rounds (perhaps they were rounded up?). It makes me wonder whether Holmes viewed U&WA in this fashion on his own, or based on communication with Gygax.
Yeah, Holmes is an interesting factor here too. It doesn't really prove anything one way or other, but it has always struck me as odd that he was able to have those 10 second rounds in what seemed like a contradiction to OD&D, whithout, Gygax or anybody else, as far as I know, commenting on it. TSR certainly didn't shy away from editing other parts of the book. It may well be because rounds were considered kindof unspecific, CHAINMAIL-like matters of a few seconds and ten seconds is a nice simple number (as opposed to 6), that it wasn't considered unorthodox. So maybe Holmes 10 second rounds were an acceptible "basic" version of the 10 rounds per 1 minute turn interpretation.
I've argued much the same in regards to the Dex based initiative; that it wasn't a Holmes invention so much as an interpretation/implementation of an idea already clearly present in Men and Magic. Holmes may have considered both rounds of seconds and dex initiative more or less "by the book" methods.
So - are all the spell durations in Men & Magic in melee or movement turns?
Oh they are absolutely the 1 minute turns ala CHAINMAIL. That's the case regardless of how you interpret the length of a combat round. The spell and magic item descriptions make that pretty clear, plus there's the overlap with CHAINMAIL spells where the duration in turns is unchanged or halved, movement rates per turn are the same etc.
So - are all the spell durations in Men & Magic in melee or movement turns?
Oh they are absolutely the 1 minute turns ala CHAINMAIL. That's the case regardless of how you interpret the length of a combat round. The spell and magic item descriptions make that pretty clear, plus there's the overlap with CHAINMAIL spells where the duration in turns is unchanged or halved, movement rates per turn are the same etc.
I think this holds for the magic item descriptions, but I'm not so sure of the spells, for example:
Quote:
Detect Invisible (Objects): A spell to find secreted treasure hidden by an Invisibility spell (see below). It will also locate invisible creatures. Durations: 6 turns. Range: 1” x the level of the Magic-User casting it, i.e. a “Wizard” would have a range of 11”, more if he was above the base value.
Michael Mornard -------------------------- Played in the original Blackmoor, Greyhawk, and EPT Campaigns "Gronan of Simmerya" aka "Old Geezer" aka "LORD Grumpy"
Here's what puzzles me if the spell 'turn' is in minutes - most of the durations are 6 or 12 turns. If you were choosing a duration length for a spell, why would you choose 6 and 12 minutes as your durations? These values don't fit well into the 10 minute exploration turn - better to choose 1/2, 1/4 of a movement turn.
Now 6 and 12 turns do make sense as choices if they mean 60 minutes and 120 minutes as that fits nicely with the 5 turns + rest one turn exploration cycle.
Michael Mornard -------------------------- Played in the original Blackmoor, Greyhawk, and EPT Campaigns "Gronan of Simmerya" aka "Old Geezer" aka "LORD Grumpy"
Here's what puzzles me if the spell 'turn' is in minutes - most of the durations are 6 or 12 turns. If you were choosing a duration length for a spell, why would you choose 6 and 12 minutes as your durations? These values don't fit well into the 10 minute exploration turn - better to choose 1/2, 1/4 of a movement turn.
Now 6 and 12 turns do make sense as choices if they mean 60 minutes and 120 minutes as that fits nicely with the 5 turns + rest one turn exploration cycle.
Likely, because 6 and 12 are multiples of a d6. I've noticed some of Arnesons spells in his draft last x + 1d6 turns and you see the same in Swords and Spells, where durations of 2-12 or 1-6 are given. Remember that the game began without the "funny dice" and multiples of 6 or of 10 were the norm. The idea that a detection spell would last for an hour while the MU is walking around etc., doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It could easily be a game breaker.
The 10 minute exploration turn is almost certainly an idea that came about as they were writing the rules, after a lot of the spells had already been invented, and Gygax probably wasn't concerned about revising the spell durations or spelling out the differences. Heck, in Swords and Spells the lenght of a turn is doubled to 2 minutes but duration of spells is basically the same as in the 3lbb - except that ranges are sometimes given, as mentioned, instead of the flat 12 turns or what have you.
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Re: Length of a Combat Round « Reply #25 on Nov 25, 2011, 6:24pm »
I think it's more likely that this is an example of Gary writing something different than the way he played. If the spell was used to detect invisible objects inside one area, why add a duration? It might be the amount of time you can "hold" it before you make the actual detection. Whether it's six combat turns or six exploration turns doesn't seem so important in that case. It's just "six chances to choose what your character does," whether you make one choice per combat turn ("I attack") or one choice per exploration turn ("We walk up that tunnel").
what's interesting in there is Jason pointing out that Warriors of Mars (july 1974 - about 5 months after D&D) specifies a 10 second combat round. Its tangentel, but backs up the notion that combat rounds were assumed to be seconds long in D&D
To be honest 10 rounds probably wouldn't happen to often, just as they wouldn't in chainmail. 10 hit dice balrog has on average 35 hit points. My guess is by the 3rd round of melee (if all of the fighters hits landed by this point) the balrog would have to make a morale check.
What's most interesting in this above encounter is the parity between the Mu and the Fm. The magic user does a lot of damage from range, but the fighter equally does a lot of damage at close range. When combat goes this way, d6 weapon damage isn't actually the hinderance it is made out to be. An arrow may end up doing 2 dice of damage (if the archer doesn't move) and a 1st level veteran fighter probably ends up landing 3.5 telling blows in 10 rounds, against an AC 5 foe--average of 12 dmg.
This is a very interesting approach to combat that I've never thought of. Would you do this using the Chainmail man-to-man rules? If so, how would you handle morale? The only time the Chainmail rules say to test morale is if an army is reduced by 1/3 or as the result of a cavalry charge (unless I'm missing something). I feel like it needs morale since, as mentioned before, a full 10 rounds of combat/turn is quite brutal.
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Re: Length of a Combat Round « Reply #28 on Jan 6, 2012, 10:36pm »
Very interesting thread. I generally don't sweat the exact time a "round" takes... except that movement matters. FWIW, and I am not sure this is relevant, a 10 second combat round would mean 6 combat rounds in a combat turn... as in 1d6. I dunno. Just brainstorming.
Ernest Gary Gygax 1938 - 2008 "How many people could say that they impacted the lives of millions without bloodshed, political power or a global marketing machine - just a small game of gelatinous cubes, strange dice and 10' corridors? Gary did it just like this, and he did it out of his humble game room in Wisconsin. The context makes it all the more remarkable." - Melan
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Re: Length of a Combat Round « Reply #29 on Jan 7, 2012, 9:59pm »
concerning morale. 0d&d does supplement CHAINMAIL's morale with an individual 2-12 (2d6) score rolled each time a monster is encountered (what's fun is you can find a dragon with a 2 morale and a kobold with a 12! Lot's of RP opportunities). Mentzer basic goes into more detail about when a morale check is warrented (first time someone dies on either side, 50% losses etc).
Chainmail actually has 3 separate morale systems Shown Here as an example.
What intrigued me the most was it's initial assumption about combat, if you look at the magic-user and how it evolved, or more accurately, subsequent weakening, by the time of the greyhawk supplement, it is possible to attribute this to the change from being able to cast one spell per combat turn to being able to cast one spell per round. This heightened the power of the magic users magic by ten fold! So it's little wonder that gygax decided to cut their hit points down considerably.
Personally, I like the idea of spells being rarely used in combat (players will complain less about the vancian system if they aren't expected to have to fire off magic missiles every round) and if magic users, a la gandalf, can mix it up in melee from time to time and save their spells for exploration abilities, or for 'one off' sleep/fireball time spells. The fighting-man reigns supreme on the battlefield, as he should, but the magic-user makes up for this in a plethora of devious and useful spells outside of combat.
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