Does Arneson's "Cunning" stat map to Dex rather than Wis?

[Deleted]

Jun 21, 2017 11:42:00 GMT -6 @secretsofblackmoor said:

Thanks, Super SCARY! 9 year olds of Secrets of Blackmoor.

For the record, this improves my opinion of you.

We're talking about sillyass elfgames. There's a limit how seriously I take any of this, including myself. ESPECIALLY myself.

[Deleted]

Jun 21, 2017 12:22:10 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Jun 21, 2017 11:42:00 GMT -6 @secretsofblackmoor said:

Thanks, Super SCARY! 9 year olds of Secrets of Blackmoor.

For the record, this improves my opinion of you.

We're talking about sillyass elfgames. There's a limit how seriously I take any of this, including myself. ESPECIALLY myself.

Imagnie how we feel. We're at a fancy party. Someone says, "so what do you do?" We look down at our feet and very softly say. "Uh, we are making a documentary about the history of role playing games" the entire party suffers from a collective time freeze, as somewhere in another room, someone drops a pin on the ground very audibly.

Yup. Friggin' Elf games.

[Deleted]

If this is your idea of a fancy party, you don't get out enough.

Also, it doesn't answer the question of when I refused an interview.

[cadriel]

Jun 21, 2017 8:25:28 GMT -6 increment said:

Probably true, but, some people find value in the exercise. I learned something cool from it, though, not sure if it was ultimately worth the abuse.

Yeah, the close parsing of character sheets can give us small insights. It's the characteristic of this board that it usually goes deeper into minutiae than is productive, but finds some insights as a byproduct.

No. Though there were assumptions borrowed from 2nd ed Chainmail along these lines, there's no ability that influences plays into it.

Thanks for clarifying that. Not having access to early documents sometimes makes this history as frustrating as trying to map a Gygaxian dungeon.

[Deleted]

Jun 21, 2017 13:09:32 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

If this is your idea of a fancy party, you don't get out enough.

Also, it doesn't answer the question of when I refused an interview.

Lots of emails a year or two ago.

[Deleted]

I may have said I was too busy or unavailable, but I find it hard to believe I passed up an opportunity to run off at the mouth.

[Cedgewick]

increment, why won't you share with us the numerical values and the two number ranges for the stats on the transitional character sheet(s) you mentioned?

[Deleted]

Jun 21, 2017 16:39:52 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I may have said I was too busy or unavailable, but I find it hard to believe I passed up an opportunity to run off at the mouth.

Sadly, that is what happened. You were too busy. Aaand you likely thought we were just a fly by night movie project that would go nowhere. Plenty of those, and no direspect to the other films that got bogged down in legal. We're sad they won't come out. It would be cool to see a D&D movie that isn't ours.

[aldarron]

Jun 21, 2017 22:42:01 GMT -6 Cedgewick said:

increment, why won't you share with us the numerical values and the two number ranges for the stats on the transitional character sheet(s) you mentioned?

Second that. It could be useful to the discussion to know the numbers, otherwise there is no way to evaluate any speculation on possible reasons for what Jon is describing as ranges.

[Cedgewick]

I've updated the character sheet table.  In this one, I've included the Beyond This Point Be Dragons manuscript that the Secrets of Blackmoor folks generously offered a scan of (they also generously offered the scans of Megarry's character sheets as well, which are included in the table).

In this version, we instead consider the case that Beyond This Point Be Dragons was not a branch manuscript, but indeed a 1973 manuscript that was in the line of derivation from Blackmoor to OD&D.  You'll note that the transitional character sheet that increment mentioned is split into two separate sheets.  Although he only spoke of one "transitional" sheet, I think there are in fact two sheets (this being the "context" he mentioned).  The first character sheet was probably being used with the Beyond This Point Be Dragons rules in the Twin Cities.  The second character sheet was the same character from the first sheet recopied onto a second, newer character sheet for use with a newer version of the D&D playtest rules.  In this later version of the rules, Gygax used the two meanings of the word Cunning to split the Cunning ability into the two separate abilities of Dexterity and Wisdom.  Note the definition of Cunning from Websters:

Jun 12, 2017 18:21:10 GMT -6 Cedgewick said:

Merriam-Webster (1913):
1. Knowledge; art; skill; dexterity.
Let my right hand forget her cunning. - Ps. cxxxvii. 5.
A carpenter's desert Stands more in cunning than in power. - Chapman.
2. The faculty or act of using stratagem to accomplish a purpose; fraudulent skill or dexterity; deceit; craft.
Discourage cunning in a child; cunning is the ape of wisdom. - Locke.
We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom. -Bacon

Is it a mere coincidence that 1) the word cunning has two meanings involving both wisdom and dexterity, and 2) that the definition in multiple dictionaries, including the dominant dictionary of the time, specifically uses both the words Dexterity and Wisdom in their definitions from Cunning, and 3) that Dexterity is a very uncommon word with plenty of synonyms such as agility, deftness, adroitness, nimbleness, etc... but in the definitions of Cunning we repeatedly see the specific word Dexterity used, which happens to be the same word used in OD&D, 4) cunning disappears from character sheets at exactly the same time that both Wisdom and Dexterity appear?

This was probably done to produce an ability score that would sound more appropriate as the Prime Requisite of a Cleric (versus Cunning, with its underhanded and low connotations), and it also allowed the missile attack bonus (+1/-1) to be attached to Dexterity.  Without this split, Clerics would all gain experience for being cunning (doesn't sound right does it?), and they would all be better marksmen than everyone else.  With the split from Cunning to Dexterity and Wisdom, both problems are solved simultaneously: Clerics gain experience for being wise, and not all Clerics are superior marksmen because the missile attack bonus is no longer tied to their prime requisite ability.

You'll also note that when Arneson did Adventures in Fantasy, the only ability that he dropped from OD&D was Wisdom.  He could have gone back to Cunning, which seems to have originated with him (note it is on Gaylord's character sheet, presumably from Arneson's campaign), but by 1978 OD&D was wildly popular, and I believe he tried to keep the ability names of his new game as close to those of OD&D as possible, to keep them familiar to the legions of D&D players he hoped to attract.  Therefore instead of Cunning, he used Dexterity, and dropped Wisdom, which he may have felt was somewhat redundant with intelligence.  The choice to keep Dexterity over Wisdom suggests that if Arneson added Cunning prior to meeting Gygax, he was definitely using it in the sense of Dexterity in his campaign.  He may have also used the Wisdom aspect, but if Cunning originated with him, the Dexterity aspect must have been its primary usage in his campaign (or he would have dropped Dexterity instead of Wisdom when he did Adventures in Fantasy).

Increment told us that the second set of ability scores corresponding to OD&D (which I believe are on a recopied character sheet) has number ranges followed by a question mark for BOTH Dexterity and Wisdom.  Increment so far hasn't given us the numbers, but he said that the Wisdom range was "average" and the Dexterity range was "above average".  He is probably not telling us the exact numbers because the ability scores on the character sheet with Cunning on it probably tell us that those scores must have been generated with 3d6 instead of 2d6 (so, for example, at least one of the scores is 13 or higher).  Why is this a secret?  Well, previously it was thought that Arneson's campaign was using 2d6 until Gygax came around.  With the Gaylord character sheet showing 2d6 values crossed out in favor of 3d6 values for the 4 abilities that carried over to OD&D (though renamed), along with the addition of Cunning (which became the last 2 OD&D abilities, Wisdom and Dexterity), it may well have been that Arneson initiated the change without Gygax to both 3d6 scores and 5 personality traits instead of the larger set previously used in Blackmoor. This transitional sheet showing 3d6 values originally would probably support that theory further, and increments coyness about the scores may indicate that the change was done prior to BTPBD, in Blackmoor (which would be a surprise), as I theorized earlier in the thread (since by BTPBD we know they were using 3d6). 

I hypothesize that what the player might have been told to do during the conversion process from the BTPBD rules to the newer rules to accommodate the split of Cunning into Dexterity and Wisdom was to 1) roll 2d6 for Dexterity and Wisdom, and 2) to distribute for example 4 points between Wisdom and Dexterity as they saw fit. So, if the players rolls were 8 for Wisdom and 12 for Dexterity, the player could have then chosen:
Wisdom 8
Dexterity 16
or
Wisdom 9
Dexterity 15
or
Wisdom 10
Dexterity 14
or
Wisdom 11
Dexterity 13
or
Wisdom 12
Dexerity 12

At the time the player recopied the character sheet to the later D&D playtest rules, he hadn't yet decided how he was going to do the split, these being new rules after all. Therefore, he put the possible range for each ability score followed by a question mark.  Once he had a chance to read the rules to see what Dexterity and Wisdom did in the new rules, he would go back and distribute the points to Dexterity and Wisdom.

[Deleted]

You should really quote BTPBD/Dalluhn as Keith Dalluhn, as Keith is the one who first found it and distrubuted copies to people. We are merely sharing research copies.

[Deleted]

Jun 23, 2017 17:39:18 GMT -6 Cedgewick said:

In this later version of the rules, Gygax used the two meanings of the word Cunning to split the Cunning ability into the two separate abilities of Dexterity and Wisdom. 

Your explanation really is a house of cards. It all hinges on Dave Arneson being the one who comes up with the word Cunning which also means that he was the one who moved some, but not all, of his abilities from 2d6 to 3d6. It also requires that Gary Gygax felt compelled to pick one of Dave's abilities for his Cleric prime requisite instead of just making up a new one. Why wouldn't Gary have just invented a new term if Cunning was used in it's "underhanded" meaning?

Again, the changes to the Peter Gaylord character sheet could have occurred after Dave's contact with Gary and everything associated with BTPBD is post-Gary anyway.

There's no reason for Dave Arneson to switch some of his abilities to 3d6. If doing so was mainly to use d20s as ability checks why doesn't BTPBD mention this? BTPBD doesn't use d20s to generate 1-20 but as percentile dice (even saves were rolled on 3d6). Note that Dave's Adventures in Fantasy also only uses d20s to roll percentiles. OTOH, Gary was enamored with the bell curve of 3d6 and writes a page or so in the DMG about it. And there's no evidence that Dave used ability score modifiers at all. Why would Dave add a new ability so late in the game that, apparently, served no purpose?

The other narrative is much more believable and consistent: The changes to abilities were suggested by Gary who had a fundamentally different idea of how abilities should be used. He invented the term Cunning based on an archaic usage but later changed it to Wisdom just like he changed Looks, Appearance, Health, and Brains.

Finally, Adventures in Fantasy reverts Constitution back to the original term Health. Stamina (AKA Constitution) is an optional ability score and is meant to represent endurance only. It isn't directly related to Constitution from D&D.

[Cedgewick]

Jun 24, 2017 5:51:22 GMT -6 @hedgehobbit said:

Your explanation really is a house of cards. It all hinges on Dave Arneson being the one who comes up with the word Cunning which also means that he was the one who moved some, but not all, of his abilities from 2d6 to 3d6.

I disagree. There is no requirement that Arneson introduced cunning in order for Gygax to split it. It could have been that Gygax introduced Cunning when they first collaborated, then split it later. However, I feel that it makes more sense instead that Arneson gave us cunning and then Gygax split it. The reasons are:

1) if Gygax introduced the term cunning, why would he change his own choice to wisdom a few months later?
2) Gygax introduced the prime requisite system very early in the collaboration. It is referenced repeatedly in the BTPBD manuscript. Given that he would need a prime requisite for Clerics, why would he choose Cunning to be that prime requisite, which is obviously a poor fit for a cleric, then later (within a few months at most) change it to Wisdom?
3) perhaps the strongest evidence is that cunning appears on a character sheet we know with 100% certainty is from Arnesons campaign

It also requires that Gary Gygax felt compelled to pick one of Dave's abilities for his Cleric prime requisite instead of just making up a new one. Why wouldn't Gary have just invented a new term if Cunning was used in it's "underhanded" meaning?

Note the definition of Cunning from Websters:

Jun 12, 2017 18:21:10 GMT -6 Cedgewick said:

Merriam-Webster (1913):
1. Knowledge; art; skill; dexterity.
Let my right hand forget her cunning. - Ps. cxxxvii. 5.
A carpenter's desert Stands more in cunning than in power. - Chapman.
2. The faculty or act of using stratagem to accomplish a purpose; fraudulent skill or dexterity; deceit; craft.
Discourage cunning in a child; cunning is the ape of wisdom. - Locke.
We take cunning for a sinister or crooked wisdom. -Bacon

Is it a mere coincidence that 1) the word cunning has two meanings involving both wisdom and dexterity, and 2) that the definition in multiple dictionaries, including the dominant dictionary of the time, specifically uses both the words Dexterity and Wisdom in their definitions from Cunning, and 3) that Dexterity is a very uncommon word with plenty of synonyms such as agility, deftness, adroitness, nimbleness, etc... but in the definitions of Cunning we repeatedly see the specific word Dexterity used, which happens to be the same word used in OD&D, 4) cunning disappears from character sheets at exactly the same time that both Wisdom and Dexterity appear?

Again, the changes to the Peter Gaylord character sheet could have occurred after Dave's contact with Gary and everything associated with BTPBD is post-Gary anyway.

That is true. However, all things being equal, that character sheet is from Arneson's campaign, not Gary's. However, lets say you are right and Gary was somehow involved in the adding of cunning to a character sheet from Dave's campaign. This does not preclude cunning being split into wisdom and dexterity at all, and as I enumerated above, there are at least 4 good reasons to believe this occurred.

There's no reason for Dave Arneson to switch some of his abilities to 3d6. If doing so was mainly to use d20s as ability checks why doesn't BTPBD mention this? BTPBD doesn't use d20s to generate 1-20 but as percentile dice (even saves were rolled on 3d6). Note that Dave's Adventures in Fantasy also only uses d20s to roll percentiles.

We know with 100% certainty Arneson was previously using 2d6, which already was center-weighted had a bell curve. Adding another die increases the effect. How was a 2d6 ability check rolled? Arneson rolled 2d6 and if it was under the ability, the character succeeded. Same thing with 3d6; roll 3d6 and if the roll is under the ability, the character succeeded. One reason he may have wanted to move to 3d6 was that he wanted to make it harder for characters to get extremely high or low ability scores, which is exactly what adding another die would do. Remember he added it relatively late. At that time, he would have had a lot of characters being rolled up by then-- look at what he mentions in the loch gloomen report:

There isnt a single player in the Blackmoor bunch that hasnt had at least a half dozen lives so don't get depressed if a dragon steps on you the first time you participate it isn't the first time, or the last time that it has happened.

So at that point in the campaign Dave was well-acquainted with his players rolling up characters and perhaps he felt that with 2d6, extremely high or low ability scores were occurring too often. A simple solution would be to add another die. Keep in mind Dave was constantly improving his campaign, it has been described by multiple people as in a constant state of flux. If Gygax had initiated the change, it would have been very early in his involvement. Would he be the one to suggest such a change integral to a pre-existing system of Arneson's? Note that the prime requisite system that is almost certaintly from Gary and appeared early in the collaboration is a system independent of the existing systems- it can easily be overlayed on the existing rules and dropped if it causes trouble-- changing 2d6 to 3d6 requires updating all the characters in Arneson's campaign. Would Gygax initiate this change so early in his involvement, or would he stick to easily reversible changes at first, like the prime requisite system?

OTOH, Gary was enamored with the bell curve of 3d6 and writes a page or so in the DMG about it.

That is true, but 2d6 also is center-weighted has a bell curve, and Arneson was using that from the start.

And there's no evidence that Dave used ability score modifiers at all. Why would Dave add a new ability so late in the game that, apparently, served no purpose?

Dave was constantly adding things to achieve a specific purpose in his game. Note how the combat system and the ability lists were constantly evolving. You can see this in looking at the table above- note how two adjacent sheets record different abilities. Dave would be doing nothing different than what he was always doing.

The other narrative is much more believable and consistent: The changes to abilities were suggested by Gary who had a fundamentally different idea of how abilities should be used. He invented the term Cunning based on an archaic usage but later changed it to Wisdom just like he changed Looks, Appearance, Health, and Brains.

Theres a difference. Looks, Appearance, Health, and Brains were Arneson's terms, not Garys. Gary changed Arnesons terms into terms he preferred. If Gygax added Cunning, he would then be changing his own choice shortly after he made it, so its not the same thing. If Arneson added cunning, then it would be exactly the same thing that Gygax did with the other terms: changing Arneson's terminology into his own.

Finally, Adventures in Fantasy reverts Constitution back to the original term Health. Stamina (AKA Constitution) is an optional ability score and is meant to represent endurance only. It isn't directly related to Constitution from D&D.

why did Arneson feel it was necessary to write "AKA CONSTITUTION" in the description for Stamina? Constitution was Gary's term, as you pointed out, popularized by OD&D's success. The OD&D rules state "Constitution is a combination of health and endurance." The definition given for Stamina in AiF is: "STAMINA-(Optional) Reflects the character's ability to engage in strenuous activity for long periods of time (such as fighting, marching, engaging in heavy work, etc .... )." So right there we see the endurance aspect mentioned in OD&D's definition, and the health part of the definition is covered by his adding back of his Health stat from Blackmoor. Note that Arneson said that Gary's ability score (Stamina AKA CONSTITUTION) was optional, not the Health one that Arneson originally used in his campaign. He dropped Gary's Wisdom score altogether. Like I argued in the earlier post, Stamina AKA CONSTITUTION was there simply to maintain familiarity for the legions of OD&D players that he hoped to attract.

[howandwhy99]

I honestly don't know who came up with what. But for my money, the 3d6 bell curve overlaying the 1d20 linear result is pure genius.

[Cedgewick]

Jun 24, 2017 11:35:41 GMT -6 howandwhy99 said:

I honestly don't know who came up with what. But for my money, the 3d6 bell curve overlaying the 1d20 linear result is pure genius.

Whats interesting is that from what I can tell, all the d20s at the time ('70-beginning of '74) were all numbered 0-9 twice.  It appears (maybe someone that was actually there can chime in about this) that when a roll against an ability was required, or some other number from 1-20 was needed, they were actually rolling either 2d20 or 3d6, since there was no single die with 1-20 on it at the time.  See the photo below of early TSR dice:

[aldarron]

Jun 24, 2017 9:05:54 GMT -6 Cedgewick said:

...There is no requirement that Arneson introduced cunning in order for Gygax to split it. It could have been that Gygax introduced Cunning when they first collaborated, then split it later. However, I feel that it makes more sense instead that Arneson gave us cunning and then Gygax split it. The reasons are:

1) if Gygax introduced the term cunning, why would he change his own choice to wisdom a few months later?
2) Gygax introduced the prime requisite system very early in the collaboration. It is referenced repeatedly in the BTPBD manuscript. Given that he would need a prime requisite for Clerics, why would he choose Cunning to be that prime requisite, which is obviously a poor fit for a cleric, then later (within a few months at most) change it to Wisdom?
3) perhaps the strongest evidence is that cunning appears on a character sheet we know with 100% certainty is from Arnesons campaign

I'll play devil:

1) Because Gygax liked to play around with words and did sometimes change them. For example, the various names proposed for D&D, or in another instance, the apparent changing of the name of the priest class, first to curate, then to cleric, as indicated by entries in the FFC.

2) Its not obviously poor to me. Cunning strikes me as a fairly good choice, especially if you have characters like Friar Tuck, Van Helsing, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert in mind. At some point though, it's not hard to see how Gygax might have thought that perhaps "wisdom" would be better. Its plain speculation either way.

3) To me, this is the strongest evidence that Arneson didn't coin the attribute. Cunning appears on NONE of Megarry's characters, yet his character sheets almost certainly span the bulk of the playtest period. That tells me Gaylords sheet was "updated" very late in the process, likely when Cunning was already circulating in the playtest docs, i.e. fall 1973.

<shrug>

Just to throw some more bones into the soup, the Term "Appearance" occurs as an attribute of sorts in the FFC descriptions of the first magic swords. There it is interchageable with the term "Value" meaning what it seems to be worth.

[Cedgewick]

Jun 24, 2017 12:31:30 GMT -6 aldarron said:

1) Because Gygax liked to play around with words and did sometimes change them. For example, the various names proposed for D&D, or in another instance, the apparent changing of the name of the priest class, first to curate, then to cleric, as indicated by entries in the FFC.

EDIT: let me clarify something.  It seems to me that the "Magic Swords" section of FFC (1st printing, pages 64-top of page 67) is distinctly different than the "Matrix" section that immediately follows it on pages 67-70.  It appears to me that the "Magic Swords" section is quite old, the Matrix section is not.  Curate is in the matrix section, so that could be true.

Jun 24, 2017 12:31:30 GMT -6 aldarron said:

2) Its not obviously poor to me. Cunning strikes me as a fairly good choice, especially if you have characters like Friar Tuck, Van Helsing, and Brian de Bois-Guilbert in mind. At some point though, it's not hard to see how Gygax might have thought that perhaps "wisdom" would be better. Its plain speculation either way.

yes it is speculation.

Jun 24, 2017 12:31:30 GMT -6 aldarron said:

3) To me, this is the strongest evidence that Arneson didn't coin the attribute. Cunning appears on NONE of Megarry's characters,

Rob Kuntz suggested that the Misc. stat became Cunning in Arneson's campaign. Take a look at the table above- note Misc. disappears precisely when Cunning appears. And, we see Misc. on Megarry's sheets, as well as the original Spanish Royals sheet that seems to predate any of the other sheets. So Kuntz's suggestion seems to make a lot of sense, and it could well be that Megarry simply didn't update "Misc." to "Cunning" on his multiple character sheet when Arneson decided to change its name.

Jun 24, 2017 12:31:30 GMT -6 aldarron said:

Just to throw some more bones into the soup, the Term "Appearance" occurs as an attribute of sorts in the FFC descriptions of the first magic swords. There it is interchageable with the term "Value" meaning what it seems to be worth.

the "magic sword" section of the FFC per above is pretty old and certainly before Gygax's time, isn't it?

[Zenopus]

Jun 24, 2017 12:26:37 GMT -6 Cedgewick said:

Jun 24, 2017 11:35:41 GMT -6 howandwhy99 said:

I honestly don't know who came up with what. But for my money, the 3d6 bell curve overlaying the 1d20 linear result is pure genius.

Whats interesting is that from what I can tell, all the d20s at the time ('70-beginning of '74) were all numbered 0-9 twice.  It appears (maybe someone that was actually there can chime in about this) that when a roll against an ability was required, or some other number from 1-20 was needed, they were actually rolling either 2d20 or 3d6, since there was no single die with 1-20 on it at the time.  See the photo below of early TSR dice:

FWIW, you can easily roll 1-20 with a single 20-sider by using a control die (e.g., 1d6, 1-3 = 1-10, 4-6 = 11-20) or by marking one set of faces. For marking faces I've heard of coloring the entire side; making a dot; writing a one; outlining the pre-inked number with another color; or using a razor blade to make a mark (just heard this one last weekend from an older player). Both of these methods (control die and marking) are mentioned in Holmes Basic. 

See vintage pics here of marked dice: Marked 20-sided die

For percentiles you can just roll the dice twice in a row and ignore the mark. I imagine a lot of players did this since the standard dice set only came with one 20-sided die. We did the same thing later one with the single d10 that can in the 1981 Dragon Dice.

[Deleted]

I love the way that somebody who actually PLAYED with Gygax stating that Gygax never used "cunning" is disregarded.

An elephant is warm and mushy.

[Cedgewick]

Jun 24, 2017 13:30:00 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

FWIW, you can easily roll 1-20 with a single 20-sider by using a control die (e.g., 1d6, 1-3 = 1-10, 4-6 = 11-20) or by marking one set of faces. For marking faces I've heard of coloring the entire side; making a dot; writing a one; outlining the pre-inked number with another color; or using a razor blade to make a mark (just heard this one last weekend from an older player). Both of these methods (control die and marking) are mentioned in Holmes Basic. 

See vintage pics here of marked dice: Marked 20-sided die

For percentiles you can just roll the dice twice in a row and ignore the mark. I imagine a lot of players did this since the standard dice set only came with one 20-sided die. We did the same thing later one with the single d10 that can in the 1981 Dragon Dice.

This is extremely useful information to know in looking at these old materials. Thanks for sharing Zenopus!

[Cedgewick]

Jun 24, 2017 13:44:10 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I love the way that somebody who actually PLAYED with Gygax stating that Gygax never used "cunning" is disregarded.

An elephant is warm and mushy.

Thanks for saying this Gronan.  Thats a useful bit to keep in mind!  It sounds like you would be suggesting that Cunning originated with Arneson.

[sixdemonbag]

I cast Pedantic Spray!!

2d6 is not a bell curve. Graphically it has neither a "bell" nor a "curve". 2d6 is geometrically triangular. Adding a a third die (of any number of sides) DOES creates a bell curve (normal distribution).

There is a big difference between triangular and normal probability distributions. For a game, it doesn't matter, but calling 2d6 a bell curve is incorrect. OK now my OCD is satisfied. Good discussions all around.

EDIT: Whether Gary was aware of these differences, and thus enamored with 3d6 vs. 2d6 due to the probability distribution, or because it just "felt" right is pretty interesting to think about. We also have to remember that Gary was a big fan of just "2d6 and wing it" as well. Lots of tools in the toolbox. And with D&D it's more like a toolshed. 

[howandwhy99]

Jun 24, 2017 14:56:34 GMT -6 sixdemonbag said:

I cast Prismatic Pedantry!!

2d6 is not a bell curve. Graphically it has neither a "bell" nor a "curve". 2d6 is geometrically triangular. Adding a a third die (of any number of sides) DOES creates a bell curve (normal distribution).

There is a big difference between triangular and normal probability distributions. For a game, it doesn't matter, but calling 2d6 a bell curve is incorrect. OK now my OCD is satisfied. Good discussions all around.

Great points.

EDIT: Whether Gary was aware of these differences, and thus enamored with 3d6 vs. 2d6 due to the probability distribution, or because it just "felt" right is pretty interesting to think about.

Gaming is a subdiscipline of math. Wargames which used dice were all about playing the odds. This stuff wasn't simply known by all the game designers of that era, it's what game design fundamentally meant. Today we live in an era of near total ignorance about games and game design due to their eradication and gaming's conflation with expressing stories and narrative theory.

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2017 13:44:10 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I love the way that somebody who actually PLAYED with Gygax stating that Gygax never used "cunning" is disregarded.

An elephant is warm and mushy.

That's because you can't back up your vague claims of playing with Gary with a properly certified document, signed by Gary himself and notarized by a properly certified public notary. As has been noted in this and other places on the Internet, the vague memories and humorous anecdotes about gaming in some past time by some old codgers who claim - without submitting proof, it should be noted! - to have been gaming in the early days of RPGs have no validity or usefulness to the serious scholars who take up these vital matters.

Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn!!!

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2017 13:44:34 GMT -6 Cedgewick said:

Jun 24, 2017 13:30:00 GMT -6 Zenopus said:

FWIW, you can easily roll 1-20 with a single 20-sider by using a control die (e.g., 1d6, 1-3 = 1-10, 4-6 = 11-20) or by marking one set of faces. For marking faces I've heard of coloring the entire side; making a dot; writing a one; outlining the pre-inked number with another color; or using a razor blade to make a mark (just heard this one last weekend from an older player). Both of these methods (control die and marking) are mentioned in Holmes Basic. 

See vintage pics here of marked dice: Marked 20-sided die

For percentiles you can just roll the dice twice in a row and ignore the mark. I imagine a lot of players did this since the standard dice set only came with one 20-sided die. We did the same thing later one with the single d10 that can in the 1981 Dragon Dice.

This is extremely useful information to know in looking at these old materials. Thanks for sharing Zenopus!

The 'custom of the house' out at Phil's was to simply roll the two 20-siders that came in the EPT boxed set and real the numbers - one die would be the 'high' one - and not worry about the mathematical details of the probability curve.

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2017 16:57:07 GMT -6 chirinebakal said:

Jun 24, 2017 13:44:34 GMT -6 Cedgewick said:

This is extremely useful information to know in looking at these old materials. Thanks for sharing Zenopus!

The 'custom of the house' out at Phil's was to simply roll the two 20-siders that came in the EPT boxed set and real the numbers - one die would be the 'high' one - and not worry about the mathematical details of the probability curve.

Gasp! Shock! Horror! Witchcraft! Deviltry! Isolationism! Free silver!

[Cedgewick]

Jun 24, 2017 16:53:33 GMT -6 chirinebakal said:

Jun 24, 2017 13:44:10 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

I love the way that somebody who actually PLAYED with Gygax stating that Gygax never used "cunning" is disregarded.

An elephant is warm and mushy.

That's because you can't back up your vague claims of playing with Gary with a properly certified document, signed by Gary himself and notarized by a properly certified public notary. As has been noted in this and other places on the Internet, the vague memories and humorous anecdotes about gaming in some past time by some old codgers who claim - without submitting proof, it should be noted! - to have been gaming in the early days of RPGs have no validity or usefulness to the serious scholars who take up these vital matters.

Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn!!!

To this point, @zenopus's post up above about the different ways people got a d20 numbered 0-9 twice to actually give 1-20 is the kind of thing that doesn't usually get documented, yet can have a huge impact on understanding history.

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2017 17:43:31 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Jun 24, 2017 16:57:07 GMT -6 chirinebakal said:

The 'custom of the house' out at Phil's was to simply roll the two 20-siders that came in the EPT boxed set and real the numbers - one die would be the 'high' one - and not worry about the mathematical details of the probability curve.

Gasp! Shock! Horror! Witchcraft! Deviltry! Isolationism! Free silver!

Precisely, my General, precisely.

[Cedgewick]

Does anyone know to what extent the Cleric existed in Blackmoor? I mean there was Bishop Carr, but did he have unique clerical spells compared to, say, a wizard? And did anyone else play a cleric in Blackmoor (prior to Gygax showing up) besides Mike Carr?

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2017 18:58:44 GMT -6 Cedgewick said:

Jun 24, 2017 16:53:33 GMT -6 chirinebakal said:

That's because you can't back up your vague claims of playing with Gary with a properly certified document, signed by Gary himself and notarized by a properly certified public notary. As has been noted in this and other places on the Internet, the vague memories and humorous anecdotes about gaming in some past time by some old codgers who claim - without submitting proof, it should be noted! - to have been gaming in the early days of RPGs have no validity or usefulness to the serious scholars who take up these vital matters.

Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn!!!

To this point, @zenopus's post up above about the different ways people got a d20 numbered 0-9 twice to actually give 1-20 is the kind of thing that doesn't usually get documented, yet can have a huge impact on understanding history.

Quite probably true; I still have my 20-siders with one 0-9 in black and one in red to get 1-20, although I'm not sure if that gives the actual probability range. Out at Phil's, and by and large at CSA game sessions, nobody seemed to worry too much about the math and just read the numbers as they came up. Which is one style of play, I'd venture to say, and may not work for everybody.

As for understanding history, there are a few of the old guys left - I'm 'second generation', myself, having come in in '75 - and talking to them might be useful in this regard. All I can speak to is what I saw and heard, and since I was sidelined out at Phil's for over a decade that's really all I can enlighten people about.