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

[sixdemonbag]

chirinebakal,

Just FYI, all the methods you have mentioned equal a linear distribution (5% each side, 1-20, or percentile in 5% increments, or 1-100 in 1% increments). All linear. In fact, all the methods mentioned thus far are mathematically linear FWIW. Every method mentioned to generate 1-20 or percentile in 5% increments have the same odds. Rolling d20 twice or two at a time (1 die for the tens digits, and the other for the ones digits) are also equivalent. So, in short, everyone is on the same page in this regard. It doesn't matter if the die is marked 0-9 twice (colored or marked or whatever) or 1-20.

This ONLY changes when you SUM multiple dice together. 1 die = linear (whether just reading the face value or rolling for tens and ones digit as above). 2 dice (summed) = triangular. 3 or more dice (summed) = bell curve, normal, Gaussian, etc. The more dice, the lower the variance. Sorry for putting everyone to sleep. Beuller.. Beuller!

[waysoftheearth]

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

Great article Zenopus.

FWIW, it's also easy to get numbers 1-20 with 3d6: First die has 50% chance of yielding either 10 or 0. Second die has 50% chance of yielding either 5 or 0. Third die yields 1-5 (you have to re-roll any 6s).

Not sure if anyone used this method back in the day, but I've seen long-winded 'zine articles explaining complex dice probability systems, so it's plausible someone was aware of it. The scarcity of 20-siders in the early 70s may have been a motivation to think about it.

[Deleted]

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

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

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:
Snip pic

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.

In my group in college in 1975, I got two pens, one was metallic gold ink and one metallic silver ink and I inked one 0-9 with gold and one 0-9 with silver so it would make the minimum difference in weight distribution and it was pretty permanent and was good for thousands of rolls. It made them really easy to tell apart. Silver was 1-10 and Gold was 11-20.

[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.

Not everyone disregarded it Mike.

[Deleted]

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

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. 

2d6 may not be a normal curve, but the Central Limit Theorem states that after 31 throws, it's close enough.

[sixdemonbag]

Jun 24, 2017 22:14:31 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

2d6 may not be a normal curve, but the Central Limit Theorem states that after 31 throws, it's close enough.

A great point to remember, Gronan. Any underlying distribution shape (even random or uniform as in d20 or triangular as in 2d6) will trend to a bell curve at N > 30 samples (possibly less if the underlying shape is already close to normal like 2d6).

So, even a d20 over time will become a bell curve. My assumptions above were based on a single throw.

Also, thanks, Gronan, for putting my graduate degree to good use* for the first time since college! Just reading the phrase "Central Limit Theorem" gave me a PTSD flashback!! And, if anyone mentions Fourier or Laplace transforms, I'm gonna go cry in the corner in fetal position lol.

*I think we can all agree that analyzing D&D is the BEST use of any learned math skillz 

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2017 23:39:19 GMT -6 sixdemonbag said:

Jun 24, 2017 22:14:31 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

2d6 may not be a normal curve, but the Central Limit Theorem states that after 31 throws, it's close enough.

A great point to remember, Gronan. Any underlying distribution shape (even random or uniform as in d20 or triangular as in 2d6) will trend to a bell curve at N > 30 samples (possibly less if the underlying shape is already close to normal like 2d6).

So, even a d20 over time will become a bell curve. My assumptions above were based on a single throw.

Also, thanks, Gronan, for putting my graduate degree to good use* for the first time since college! Just reading the phrase "Central Limit Theorem" gave me a PTSD flashback!! And, if anyone mentions Fourier or Laplace transforms, I'm gonna go cry in the corner in fetal position lol.

*I think we can all agree that analyzing D&D is the BEST use of any learned math skillz 

Yes, I remember Fourier and Laplace transforms, calculus and differential equations, haven't used any of it once since I graduated and glad of it! Once upon a time I learned FORTRAN, wrote a program for flow through a pipe with 11 outlets of difference sizes, typed up the punch cards in the little machine and then feed them in the hopper to be read by the (IIRC) IBM 1040 computer. I also remember studying a little Matrix theory. (shudder). It is all Greek to me now.

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2017 19:20:12 GMT -6 sixdemonbag said:

chirinebakal,

Just FYI, all the methods you have mentioned equal a linear distribution (5% each side, 1-20, or percentile in 5% increments, or 1-100 in 1% increments). All linear. In fact, all the methods mentioned thus far are mathematically linear FWIW. Every method mentioned to generate 1-20 or percentile in 5% increments have the same odds. Rolling d20 twice or two at a time (1 die for the tens digits, and the other for the ones digits) are also equivalent. So, in short, everyone is on the same page in this regard. It doesn't matter if the die is marked 0-9 twice (colored or marked or whatever) or 1-20.

This ONLY changes when you SUM multiple dice together. 1 die = linear (whether just reading the face value or rolling for tens and ones digit as above). 2 dice (summed) = triangular. 3 or more dice (summed) = bell curve, normal, Gaussian, etc. The more dice, the lower the variance. Sorry for putting everyone to sleep. Beuller.. Beuller!

Not boring at all, sir!

Very good information - I don't think anyone, back in the day, had this kind of information to hand. People pretty much just went with the dice results, and I doubt that there was a lot of statistical calculation involved. I think it needs to be restated that for a lot of us, this was just a way to sit around the table with friends and laugh a lot, with no 'deep thought' involved most of the time.

[Deleted]

Jun 21, 2017 12:20:26 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

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

Good info.
With the Exception of Rob Kuntz and Tim Kask, none of the Lake Geneva people would do an interview with us. It is too bad you refused to do one with us, as it would have given us a more complete perspective on Gary and Lake Geneva.

.... when the hell did you ask me? I don't recall refusing to interview with anybody. Considering I've already been interviewed for three documentaries and once by the BBC (as well as David Ewalt).

Hell, I love the sound of my own voice.

Now, if it was at a convention I may not have had the time, but that's not the same as refusing.

So, confess. When did I refuse?

We'd have to dig through oodles of email. Might take a bit of time. So lets just say that the idea was proposed and the interview never transpired. Same end result.

[aldarron]

Jun 24, 2017 19:06:39 GMT -6 Cedgewick said:

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?

Brother Richard, the Flying Monk (Richard Snyder) was pre D&D74. While Mike Carr appears to have played the seminal character, Gronan has mentioned that William Crolley might possibly have had something to do with the first Cleric. (see comments
HERE ) Yes, priest spells were handled differently to the alchemimcal magic of Blackmoor wizards. Ironically, Priest/Cleric magic seems to be more like D&D MU magic in consisting of spells that are known and cast verbally. For the rest see HERE

[Cedgewick]

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

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

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

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

Some more evidence I just found that suggests that Arneson was the one to move to 3d6, not Gygax:
(from a wired article):

Gygax and a few of his buddies carried that DIY spirit even further,devising a game of their own around WWII tank combat. He was determined that his game would avoid the "goofy bell curve" that resulted from rolling a pair of six-sided dice (2s and 12s are rare,while 6s, 7s, and 8s are comparatively frequent). To achieve a more linear curve, he determined that players must pluck 1 of 20 numbered poker chips from a hat, so that there was an equal 5 percent probability of each outcome. Gygax later found the perfect replacement for this clunky system: In a school supply catalog, he discovered dice shaped like all of the Platonic solids, including the icosahedron: A 20-sided die.

[peterlind]

On the introduction of polyhedral dice, here is a quote from Greg Svenson in the comments section of this article:

grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/04/on-oracular-power-of-dice.html?showComment=1241702340000&m=1#c6638346636397956943


Greg SvensonMay 7, 2009 at 9:19 AM

James, I was probably not the source of your story.

Dave Arneson did tell me that he found a set of polyhedral dice on his trip to England, but that was before I met him and I never saw that set of dice. We used six sided dice in the early Blackmoor days. We were even using d6's when we started play testing the new D&D rules in mid 1973.

My understanding is that Dave Wesley is the person who found the polyhedral dice in an educational supply catalog and showed them to Gary Gygax, who liked them and adopted them for D&D. So, it is quite possible that Dave Wesley was the first modern gamer to use them, but I don't know that for sure. I did not personally see polyhedral dice until I saw a boxed set of D&D rules in 1974.

[Cedgewick]

Jun 26, 2017 18:43:11 GMT -6 peterlind said:

On the introduction of polyhedral dice, here is a quote from Greg Svenson in the comments section of this article:

grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/04/on-oracular-power-of-dice.html?showComment=1241702340000&m=1#c6638346636397956943


Greg SvensonMay 7, 2009 at 9:19 AM

James, I was probably not the source of your story.

Dave Arneson did tell me that he found a set of polyhedral dice on his trip to England, but that was before I met him and I never saw that set of dice. We used six sided dice in the early Blackmoor days. We were even using d6's when we started play testing the new D&D rules in mid 1973.

My understanding is that Dave Wesley is the person who found the polyhedral dice in an educational supply catalog and showed them to Gary Gygax, who liked them and adopted them for D&D. So, it is quite possible that Dave Wesley was the first modern gamer to use them, but I don't know that for sure. I did not personally see polyhedral dice until I saw a boxed set of D&D rules in 1974.

Also check out here: Dice Story

My European tour finally pulled into London, England and I visited a game store near Trafalgar Square called The Tradition Shoppe. (Note: All times, places and locations are subject to poor recollection. I am doing my aged, feeble best.)  Upstairs was a small game section — the games at the time being purely ones with military miniatures. (Board games in England were a rarity back then.) Amidst the Military History books, painting guides, and miniatures was a small bin containing a handful of 20-sided dice...I bought three pairs. I was positive that such a set of random number generators would revolutionize the military miniature games back home, doing away with the percentage determination table that we used with the 6-sided dice...After Don't Give Up the Ship I started in on Blackmoor (the forerunner of D&D), and the 20-siders resurfaced. Magic, being the strange, arcane thing that it is, cried out for strange dice.  The early players readily accepted them (the same ones who had rejected them for the more serious military miniatures games). That there were only three pairs was no problem.  Generally, we felt that we were nuts and no one outside of my parents’ basement bunch would ever play this fantasy thing. We kept at it because we were having such a blast playing Blackmoor.  Then our ‘sister’ group in Lake Geneva was exposed to Blackmoor. With a copy of Blackmoor and a pair of the 20-siders, what was to become Dungeons & Dragons was born... The rules were not quite done when a problem arose. Would we break open the sets and take out only the 6-sider and the 20-sider? (The others would be donated to a local school) Well, a little work showed how labor intensive that would be, not to mention a waste of dice.  The answer? Add rules that used the 4-sided, 6—sided, 8-sided, 12-sided, and not just the 20-sided dice.  So, the dice bags were opened only to remove the address of the toy company and thus better to retain a monopoly on the dice.  When TSR started its third printing (5,000 copies!) the Educational Toy outfit could no longer meet the demand.

Interestingly, the stories above don't seem to contradict each other. 

I went through the beyond this point be dragons manuscript and, sure enough, just as Arneson stated, you only need d6s and old-style 0-9 d20s.

[howandwhy99]

...

[howandwhy99]

...

[Cedgewick]

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.

Some confirmation on this (EDIT: this was EARLY on, playtest or Blackmoor.  As Zenopus showed us on the previous page of this thread, players later did come up with clever ways of getting 1-20 from d20s numbered 0-9).  From the Beyond This Point Be Dragons manuscript that @secretsofblackmoor graciously shared, we can see the note in the table below. Also, BTPBD uses nothing but d6's and percentiles (roll 2d20s numbered 0-9 twice).

[Cedgewick]

Something sixdemonbag might be interested in is the fact that using 3d6 makes certain saving throws INCREDIBLY hard to save against. Compare rolling a 16+ for a Dragon's Breath saving throw on a d20 versus rolling a 16+ on 3d6...

Basically any fighter/cleric under level 4 and any mage under level 7 is just plain TOAST. Same thing with low level fighters vs. magic-users... RUN!!

EDIT:

I crunched the numbers in the attached spreadsheet.  You have a 4.63% chance of rolling 16+ on 3d6.  You have a 25% chance of rolling a 16+ on a d20.  If you want to mess with your players, tell them, " hey guys, for something different we're gonna roll saves with 3d6 tonight!"

multiple d6s versus single d20.xlsx (12 KB)

Just a hunch, but I suspect Table 16 (above) from BTPBD is derived from Arneson's campaign, as we know he employed saving throws.  This may explain why his Corner of the Table newszine reported in the September of 1972 issue (Vol 4 #6):

There isn't a single player in the Blackmoor Bunch that hasn't had at least a half a 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, that it has happened.

[Cedgewick]

Jun 21, 2017 10:19:25 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

At least in Greyhawk, the stats were Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, Charisma by autumn of 1972, so Cunning was nowhere to be found.

Reviewing the thread, this is an interesting statement.  I thought there was somewhat of a consensus that Arneson introduced Gygax to Blackmoor in November of 1972, which would mean that Greyhawk only could have started, at the very earliest, maybe December of 1972 (if Gygax immediately started his Greyhawk campaign using Arneson's rules nearly verbatim).  I suspect that Gronan's particular list of abilities dates this recollection of Greyhawk to at least mid 1973, since the Beyond This Point Be Dragons manuscript (from around mid-1973 I'm guessing) contains a different set of abilities (it doesn't have Dexterity or Wisdom, but rather Cunning and Ego).

[derv]

It might be worth considering that any sort of random distribution can be created using standard playing (poker) cards. Percentiles are quite simple in this manner since suits are already red and black. There seems to be some evidence that this may have been practiced where no polyhedrals were available and it is still a common tool of probabilities in some wargames.

[Malchor]

Jun 18, 2017 13:05:33 GMT -6 @secretsofblackmoor said:

Often Arneson is overlooked in the huge, but seemingly tiny, leaps he is making. This is why WE don't work backward from D&D to see what is going on, but forward from 1963 and Strategos. We know that you know all the guys in th Twin Cities and we are amazed that you have never gone to visit them and play games with them. WE DID!

What did we see? A napoleonic battle played using Strategos!

What did we learn?

When the guys play Strategos they have unit information sheets. This is the birth of the Character Sheet. It has information on it. Stuff like: Unit Description; Unit Category/type; Movement Rate; Number of men ( this is like strength and health/hit points all in one!); Morale (EGO/Loyalty?); Etc.

Early on the attributes we see on character sherts are seemingly not so well understood by Arneson himself, as they are in some cases limiting to role playing such as morale. This does not hold any impact on what is being seen in the pathology for the function and use of these abilities.

Please please please do a YouTube video primer on Strategos. it will build traffic to your channel—or at the lease make me happy ;-)

Or... where can I find some elaboration of the above. Without knowing enough about Strategos it is a bit (OK really) hard to follow. 

I'm super curious about how Dave did it, but more so about if there is some useful application of Strategos to running OD&D today.

Jun 18, 2017 13:05:33 GMT -6 @secretsofblackmoor said:

What is truly perplexing, is that by the time Gygax gets these rules, he no longer understands the correlation between a character sheet and a unit sheet. Gygax puts attributes into D&D, but completely ignores it as a method for testing. The Gygax as Genius bias would lead one to ignore the fact that maybe Gygax has very little understanding of what Arneson is trying to do by this point. And the anti Arneson Bias often leads one to ignore how Dave often assumes you know what he means by things; so when actual abbilities tests are NOT cited within the rules, he would just assume you know to do this because that's what numbers are for!

Is there any reason to believe Gygax was familiar with Strategos? The story is that Arneson sent his notes to Gary and Gary thought they were just a useless mess. If Gary was expecting something based on ChainMail and saw a bunch of tables relating to Strategos instead, no wonder he was left scratching his head. Plus Gygax has a vested interest in Chainmail as the core (no saying he was greedy or evil, just human and it was in his interest). Rob Kunz is said to have recognized that the mystery bits must have related back to Strategos and figured out that Arneson was cherrypicking (if not continuing to optimize by constant experimentation), no?

[Malchor]

Jun 21, 2017 4:54:53 GMT -6 @secretsofblackmoor said:

We try to glean what is worth sharing as we have thousands of document scans. We also do not own most of the material we've found. So a limitation for us is asking the owners if we can publish now, rather than in the film. Another problem is self published works like Wesely's Strategos-N variation. He is still alive and he does own copyright on it. These we are glad to share to researchers, but we cannot place them into the public domain for open distribution.

Could you perhaps suggest to Mr. Wesely's a release of Strategos-N on DrivethruRPG or similar? I would plunk down a card for that.

Maybe a second document as well for Strategos-D, suggestions for application to D&D and I would plunk down again.

Or a version of Strategos-N perhaps with an appendix for Strategos-D printed by Black Blade Press (hint hint).SaveSave

[Deleted]

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