The basic mechanics

[linebeck]

After extensive cogitation and game play I have discovered the basic mechanics of OD&D are:

Trying to find something or do something difficult: roll 1d6 roll low.

Dealing damage or trying not to be surprised: roll 1d6 roll high.

Attacking a monster or making a saving throw: roll 1d20 roll high.

Turning undead or making friends: roll 2d6 roll high.

Does everyone agree?

[Finarvyn]

Yeah, I think that's it in a nutshell.

This always drove my sister crazy, back in the day, and for a while she refused to play because of the whole "sometimes high is good, sometimes low is good" stuff. Descending AC was another thing that drove her nuts. Funny how it wasn't until 2000 or so that somebody "fixed" that stuff.

[waysoftheearth]

These may be dice mechanics for "chance-y situations", but perhaps the "basic mechanics" of the game are broader than just dice throws? For me the more "basic" or fundamental mechanics are the interface between players and ref, referee decision making, player progress across games, and the impact/persistence of game outcomes in a dynamic/evolving imaginary game setting.

For the dice mechanics listed, I'm pretty sure surprise is the other way around (i.e., the players burst into a room and then they dice to surprise the monster in there; rather than dicing for the monster to see if it avoids surprise). That aside, there's a bunch of other important stuff including (off the top of my head): world-building, treasure generation, random encounters, morale, and the pursuit game. Prolly a few more too.

FWIW, I play virtually everything as "a high roll is a good roll" which is just simpler.

Hope that helps

[talysman]

I wouldn't call a damage roll a "roll high" mechanic. It's part of a general class of mechanics like "roll to see how many orcs are put to sleep" or "roll to see how strong you are" or "roll to see how much gold you start with". Damage rolls happen so often, they look like they fit into the core player-facing mechanics, but there's a lot of similar rolls on the GM side, like Number Appearing. It's just "roll one or more dice of appropriate types anytime you need to find a number in a range."

I personally have changed rolling to do something to 5+ on 1d6 (roll high) instead of 1-2 in 6 (roll low), to make it consistent with the other two rolls. I call them Situation Rolls, as opposed to Attack/Save Rolls and Reaction Rolls. I personally have no trouble with some things being roll high and others being roll low; it depends on how you are using the numbers. But I know other people get hung up when "high" doesn't mean "good".

There's also the "roll versus adversity" roll, mentioned in Men & Magic but not very well defined until it was renamed System Shock and became a percentile roll in Greyhawk. But I've long thought that it might be possible to consider that a reaction roll on the GM's part to determine state of decomposition, higher is better, but the roll is ignored if it's higher than the player's Constitution, which from the player's viewpoint looks like "roll 2d6 under Con".

[tetramorph]

For my own sense of consistency I have made it that referee rolls on d6 = high detrimental to players, low beneficial. I am rolling for the monsters / adversarial world.

[linebeck]

Sept 12, 2020 18:31:15 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

]For the dice mechanics listed, I'm pretty sure surprise is the other way around (i.e., the players burst into a room and then they dice to surprise the monster in there; rather than dicing for the monster to see if it avoids surprise.

I would adjudicate surprise as roll to see if you are surprised. If you roll high, you are not surprised. It subsumes initiative which is a mechanic I do not like and would like to avoid. If you are not surprised then you act with the order of attacks by weapon length and placement. If you are surprised, you miss a turn and then have second order for remaining turns. This interpretation gives a slight advantage to PCs - assuming no surprise, PCs go first. But if the pc attacks a monster with a higher weapon class (ie a spear vs a dagger) the monster gets the first attack.

[Red Baron]

I strongly disagree as to what constitutes "basic mechanics".

Basic D&D mechanics for me concern movement, light, doors, and flight/pursuit - and more specifically, how these are all handled in dungeons, as the wilderness is often not the immediate subject of exploratory forays:

A. Dungeon Exploration: Exploration is divided into 10 minute exploration turns. Two full moves constitute a turn, except in flight/pursuit situations where there will be four moves per turn (and no mapping allowed). After five turns of exploration, characters must rest for a turn. After flight/pursuit situations, two turns of rest are required.

B. Light: Torches, lanterns and magic swords will reveal their bearers presence, so that monsters will never be surprised by parties with a light source. Torches burn for an hour, a pint of lantern oil will burn for four. Combat while holding a lantern is impossible. Torches illuminate 40’, light spell 30’, magic swords 20’. (I might have gotten these numbers incorrect FYI).

C. Pits: 2/6 chance for a pit to spring open under a random character. There is an x in 6 chance per x levels fallen that xd6 damage is sustained from the fall.

D. Doors:
The density of oak is 45 lbs per cubic foot, therefore a 10’x10’x1’ door weighs 4500 lbs.
Doors: 2/6 chance to open, 1/6 for hobbits and weaklings. If it doesn’t open, a full turn must be spent on each subsequent attempt.
Secret doors: 2/6 chance to detect, 4/6 for elfs. Secret doors always open readily.
Listen at doors: 1/6 chance to hear a noise beyond, 2/6 for elfs, dwarfs, hobbits.

E. Surprise: (People handle this differently)

F. Running Away:
Most monsters will continue pursuit in a straight line as long as there is not more than 90 feet between the two parties. Distance will open or close dependent upon the relative speeds of the two parties, according to their respective movement rates. To move faster, characters may discard items such as treasure in order to reduce encumbrance. Turning a corner, passing through a door, or changing elevation will loose a monster on a 3/6. Passing through a secret passage or door will loose a monster on a 5/6. Burning oil will deter most monsters. Food will deter unintelligent monsters on a 5/6. Significant treasure will deter intelligent monsters on a 5/6, unless they believe more treasure may be easily gained by pursuit.

You can wing combat, seat of the pants - But you can't wing exploration. There are procedures for exploration that need to be followed, or else you are playing a very different game than D&D.

[Finarvyn]

I find it intriguing that the term "basic mechanics" can be interpreted so many ways.
* What dice are rolled in which situations
* How a RPG is run in different situations
* Others?

It becomes somewhat philosophical.

[talysman]

Sept 16, 2020 8:55:50 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I find it intriguing that the term "basic mechanics" can be interpreted so many ways.
* What dice are rolled in which situations
* How a RPG is run in different situations
* Others?

It becomes somewhat philosophical.

I personally reserve the term "mechanics" for procedures where you, the player either physically do something (roll dice) or transform data (usually math, but we can also imagine mechanics based on scrambling letters in a word, for example.) I haven't decided if a numeric comparison (Attacker's Strength > Defender's Strength) is a mechanic or not, but it's certainly on the border.

Some rules aren't mechanics, in my view. These are usually conditionals, like "If the character's class is Fighter, they can use magic swords". A lot of rules aren't phrased as a conditional, but basically are: "Magic-Users can memorize spells they can cast during an adventure" is basically the same thing as "If the character's class is Magic-User, they can memorize spells" + "Characters can cast (use) a spell during an adventure if and only if the spell has been memorized."

The conditional rules are the important ones because they define the structure of the game. This is where I'd disagree Red Baron: I don't think the rules cited (movement, light, pits, doors, surprise, and flight/pursuit) define D&D, especially since the exact numbers and even the procedures differ between OD&D with or without various supplements, Holmes Basic, B/X, and BECM, nor can I believe that if a system of tunnels and chambers below the ground has no pits or doors and is well-lit by glowing fungi, the game suddenly stops being D&D, no matter how many other rules match D&D exactly. But I would agree that D&D is partially defined by a structure centered on exploration: move, map, choose a path, check for/deal with danger, retrieve any treasure, and escape the area/return to camp. You can "wing it" for any of those steps, but you do need to handle those steps in some way.

[stonetoflesh]

Sept 13, 2020 10:21:23 GMT -6 talysman said:

I personally have changed rolling to do something to 5+ on 1d6 (roll high) instead of 1-2 in 6 (roll low), to make it consistent with the other two rolls.

I've done the same thing for most of the positive-outcome 1d6 rolls (hear noise, find secret doors, etc.) I find it easier to apply modifiers for attributes or other factors, and the "higher = better for the player" is consistent with how I handle the "when in doubt, roll a d6" ruling.

[derv]

Sept 16, 2020 8:55:50 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I find it intriguing that the term "basic mechanics" can be interpreted so many ways.
* What dice are rolled in which situations
* How a RPG is run in different situations
* Others?

It becomes somewhat philosophical.

Yes, it can become somewhat philosophical. I guess really the question might just as easily be, what is necessary to play D&D and at what point are you playing something other than D&D.

In my mind mechanics are reserved for anything that involves chance or probability. They are not restricted to any particular method (dice or other) in achieving an outcome. For instance, OD&D actually mentions two separate combat systems. They're both completely usable.

Most other things that are lumped under the mechanic category are actually accounting or management tools. You know, methods for putting things in order and in helping you count beans. These are often formulaic. Management tools can have effects on mechanics though. I'd actually include things like movement rates, time, and levels (as well as experience points), actually, in this category.

The final category is just simple randomization. It's not something everyone practices nor is it essential to play. I'd include things like generating treasure and wandering monster types in this category. These are a mechanic, just not a necessary one and they are easily adjusted to suit a particular taste. In that sense they're more of a spice to be added liberally when needed.

[captainjapan]

There might be only three real, player facing, mechanics of the basic game:

1)Equipment
    - This means, not just spending new gold pieces on weapons and gear. I'm also talking about the abilities, that level advancement gets you, that still have to be "purchased" from a list. Spells fall into this category. The follow-on to equipping a character, between expeditions, is actual resource management in the dungeon. 

2)Encounter
    - In a less interesting game this would mean traps, alone. Maybe, hiring men?. Luckily, this is D&D, so we get monsters to fight! Only some of them are intelligent enough to reason with. A player can develop tactics to handle encounters.

3)Navigation
    -Mapping might seem like a sidetrack in some "gung-ho" dungeons, but without mapping there may be no ongoing campaign. The players must be able to escape the dungeon to advance. I'm also lumping doors in, as a navigation mechanic. If you don't open the door, then you don't encounter the monster and you'll have no treasure to escape with. But, maybe it would be better to pass the door by?. Here is a choice to navigate.


Equip, encounter, navigate. Wash, rinse, repeat.

[linebeck]

Sept 16, 2020 20:25:14 GMT -6 captainjapan said:

There might be only three real, player facing, mechanics of the basic game:

1)Equipment
    - This means, not just spending new gold pieces on weapons and gear. I'm also talking about the abilities, that level advancement gets you, that still have to be "purchased" from a list. Spells fall into this category. The follow-on to equipping a character, between expeditions, is actual resource management in the dungeon. 

2)Encounter
    - In a less interesting game this would mean traps, alone. Maybe, hiring men?. Luckily, this is D&D, so we get monsters to fight! Only some of them are intelligent enough to reason with. A player can develop tactics to handle encounters.

3)Navigation
    -Mapping might seem like a sidetrack in some "gung-ho" dungeons, but without mapping there may be no ongoing campaign. The players must be able to escape the dungeon to advance. I'm also lumping doors in, as a navigation mechanic. If you don't open the door, then you don't encounter the monster and you'll have no treasure to escape with. But, maybe it would be better to pass the door by?. Here is a choice to navigate.


Equip, encounter, navigate. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I agree 100% with everything you’re saying above. I would call that the “basic gameplay” as opposed to the “basic mechanics” but this may just be an issue of semantics.

[Red Baron]

Sept 16, 2020 11:12:30 GMT -6 talysman said:

The conditional rules are the important ones because they define the structure of the game. This is where I'd disagree Red Baron : I don't think the rules cited (movement, light, pits, doors, surprise, and flight/pursuit) define D&D, especially since the exact numbers and even the procedures differ between OD&D with or without various supplements, Holmes Basic, B/X, and BECM, nor can I believe that if a system of tunnels and chambers below the ground has no pits or doors and is well-lit by glowing fungi, the game suddenly stops being D&D, no matter how many other rules match D&D exactly. But I would agree that D&D is partially defined by a structure centered on exploration: move, map, choose a path, check for/deal with danger, retrieve any treasure, and escape the area/return to camp. You can "wing it" for any of those steps, but you do need to handle those steps in some way.

I strongly believe that these steps constitute the core of game play, as outlined by the 3LBBs. Below I quote what I believe to be the most insightful post on this forum.

Oct 21, 2014 23:22:07 GMT -6 cooper said:

There is an issue of emphasis. D&D was not about individual combat...that already existed in CHAINMAIL. If you wanted two knights to fight each other the rules already existed and were quite complex. There already existed rules for heroes to fight dragons and ogres. D&D was a rule supplement about exploration in a dungeon. The real issue isn't that what constitutes a round or a turn may be ill defined or opaque, but that it wasn't really a consideration--it wasn't important to the game [comment by Red Baron - this thread was discussing combat round length]; what D&D was adding was how to explore a dungeon and in this regard it is well detailed.

The combat system has increasingly taken over as the defining characteristic of D&D. So much so that 3e, 4e, and 5e kind of revolve around this d20. For every 1000 posts about how combat is suppose to be run, or if weapons should do d6 damage, or if wizard should have burning hands as a cantrip there is not even 1 post on how to run the dungeon-chase sequence in the game. Not one post asking if the character of the player who is mapping is allowed to carry anything in his hands other than pen and parchment....

Gygax knew how to make combat complex and detailed, he already co-wrote such a game, d&d weapons did a flat d6 damage not because "role-playing games were in their infancy" and the designers didn't know how to make combat detailed, d&d's combat system was purposefully left light because to add complexity to a system is to tell the game player what is important to that system, Gygax and Arneson were telling the players what was important in their new game by what rules were complex and which were practically hand-waved. Every move in a dungeon is plotted, mapped, checked, and detailed.  A 5 turn dungeon move (followed by 1 turn of rest) is a complex multi-part back and forth between the DM and the players leading to varied results, many of which relied upon the not just the abilities of characters (infra vision, tunnel senses) but also player skill of what spells to pick, when to run, when to parlay, let alone mapping. This is a design decision, not oversight that combat was a simple back and forth of attack matrix vs. armor class.

The exploration turn is a complex environmental combat of PC's vs. dungeon utilizing player and character skills. Combat, like Parlay or going to town, is a mini-game within this environmental combat game. All too often the dungeon is now simply a pretty backdrop, like the flat screen behind characters from street fighter or mortal combat whose preoccupation is...well...mortal combat.

[talysman]

Sept 27, 2020 5:50:40 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

I strongly believe that these steps constitute the core of game play, as outlined by the 3LBBs. Below I quote what I believe to be the most insightful post on this forum.

Oct 21, 2014 23:22:07 GMT -6 cooper said:

There is an issue of emphasis. D&D was not about individual combat...that already existed in CHAINMAIL. If you wanted two knights to fight each other the rules already existed and were quite complex. There already existed rules for heroes to fight dragons and ogres. D&D was a rule supplement about exploration in a dungeon. The real issue isn't that what constitutes a round or a turn may be ill defined or opaque, but that it wasn't really a consideration--it wasn't important to the game [comment by Red Baron - this thread was discussing combat round length]; what D&D was adding was how to explore a dungeon and in this regard it is well detailed.

[...]

The exploration turn is a complex environmental combat of PC's vs. dungeon utilizing player and character skills. Combat, like Parlay or going to town, is a mini-game within this environmental combat game. All too often the dungeon is now simply a pretty backdrop, like the flat screen behind characters from street fighter or mortal combat whose preoccupation is...well...mortal combat.

cooper 's post is a good one, and I agree with it. As I said in my earlier comment:

Sept 16, 2020 11:12:30 GMT -6 talysman said:

[...] This is where I'd disagree Red Baron : I don't think the rules cited (movement, light, pits, doors, surprise, and flight/pursuit) define D&D [...] But I would agree that D&D is partially defined by a structure centered on exploration: move, map, choose a path, check for/deal with danger, retrieve any treasure, and escape the area/return to camp. You can "wing it" for any of those steps, but you do need to handle those steps in some way.

In other words, I do think D&D is a game about exploration not combat -- I call D&D a "Class and Level Exploration Fantasy adventure game" -- but I don't think that it's the mechanics of exploration that are important, just the focus on exploration. If an RPG has classes and levels, and if the player goal is to retrieve something of value from an unexplored location and the GM will present choices to make that require mapping, scouting, problem-solving, and a safe return, then you are playing D&D, or something close enough to it that you can recognize its pedigree. How all those tasks are handled can be houseruled or even improvised, but you can't get rid of the structure.

[Red Baron]

Sept 27, 2020 13:42:30 GMT -6 talysman said:

My point is that

1. OD&D is an exploration game.
2. The exploration mechanics used in OD&D are therefore the basic mechanics of OD&D.

There are other ways of doing exploration in RPGs, but then it is not fundamentally OD&D, since those are the core rules that make OD&D OD&D.

[Vile Traveller]

Sept 12, 2020 18:28:13 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

This always drove my sister crazy, back in the day, and for a while she refused to play because of the whole "sometimes high is good, sometimes low is good" stuff.

Me, too - well, it drove me crazy, though it didn't stop me playing, and I suspect it's because I'm crazy that it annoyed me. But I always thought those d6-roll-low mechanics should have flipped to d6-roll-high. Just for aesthetic reasons.

[howandwhy99]

I agree with the quote from Cooper.

D&D's core mechanic is a hidden design structure (multiverse/dungeon) which the players attempt to manipulate with pieces within that design.

It's killer app is abstracting tabletop game designs into mathematical measurements. Allowing the design to skyrocket in tracked design complexity (pleasingly), while compacting them in elegant systems for the ease of the referee/facilitator.

Anyone over 55 should remember D&D was an utter embarrassment to our new postmodern understanding of the world, something which came about in the late 1970s. Gaming itself was such an embarrassment however. As was the 50s-70s definition of roleplaying.

This is when gaming was the complete opposite of storytelling, and designs and abstractions were considered "real". D&D was well lauded for how "true" it was.

It is the memory part of the game which promoted the illusion of objective accomplishment. And the pervasiveness of predictable outcomes which satisfied goal seeking gamers. If you know why the game 'Memory' is a complete farce, you know what I'm talking about.