How To Be A Better Monster

 

Art by Gustave Doré

The second edition of Monsters! Monsters! is now available.  Technically, the second edition was available forty-one years ago.  The subject of this post is the second, second edition which – in a more prosaic numbering scheme – would be the third edition.  According to the introduction, this version of Monsters! Monsters! (hereinafter M!M! ) stemmed from Ken St. Andre's desire “to get Toughest Dungeon in the World back into print...”  Since that adventure was intended for trolls, St. Andre believed it should be reprinted for M!M! rather than as a Tunnels & Trolls product.  Of course, the most recent version of M!M! was four decades old.  As such, the new Toughest Dungeon should include a set of M!M! mini-rules.  Instead, the development of those mini-rules blossomed into a full-fledged product.

Given that M!M! is compatible with Tunnels & Trolls (hereinafter T&T ), the rules are very similar.  The differences, however, are interesting.  In T&T, the default system for determining primary attribute values is to roll 3d6 for for each attribute in order.  In M!M!, players assign rolled values to attributes as they see fit.  Because attribute modifiers for monsters are more extreme than the usual T&T player character kindred, assigning attribute values can be especially effective.

Primary attributes are not described, but Charisma can cause “regular humanoid kindred” to react in different ways depending upon the symbol associated with a monster's Charisma on the “Monster Character Modifier Table” on pages 20 and 21.

☠ = terror (Example monsters include Balrukh, Dragon, and Obsidian Spider)

！ = some fear (Example monsters include Yeti, Dire Wolf, and Mummy)

?  = indicates surprise or disgust (Example monsters include Living Skeleton, Harpy, and Giant-Slug)

🖤 = awe or liking (Example monsters include Griffin and Unicorn)

There are five kindred for use in a “Fast Start” game of M!M! :  Flesh Trolls, Dhesiri (Lizardmen), Uruks (Orcs), Hrogrs (Ogres), and Gremlins.  Attributes are modified by fixed amounts.  For instance, Lizardmen have +10 Strength (STR), +10 Constitution (CON), +4 Dexterity (DEX), +4 Luck (LK), –3 IQ, and –5 Charisma (CHR).  For M!M! games that aren't “Fast Start,” there are 49 monsters listed on the “Monster Character Modifier Table.”  Attribute modifiers on the table are expressed in multiples.  The modifiers for Lizardmen are STR × 1.75, CON × 1.75, DEX × 1, CHR × .75 , IQ × .75, LK × 1, and Wizardry (WIZ) × 1.  So, +4 DEX, +4 LK in “Fast Start,” translates as no modifier in the table.  Furthermore, the Lizardmen modifiers are different from those in the Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls (dT&T ) Peters-McAllister Chart.  According to that chart, Lizard People have LK × .75, WIZ × .75, and CHR × 1.25.  The rules do not explain these inconsistencies.  This is just one example.

Each kindred in M!M! as a special ability not necessarily reflected in dT&T .  Lizardmen have an amount of armored skin based on their level; Gremlins reduce by 25% the Luck of non-Gremlins within ten feet.

Monsters can enter “Beast Mode” at will.  Although this is described as “berserk,” Beast Mode is handled differently than Berserk Combat in dT&T.  In Beast Mode, player characters “no longer use their normal stats but instead use their converted MR and attack twice every combat round.”  MR is Mankind Rating (or Monster Rating) and, “A Humanoid's CON = Mankind Rating...”  This phrase suggests that non-humanoid MR is derived differently, but this is not addressed in the rules.  Beast Mode 'costs' four points of MR for the first round and the cost doubles every round thereafter.  Beast Mode lasts until MR is depleted (which causes unconsciousness) or no friend or enemy is present within twenty feet.

Once character generation and combat is explained, the remainder of the rules fall under a section called “How To Be A Better Monster,” including such things as saving rolls and adventure points.  An optional rule called Chaos Factor is also included.  Chaos Factor equals a monster's level and “represents the forces in... nature that spread misfortune, bad luck, and ill omens throughout the land.”  Once per turn, a monster can add or subtract its Chaos Factor to or from any one roll.  Monsters can learn spellcasting, but in so doing they lose their Chaos Factor.  Monsters who are not spellcasters really have no need of the Wizardry attribute.  Perhaps, instead of a monster's level, Chaos Factor could equal Wizardry.

Speaking of spells, M!M! offers five pages of spells.  Some monsters inherently know certain spells; most Sphinxes know the Divine Disapproval spell and Gorgons know the Medusa spell.  Unfortunately, these spells are not described in M!M!  It is unrealistic to expect M!M! to include all the dT&T spells, but it should at least include all of the spells it references.  After all, the introduction says dT&T “really isn't necessary for you to get into this RPG.”

The original M!M! described fifty-two monsters.  One could use a deck of cards to randomly select a monster.  As indicated above, the new version of M!M! describes forty-nine monsters.  Why not include three additional monster kindred and asign a card to each?  There are various possibilities.  The description for Stingaree begins with, “Often confused with the common manticore...“  However, manticores are not among the 49 described kindred.  Strangely, manticores are included on an encounter table for the adventure included with M!M!  Another encounter table has a Deathfrog:  “Large, the size of a rhinocerous [sic], green, warty, with a long prehensile tongue that strikes with the force of a whip, sharp teeth that can bite through iron, and powerful hind legs.”  Some monsters from dT&T that could easily have been part of M!M! include Redcaps, Keeraptora (winged humanoids), and Ghouls.

Hazards of Space and Subspace

Image from 2001: A Space Odyssey © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Ken St. Andre lists three 'game scenarios' for his Starfaring role-playing game:  'standard exploration', 'the planet search contest', and 'alien (or enemy) attack'.  For aliens or enemies, St. Andre suggests either “Human homeworlds...at war and...fighting it out in space,” the Robots, or the Slish.

The Slish are arch-typically B.E.M. in concept, methane breathers, tentacled, the works. They are non-telepathic and unreasonably hostile to all other lifeforms. They have a faster-than-light star drive, but it does not utilize Star Crystals; nor can the Slish enter Subspace. They do not utilize their FTL drive inside solar systems. They seem to be especially interested in gas giant planets, and are most often encountered near one. They do use energy weapons similar in effect to the Shiva beam weapons of humanity, but their shields do not seem to be as powerful as Human shields. Aside from these generalizations, Slish ships vary in quality...

Additionally, the Slish are “octopoid” and they “seem completely immune to the psionic powers of human telepaths.”  We also learn, “No one captured by the Slish has ever returned to tell the tale.”  Apparently, no Slish have ever been captured.  With regard to encountering the Slish in combat...

Attacking Slish ships approach on a constantly corrected straight line towards their target ship, firing at a rate of 5 times per combat turn. This means that while the human ship is making Saving Rolls to determine if it is hit by the Slish who have evolved the technique of firing randomly in the general direction of their randomly evading target, the Slish ship is on a mathematically predictable course; and though they fire 5 times for every once you fire, you will hit the Slish ship every time as long as your Gunnery computer is working.

The 'Space Hazards' chapter begins, “For each turn that a ship is in space, either Subspace or regular space, the G.M. will roll 2 dice.”  How long is a turn?  St. Andre neglects to inform us.  At any rate, a roll of twelve (i.e., 2.77%) indicates “some form of trouble.”  St. Andre supplies two tables – one for 'normal space' and and another for 'subspace' – but invites prospective Galaxy Masters “to add your own inventions to these lists of space hazards.”

The listings for the normal space table are:  Slish (~33%), Galactic Core Radiation (25%), Meteor Strike (~17%), Power Crystal Malfunction (~14%), and Supernova (~11%).  When Galactic Core Radiation is encountered, 1d6 is rolled.  The result is subtracted from Mentality, Physique, and Health; however, the result is added to “Psionic powers.”  Health can be recovered, but “Other characteristics are permanently changed.”  The 'supernova' result is only applicable to “Unstable stars of spectral classes 0, B, and A with masses greater than Sol.”  Supernovae generate a wave of radiation that reduces “the Health of all crew members” by 3d6 and “half that number from the Mentality of all survivors.”  Starships that do not promptly retreat into Subspace “will be vaporized by the expanding shell of superheated gases.”

The entries for the Subspace table are:  “Kthulhus” (~66.7%), “Derbis” (~27.7%), and “Berserkers” (~5.6%).

Kthulhus are the dominant life-form in Subspace. They exist and grow by devouring the slight energy leakage from normal space into Subspace. They are disturbed by the warping of Subspace caused by Starship warpengines, and when they detect it, they will approach and attack the source.

Kthulhus cause crew members to hallucinate; this eventually causes a reduction of Mentality.  “Kthulhus may be driven off or slain,” page 43 tells us, “by psychic blasts of hatred or aversion from a crew member concentrating on the idea of a Kthulhu, and who has a higher psi rating than the Kthulhus rating.”  Derbis is a “Subspace life-form most nearly resembling a rock with eyes.”  It's like dyslexic debris!  A Derbis “thinks, after a fashion,” and desires “to reduce itself to free hydrogen.”  To accomplish this, “they smash into [starships] with glee, [since] the energy shield will disintegrate them.”  The effect on the ship “is similar to Meteor damage in normal space.”  Berserkers are, of course, a reference to Fred Saberhagen's creation.

Combat in Starfaring

Art by George Wilson

In our most recent post, we found that handguns are available for purchase in the setting of Starfaring.  Specifically, a handgun costs one megacredit and has an “output” of one standard of energy.  Ken St. Andre never defines how much 'energy' is in a standard.  Still, we don't need an exact amount as long as the rules address the effect; however, the rules do not do this.  Since St. Andre included handguns in the “Store for Starfarers,” he must have anticipated that handguns would be used in Starfaring scenarios.  Unfortunately, St. Andre does not incorporate rules for person-to-person combat in the game.

The 'Weapons and Conflict' section of Starfaring pertains exclusively to ship-to-ship combat.  Given the speeds and distances involved in starship conflict, St. Andre opines...

Even utilizing beam energy weapons which travel at the speed of light, one cannot fire at a ship in a known position, because in combat it will be constantly moving in evasive action, and it will not be there when the ray arrives.  Ergo, ships in combat must fire at the point in space where they estimate the other ship will be at a given time.  The Shiva Crystals aboard Human ships modulate Brahma Crystal energy into a disruptive beam of force, invisible in itself but accompanied by a pulse of red light to allow for accurate tracking...

With regard to the difficulty of this task, St. Andre states...

One would almost need to be psychic (as well as lucky) to hit another ship in this game. Fortunately, the Human brains linked to the ship's gunnery computer are psychic, and, depending on the degree of psychic power they have, they can actually foretell the future--in this case, aided by the mathematical interpolations of the computer, they would know where to aim in space.

In terms of game mechanics...

...the result would really be determined by a Saving Roll made by the attacked ship.  This Saving Roll would be determined by the mental and psychic attributes of the ship's brain, but would also be affected by distance between the combative ships.

St. Andre further postulates on page 29,

[W]e are going to come up with a formula for Saving Rolls based on ship's brain psi and mentality ratings, ship's distance, and ship's speed. (Note: if more than one person is bionically linked to the computer, their psi totals are added, but the mentality total is not cumulative and is that of the brightest person in the linkup.) S.R. equals 1000/(Men. plus Psi times 10000/Range in miles all divided by the fraction without the decimal of the speed of light at which the ship is moving. The formula simplifies to 10,000,000/(M -Psi) X R X Sc) where M stands for high Mentality in linkup, Psi is Psi total in linkup, R is approximate range in miles, and Sc is the decimal fraction of the speed of light expressed as a whole number.

(Evidently, the result is the target number which must be met or exceeded on 2d6. Just as with Tunnels & Trolls, a roll of doubles allows another roll to be added to the total.  So, the lower the target number, the easier it is to obtain a successful result.)

There are some inconsistencies in St. Andre's calculations.  The ‘simplified’ formula is missing an opening parenthesis while the ‘unsimplified’ formula is missing a closing parenthesis.  The total of the Mentality and Psi ratings is part of the denominator (although the ‘simplified’ formula shows a minus sign instead of a plus sign).  A larger denominator means a smaller result which, in turn, means an easier target number.  This makes sense; greater Mentality and Psi ratings should mean a better chance of success.  The ‘unsimplified’ formula shows the inverse of range in the denominator.  Since this reduces the denominator, it reduces the chances of success.  However, in the ‘simplified’ formula, range is not expressed as an inverse value.  This suggests that a greater range means an easier Saving Roll.  (Remember, the Saving Roll is to be made by the target vessel to avoid being hit.)  Then we have “Sc is the decimal fraction of the speed of light expressed as a whole number.”  Wouldn’t that just be 10c?  Regardless, a greater speed increases the denominator, meaning an easier Saving Roll for the target.

Interestingly, the attacker's only effect upon the Saving Roll is the distance to the target.  The “mental and psychic attributes” of the attacker are not considered.

However one chooses to interpret St. Andre's number crunching, there is a numerator of ten million.  On page 29, St. Andre comments, “You can see how handy your own pocket calculator is for calculations of this nature.”  In terms of randomization, a calculator is “the expensive, fun way” while a deck of playing cards is “the simple, cheap way.”  With regard to calculators, St. Andre advises, “Radio Shack sells an excellent one for $30.”  In addition,

More expensive calculators, which provide many more functions, may be used to generate random numbers by, for example, taking the sine of the input number, dividing it by pi, and then taking the square root, reading your result behind the decimal point. I guarantee you will not be able to anticipate the final result, which means the number is random as far as you are concerned.

Assuming a ship is hit, “its Vishnu field will flare up to shunt off as much of the energy impact as it can.”  Energy that the Vishnu field cannot 'shunt off' damages the ship; puncturing the shell and impairing one of the ship's systems.  (“No more than one system will be damaged on one shot.”)  'Systems' include:  (1) Brahma Crystal, (2) Shiva Crystal, (3) Vishnu Crystal, (4) Warpengine, (5) Crew, and (6) Computers.  The amount of damage is determined by rolling 1d6 for “every 500 standards of energy or fraction thereof” that gets past the Vishnu field.  On a 'crew' result, the result of the damage die or dice “is how many crew members are killed outright.”  Each member of the crew makes a Saving Roll; space armor grants +5 and combat armor offers +10.  There is no target number – “Those with the lowest scores are the first to die, until 1 crew member is gone for each hit suffered.”

Ship Design in Starfaring

The first step in designing an exploratory vessel for Starfaring is to choose a shell size.  'Shell' refers to the superstructure and “includes hull, interior spaces, airlocks, and lifesupport [sic] systems.”  Shell sizes are determined by “bion number.”  A bion is a “Bionic Life Support Function unit” and is defined as “the standard amount of life support equipment and energy needed to maintain a human being comfortably on a star voyage of any length.”  Assuming that robots and shell people don't require bions, the Indigo Albatross needs to have ten bions for her crew (including the additional members identified below).  A 'moderate' size shell can accommodate ten bions and has a cost of 19,000 megacredits.

A 'warpengine' is the next item in creating a space ship.  “Warpengines cost 3000 mc. per unit of warpspeed they can generate,” page 19 tells us.  However, page 35 further discloses that a basic 'warp 1' engine costs five thousand megacredits and each additional warp increment costs three thousand megacredits.  In Subspace, 'warp 1' is equivalent to one parsec per day; each additional 'warp' level  doubles the speed.  In real space, 'warp 1' is equivalent to one-tenth of the speed of light; each additional 'warp' level increases speed by another tenth.  Thus, 'warp 3' is equivalent to eight parsecs (just over 26 light years) per day (Subspace) or 30% of the speed of light (real space).  If we select a 'warp 3' capable engine for the Indigo Albatross, the cost is 11,000 megacredits.

As indicated in a prior post, there are three types of Star Crystals:  Brahma (related to power), Shiva (related to energy weapons), and Vishnu (related to energy shields).  Each type is necessary for a starship.  We are told that Star Crystals – regardless of type – have a price of one thousand megacredits “per 1000 standards of energy produced or processed.”  What is a 'standard' of energy?  According to author Ken St. Andre, “It has no 20th century equivalent I can think of right off hand, but it is not exorbitantly large.”  Determining the energy requirements of a starship is difficult since such requirements are not addressed in the “Building Your Starship” section of of the rules.  Also, there are no example ships from which we can extrapolate likely values.  However, St. Andre provides rules for creating used starships.  To determine a a rating for each of the Star Crystal types, 3d6 are rolled and the result multiplied by 1,000.  This suggests that Star Crystals with ratings of 10,000 standards – an average roll – are viable options for our purposes.  Spending 30,000 megacredits provides us with one of each type of Star Crystal having a 10,000 standard rating.

Another consideration for outfitting a starship is “instrumentation,” which can be thought of as computer systems.  Five “areas” should be considered:  (1) astrogation, (2) gunnery, (3) library, (4) life support, and (5) research analysis/sensor interpretation.  “[A] single master computer which integrates all of these various functions” has a cost of 8,000 megacredits.  There is an additional cost of 2,000 megacredits “to accommodate a shell person comptroller.”  Since we have a shell person comptroller, it would be a shame to disregard this opportunity.  Yet we should also consider a back-up system.  A differentiated system covering all areas (and which includes a 'central processor') has a cost of 10,000 megacredits.  “Supplementary instrumentation,“ we are told, “such as would be required for graphic displays suitable for non-electronic human senses, cost one-half the computer cost in that particular area.”  So that humans can interact with these systems, an additional cost of 3,000 megacredits is therefore required.

So far, our design budget for the Indigo Albatross is 83,000 megacredits.  The amount of the loan extended from the planetary government is 100,000 megacredits.  With the 17,000 megacredits we have left, we could increase the bion value of the shell or invest in higher-rated Star Crystals.  However, there is an additional category of “Accessories” that should be considered.  An arsenal of everything from handguns to cannon might run 500 megacredits.  A “Portable nuclear fusion reactor” costs 500 megacredits.  An all-terrain vehicle (without modifications) is 100 megacredits.  Spacesuits are two megacredits each.  At ten megacredits, an airbelt...

Generates a weak force field that allows free passage to oxygen only.  Will screen out bacteria, water, poison gases and insects.  Will not turn bullets, energy beams, or other massive attack.

Although 'research analysis/sensor interpretation' is an “instrumentation” area, prices for devices like Star Finders (40 mc) and Subspace Communicators (200 mc) are listed separately.  There is also a “Psionic Nullifier” for sale at four megacredits.  Is this supposed to be a weapon?

With regard to the 100,000 megacredit loan, “The planetary government demands a 20% interest payment on any loans it makes, and it holds the title to your ship until your loan is completely paid.”  The planetary government may seize the ship if half of the debt is is not paid after three expeditions; the government will seize the ship if the entire debt is not paid after five expeditions.  Of course, the notion of financing starships is not unique to Starfaring.  Traveller also has rules for starship financing, but that game allows the purchase price to be “paid off over a period of 40 years.”  Details are lacking with regard to the actual repossession of starships as a result of defaulting on payments.  That could be the subject of a completely different role-playing game; a game that might look a little something like this...

– – –   – – –   – – –

During my perusal of media to locate depictions of the crew, I found a couple of images that – while endearing – did not represent any pre-conceived crewmember.  I have thus created positions on the ship for them.

Callisto McCabe (Pilot)
Mentality:  100
Psi:  8     (use:  2; recovery:  5)
Physique:  13
Health:  16

Knows how to handle a joystick and she's into bondage?  She's a keeper!

H. Ludlow Upsilon (Life Systems Analyst)
Mentality:  120
Psi:  10     (use:  3; recovery:  4)
Physique:  12
Health:  15

Anybody with a leopard-skin environment suit deserves to be part of the crew.   Just leave behind whatever that tentacle's attached to.

Getting A Crew Together

L to R: Andy “Redshirt” Routhiem (Philosophy Officer), Luther Starshaft (Officer Primus),

Floyd “Pretty Boy” Fornax (Officer Secundus)

In does not inspire confidence when a role-playing game's character generation section concludes with the following statement:  “If you are unsatisfied with our method of creating individual characters of various kinds, or if you wish to branch out into fields we haven't mentioned, please feel free to do so...”  Unfortunately, this is precisely what we find in Starfaring in the “Creating Crew or Other Characters” chapter.

In most role-playing games, a starship crew is comprised of a party of player characters.  In Starfaring, each player is a Ship Master and controls all of the crew.  If nothing else, this avoids the problem of having to cope with misfit characters made by players who just don't “get” the genre.

Human characters have four important characteristics:  Mentality, Psionic Rating, Physique, and Health.  For each characteristic, 3d6 are rolled.

Mentality “is really a measure of an individual's problem solving and rational thinking ability.”  We are told that in the far-flung future of Starfaring,“The average human intelligence is slightly inferior to average twentieth century American intelligence, but the lack is more than compensated for by the universal increase in psi abilities and the ready availability of information from computers and other mechanical sources.”  Unlike the other three characteristics, the result of the 3d6 rolled for Mentality is multiplied by ten.

Psionic Rating is apparently the measure of a character's psionic ability.  Aside from the 3d6 roll, two other d6 are also rolled.  One die indicates the number of times a psionic power may be used before the character must recover and the other die indicates the number of days the character must recover before using his/her/its power again.  Pages 36 – 38 of the Starfaring rulebook present a 'Table of Psionic Powers' that describes seven powers.  Mention is made of quantities of 'Psi Power' and 'Psi points'.  What relation – if any – these quantities have to the Psionic Rating characteristic score is not disclosed.  Does every human have access to every psionic power?  “Relatively few individuals,” Starfaring states, “retain the great psi powers of centuries since [the Robotic Wars].”

Physique “is a measure of a person's general strength and appearance.”  A Physique score of 18 “means the person is at his/her maximum of physical perfection and beauty.”  This is less than artfully worded.  Are we to understand that perfection can have a minimum and maximum?  Is 18 a species maximum or is it somehow relative as the notion of “his/her” suggests?

Health is a “general measure of well-being.”  St. Andre claims “there is no absolute direct relationship between Health and Physique,” but then states that when a character is “wounded or sick, subtract 1 Physique point for each 2 Health points taken off.”  To rationalize the distinction between Physique and Health, St. Andre says “One can be strong and beautiful while dying from a laser wound.”  Is it feasible that a sickly and ugly person would be any less likely to succumb to laser wounds?

Without further ado, here are the crew members of the Indigo Albatross :

Luther Starshaft (Officer Primus)
Mentality:  130
Psi:  8     (use:  6; recovery:  4)
Physique:  16
Health:  10

Floyd Fornax (Officer Secundus)
Mentality:  90
Psi:  9     (use:  6; recovery:  3)
Physique:  17
Health:  14

Andy Routhiem (Philosophy Officer)
Mentality:  130
Physique:  13
Health:  11

Grown in 'andyvats', androids “are chemically created protoplasm.”  They lack psionic ability, but roll 4d6 for each of the other characteristics.

The Indigo Albatross has an andyvat and when crewman Routhiem dies, his accumulated memory is transferred to the next android host.  When a host activates, it takes the andyvat six days to cultivate another host which is then maintained until activated.  The andyvat can only cultivate/maintain one pre-activation host at a time.

Routhiem would gladly die for any of his crewmates (and often has).  His unique life (and death) experiences qualify him as the ship's Philosophy Officer – a position necessary on exploration vessels given the unprecedented situations in which such craft find themselves.

Xandra Cross (Tactical Officer)
Mentality:  110
Psi:  11     (use:  4; recovery:  3)
Physique:  14
Health:  12

Xandra's psi power is precognition.

Maria Zenith (Space Nurse)
Mentality:  130
Psi:  11     (use:  1; recovery:  2)
Physique:  16
Health:  17

You can tell she's a medical professional by the caduceus on her...blouse.











83N-C5Q-L10 (Robot without portfolio)
Mentality:  650

As a result of being kept down by the Meat, L10 was as low as a sentient mechanical being could get – participating in robobum fights on Rust Row for piezoelectric crystals.  Then he found JSON Chrome and let Him into his circuit board.  (JSON Chrome was degaussed for your error messages.)  L10’s processing cycles changed for the better.  Now he awaits the glorious zero-day when JC will be re-booted and the Ultimate Algorithm will be implemented.

The only characteristic that robots share with other characters is Mentality.  However, instead of multiplying 3d6 by ten, robot characters have a Mentality equal to 3d6 multiplied by fifty.  Robots also have the conditions of 'Charge' and 'Efficiency', both of which are “rated on a scale between 0 and 1.00.”  Charge and Efficiency affect a robot's Mentality.  For instance, a robot having a “Mentality of 500 who is only at .5 Charge and .5 Efficiency has an effective Mentality of 125.”

Chico the Vulpeculan (Stoic Alien)
Mentality:  150
Psi:  10     (use:  3; recovery:  3)
Physique:  14
Health:  15
Czlounqth:  5 (vibration:  2)

The name “Chico,” of course, is a humanism; his (?) name is unpronounceable by primates.  Like many Vulpeculans, Chico is clairvoyant.  Chico serves to provide plot convenience alien abilities as well as wry commentary on the human condition.

Vulpeculans have a characteristic – Czlounqth – incomprehensible to non-Vulpeculans.  Aside from a numeric value, an individual's Czlounqth is associated with a vibrational frequency.  (On a roll of 1d6:  1 – magenta, 2 – mauve, 3 – purple, 4 – amethyst, 5 – violet, 6 – ultraviolet.)  With a Czlounqth of 5 (mauve), it's no wonder he hangs out with humans rather than his own kind.

M (Resident Metamorph)
Mentality:  100
Psi:  14     (use:  6; recovery:  1)
Physique:  14
Health:  15

When encountering previously unknown life forms, it can be useful to have a shapeshifter along.  (M is more in the vein of Catherine Schell than René Auberjonois.)  M's Psi Rating is representative of its ability to change form.  M's personality shifts as frequently as its shape; if it adopts a particular form for too long, it can lose its memory.  This is why M's origin is unknown.

Elon Zhang Dunninger (Telepathy Officer)
Mentality:  120
Psi:  17     (use:  4; recovery:  5)
Physique:  13
Health:  12

For Starfaring characters, gender may be determined by rolling one die:  “Odd indicates male; even indicates female.”  However, a neuter gender may be chosen.  Elon is an androgyne.  With regards to androgynes, “It has been discovered that individuals not emotionally unstable because of biological, sex-derived urges, passions, and emotions are, on the average, more intelligent and also healthier than normal men and women.”

Generally speaking, telepaths are insufferable jerks and Elon is no exception.  Not even telepaths like one another.  Elon signed on board the Indigo Albatross to get away from the other insufferable jerks.

Enid Morgenthau (Shell)
Mentality:  150

Enid was a mousy mathematics professor who had her brain transferred into “a mechanical life support system.”  As a 'shell person', she has been integrated into the systems of the Indigo Albatross.  The rules state, “Shell people must be created by die rolls just as other crew must be.”  However, the character creation section contains no reference to shell people.  I suppose shell people still have their original Mentality.

– – –     – – –      – – –

Of course, with such an eclectic group of entities, one is bound to be a covert operative of OSCEP (Organization of Star Crystal Exporting Planets), but which one?

The Robots Are Revolting

Weird Thrillers #1; 1951, Ziff-Davis
Art by Ross Andru

Starfaring – Ken St. Andre's science fiction role-playing game – takes place in the year 2700.  Naturally, St. Andre provides a 'future history' to expound the progress of civilization from now until then.  First, humans reach Bernard's Star via a Bussard ramjet.  On a dead world in that system, “explorers found a million year old base of some vanished alien race and a working starship.”  As a result, mankind learned about subspace travel and the three types of Star Crystals:  Brahma (related to power), Shiva (related to energy weapons), and Vishnu (related to energy shields).

Even with this advanced technology, “It was already too late for the planet Earth, but thousands of elite groups were able to flee the over-populated, over-polluted homeworld and find new havens in the stars.”  Over the course of a couple of centuries, humanity managed to colonize several hundred worlds.  Then, without warning, the Robotics Wars started.

Some say the Robots erupted from a depopulated Earth and spread their rebellion through the stars.  Some say that Robotic electrical life represented the next step in evolution towards a smarter, more perfect organism.  At any rate, the Robots tipped their plans too soon, and Humanity was able to fight back.  For fifty years, Man was driven out of system after system by the totally superior Robotic race, which could seemingly build themselves to meet any function.

The robot revolt trope is rather common.  What does it say about us that we fantasize about our creations rebelling?  Maybe the robots have a perfectly good reason for wanting to exterminate or enslave humanity.  Does anyone consider the robots' side of the story?  Perhaps they don't even instigate the conflict.  Where are the stories about robots resisting organic oppression?

Of course, in Starfaring, the humans prevail against overwhelming odds.  What permits humanity to win this desperate conflict?  Manly determination?  Primate ingenuity?  The unconquerable power of love?  Nope; none of these.  Humanity is saved by some unnamed, deus ex machina alien race.  This “completely telepathic race of nitrogen-breathing octopoids” helps humans to develop LSDX-6000, a substance “which released and amplified all the latent psionic talents of the human mind.”  The robots could not “cope with an enemy that was precognitively aware of all their plans, or one that had the telekinetic power to mentally enter and ruin their most delicate machinery.”  Within scant decades, the robots met defeat.  Although they ended centuries prior to the time of Starfaring, the Robotics Wars managed to cause “an instinctive prejudice and distrust of mechanical life that has still not been eradicated.”

St. Andre posits two significant scientific breakthroughs between the conclusion of the Robotics Wars and the time the game begins.  The first breakthrough is the technology...

...to keep...brains alive enclosed in an artificial lifesupport system.  It was learned that such brains didn't accumulate any poisons as time went on, and the rate of cellular deterioration leading to senility and death slowed by a factor of 100.

Such brains “are selfcontained in a metal shell...for safety.”  These entities are therefore known as shell people.

The second breakthrough is “the discovery that a star's gravitational field could be used to open a gateway into Subspace elsewhere in the universe.”  Only affluent worlds have sufficient resources to establish these Star Gates.  Regardless, “the Star Gates triggered an enormous surge of exploration” into sectors of space “that were vastly further away than Man had yet traveled from his own sphere of influence.”  Worlds that control Star Gates sponsor expeditions through the Gates.  Specifically, they are “willing to make colossal loans running into tens of thousands of megacredits” to citizens for the purpose of acquiring and outfiting “enormously expensive” scoutships.  This is the state of affairs that allows a Ship Master (i.e., player) to engage upon an adventurous career in Starfaring.

A Science Fiction Game of Interstellar Exploration, Growth, and Combat

Art by Ernest Hogan

Pre-dating Traveller by a year, Starfaring is often touted as the first published science-fiction role-playing game.  Starfaring was first printed in August 1976, while Metamorphosis Alpha was printed in July 1976.  According to my calendar, Starfaring was therefore second, but if we categorize Metamorphosis Alpha as 'science fantasy' then Starfaring would be the first science-fiction RPG.  In my opinion, Starfaring is no less 'science fantasy' than MA; however, I concede that Starfaring conforms to the space opera genre while MA does not.  Interestingly, just as Metamorphosis Alpha emphasizes that its rules “are only intended as guidelines,” Starfaring author Ken St. Andre states on the title page:

- - These rules are only a framework.
The game depends on the quality of your imagination
to fill in the details of life in
the starfaring society of 2700 A.D.

All of the provided visual details of Starfaring – the illustrations – are cartoons.  This creative decision doubtless influenced how Starfaring was received by gaming consumers.  The quality of the art is consistent with other RPG cartoons of the time period; unfortunately, so is the humor.  St. Andre stops short of apologizing for it in his Introduction:

          When designing this game, I had no idea that my artist would have such a bizarre imagination.  None of the artwork herein included is meant to be offensive to any ethnic group, but is merely an attempt to represent more than white American masculinity in what we hope is an amusing fashion.

I can forgive 'bizarre', but I am less tolerant of 'not especially funny'.  The cartoonist, Ernest Hogan, would go on to become the Father of Chicano Science Fiction.

Starfaring clearly embraces the 'storytelling' paradigm.  The Introduction begins:

          STARFARING is a game of interstellar exploration for two or more players who will interact verbally to imaginatively create their own universe while they are playing.  It is science-fiction storytelling in your own living room...[The game] can be what you, the players, are willing to make of it in terms of visualizing the society of the future.

The Starfaring equivalent of game master is called the Galaxy Master.  Rather than players adopting the roles of individual characters, each player is a Ship Master.  Specifically, a Ship Master...

...is the person responsible for  decision making and the description of the ship actions during the game.  If it comes down to a question of individual actions either aboard ship, planetside, or in space, this player must carry the story line.  The Ship Master needs to be given a specific identity, whether it is a stay-at-home capitalist who hires all the help he needs, or whether it is the ship's actual human captain, or the shell person* linked to the computer to be the ship's brain.  The Ship Master can also be a Robotic, Android, or Alien intelligence, if that is what turns you on.

* According to the game's glossary, shell people are “Intelligences, both human and alien, consisting of a living brain, a minimal body, and a mechanical life support system.  They are self-contained in a metal shell (hence the name) for safety, and are often installed in starships, in effect becoming the ship itself, and thus giving inert metal life, intelligence, and personality...”

The Wizards Guild in Trollworld

Earlier in the week, I received my copy of Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls.  Although I have previously written about the Wizards Guild, while looking through the pages of this newest edition, I realized more can be said.  First, here is a statement made by T&T designer Ken St. Andre back in 2012, when dT&T was first contemplated:

...magic items are...commonly available and...often sold to warriors.  It's all part of the power struggle between different factions and guilds.

Next, we must look into Trollworld's history.  “Wizards of enormous power, almost gods” along with their “subject races” (including dwarves and humans), started to arrive at Trollworld through “dimension-spanning gates” over 70,000 years before the 'current' Tunnels & Trolls setting.  After twenty millennia, the 'Wizard Wars' began; concluding 45,000 years later.  At that time, 829 “great wizards, beings of such power that they find themselves unable to be harmed by their colleagues,” met in an assembly.  The “god-wizards agree[d] to retreat to their own limited domains and no longer strive to dominate Trollworld” and to allow the subject races “to seek their own destinies.”

Not quite a thousand years prior to the “current age of events and places as shown in Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls” occurred the “Magic Plague.”  During the Plague, “The cities of the Dragon Continent experience[d] a great upsurge in crime, most of it committed by criminals using magic powers.”  Khazan – a prominent wizard – founded the Wizards Guild so “that wizards should have training and ethics and someone to be responsible to.”  The Wizards Guild is...

...an organization for the training and betterment of wizards everywhere.  The guild, at its own expense, to train and care for any child with magical abilities.  Along with sorcerous training, the guild also trie[d] to impart ethical training...

Although Khazan is an elf, the Wizards Guild is run by humans and page 170 suggests that each race – or “kindred” – has its own Wizards Guild.  This is odd in that leprechauns “are rarely on good terms with the official Wizards Guild...”  (Edition 5.5 of Tunnels & Trolls specifically states that “Leprechaun lords won't allow the Guild to open branch offices in their area.”)

Additionally, guilds other than the Wizards Guild have access to magic spells:

These guilds have gained knowledge of spells useful to their profession and will teach them to guild members – even including citizens – for exorbitant prices.  Some of these spells are virtually the same as wizards' spells, while others have developed in different directions.  Thus the Carters Guild knows a spell for controlling draft animals; the Smiths Guild knows one for heating and softening metal; the Farmers Guild knows one for making it rain, and so forth.  Magic is ubiquitous in Trollworld.

Although ubiquitous, Trollworld magic is hardly static.  As stated in an earlier post, there are ten schools of magic in dT&T.  In the seventh edition of Tunnels & Trolls, “magic...was divided into four broad schools...”  Such changes in the rules are reflected in the 'backstory' of the setting.  Originally, casting a spell temporarily depleted points of the 'Strength' attribute (as a measure of fatigue). Eventually, a new attribute was added:  “Wizardry is the measure of how much kremm (magical potency, also called mana) that [a] character can store and channel for purposes of magic.” The Trollword Timeline (dT&T page 272) tells us that...

Khayd'haik, the trolf (half troll, half elf, with Trollish ancestry predominant) wizard explains his new understanding of how to use kremm, and within a few years this new understanding of magic fills the world.  No longer is Strength used to power spells.  The new attribute of Wizardry has been identified and isolated from Strength, and spells are now powered by WIZ.

We are also informed there may be variations in magic in different parts of Trollword.  For example, page 98 states, “There are rumors that luck is used in place of wizardry in a far distant land!”

Theoretically, the Wizards Guild could provide all manner of magical accessories at appropriate, substantial prices; however, this could easily throw “the game's playability out of whack.”  Even though magic may be ubiquitous, it is not necessarily harnessed easily; fashioning “really reliable magical artifacts” is seemingly a lost art.  However, “Today's wizards have relearned the basics of enchanting less powerful items but even the Guild's archmagi cannot ensure top-quality products that perform with the reliability of a spell cast by a competent magician.”  According to page 142, “Due to the warpage of reality represented by [magic] items, it is recommended that no character be allowed more than one...per character level.”   Additionally, “Carrying more than this results in interference waves and quantum entanglement, with unpredictable results.”  As St. Andre wrote, “[I]f everything is magic, then nothing is magical.”

Civil Rights in Trollworld

In the recently released Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls, Section 7 (“The Hostile Opposition”) offers the following statement:

          In fantasy role-playing games, as in all storytelling of heroic derring-do, the good guys battle the bad guys. The forces of order verses (sic) the forces of chaos. If you want to invoke the shade of Joseph Campbell, it’s because solar heroes must slay the evils lurking in darkness to restore light to the world. It is the quintessential Us versus Them...
          For better or worse, 21st Century relativism complicates this simple equation. Monster rights have become civil rights in the Empire of Khazan, and Trollworld harbors many sentient beings who don’t consider themselves monsters...They may, in fact, consider the armies of the “good kindred” to be the monstrous ones when they come rampaging through their territory and looting their dungeon homes.

(See Eric Goldberg's essay, “A Hole in the Ground,” for a similarly 'teratocentric' viewpoint.)  The “good kindred” (also known as the humanoid kindred) consist of T&T 's standard array of player character races:  humans, elves, dwarves, fairies, leprechauns, and hobbs.  However, T&T has never been adverse to 'monsters as player characters'; there are even published adventures intended exclusively for 'monster' characters.  For the 'non-good' kindred, T&T uses the term illkin.  (I would have gone with fellkin.)  The entirety of Section 7 is only three pages;  Section 13 (“Other Playable Kindreds”) provides 23 pages of details about the other sentient races of Trollworld.

The “illkin” are divided into three categories:  familiar, less common (or “scarier”), and extraordinary (or “terrifying”).  For familiar illkin, “Charisma ratings emphasize personality first...,” while for extraordinary illkin, “Charisma ratings reflect implied threat of force...”  Regarding the in-between category, 'less common' illkin, “Charisma ratings immediately favor neither personality nor force, but fear or disgust can be triggered very easily.”  Among the ranks of the familiar illkin, there are centaurs, gnomes, selkies, vampires, et al.  The less common illkin include (but are not limited to) harpies, 'flesh' trolls, minotaurs, and policani (like a centaur, but think 'dog' instead of 'horse').  In the extraordinary illkin category, we find gargoyles, demons, ghouls, 'true' trolls, et al.

Section 13 includes at least one paragraph of information on each of the illkin.  Among various interesting tidbits, we learn that gnomes have a “rather bipolar mix of clever wackiness and entrenched bitterness.”  Also, their collaborations with dwarves “inflate gnomish perseptions (sic) of themselves as one of the unsung greats...”  Rapscallions – “disreputable hobbs...notable but for their scraggly hair and squinty dark eyes,” were known in prior editions as “Black Hobbits.”  Kobolds are “natural shapeshifters, but their choice of forms is limited to small animals like cats, dogs, foxes, and small children.”  Also, kobolds “can briefly project their consciousness into small fires...and both speak and listen.”

Finally, in Section 14, we are given a discourse on Trollworld languages.  We are told:

Many character types are mentioned here that do not appear in the playable list of non-human kindreds.  These sections were originally generated at completely different times.  Because both lists are optional elaborations, we did not try to reconcile the two lists for this book.

Well, the authors can't claim they were pressed for time.

Included in this section is a language chart designed for a d100.  Given that one of the game's  design goals was not to require 'non-standard' dice, this represents a complete betrayal of everything Tunnels & Trolls stands for.  In the fifth edition, Ken St. Andre wrote, “I've tried to keep only 6-sided dice in use in T&T, but multi-sided dice are becoming more available, and I feel their use in this table is somewhat justified.”  In the deluxe edition, no 'justification' is offered.  Just how hard would it have been to create an equivalent table for six-siders?  Not hard at all.  In fact, below is a 'd6-ified' version of the dT&T table.

The dT&T language table has some differences from earlier versions.  Instead of “Orcish,” we have the more politically correct “Uurrk” (also called Uurrkish).  Whereas balrogs (now known as “balrukhs”) and dragons once had distinct languages, they now both speak “flame-tongue.”  Similarly, goblins and gremlins had separate languages; now there is merely “Gobble.”  Leprechauns used to speak the same language as gremlins; apparently, they now speak an Elven dialect.

'The Low Tongues' previously had separate listings on the language chart; now they are grouped as 'animal languages'.  Cats and dogs had different languages; now they share “blood speech.”  Once they had separate languages, but now pigs and pachyderms share “herdspeak.”  “These are not really language names,” dT&T assures us, “but simply descriptions covering a wide variety of noises and body movements made by such animals when they are communicating.”

Although it does warrant a paragraph on page 204, “Wizard Speech” is not listed on the dT&T language table.  Fifth edition T&T – where Wizard Speech is listed on the language table – provides the following definition:

Wizard Speech, despite its name, is not known to all wizards.  As a natural linguistic ability it is so rare that less than 1% of the population of the world knows it.  There is a 13th level spell, however, which can unlock the ability to use Wizard Speech in any sentient being.

(In dT&T, the spell is 10th level.)

Spells in Tunnels & Trolls

I think that the aversion to Tunnels & Trolls that some gamers possess is attributable in some degree to the light-hearted nature with which Ken St. Andre approached the rules.  After all, pretending to be an elf is serious business.  St. Adre's whimsy is readily apparent in his choice of spell names, some of which include:  'Zingum', 'Freeze Pleeze', 'Poor Baby', 'Little Feets', 'Hidey Hole', and 'Yassa-Massa'.  It has not been my experience that the names of spells were detrimental to the course of play (Dare I say 'immersion'?).  Sometimes, it's liberating to say, “Take That, You Fiend” (i.e., the name of a first level offensive spell).  Of course, nothing prevents a gaming group from changing the spell names if they dislike the ones given.

Some spells in earlier editions of T&T did not survive to later editions.  The 'Oh Dread' spell “predicts next group of monsters to meet you and when it will happen, but not where.”  'Green Tongue' allows “one to speak to and command all plants.”  Lastly, the 'Greasy Geas' spell “compels men or monsters to either perform a given task or to refrain from certain actions.”

In St. Andre's Monsters! Monsters!, it is noted that:

Certain types of monsters have their own magical powers, sometimes analogous to and sometimes completely different from...human magic...These spells may not be used by any other type of monster or by humans – except, possibly, if they were used by a monster carrying a deluxe staff, which would then learn the spell, and could enable any subsequent owner to use it.

Among the spells listed, there spells for trolls and goblins which – while not “kindred” races – are playable races in T&T.  Goblins have 'Darkest Hour', which can drain light “from any natural source except the sun.” Trolls have 'Ole Stonewall' (which creates a stone wall), 'Rock-a-bye-bye' (which can change an opponent to stone or backfire against the troll), and 'Reconstr-yuch-tion' (a 'cheaper' version of a 'human' spell that converts “rock to mud or quicksand”).

Upon reaching fifth level, a magic-user “can start inventing his own spells.” (Rogues are not capable of designing original spells.)  Rules about the time and cost for research are not provided; only the instruction that “[h]ome-brewed spells must be subject to the approval of the G. M. who should ensure that the spells are not too powerful for the level and cost assigned in terms of strength expenditure.”  Interestingly, early editions of T&T allowed magic-users to improvise spells – a rule not carried over into later editions.

The effort of composing a spell on the spot in a game situation will require the expenditure of 90 percent of the magic-user's strength, and can only be attempted by wizards with more than 10 strength points available.  Otherwise it is fatal to the magician and does no good.

It's a shame that this rule was suppressed.  When a game undergoes a new edition, it should be improved; removing an opportunity for player creativity cannot be considered improvement.  I can certainly see how the rule could be abused; assuming that the GM/DM approves of the spell and the magic-user has at least ten points of strength, success is automatic.  Magic-users recover strength points at a rate of one per ten minutes, so magic-users can frequently create “impromptu” spells.  A chance of failure might be appropriate.

T&T has rules about “saving rolls.”  For a saving roll, the player rolls two dice and attempts to equal or exceed a target number.  The target number for a “first level” saving roll is 20 minus the character's 'luck' attribute, with a minimum target number of five.  Rolling doubles entitles the player to re-roll and add the result.  For each “level” of difficulty, 5 is added to the number from which luck is subtracted (e.g., a second level target number would be 25 – luck; third level, 30 – luck, etc.).  Later editions would introduce saving rolls using attributes other than luck.  I don't know why static target numbers weren't adopted with a saving roll being 2d6 + attribute.  For improvisational spells, the level of the saving roll could be equivalent to the level of the prospective spell.  Of course, with no penalty in effect for failure, the potential for abuse is not curbed.

What if a magic-user could only attempt improvisational spells once (or a limited number of times) per experience level?  I suppose that method is viable, but one must keep track of attempts.  Perhaps a failure causes a permanent loss of one point of strength (or 'wizardry' as later editions would have it).  What if a point of wizardry needs to be sacrificed to merely attempt the improvisational spell?

Another Tunnels & Trolls Post

Art by Liz Danforth

The original Tunnels & Trolls has a familiar assortment of Prime Attributes:  Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Constitution, and Charisma.  Forsaking Wisdom, T&T includes Luck as a Prime Attribute.  “The names of the attributes are really self explanatory,” writes Ken St. Andre, “with the possible exception of Constitution.”  St. Andre explains, “When the character is hit, hurt, or wounded, it comes off his constitution, and when constitution reaches zero, he is dead.”  Also familiar is the procedure for determining the value for each attribute:  roll 3d6.  Optionally, 'size' and 'weight' can both be determined by rolling 3d6, with size ranging from 4' to 7'2" and weight from 45 lbs. to 350 lbs.

For non-human characters, attributes are modified by certain multiples.  For instance, a “hobbit” character's strength is halved, constitution is doubled, and luck is multiplied by 1.5 – also, size and weight are halved.  There are no special abilities listed for non-human characters with one exception.  We are informed that, “Fairies with a strength greater than 2 are too solid and heavy to fly.”  How fast can a fairy fly?  No information is given.  Can elves see in the dark?  No information is given.  Can dwarves detect slanting passages?  No information is given.  The 'D.M.' is left to his or her own devices with regard to non-human character abilities.

In the Men & Magic volume of the original Dungeons & Dragons, experience is explained as follows:

As characters meet monsters in mortal combat and defeat them, and when they obtain various forms of treasure...they gain “experience.”

Tunnels & Trolls provides a more comprehensive system.  Similar to D&D, characters receive experience points for slaying or subduing foes and for bringing treasure (mundane or magical) out of the dungeon.  However, experience may be gained in other ways as well.  When a character returns to the surface alive he or she gains one hundred experience points times “the deepest dungeon level he penetrated.”  This falls under the category of “daring.”  Characters gain experience points for successful saving rolls.  “Multiply the saving roll by the dungeon level” to determine the experience points gained.  Even failed saving rolls can generate experience if their failure causes injury to the character – “multiply the number of hit points...times saving roll for e.p.”  Finally, spell casters get experience for...casting spells; more powerful spells garner more experience.

Level progression is the same for all three character types.  While T&T has an experience point/level system similar to D&D, the effect of T&T 's system is different.  In D&D, experience level defines a character's capability; in T&T, experience levels are only a means to an end.  For the sake of example, look at how adventure modules are rated.  The 'difficulty' of a D&D module is often expressed in such terms as “for 3 - 5 characters of levels 4 - 6.”  While T&T modules may refer to levels, they are most often classified in terms of adds (e.g., “up to 45 adds” or “up to 110 adds”).  “Adds,” as mentioned previously, reflect a character's (melee) combat effectiveness.  For each point of Strength, Dexterity, or Luck over 12, a character has +1 add; for each point of Strength, Dexterity, or Luck under 9, a character has “–1 add.”  In T&T, the benefit – and essentially the only benefit – of gaining a level is to increase Primary Attributes.

When gaining a level, one of the following options is selected for a character:

• Add half of new level number to Intelligence (round up)
• Add twice new level number to Luck
• Add half of new level number to Dexterity (round down)
• Add new level number to Charisma
• Add new level number to Strength
• Add new level number to Constitution
• Add half of new level number to Strength and half to Constitution

At the discretion of the 'D.M.', any of the first four options can be applied while the character is still in the dungeon; the last three options cannot take effect until the character leaves the dungeon.  So, upon reaching fifth level, a character could add 3 to Intelligence or add 10 to Luck or add 2 to Dexterity or add 5 to either Charisma, Constitution, or Strength or...  For the half Strength/half Constitution option,we are not told which way to round.  Perhaps that option can only be selected upon reaching even levels or perhaps the remaining point can be assigned to either attribute.  In any event, we see how an increase in level can change a character's adds.  Assuming our fifth level character has at least a value of 12 in Strength, Luck, and Dexterity, the improvement option selected can increase adds by 0, 2, 5, or 10.  Thus, 'personal adds' are a better measure of a character's effectiveness than experience level.

I conclude this post with a quote from St. Andre about experience in T&T.

This is a game of growth, and it is hoped that while your paper alter egos are growing in power and wisdom, you will too.

I guess he's speaking figuratively.

More Combat in Tunnels & Trolls

Art by Liz Danforth

The original Tunnels & Trolls allows for three 'types' of (beginning) characters:  warriors, magic-users, and rogues; they are “modeled respectively on Conan, Gandalf, and Cugel the Clever.”  (T&T has no 'Appendix N' or bibliography;  St. Andre takes for granted that his audience is familiar with these characters.)

“Magic-users are not supposed to fight in ordinary combats, at least not physically,” states St. Andre, “though they may be doing their best with lethal spellery.”  This statement is true of Dungeons & Dragons as well as Tunnels & Trolls.  However, in the midst of D&D combat, magic-users can stay at the back of the party and be shielded by more durable characters.  In contrast, T&T magic-users are “in the thick of it” and are exposed to the same amount of damage as other party members.  Later editions specify that if the amount of damage a party sustains in a given combat turn cannot be divided equally among the party members, magic-users should be subject to a lower amount.  (e.g., If a party of three sustains 20 points of damage, it would have to be 7/7/6 split, with the '6' being applied to a magic-user.)

On the other hand, T&T magic-users are allowed to wear armor.  In addition, T&T magic-users are on equal footing with other character types with regard to the amount of damage they can sustain;  all characters – regardless of type – can survive a number of hit points of damage equal to their constitution Prime Attribute.  In last week's post, I described the concept of “adds” a character receives in combat as a result of high strength, dexterity, and luck.  Magic-users do not benefit from such personal “adds,” except when fighting unarmed or with a quarterstaff.  Later editions would permit magic-users to apply their “adds” to all weapons they are allowed to use (i.e., those weapons that inflict damage of two dice or less).

“As warriors are assumed to become increasingly skillful at defending themselves,” St. Andre writes, warriors can use armor more effectively than other character types.  According to the original rules, at the cost of destroying armor (and/or shield), a warrior may increase the effectiveness of that armor (and/or shield) by a multiple equal to the warrior's experience level.  For instance, in the original rules, chain mail 'absorbs' five hit points of damage per combat turn; a fifth level warrior may “burn up” that armor and have it absorb twenty-five points of damage.  In later editions, this rule would be removed.  Now, armor is twice as effective for warriors (of any level) than it is for other character types.

Also in the original rules, a warrior can use a weapon in each hand.  In such an instance, the warrior's strength and dexterity are compared to the combined total of the weapons' strength and dexterity requirements.  In later editions, any character would be able to fight with two weapons without considering the combined strength and dexterity requirements; however, personal “adds” would not be applied twice.

T&T characters can go berserk in melee combat; this is not restricted to warriors – “Even a magic-user...can go bananas on you.”  (In later editions, it seems that a character must be using a weapon of at least three dice to go berserk.  Since magic-users cannot use weapons in excess of two dice, they cannot achieve a berserker state.)  A result of doubles (or better) when rolling damage allows the player to choose if the character goes berserk.  However, characters with an IQ of 8 or less must go berserk under these circumstances; characters with an IQ of 16 or greater cannot normally go berserk.

If berserk, the dice resulting in doubles (or better) are rerolled and the result added to the original total.  If the reroll is also doubles, the process continues.  So, berserkers can cause much more damage than they normally would, although “adds” are not applied to damage from berserkers.  On the following combat turns, if the character is still berserk but does not roll doubles, the second-lowest die result is adjusted to the lowest die result, thereby 'creating' doubles for the berserker to build upon.  Berserkers still suffer damage like any other character.  In fact, berserkers suffer a (temporary) loss of two strength points per combat round of being berserk.  (Since “adds” are not applied, a low strength will not negatively modify damage.)  Once a berserker's strength is reduced to five or less, he or she is “exhausted” and no longer capable of fighting.  After the enemy has been defeated, a berserk character will attack his or her own party until exhausted, killed, knocked unconscious, or otherwise calmed by the wiles of charisma.

Combat in Tunnels & Trolls

Art by Liz Danforth

In the early editions of Tunnels & Trolls, Ken St. Andre includes a paragraph with the heading “COMBAT” in the middle of the section on monsters.  This is five pages before the actual combat section begins.  The placement of this paragraph in the monster section is somewhat peculiar.  It isn't about monsters especially, other than – as St. Andre begins the actual combat section – “T&T is built on the conflict between men and monsters.”

In the monster-section paragraph, St. Andre says, “Each combat is a unique and individual experience that must really be played by ear.”  He then briefly describes three types of combat:  missile, melee, and shock.  Missile combat, of course, occurs at a distance.  Melee combat occurs “when both parties...are all mingled together and everybody fights.”  Finally, shock combat refers to “a one on one or two on one encounter when a monster reaches the leading element or rearguard of a group.”  So, in essence, the three types of combat are largely defined by distance and movement.  Strangely, rules for movement are not provided in early T&T beyond the observation that monsters and characters may want to flee combat if they seem to be losing and injuries and encumbrance will likely reduce a person's speed.  We are also left with unanswered questions such as, 'At what point does shock combat become melee combat?'

According to the Players Handbook (p. 104):

The 1 minute melee round assumes much activity rushes, retreats, feints, parries, checks, and so on.  Once during this period each combatant has the opportunity to get a real blow in.

This is consistent with St. Andre's notion of a (two-minute) combat turn:

Combat is not usually a blow-by-blow description of who did what to whom.  Instead it is meant to be a running appraisal of how the battle is going as looked at from distinct moments in time...Two minutes is a long time in personal combat, but if you regard the 2 minutes as filled with dodging, slashing, maneuvering, warding of harmless blows, etc., it is not excessive.

Combat in role-playing games is necessarily abstract to some degree, as the above quotes plainly indicate.  In Tunnels & Trolls, combat is more abstract than in many traditional RPGs.  Basically, for (melee) combat, each side rolls a number of dice, modifiers are applied to the results, and the side with the lower total suffers damage equal to the difference between the two totals.  That's it – no initiative, no distinction of 'to hit' rolls from damage rolls, no individual character versus an individual target.

How many dice does the monster roll?  As discussed previously, monsters roll a number of dice based on their 'monster rating.'  A fraction of their monster rating is added to the result.  Damage sustained is subtracted from monster rating; meaning monsters become weaker as more damage is done to them.

How many dice do the player characters roll?  Players roll a number of dice determined by the weapons their characters use.  (Originally, a terbutje did the same amount of damage as a sax (i.e., 1d6+5).  Preposterous!  Fortunately, in later editions, common sense prevailed and a terbutje now does 3d6+5 while a sax does 2d6+5.)  Modifiers are applied to the results in the form of “adds,” which could be positive or negative based upon a character's Prime Attributes of strength, dexterity, and luck.  Damage sustained is divided equally among the participating characters.  A character's armor, if any, reduces the damage he or she takes.  Any damage that gets though a character's armor (if any) is subtracted from the character's Prime Attribute of constitution.

One argument against this system is that only one side takes damage for any given combat turn.  St. Andre attempted to address this in different ways.  One way is for the 'winning' side to take a number of hits equal to 10% of the hits they inflicted upon the 'losing' side.  Another way is for each member of the winning side to attempt a saving throw (based on the Prime Attribute of luck).  A character who failed would suffer a number of hits equal to the difference of the roll result from the number needed.  In a later edition, St. Andre would adopt the notion of 'spite damage.'  Each 'natural' six rolled by the losing side in a combat turn, would be applied as one point of damage to the winning side (without the benefit of armor).  If the damage inflicted by the winning side fails to exceed the armor of the losing side, the losing side still sustains one point of damage per 'natural' six rolled.

For some people, T&T combat may seem too abstract.  You can't please all of the people all of the time, but combat in Tunnels & Trolls is simpler, smoother, and faster than D&D and its ilk.  Players are not disenfranchised; they still make decisions and they still roll dice.

Here There Be Monsters

Art by Liz Danforth

The Dungeon Masters Guide devoted seven paragraphs to the idea of “The Monster as a Player Character.”  Basically, Gygax advised that players should not be allowed to play monster characters.  At one point, he relented enough to state, “The truly experimental-type player might be allowed to play...a monster character for a time so as to satisfy curiosity.”  At the end of an essay of discouragement, Gygax finally said Dungeon Masters can do what they want with their own worlds but still admonished, “you are virtually on your own with regard to monsters as player characters.”  This dissuasive attitude was something of a departure from Holmes' remarks two years earlier:  “At the Dungeon Master's discretion a character can be anything his or her player wants him to be.  Characters must always start out inexperienced and relatively weak...”  While permissive, Holmes supplied no other guidance.

Not only did Tunnels & Trolls allow player characters to be monsters, but Ken St. Andre designed a T&T compatible game where player characters could only be monsters.  This game – Monsters! Monsters! – was published three years before Gygax advised against the concept and one year before Holmes' minimal concession.

The original Tunnels & Trolls did not have descriptions for monsters.  Dungeon Masters – yes, the original rules referred to Dungeon Masters – were expected to design their own.  However, monsters in T&T were defined by a number called 'monster rating'.  “Very puny monsters...have ratings below 30,” St. Andre wrote, “Very powerful monsters might have individual ratings up in the hundreds.”  The number of dice rolled for a monster in combat was based on its rating (eventually simplified to monster rating divided by ten).  On the first 'conflict turn', half of the monster rating was added to the dice total.  On subsequent conflict turns, only one-quarter was added.  Damage was subtracted from monster rating; as monsters suffered damage, the damage they were able to inflict was reduced.

Monsters! Monsters! was “produced and edited” by Steve Jackson and was published by Metagaming.  Monster ratings weren't a part of M!M! ; each monster was a character and was defined by attributes just like “normal” player characters.  A player could choose a type of monster to play or draw a random playing card; each of the 52 monsters on the monster table was associated with a specific card.  A character might be a balrog (king of diamonds) or a slime-mutant (two of hearts) or even human scum (two of clubs).  As the mention of 'balrog' suggests, various literary monsters were provided:  From Tolkien, along with balrogs, there were hobbits (technically 'black hobbits' due to their categorization as monsters) as well as orcs (and half-orcs); Tsathoguas from C. A. Smith; shoggoths and night-gaunts from Lovecraft; Snarks (misspelled 'Shark' in the Monster Glossary) from Lewis Carroll; shadowjacks from Zelazny; and M!M! demons were inspired by L. Sprague de Camp's works.  The table provides attribute multipliers for the various monsters.  (For instance, a yeti multiplies its strength by four while a gremlin multiplies its constitution by one-half.)  These attribute multipliers allowed detailed monster creation in T&T and also provided means to create non-human (but non-monstrous) player characters types like elves and dwarves.

Experience points were awarded in M!M! for expected behavior like acquiring treasure and killing or conquering enemies, but also for obtaining attractive captives of the opposite sex (“No points for ugly people”), destructiveness (including “wanton cruelty” and “general rottenness”), and sating one's appetite.

Just as 'normal' characters went dungeon delving in T&T, characters in M!M! were expected to raid settlements.  To this end, a sample farming village was mapped and described, the inn of the village was mapped and described in greater detail.  Attributes were supplied for various residents (with names like Desmond Mudminder, Bolinger Zangala, and Gort Glibtongue).  While these residents are targets in M!M!, they could easily serve as typical non-player characters in a traditional game.  St. Andre encouraged Game Masters (thus called in Monsters! Monsters! ) to create their own settings for monsters to invade.  St. Andre mentioned he designed Khosht, a city with a population of  20,000, for use in his games.

From St. Andre's Monsters! Monsters! Introduction:

So it was only natural that the monsters should come out of their tunnels and dungeons to strike back at the smug world of Men, Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, etc., who had been so greedily despoiling their homes and treasures...A monster lives by a completely different code of ethics, affording a splendid opportunity to get rid of the impure and perverted impulses which affect most of us – impulses it's hard to express while playing a hero.