I never understand the "Mother May I" stuff. Could somebody post an example?

Here's my OD&D experience (and I've run it for decades):

"Can I lift that boulder away from the door?"
"What's your STR?"
"12"
"That's a damn big boulder. Probably a half ton. What's your plan to move it?"
"I'm gonna use use the handle of my axe as a wedge and try to roll it."
"It's possible, but damn hard and you might snap the axe. Roll XYZ dice."
[Dice clatter]
[I adjudicate based on dice results vs. STR 12 + tool use]

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1071211No, YOU still do not know what the fuck you're talking about.  

Welcome back Gronan!

I knew we'd see your peehole around here again!

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1071211In OD&D stats do not influence "How often you succeed."

Dude...WTF.

Since the VCR era, groups I played with used either a D20 under stat or 3D6 under your stat all the time for OD&D stats as determiners of success.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1071248Dude...WTF.

Since the VCR era, groups I played with used either a D20 under stat or 3D6 under your stat all the time for OD&D stats as determiners of success.

You apparently were playing the game wrong.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1071211No, YOU still do not know what the fuck you're talking about.  In OD&D stats do not influence "How often you succeed."

 The only person who says more about OD&D while knowing less than you is CB.

So, a stat that provides a bonus has no influence on success ratio? I totally agree that stats are much less relevant, and that player declaration and chosen actions are the thing when you run old school (I assume--I mean, this is your lawn, you tell me). However, even if you run by the book, but there is a small amount of influence for sure, when stats come into play, and there is some sort of bonus involved. If they're so entirely meaningless, why roll them up at all? (cue long lecture, or a peehole reference).

Quote from: Spinachcat;1071248I never understand the "Mother May I" stuff. Could somebody post an example?

Here's my OD&D experience (and I've run it for decades):

"Can I lift that boulder away from the door?"
"What's your STR?"
"12"
"That's a damn big boulder. Probably a half ton. What's your plan to move it?"
"I'm gonna use use the handle of my axe as a wedge and try to roll it."
"It's possible, but damn hard and you might snap the axe. Roll XYZ dice."
[Dice clatter]
[I adjudicate based on dice results vs. STR 12 + tool use]

Welcome back Gronan!
I knew we'd see your peehole around here again!

Dude...WTF.
Since the VCR era, groups I played with used either a D20 under stat or 3D6 under your stat all the time for OD&D stats as determiners of success.

I don't know what Mother May I?, is. I never ran a game or played that way in any of my friends campaigns. I did learn from Gronan that I had not been playing 0D&D right when it came to the number of attacks a character had as they advanced in level. With the Chainmail rules a Hero or 4th level fighter made four attacks per melee round, however I always used the alternate combat system so was not aware that was even an option for this until it came up in conversation just last year. An alternative combat system was used beginning with Greyhawk that i adopted in 1978 that allowed a fighter of any level to only make 1 or 2 attacks per round. Fighters got two attacks, if they were dual-wielding two weapons simultaneously, or if they were using a Short Bow or Long Bow, they could get off two arrows in one round. Nowhere in the alternative combat rules section of the LBB or the supplements did the rules expressly say higher level players received multiple attacks. The first time I recall seeing explicit rules about the number of attacks a character would get to make in a specific melee round was with the AD&D 1e Player's Handbook.

    Skill rolls and skills checks against attributes were officially introduced into original D&D with the Rules Cyclopedia in 1991, and with 2nd edition AD&D. We heavily house ruled our original D&D and were of course making rolls against various attributes much earlier based on GM fiat. Charisma being one of the primary drivers of this in our games, where a character would roll his or her Charisma or less on a d20 to get a certain outcome when trying to persuade NPCs to take action or not take action depending on the circumstances of a particular encounter.  For example, the party might be coming into town and run into some gate guards whose orders were to collect a 1 Gp tax from any person wishing to enter the City. The character with a high Charisma would just state he would do no such thing because (lying his a$$ off) he was the second cousin of a prominent local noble. Instead of just letting the characters into town (Mother May I, GMing style... yes you may...), I would have the character roll a d20 against his or her Charisma attribute to determine just how persuasive and smooth at lying he (or she) was. If he/she rolled Charisma or under I ruled the persuasion attempt successful.

    The Complete Warlock added various attribute checks as well, with a table of special characteristics for all character classes, as well as a special set of thievish abilities so one could really customize the thief character class to be a specific type of rogue, dashing, handsome, and extremely persuasive, or highly skilled at disarming traps and figuring mysteries and codes, or good with poisons. There was quite a bit of customization in early D&D games based on specific campaigns, and each group would devise their own house rules while playing. No one considered this was not D&D except for the One True D&D tm GM's and Players that disliked the apparent and once in awhile very real incompatibilities or conflicts such house rules introduced into the game. Traveller also extensively used 2d6 under or equal roll versus attributes as a quick role-playing resolution mechanic for various types of skills, and communications checks. For those of us that wanted speedy games it was very convenient to add in as a house rule, and it was so popular that it was officially adopted with the last iteration of original D&D in the Rules Cyclopedia. We had been using this quick resolution mechanic in our D&D games from late 1977 onward.

In our gaming group we never did use a 3d6 roll against our attribute, we used a d20 vs. the attribute on the presumption that even the best of liars and skilled workers would mess up a job or con attempt about 10% of the time just due to unusual circumstances, or just plain bad luck. Another example of this from the Conan the Barbarian movie, even though Conan is a high level fighter, after he nails the evil high priest at Thulsa Doom's stronghold, he Don's the EHP wardrobe, but fails the bluff check when trying to get by other guards on the stairway to get close to Thulsa Doom. One of the Guard's recognizes the EHP's Unholy Symbol of Set when Conan presents it as proof he "belongs", and informs other guards who then successfully subdues and captures Conan, where he ends up contemplating his poor choices on The Tree of Woe.

Most groups I knew liked the D20 under stat. It was fast and fit with RQ's Stat x 5% concept. The groups who used 3D6 under stat were doing it based on the fact your stats were 3D6 based. But then GMs were having you roll stat under 4D6 for challenging stuff and quickly everything became challenging. The Under 3D6 worked fine until you dealt with 3s and 18s, as one always failed and one always succeeded, but a couple DMs I knew liked that. It certainly made stats of 10 vs 13 meaningful in actual play.

I used to always use d20 roll under, but these days I prefer 3d6 roll under - I like having competent characters generally succeed, and low stats fail.

If I want a high degree of randomness I use a saving throw- I like the s&w single save.

I never did look close at multiple attacks from fighters, because I thought fighters already had tremendous advantages at least until the higher levels when wizards would finally start getting lethal spells. Your basic tenth level fighter had an average of ten hit dice or forty-five HP or so *using the d8 HD (10d8+1) for fighters from Greyhawk. A tenth level wizard would have on average about sixteen hp (7d4 HD). So the fighter had three times as many HP, on average, and on the alternative combat to-hit tables, a tenth level fighter has a minimum of 10% better chance to hit with every attack he makes. Even making only one attack a round, this is a tremendous advantage over the course of a melee in a 1-on-1 fight.

With multiple attacks a fighter is even more lethal, getting to make eight attacks in a melee round all at +1 (Superhero+1) while the wizard gets to only make five. Chainmail confers additional advantages on fighters providing them with a 2d6 9+ saving throw against any hit. Basically if the "hero" or "superhero" rolls a 9+, that hit is not counted against them, and it take 4 hits to kill a hero, and eight to kill a superhero! A superhero could easily defend against more than a hundred normal men (ten figures in the Chainmail rules), and a hero could easily defend himself vs. fifty men.

Concerning abilities checks against attributes, since it was a roll under mechanic, a natural 1 was always a critical success, and a 20 was always a critical failure. Since one had a basic 5% chance of failing spectacularly, no matter what, this mechanic was not particularly abused by players, since they often had to take a lethal risk when employing the ability check... i.e. (I'm using my strength to climb down the cliff face...), so each round the player without the thieves natural climbing ability was climbing, they had to make a strength check, and a critical fail means, they lost their grip on the cliff face, and fell. On the other hand I would usually rule a critical success as "Oh yeah, he'll be able to climb all the way up or down the cliff without making any additional checks because he/she is apparently a naturally skilled climber."

Also on critical successes, I particularly enjoyed having the player then describe their unusual success to the other players, and for example, in this climbing scenario, I would have the player himself describe his unusual technique that made climbing so effortless. This added a very nice Bollywood "Over the top" effect to gameplay, and would often result in eye-rolls from the other players, especially when the player making the description was being completely ridiculous. Of course as a GM, I always kept some spectacular "critical fail" tables laying around and would enjoy describing the failure for the rest of the players, so they knew it was a high stakes affair. "The fighter loses his grip and suddenly falls, taking 8d6 of damage as he bounces off a rock outcrop, and then falls another thirty feet before impacting with the mountainside taking an additional 3d6 of damage... he also take another 2d6 of damage from sliding down the shale on the steep slope, before taking 1d6 additional damage from colliding with a tree and coming to a stop. ...Joe, how is your fighter doing now?"


In one of my last convention games I had a thief and an orc face off using spears, and the thief critically fumbled. The result was that the thief accidentally lost her grip on the spear, and it fell on the ground out of her reach between the thief and the Orc. Without missing a beat I described the Orcs followup attack thusly:

"The orc laughs in delight at you, and gently kicks the spear up (making a successful Dexterity check), into his off hand. He then twirls both spears in an impressive display of fighting skill and leaps towards you making a double attack."

All the players caught their breath thinking the thief was about to be skewered.

"and.... (rolling a 1) he fails, landing wrong, one of the spears snaps as it hits the ground prematurely, and the orc is impaled on his own broken spear, he screams taking 1d6 in unexpected damage, and automatically misses with his other attack. Roll for initiative on the new combat round."

By combining both roleplaying and roll-playing we end up with many fabulous and dramatic moments like this, in our old school D&D games.

Gamedaddy, what's 'high level' to you?  Because at about level 5 Fireball and Lightning Bolt usually come into play allowing Magic Users to potentially blow up proportionately MORE targets with almost zero miss chance, in fact, I dare say that a lot of the time, half damage is still more than enough to clean out a small room.  More effectively than a Fighter can, because remember, the Fighter can miss.  And a miss is no damage to the target.

Your HP argument is invalid because is the Magic User is taking massive damage, your Fighter is either dead or not doing their job.  A magic user has no business in the middle of a melee, that's that Fly, Invisible and other mobility spells are the for, which are also a last resort.  The Fighting Man and if you're playing New School editions, like BECMI, the Cleric should be the first two lines of defense.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1071337Gamedaddy, what's 'high level' to you?  Because at about level 5 Fireball and Lightning Bolt usually come into play allowing Magic Users to potentially blow up proportionately MORE targets with almost zero miss chance, in fact, I dare say that a lot of the time, half damage is still more than enough to clean out a small room.  More effectively than a Fighter can, because remember, the Fighter can miss.  And a miss is no damage to the target.

As I understand it, those spells are highly situational in many varieties of old school D&D, due to propensity for a) blowback and b) damaging the loot.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1071338As I understand it, those spells are highly situational in many varieties of old school D&D, due to propensity for a) blowback and b) damaging the loot.

Wandering parties have loot?  To be honest the explosive force behind a fireball isn't going to damage gold.  And the flash of heat is too fast to melt the metal significantly.  Most magical items would get a save anyway.  So anyone who 'damages' the loot, is a jerk DM for wanting to screw the players out of the reward they've 'earned'.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1071342Wandering parties have loot?  To be honest the explosive force behind a fireball isn't going to damage gold.  And the flash of heat is too fast to melt the metal significantly.  Most magical items would get a save anyway.  So anyone who 'damages' the loot, is a jerk DM for wanting to screw the players out of the reward they've 'earned'.

And this is why you have a problem with magic-user power - you've convinced yourself that realism is more important, and that modification makes them more powerful.

Quote from: EOTB;1071343And this is why you have a problem with magic-user power - you've convinced yourself that realism is more important, and that modification makes them more powerful.

So melting coins and destroying magical items is your 'fix' for solving Magic's power?  And it's not 'realism', it's plausibility.   Back wash, which I didn't address, is more of a valid concern, in my opinion, but a good party knows how to coordinate around a magic user.

https://goldsurvivalguide.co.nz/storing-precious-metals-will-gold-silver-survive-a-house-fire/

QuoteGold and silver both have a high melting point that should be higher than just a standard house fire temperature.

But if your gold and silver bullion was in some kind of packaging as many coins are, then obviously this would melt and could damage the exterior.

Also consider that it may be difficult to dig through the ashes to even find your bullion after a major fire.

While your gold and silver may still be "pure" after a fire, if the bullion is damaged then when the time comes to sell you will likely receive less for it. It will need to be refined again and re-cast or re-minted and assayed. So a gold buyer or refiner will likely offer you much less than the prevailing spot price of gold or silver for it because of this.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1071345So melting coins and destroying magical items is your 'fix' for solving Magic's power?  And it's not 'realism', it's plausibility.   Back wash, which I didn't address, is more of a valid concern, in my opinion, but a good party knows how to coordinate around a magic user.

Absurd reduction doesn't change the point.  Yes, if unpleasant side effects of something are neutralized, for whatever reason, it will be used in many more situations by players than a game presumed.  Putting that on the game is not an accurate charge.

I have no problem with magical fire melting coinage. It just means that MUs sometimes have to cast something other than fireball in a battle.  Games giving players tactical choices are better (a) do I want to protect the treasure? (b) do I need to nuke this problem right now? Sometimes, you nuke the room full of trolls because your party couldn't handle them otherwise, even if it means losing that sweet sweet loot.