Character Project: Let's Get Silly

Man, what a stressful week.  In an effort to relieve some of that stress, I'm hitting that often neglected Steve Jackson game, TOON.

Products: TOON: The Cartoon Roleplaying Game (1984) & Son of TOON (1986)

Aaron Aardvark

     Description:  Aaron looks like a typical aardvark.  He stands three feet tall and has a long snout.  He usually looks tired and unkempt.  He wears rumpled shirts (no pants) and carries a cup of coffee that always seems to be full.  He speaks in a low monotone voice and acts like nothing surprises him.

     Beliefs and Goals: Sleep during the day and stay up all night.  Scrounge for ants and termites to eat, and wash them down with a nice, hot cup of java.  Try to look unimpressed and unaffected by even the most bizarre occurrences.  Watch out for lions, leopards, dogs, big snakes, or anything else that might want to eat me.  You can usually out-think them (but try not to work too hard or look too stressed while doing it).
     Hit Points: 11

Muscle: 3
     Break Down Door: 3
     Climb: 3
     Fight: 5
     Pick Up Heavy Thing: 3
     Throw: 3

Zip: 2
     Dodge: 2
     Drive Vehicle: 2
     Fire Gun: 2
     Jump: 2
     Ride: 2
     Run: 2
     Swim: 2

Smarts: 6
     Hide/Spot Hidden: 8
     Identify Dangerous Thing: 9
     Read: 9
     Resist Fast-Talk: 9
     See/Hear/Smell: 9
     Set/Disarm Trap: 7
     Track/Cover Tracks: 7

Chutzpah: 4
     Fast-Talk: 7
     Pass/Detect Shoddy Goods: 7
     Sleight of Hand: 4
     Sneak: 4

Schtick:
     Incredible Speed (Burrowing) 5

I was starting to like this character by the time I finished him.  I tried putting myself in a mindset of the old animators, who would develop an idea around an almost real situation first - an animal in its natural habitat that otherwise acted human.  The TOON game, though, has no such 'logic' controlling it (they make a distinction between 'character' animals and 'real' animals, for example).  Still, the two or three times I played the game was enjoyable, for what it was, and I'd play it again.

Of course, I wonder how much contemporary players would get of the game, considering Saturday Morning Cartoons are pretty much over (I think Cartoon Network helped to kill that notion).  Unless the younger kids go out of their way to educate themselves in old Warner Bros. and MGM mayhem, I think a lot of the concept would be lost on them.

Then again, the TOON game was never intended for great things - it's a pick-up game, after all.  It's something to do while you're waiting for the rest of the players to show up.  The game was reprinted as a Deluxe Edition in 1991, comprising over 200 pages (up from the thin module-size prints of 40 pages or so), and that was followed by three additional 200+ page supplements. The supplements were increasingly silly, and by the time the last one was printed (TOON Ace Catalog) the already-difficult-to-take-seriously game was almost completely unplayable because they abandoned any comprehension of rules and started to violate their own premises.  It's one thing to be funny, but another thing entirely to be unusable.

Related Links
TOON at Steve Jackson Games

Character Project - Marvel Super Heroes

The game I started playing with was not D&D, but instead was Marvel Super Heroes.  This was during the mid- to late-80s, when D&D was vilified as a gateway to Satan worshiping.  As a compromise, I was allowed to play some games that focused specifically on heroism.  Marvel was one, and Star Wars was another.  That didn't keep me from sneaking off to play D&D (or other, much more violent games, like Twilight 2000).  Still, Marvel Super Heroes has a special place in my heart.

This entry is going to be unlike previous ones because I'm not going to use a particular product to gauge my critique on.   Instead, I'm going to pull out an old database I've created that is an amalgam of several sources: The Advanced Set, The Ultimate Powers Book, Realms of Magic, and a couple of Dragon Magazine articles.

EL CHUPACABRA


STATISTICS

F  In (36)
A  In (36)
S  Fe (1)
E  Ex (16)
R  Pr (3)
I   Gd (8)
P  In (36)

Health: 89
Karma: 47
Resources: Fe (1)
Popularity: -5

BACKGROUND
Real Name: Unknown
Occupation: Vagrant
Legal Status: The world at large believes El Chupacabra to be only a legend.
Identity: Publicly known
Place of Birth: Puerto Rico
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: None
Base of Operations: Mobile
Past Group Affiliations: None
Present Group Affiliations: None

KNOWN POWERS
Pheromones: El Chupacabra can emit an Excellent (16) Rank stench through his pores that causes nausea.  Anyone subjected to the stench must make a successful Endurance Feat against this power's intensity or be incapacitated until El Chupacabra leaves the area or stops emitting pheromones.  He can emit the stench for a number of rounds equal to his power rank each day.

Leaping: El Chupacabra can leap up with Remarkable (26) ability.

Danger Sense: El Chupacabra detects danger with Amazing (46) ability.  He may substitute this rank for his Intuition for the purposes of combat.

Natural Weapons: El Chupacabra has several large quills that run along his spine.  Additionally, he has long fangs and claws that he may use in combat.  These sharp objects cause Amazing (46) damage.

Infravision: El Chupacabra can see into the infrared spectrum with Excellent (16) range and ability.

Shrinking: Because of his diminutive stature, El Chupacabra is considered to have permanent Feeble (1) rank shrinking.

Talents: El Chupacabra has learned how to survive in the wilds and may be considered to have survival and stealth talents.  He has also shown a remarkable ability to learn and understand languages (particularly Spanish and English), though he is unable to speak them.  Finally, El Chupacabra is considered to have the Acrobatics and Tumbling talents, receiving a +1CS to all FEATS involving those actions.

Contacts: In his travels, El Chupacabra has met many people that he may call friends, particularly the outcast and unwanted.  Furthermore, he has attained a form of cult hero status in many areas of the Southern United States, Mexico, Central America and South America.

This is a difficult system to nail down.  There is a remarkable combination of organic, build-as-you-go character creation and controlled random generation.  I think it helps best to have a clear idea of a character before sitting down with dice, because every time I let random chance determine any part of the creation process, I end up with the oddest characters (the first and last time I let the dice think for me entirely, I inadvertently recreated a giant space hamster from the Spelljammer AD&D setting).  On the other hand, any sort of randomness in a character creation process means that a player has to be willing to sacrifice at least part of his initial concept.  Sometimes this means a character could have lower scores than the player would like, and other times this means a generalized or uninspired character concept becomes a more individualized and interesting one.  This encourages adaptation to circumstance, something players will have to take with them into the playing of the game itself.

All things being fair, I should include some hard criticism of the game as a whole.  Combat is fast and fun, but damage is static, which often leads to regretfully frustrating encounters.  An armor ranking effectively defends against all attacks equal to or less than that rank, and no matter how much a character exerts himself, he always does the same amount of damage.  That means there is no way for strengths of equal rank to overcome one another.  Furthermore, the Marvel Super Heroes RPG is an early example of a single mechanic that dominates a rules set.  However, I get the distinct feeling, while looking at the Basic set rules and supplements, that the game was designed as simplified role-playing rather than something more complex.  The Advanced set was a change from that, as the developers moved from a simple rules set to a larger complex world.  Like many single-mechanic games, the character was the central focus rather than the setting itself... and that is the setting: the unique individual existing in a normal world.

Happy New Year, Happy New Characters

With a new year comes new possibilities.  I have been watching the Open Gaming License and retro-clone for a while now, and I thought I would do something special.  For the first post of the year, I will make two characters, let the dice fall where they may, one using First Edition AD&D, the second using the OSRIC rules that are an attempt to simulate (partially) the first edition rules.  It should be noted that the rules do not entirely match up, with some variation in character advancement and experience award, but I will do my best here.  I believe the OSRIC rules have later 1st edition Gygax rules sets in mind, rather than early stuff.  I have to make an effort to recover the orange-bound first edition players and dungeon masters manuals to help verify similarities, but for now I'm using the black-bound original cover books.

This post will be the AD&D character, the next post, in a day or two, will be an OSRIC character.  Once I go through both processes, I'll have something more profound to say about the similarities (besides the obvious ones) and differences between the two products.  I hope to discover something shocking!

Product: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook
Date: 1978 (6th printing)
Product #2: Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide
Date: 1979 (Revised Edition)

Ailell Ruadh: 1st-level fighter/1st-level magic-user, elf; ST 12, IN 15, WS 13, DX 17, CN 13, CH 16; AC 5 (Dex, studded leather armor); Move 9"; HD 1; hp 2; #AT 1; Dmg 1-8 long sword, 1-6 short bow; SA spells (Jump, Read Magic, Shocking Grasp, Write), elf abilities; AL CG.
Equipment: Belt, Cloak, High soft boots, Iron rations (1 week), Large belt pouch, Large sack, Light riding horse with saddle and harness, Long sword, Oats (1 week horse feed), Rope (50'), Short bow and 2 dozen arrows, Saddle blanket, Small saddle bags, Studded leather, 4 gp.
Weapon Proficiencies: Long sword, short bow, staff, dagger; Secondary Skills: No skill of measurable worth; Age: 210; Height: 4' 8"; Weight: 98 lbs.

It took me almost an hour to make this character, partially because my first-edition character-making skills are somewhat rusty.  I noted that a lot of the character creation material is in the Dungeon Masters Guide.  Ability scores, for example, are discussed in the DMG to some extent, and the options are given to the DM as to which method to choose.  Because I wanted a fairly random development of character, I chose method III - roll 3d6 6 times for each ability and save the highest of each set.  That gave me a character with some high stats!  I was dismayed that I missed qualifying for a paladin by one point on Charisma!  Spell selection, too, was determined by random table in the DMG, but the rest I chose based on the scores I had generated and the fact that I didn't want to make another thief. 

My hit points were low (again!) and I didn't have an outrageously high Constitution to fix that problem.  This character is pretty well equipped, but could die easily in the first encounter.  It's a dangerous world out there!  Those high ability scores can only protect a character so far (in this case, with a two point bonus to AC).

At any rate, I see a tendency to keep some information out of the hands of the players.  Remember, this is a time when the world was created and designed by the DM, who was solely responsible for knowing the rules.  This gave the DM power to fudge those rules from time to time, usually in the player's favor (who wants their hour-long created character to come to a quick end on the first adventure?).  This also gives the players more focus on the story, moving through the world, and not worrying about a list of numbers or list of abilities.  Instead of only thinking about what their stat block tells them they can do, the players would actively engage the world and make decisions based on that engagement. In time, of course, players became knowledgeable of all the rules.  Maybe it was a little naive to think that everything would be kept secret from players, especially if they all had dreams of becoming DMs some day.  I suppose it did cut out the rules lawyers (and what a pain they can be), but I'm sure just as many DMs played the part of tyrant god-king too often...

All-in-all, I do know that this character (and the Basic D&D character I made for my last post) needs to find a party before he runs off into the unknown.  I see him as being a bit apprehensive in his early adventuring days, leaving some work to others, and he'll have a longer road to travel for advancement.  But that's an elf for you.

Character Project: Basic D&D

I was intrigued by someone's idea to create a character for each rpg that they owned, and I thought I would try it myself.  I don't remember exactly where I got the idea, but I'll post some links at the bottom of this post to other people who have done this.

For each of the characters I create, I'll give product information from the rpg (including publishing date and printing number).  Then I'll post the character stats in whatever standard that game uses for its products (maybe modified to include character creation information that doesn't show up in those stat blocks).  I'll note if I made any changes to the character creation rules provided by the books, but for the most part I'll follow the rules as they're written.  Finally, I'll give an overview of the process and a general impression I have of the game as a whole. 

For the first entry, I thought I would go with Original (aka 'Basic') Dungeons and Dragons. I'll be "rolling straight," 3d6 for each ability score in sequence, and leaving the numbers where they fall.

Product: Dungeons and Dragons Fantasy Adventure Game, Basic Rulebook
Date: January 1981
Printing: First

Pickett, Level 1 Thief; Alignment: Neutral; Abilities: Str 11, Int 9, Wis 5, Dex 13, Con 11, Cha 8; AC 6 (leather armor, -1 Dex); Hit Points: 1; Attacks: short sword (1d6); short bow (+1 to hit, 1d6 damage); Move: 120'; Languages: Common, Neutral; Special Abilities: +4 "to hit" from behind, Open Locks 15%, Find/Remove Traps 10%, Pick Pockets 20%, Move Silently 20%, Climb Sheer Surfaces 87%, Hide in Shadows 10%, Hear Noise 1-2; Equipment: backpack, dagger, iron rations (1 week), large sack (2), leather armor, quiver with 20 arrows, rope (50'), short bow, short sword, small sack (1), thieves' tools, tinder box, torches (6); Money: 15 gp.

Extrapolating what I know about Dungeons and Dragons, I can see the functionality in this statistics block.  Sometimes that original D&D gets a bad rep for being nothing more than dungeon crawling hack-fests.  Granted.  But remembering that this is an advancement of a strategy miniatures game, we can see where the notion came from, and in retrospect, we can see where it is going.

There won't be much difference between two fighters, or two thieves.  The only thing that sets them apart, aside from level, is equipment and name.  Even the statistics get eerily similar.  There are high odds that statistics are going to fall within a limited range, and there isn't much of an effect that exceptionally high or low scores have on the character overall.  Simplistic? Perhaps.  But imagine original D&D as a series of puzzles and mazes, designed to challenge the players more than the characters.  The idea of roleplaying only came from the imaginative folks who project identity upon a sheet of paper filled with numbers.

D&D purists argue that the lack of individuality in the characters encourages roleplay for the individual, because statistics only go so far to distinguish one character from another.  What makes a fighter something special isn't his ability to hit a target, but the choices the character makes in his lifetime.  It's the history of a character that counts, and the experiences he has are what defines him.  The later products for D&D, particularly the Mystara setting, came out of that imagination that sets apart otherwise similar individuals.

I wish I could play this thief for a while.  He has only one hit point, so I'd have to be particularly cautious at early levels.  Every challenge would be a matter of life or death, and there are no guarantees that he'll come back from his first dungeon delve.  What would drive someone who is somewhat frail to risk almost certain death for a few coins?  I'd save that answer for later in Pickett's career.  I wouldn't want to waste time with background for a character that might die in the first encounter.  And if he does or not is entirely dependent on how I run him.

Related Links:
Philotomy's OD&D Musings
Indie-RPGs Forum: Challenge the Player, not the Stat Block