The Basic D&D party:

Player 1 = fighter (Str 15, AC 1, HP 7), cleric (AC 6, HP 5)

Player 2 = thief (AC 6, HP 3, bow), magic-user (detect magic)

Player 3 = magic-user (sleep), magic-user (magic missile)

Note: the below is an overview of how the adventure went. I’m leaving out a lot of little details.

With freshly equipped PCs on paper in front of the Players, and the dungeon module in front of me, we started the adventure off standing before the front door of the dungeon. They tapped the door with their 10’ pole, the thief checked it for traps, and they listened at it before opening it.

• A 1st-level BD&D thief has a 10% chance to find and remove a trap. No adjustments for ability scores. Just ten percent.

They entered the dungeon, and began walking down the corridor, tapping ahead of them with the 10’ pole as they went. In our years together before this game session, we have all gabbed about classic D&D dungeons. Like me, one of the Players is a veteran of such dungeons, way back. So they brought their paranoia, caution, and patience with them into this delve.

• Interestingly, by the core rules, pit traps only have a 2 in 6 chance of opening up when walked across. So probing with a 10’ pole has only a 2 in 6 chance of revealing a pit trap before the front rank of adventurers walk on it.

The party reached the first pair of alcoves along the entry corridor. They 10’ poled all around the area, then moved on. When they came to the second pair of alcoves in the entry corridor, they decided to search for secret doors – but only one character searched each alcove. I guess they weren’t real serious about it. But my rolls came up with them finding the secret door to the west.

• Finding secret doors is a 1 in 6 chance (2 in 6 for elves) per character searching.

Before they could do anything with their discovery, two wandering berserkers found them and attacked. I forgot that I’m supposed to roll for the monster’s reaction instead of just attacking, but what the hell? We play D&D for the excitement of battling monsters, not talking to them. (This is my after-the-fact excuse for forgetting to roll reactions throughout the adventure.)

I would say this was my first BD&D combat since circa 1982, but I pretty much ran my AD&D1 combat by the BD&D rules. This is probably the main reason I think back on my AD&D1 campaigns as easy and smooth to run, compared to if I had used the complicated AD&D1 combat rules as written. I ran my BD&D/AD&D1 hybrid up through the mid-90s.

Although, I don’t think we ever really ran our old-days BD&D combats in the Movement-Missile-Magic-Melee order. We just let the PCs do all their stuff without ordering in the MMMM pattern. But for this game session, I was trying to run everything honestly by the rules as written. So we did movement, then missile fire, then casting spells, then hand-to-hand rolls, in order, on the winning side of initiative, then the same for the losing side.

In this battle, the fighter engaged the berserkers in melee, the thief shot his bow from 20′ away, and the cleric and magic-users hung back out of harm’s way. The fighter killed one enemy, and the thief killed the other. No PC was injured. But:

A flaw in old school modules, in my opinion, is the incomplete way they write up monster stats. For instance:

Berserkers (1-2) – AC 7, HD 1+1*, hp 5, 4, #AT 1, D 1-8 or by weapon, MV 90’ (30’), Save F1, ML 12

For some monsters, that’s information enough – orcs, goblins, and other basic monsters. But, for example, berserkers get a +2 on their attack rolls against humans and “human-like” creatures. I didn’t notice that little nugget until I looked berserkers up in the rule book, after that fight was completed. One berserker missed hitting the PC fighter by one point –- that +2 would have made the attack a hit.

The module stats for troglodytes and giant centipedes also leave out important combat information: stench and poison, respectively. After the berserker mistake, I opened the rule book before each combat to check for such missing info.

Now, I think monster stats in contemporary published adventures is information overload – far more info than is necessary for a combat. Although some people like/praise the bare-bones stats given in classic modules, for me, stats that omit important combat info aren’t a good thing anymore than stats that fill half a page with a wall of text.

In this battle, that little piece of omitted text made a difference in the result.

Then the party set about opening the secret door. After opening it, they spiked it to keep it open. They didn’t know it, but that was a good idea, as the door is a one-way valve, and they wouldn’t have been able to come back through it later if it closed.

Shortly after moving down the new hallway, I told them their torch was running out. It was also time for me to roll for another wandering monster check.

The Player whose PC was holding the torch joked and fiddled around, pantomiming holding the torch as it burned low. After several seconds with no one saying they were lighting a new torch, I said it went out. Darkness. “You might be eaten by a grue,” I said. That got chuckles all around.

My wandering monster roll came up with four giant rats. I described the party’s new torch lighting up, revealing the rats right on them. “Check for surprise,” I instructed. They were surprised. Uh oh.

The rats bit at the fighter and thief, and hit the thief for 3 points of damage. The thief only had 3 hit points, so he dropped dead. After the fighter killed two of the rats, the other two failed morale and fled. The cleric and magic-users again just stayed out of the fight.

First PC death in the second battle, just 8 turns into the adventure. The thief’s partner PC, one of the magic-users, picked up her brother’s body and carried it while the party moved on through the dungeon. (That M-U had 15 strength –- should have been made an elf.)

A couple turns later, the party came upon a giant centipede on the other side of a door. The party won initiative, and the fighter killed it in one blow. This encounter isn’t really worth mentioning.

The party continued their walking through the corridors, still probing the floor with their 10’ pole all along the way. They were wandering around in the maze area of the dungeon (the south west corner). They eventually made their way all the way around and up to the back door of the kitchen (area #2) (no other wandering encounters). They were keeping a map of their trek so they wouldn’t get lost.

They entered the kitchen and looked around (I had not placed a monster or treasure in this room). They gave the dead thief a burial by fire in one of the cooking pits. After that, they opened the front door of the kitchen and found the remains of a battle in the dungeon intersection (not really area #1 marked on the map, but described there).

They carefully examined and searched the bodies, finding and taking the small change on a couple of the dead adventurers. After this, they decided to back track some to check an area of their map that didn’t fit right (simple mapping error in the triangular hallway around area #10).

During this double-checking of the hallways, a pair of orcs wandering up and attacked. Again, the PC fighter tanked while everyone else hung back from the danger. But then the fighter took a 5 point hit, taking him down to 2 hit points. Uh oh.

One of the magic-users cast magic missile at one of the orcs, for 2 points of damage (orc had 4 hit points). The cleric stepped up to fight, but got immediately cut down by an orc. Second PC dead. With the cleric down, and the fighter hurt bad, and both orcs still fighting, another magic-user pulled out his big gun: sleep.

Checking the sleep spell description, I got a big surprise. There is no area of effect listed for the spell. No instruction at all about this. Really? So I ruled that it just affected everything around the caster (but not including the caster). The Player rolled and got 10 hit dice of effect. Everything, including the PCs fell to sleep (no saves for this). The victorious magic-user then killed both orcs with his dagger, and woke his comrades.

The Str 15 magic-user (who hadn’t cast anything yet – detect magic not being a combat spell) carried the fallen cleric as the party made their backtracking way through the maze area to get back out of the dungeon.

Along the way, a wandering troglodyte attacked them. It scored 3 points of damage on one of the magic-users (who had 4 hit points), and then the fighter killed it in one swing. I was lenient here and used a D&D3 concept — the troglodyte only took one attack when it moved up (trogs usually get claw/claw/bite).

They continued their hurried escape and got out of the dungeon.

41 total turns in the dungeon

5 wandering monster encounters

only 1 room discovered (but no monsters therein)

only 7 gp looted

and 2 PCs dead (from one hit each)

The 4 surviving PCs got something around 30-40 xp each. Not a very exciting reward for someone’s first time experiencing Basic D&D.

If you are familiar with the layout of this dungeon, you will recognize that the PCs (through no fault or mistake of the Players) managed to take the most boring route through this dungeon. I don’t think I could have intentionally plotted a better path to completely miss rooms, set monsters, and placed treasures.

Upon returning to town (I handwaved everything after exiting the dungeon), they healed up, rolled up two new PCs, restocked torches, and headed back into the dungeon for another go.

Continued here.

Bullgrit

We have two cell phones, and two different service providers. Well, we did until this week. Now we have two phones and one service.

We originally signed up with Alltel back around 2000, and then, about a year ago, they were changed over to Verizon. We had been pleased with Alltel through the years, but Verizon got worse and worse through the last several months.

Our Verizon bill kept going up and up. According to our bills, this was due to using more minutes. I thought maybe this was due to us living with my mother-in-law, and not having our own land line. We must have been using our cell phones more. But after a while, I started doubting the numbers shown in the monthly bill.

And then once we got in our new house, and the latest bill came in — at 3 times our plan base cost — I was sure Verizon was screwing us. So I started shopping around, starting with our other service provider, AT&T.

The store manager at the nearby AT&T shop offered us a fantastic deal: two lines for just $10 more than we were already paying for one line. I got the deal in writing, and we compared it with other options. A few days later, we went in and signed up with AT&T.

Before leaving the house with our boys in tow, we let them pick out several toys to bring. We told them what we were going to be doing, and that they would need to sit over in the corner of the store and play quietly for a few minutes. They brought Bakugan balls and cards, and Star Wars Legos figures.

Fortunately, the store was empty of other customers. Our boys sat down in a corner of the store, and apparently had a great time while their mom and dad talked business with the store manager.

Unfortunately, what we expected to maybe last 15 minutes turned out to be very nearly 60 minutes.

Verizon is some dumb shits. A good chunk of our time was trying to get our old number transferred to our new service. The AT&T store manager had two people from Verizon on the phone, trying to get everything worked out. The Verizon people couldn’t find our account in their system. They couldn’t find our phone number in a database search.

Our cell phone service company couldn’t find our phone number in their freakin’ computers! How screwed up is a company’s database if they can’t find the phone number they set up and provided and charge us for? Makes me think about those questionable bills we’d gotten lately.

At last, they found our account in their system. And we got the old number transferred to our new service.

During the last 10 minutes or so of this ordeal, our boys started getting a bit antsy. They’d been good and mostly quiet for about 40 minutes sitting in the small store, playing with their toys. But then they were getting tired, bored, and fidgety. (No other customers had come in the store since we got there, so it was just us and the store manager this whole time.)

At one point they started going around picking up some of the display phones around the store. We asked the store manager if it was alright if they looked at the phones, and she said they were all just display models — “It’s fine. They can’t hurt anything,” she said.

We instructed the boys to not have more than one phone at a time, and we kept an eye on them to make sure they were playing gently. Though they were excited by the gadgets, they did stay calm and gentle.

Calfgrit5 came over to us one time with a slider phone open, saying, “This looks like a DS.”

I don’t know where he has ever heard of a Nintendo DS, much less actually seen one.

A few minutes later, he had another phone up to his ear, pretending to talk to someone on the other end. “Hey, how are you doing? . . . Everything’s good here. . . . Really? Oh my gosh! . . .” He carried on this conversation for a couple minutes. This was totally adorable, but I would love to know who he was supposedly talking to. “OK, bye,” he said, and he closed the phone.

Shortly after, we had completed our business with the store. We directed the boys in collecting up their toys scattered about the corner of the store, and then we left with a new cell phone and a new service plan.

Immediately, Calfgrit9 wanted to know if he could have our old phone. He was disappointed when we explained that it didn’t have any service connected with it. He actually thought we might give him, a 3rd grader, his own cell phone.

“Who would you even call?” we asked him. “None of your friends have a cell phone.”

“I’d send text messages,” he answered.

“Who would you text?”

“You. And Nana. And Granddaddy.”

That’s really sweet. But still. “When you get old enough to need a cell phone, we’ll see about it.”

“Okay,” he said.

Now, at what age does a kid need a cell phone in the 21st century?

Bullgrit

Our game session with Basic D&D started with the Players creating their characters at the game table. I let the three Players create two PCs each, because I knew some were going to die. (Death can be swift and arbitrary for 1st-level BD&D PCs.)

I have two BD&D rule books, and the Players are already experienced D&D gamers, but there was a moderate amount of stuff to learn and unlearn. Creating the six PCs took 30-40 minutes:

Roll ability scores, 3d6, in order, no arranging or changing. (There’s an option for lowering certain stats by 2 points to raise a certain other stat 1 point, but I skipped this for our first time.) The overall ability score range fell between 16 and 7. No one rolled up a “helpless character.”

• Ability score order in BD&D is different than in the contemporary editions: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma

Check the ability score tables for modifiers.

• Ability score modifier grouping in BD&D is different than in the contemporary editions: 3, 4-5, 6-8, 9-12 (average), 13-15, 16-17, 18
• Strength modifies attack, damage, and open doors rolls
• Intelligence gives bonus languages (1 to 3)
• Wisdom modifies saving throws versus magic
• Dexterity modifies range attacks and AC
• Constitution modifies hit points
• Charisma modifies encounter reaction rolls, and sets max number and morale of hirelings

Read/teach/learn the basics of the classes. Choose a class

• Classes are: cleric, dwarf, elf, fighter, halfling, magic-user, thief — dwarf and halfling are basically fighters with racial extras, and the elf is a fighter/magic-user with racial extras

Roll hit points. There is a DM’s option to allow Players to reroll 1st-level hit point rolls of 1 or 2. I used this option when two PCs came up with 1 hit point (both PCs belonged to the same Player).

• Hit dice are: fighter, dwarf = d8, cleric, elf, halfling = d6, magic-user, thief = d4

Roll up starting gold, 3d6 x10, and purchase equipment. The BD&D equipment list is very limited compared to other editions. There are only 3 types of armor suits, about 15 weapons, about 20 other odds and ends.

• Armor choices are: leather, chainmail, platemail, plus shield
• AC starts at 9 and the lower the number (even into the negatives), the better the protection

Spellcasters choose a (1, one) spell from a relatively short list.

• There are 12 first-level spells, including sleep, charm person, detect magic, and light (which is an effective attack spell in BD&D)

Look up and write down to-hit numbers and saving throws. All 1st-level PC classes have the same to-hit numbers (called THAC0 and BAB in other editions).

• There are five saving throws: “Death Ray or Poison”, “Magic Wands”, “Paralysis or Turn to Stone”, “Dragon Breath”, “Rods, Staves, or Spells”

Jabber and joke about games, movies, and women (not necessarily in this order). This hasn’t changed much since I originally played BD&D in the early 80s. (Well, we’ve more experience with women, now. Though we don’t understand them any better than we did then.)

Creating a BD&D character is relatively easy and quick because there are very few decisions to make. Equipment is the only decision point for most characters, and choosing just one spell for a magic-user or elf is pretty easy. (BD&D clerics don’t get a spell at all at first level.)

The PCs:

• Player 1 – Fighter (Str 15, AC 1, HP 7), Cleric (AC 6, HP 5)
• Player 2 – Thief (AC 6, HP 3*), Magic-User (AC 10, HP 3*, Spell: detect magic) [Yes, AC 10 – low Dex]
• Player 3 – Magic-User (Spell: magic missile), Magic-User (Spell: sleep)

* Player 2 is the one who originally rolled 1s for hit points. His rerolls netted 3 each.

No one expressed dislike of the rules for character generation, and most of the differences were taken in stride. The only thing that got any real comment was: magic-users get just 1 spell known, castable just once per day. They can’t wear any armor, and can use only a dagger (not even a staff or crossbow).

There’s an oddity about the equipment list: there’s no description or explanation of any items other than the ACs for the armors. Although we, as experienced D&D gamers already, knew what the items in the list were, novices to the game, (for which BD&D was designed and marketed), probably wouldn’t know.

From a newbie’s perspective:

• What use is a holy symbol? There’s no mention about what it is or what it’s used for or why it would be needed in the BD&D book. The rules for a cleric turning don’t even mention a holy symbol. Reading the rules as written, it’s a waste of 25gp. (Better to spend that amount on better armor.)
• What’s the difference between iron rations and normal rations? One is preserved, the other is not. But what does this mean in adventuring terms? How long do normal rations last? How much longer do preserved rations last? You buy both in 1-week units.
• What’s the purpose of a silver dagger? I remember way back when I first started playing BD&D, we didn’t yet know about some creatures needing silver to hit them. Our DM ruled that a silver dagger automatically hit. It was some months later that we discovered the real purpose of a silver dagger. And then we immediately asked why there aren’t silver swords.
• What’s a ten-foot pole for? What are iron spikes for?

As experienced D&D gamers, we knew what the above were (although I still don’t know the BD&D game rule difference between normal rations and iron rations). The Players made sure the party had 10′ poles, spikes, torches, and plenty of sacks — they were ready for old school dungeon delving.

I didn’t enforce the encumbrance rules for this game session (other than setting their movement by their armor worn). No one went crazy with their starting equipment, so I could wait until they started picking up stuff in the dungeon crawl to bring up encumbrance. For such an otherwise very free-wheeling rules set, calculating encumbrance is a pretty precise operation.

To be continued.

Bullgrit

I mentioned last week about getting our first utility bills now that we’re in our new house. Our Time Warner Cable bill was one of the most confusing ones. When I called and ordered our services back in early December, I just set up digital cable TV and internet. I was quoted a price I was satisfied with.

At that time, I talked at length with the customer service woman on the phone about exactly what we were getting, how much each service would be, and how much the total monthly bill would be — including taxes and the initial set up fee. With all the exact numbers, I got the woman’s name, and I had everything written down.

A few days later, we decided to add digital telephone service to our package (is cheaper than going through the telephone company). I called TWC again. I had to give the telephone number associated with our account, our names, our address, and the last four digits of my social security number. I understand this bit of verification, as it prevents someone from screwing up my account.

After talking out the order, I asked what the final price would be with all the services. The monthly bill she quoted me didn’t add up to be the previously quoted monthly rate plus this new service. Digging deeper, our services were not as I had set them up previously. Our Internet service was bumped up to the next higher service, and we were charged for something the other customer service rep had said was free of charge.

The woman I was talking to couldn’t give me the prices I was earlier quoted, so I got transferred to someone else. When the new guy took my call, he asked for all my verifying information again. But after many minutes with this guy, I still couldn’t get the prices I had been quoted in the original call.

Then I ran out of time. I had expected the phone call to add one service to our package to take less than 10 minutes, and already I had been dealing with this for half an hour. I told them to just not change anything with my services. “Leave them as they are right now, and I’ll call back later when I have more time.”

The next day, I called TWC back. I had more time to get this crap straightend out this round. I gave all my verifying information again. Then, before even mentioning wanting to add a service, I asked this guy to tell me what I was currently signed up for, and what the monthly bill would be.

Lo and behold, everything was completely correct according to my original information and notes. What. The. Hell? I explained to this guy what had happened the last time I called, and he had no idea why I was told what I was told. Everything he was seeing and telling me, was right. So I had him add the digital telephone service to our package. And all the numbers added up properly. I was satisfied.

Then, a month later, we get our first bill. The monthly charge showing on the bill is about $15 more than I had agreed to. What. The. Hell, part 2. So I called TWC, yet again.

I had to give my verifying info, again. This time, my Internet service had been bumped up to the next level, for $15 more a month. The woman I was talking with couldn’t fix this error, so she forwarded me to someone else.

I had to give my verifying info, again. Talking with this second woman, she just tried to explain to me the pricing structures for the different services. “I understand the better plans are more expensive. I didn’t sign up for this level plan. I signed up for the lower plan, for the lower amount.” This woman couldn’t make the change I was insisting on. So she forwarded me to someone else.

I had to give my verifying info, yet again. I actually cut off her questions with my answers, having learned the drill by this point. “This is the third time in this one call that I’ve had to give this information,” I said. This woman was apologetic, and very nice with me, (they had all been polite), but the situation she was telling me was ridiculous.

The service she saw on my account was a level above what I had ordered. And the level I had ordered was now $5 more per month than what I was quoted at set up — the price had increased between my signing up for it, and my getting the first bill for it. She tried to explain the different levels of service, and asked me questions to help her determine which I needed, but this just served to annoy me. “I did my research before signing up, originally. So I just want what I signed up for, at the price I signed up for.”

She offered a lower service for lower money. What. The. Hell, trilogy! I was calm and polite, but firm and clear. “I want the level of service I originally signed up for, at the monthly rate I was originally quoted.”

She looked into if she could get me a deal. She came back with my original service at only $2 more than the original quote. Though I was calm, and still polite, I guess she could tell I wasn’t satisfied with that option. So she looked into another deal.

She came back with my original service at $8 less than I originally agreed to. What. The. Hell, rerun. Really? Really? I asked her, to double-check, that this is my original service level. It is. Great. Set it.

Very strange. All I was asking for was my original service level at my original price. After all this rigmarole, trying to get me upgraded, they end up giving me a better deal than I was asking for? I was stunned by the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

“Anything else I can do for you,” she asked.

Well, since my bill was almost due, and I was already on the phone with them, I asked her to connect me with their bill pay department. She was very polite and nice — all the TWC people I dealt with on the phone were very polite and nice, though confused and/or useless — and wished me a good day and forwarded me on to the bill pay department.

Glory! I didn’t have to regive my verifying info this time. But as we began setting up the transaction to pay my bill, she warned me that doing this through a representative, I would be charged an extra $5. What. The. Hell, syndication. She could connect me with the automated system to do it myself, and that would be free.

“Well, connect me. I’m not going to pay you an extra five bucks so I can pay you for my bill.”

Soon the automated voice prompted me for my verifying info. Really. I verified. Then the computer system told me my balance due: the same damn amount — no change for getting all this corrected.

You gotta be freakin’ kidding me. I hung up.

Bullgrit