Rules & Reflections

I went into Sunday's game with only one house-rule in mind: All characters start with maximum HP. This just makes sense to me. Life is already hard enough for a first-level character without him suffering the most likely fatal indignity of starting the game with one or two hits.

Now, once people started making characters, there was some light consternation expressed about, shall we say, the prevalent lack of differentiation between characters. And weapons. So, with the wisdom of Philotomy in mind, I offered up the possiblity of two-handed weapons and arrows rolling two dice for damage and picking the best result. After thinking about it a bit, for the next session I'll add that those using two-handed weapons will always lose initiative unless gained through surprise and that arrows, if a round is spent aiming at something other than point-blank distance, will do two dice of damage. I'm a firm believer that arrows need to be more than just a nuisance. Actually, after writing all that, I can't see why it wouldn't apply to any missle weapon...

When play began, an interesting thing happened: I started making decisions about outcomes on the fly. Now, I had promised myself that I wouldn't fudge the dice--I suffered from that affliction all through my youth, and it was now time to put childish things aside! So, I never did fudge a roll, but I started making some choices based on random dice rolling having nothing to do with anything in the rules. For instance, there were a number of times where a decision needed to be made quickly and so I just rolled a d6: low=bad, high=good. I mean, this is no earth-shattering mechanic, but the thing is, I didn't plan to do it. The die just sorta jumped into my hand and I threw it and we kept on playing. Latent gaming instincts? Desperation? Genius? You decide. I'm just happy it happened, as the French say.

I also, on at least one occasion, let Prem, whose Int happens to be 16 (maybe the highest overall score of anyone?), figure something out without making a roll. Again, not ground-breaking except... I spent four or five very active years in the indie game community and learned many, many wonderful things. One of the wonderfullest was simply this: Say yes or roll the dice. This can be paraphrased as "Only roll the dice when it really matters." Back to Prem. His score was high enough that it seemed pointless to risk him failing; the stakes just weren't important enough. I love that this clicked in my mind while we were playing because, although that maxim became second nature to me in many of the indie games I played, I've never followed it while playing Dungeons & Dragons. Ever. Until now.

See, and I'm not going to get too detailed right now 'cause this deserves its own post, I have a terrible crust built up in my mind where D&D is concerned, and that crust has only recently begun to crack.

I learned at The Forge, but ODD is my hammer.

I can't wait to see what's underneath...