Minimal D&D

This is a collection of Dungeons & Dragons-like role-playing games that are 1, 4, or 5 pages.

None of these games claim to be D&D. Legally, of course, they cannot. But they are all attempts at boiling D&D down to its essence. To provide a minimal RPG that still—to some extent—looks and feels like D&D.

Microlite20:

Microlite20 is a minimalist role-playing game designed to be usable with the majority of the OGL/d20 supplements, rules and adventures with little or no advance preparation. The basic rules for character generation, combat, magic and level advancement take up a single sheet of paper, meaning it is perfect for introducing role-playing to new players, gaming oneshot adventures or tailoring into your own game system.

Microlite20 has a ton of spin-offs including some that seek to appeal more to old school gamers than the original may have.

Searchers of the Unknown:

Searchers of the Unknown is a one-page roleplaying game where player characters are entirely defined by a minimalist old school Dungeons & Dragons one line stat block (e.g. “AC 7, MV 9, HD 2, hp 9, #AT 1, D 1d8 mace”) something like monster stat blocks in early editions of D&D.

Searchers likewise has a bunch of spin-offs. Including...

1974 Style:

1974 Style™ is a set of free, familiar, and easily modifiable role-playing game rules suitable for Fantasy, Pulp, Horror, Western and Sci-Fi Adventures.

A typical old-school RPG module stats list for a monster looks like this: AC6, MV9’, HD 1, hp 4, #AT1, D1-10 by halberd. The 1974 Style rules use these same stats for player characters (PCs).

Character stats can fit on a 3×5 or 4×6 card, and all the rules for a given game and setting can fit on a single sheet of paper.

Swords & Wizardry Light:

You remember, don’t you? The sounds of battle heard through the clatter of dice? The shuffling of character sheets? The war stories shared with your fellow campaigners? There is a longing in the soul of every adventurer and though it sometimes fades to a whisper, you still hear it. Swords & Wizardry Light marks your return to fantasy roleplaying—or if you’re curious what fantasy gaming is all about, this is the perfect introduction. This folio, a twenty-sided die, and a few six-sided dice are all you need to return to the gaming table, recall those halycon days of heroism, and forge brand new legend. Welcome back to Swords & Wizardry Light!

I greatly appreciate that they actually spelled in “light” instead of “lite”.

Honorable mention—Original Edition Delta: OED is really just some house rules for original D&D. But it isn’t far from being everything you need. Lists of spells, equipment, monsters, and treasure are missing; although there are plenty of sources for such things. The XP per level tables are also missing, though you could certainly get by with the S&WL rule there.

Honorable mention—Risus: Risus is in no way D&D. Though it can certainly do a good spoof of D&D. But it may be the best minimal RPG ever written.

Others? Please leave a comment about any other minimal D&D-like games I missed.

Classic D&D ability checks

When playing classic D&D, I like having some mechanics that don’t reduce the 3–18 range for ability scores to ±3. I’ve been using “roll score or less on nd6” for ability checks. (The n depends upon the difficulty of the check.) It’s unfortunate that this doesn’t take the character’s level into account.

So, here’s what I’m considering:

Roll a d20 for each character level. Pass if any are less than or equal to the ability score.

Although, unlike nd6, this has no provision to factor in a difficulty.

One possibility is to use different dice. For an easier task, roll d12s instead of d20s. For a harder task, roll d30s instead of d20s.

Another possibility is to have the difficulty modify the character’s level. But what do we do when modified level is less than one?

Maybe require rolling score or less on multiple d20s. e.g. If the effective character level were zero, success requires rolling the ability score or less on two d20s.

Here is an Anydice program showing the odds.

Classic D&D ability score shifting thought

I have written about how I dropped intelligence from my Skylands classic D&D campaign. And about how I might like to replace it with quickness. And how the scores might be grouped into three related pairs.

One reason for pairing them is that at least one of my players thought that dexterity and quickness should be related. That it should be unusual for them to be very different. (While I argue that I myself am a example of them being fairly different. While I—at least in my youth—had decent dexterity, I have never been quick.) Anywho...what I want to talk about today is this idea:

All six scores are rolled separately. In each of the pairs (strength and constitution, dexterity and quickness, charisma and wisdom), the higher score my be lowered and the same number of points added to the lower score. But the lower score cannot be raised past the higher score.

e.g. I roll 10 for dexterity and 14 for quickness. I could raise dexterity to 11 by lowering quickness to 13. I could raise dexterity to 12 by lowering quickness to 12. But I couldn’t raise dexterity past 12.

Since I use the B/X modifiers, a smart player will consider the break points. e.g. If 17 was rolled for strength and 12 for constitution, it makes sense to lower the 17 to 16 because both have a +2 modifier while bumping the 12 to 13 goes from a +0 to a +1. I don’t think this is a bad thing.

On the other hand, I’m known to call for ability checks against the actual score, so—when that happens—the difference between a 17 and an 18 can be significant.

Quarterstaff

The quarterstaff and its use—as described by 15th & 16th century sources—differs greatly from what we tend to see in movies, on TV, or in games.

You may have heard various reasons for the name “quarterstaff”, but the truth is that we don’t know.

The “short staff” of George Silver’s Paradoxes of Defence (1599) is 8–9 feet. (Contrasted against the 12–18-foot “long staff”.) This was not simply a scavenged branch (or a wizard’s walking stick) but a purpose made weapon, often with iron shod tips. Perhaps even sharped. It would, of course, be made of a hard wood like ash.

I haven’t found information about a period source for the diameter. Perhaps 1¼–1½ inches?

While the hands were presumably repositioned during use, the “default” grip would be to have one hand near the butt end and the hands about 1–1½ feet apart. Much like the use of other pole weapons.

To—as is my wont—apply this to role-playing games: A walking/wizard’s staff and a quarterstaff should be different things. A wizard’s staff used as a weapon ought to be treated as an improvised weapon. A quarterstaff should certainly not be free. For D&D, wizards should not get quarterstaff proficiency. (Indeed, oD&D and B/X do not allow magic-users to wield quarterstaves.)

If applied to my classic D&D melee weapons, perhaps a quarterstaff should become a large weapon?

On a related note: Did Gandalf use his staff as a weapon? (Spoiler: No.)

Early RPGs

One important thing to understand about the first role-playing games is that the people who created them were already role-playing when playing other games. So their role-playing games weren’t designed as rules for role-playing. They didn’t need rules for role-playing in other games, so why would they need them in a role-playing game? Rather, the rules were designed to not get in the way of role-playing.

This is why the combat system† in original D&D is anemic compared to the wargames with Gygax’s or Arneson’s name on them. This is why the combat in the main three classic Traveller books is anemic compared to the wargames Marc Miller had previously designed.

†While original D&D said to use Chainmail, neither of the creators did so in practice. Arneson said he abandoned Chainmail early on in favor of developing the “alternate” combat system. Gygax said he never used Chainmail for D&D combat.

Size-based combat modifiers in D&D

(Here’s a post I started a long time ago. My group has started up another 3e campaign, though, so time to finish it up and publish it.)

In 3e D&D, a “small” creature gets a +1 to attack rolls (which makes it easier for them to hurt others in combat) and a +1 to Armor Class (which makes them harder to be hurt in combat). Conversely, a “large” creature gets a -1 to attack rolls (which makes it harder for them to hurt others in combat) and a -1 to Armor Class (which makes them easier to be hurt in combat). Bigger and smaller creatures have larger and smaller modifiers in the same vein.

Here is the relevant section from the d20 SRD

The problem here is that 3e often falls for a fundamental mistake about how the underlying combat system works. The attack roll was formerly called a “to hit” roll, but if you analyze the entire system, you see that thinking of this roll as actually determining whether an attack made contact doesn’t really make sense. Attack rolls, armor class, damage rolls, and hit points really have to be treated together as an abstract system.

If you say that because larger creatures are easy to hit than smaller creatures and thus give the larger creature a penalty to Armor Class, you haven’t really represented that larger creatures are easier to hit. What you’ve done is made the larger creature less effective in combat. The D&D combat system doesn’t answer the question of whether an attack hits. It answers the question of how effective each combatant is.

You can say that adjustments to constitution scores, hit dice, and hit points make up the difference. In truth, however, they really don’t.

It might work, however, to reverse the modifiers. Giving small creatures a penalty to attack rolls and AC would make them less effective in combat, which is what I would expect the general rule to be. Giving large creatures a bonus to attack rolls and AC would make them more effective in combat, which—again—is what I would expect the general rule to be.

Magic in RPGs: Effects > mechanics

Five problems with magic in D&D

I’ve written about some of the things in this article before, but this is the bit I want to talk about today:

If your first answer was “a person who casts one spell, then has to sleep before re-memorizing it out of a book no matter how many times he's previously cast it”, then you're almost certainly someone that plays Dungeons & Dragons, and for one reason or another never bothered to question why magic works the way it does.

When I think about wizards, what pops into my head? Someone who is reluctant to use magic.

This is possibly the most common theme in stories about magic. Characters who use magic are either evil, reluctant to use magic, or both. Or the whole point of the story was that they should not have used magic when they did.

Too often magic in RPGs is criticized based on its mechanics rather than its effects. I don’t care that the mechanics of magic in Decipher’s Lord of the Rings RPG didn’t match the mechanics of magic in Middle-earth as described by Tolkien in his letters. What matters to me is that they made the effects of the magic system fit what is described in the books.

Now, I’m up for arguments about mechanics that might do a better job of getting the results you want. But first we’ll need to agree that magic in an role-playing game likely serves a very different role than it does in stories.

Quagmire

Jon Peterson’s article on the making of a D&D module at TSR: Quagmire!

I’m not so sure that the process itself was so bad as the execution.

Invalid and ubiquitous; D&D’s key innovation

Jon Peterson’s year-in-review linked to this article about mana that he had contributed to.

How could the concept of mana as a generic spiritual force become invalidated and ubiquitous at the same time?

That kind of thing strikes me as utterly normal.

The first modern role playing game, D&D’s key innovation was to combine the rule systems of tabletop wargaming with the setting of fantasy fiction and the interpersonal improvisation and role-playing that had been percolating in gaming and fan communities for years.

That may be the best, most concise explanation of what D&D did that I’ve ever read. It is clear (especially if you read Jon’s book) that all the elements were in play before D&D. D&D brought them together. Which ought to be unsurprising, because that’s how these kind of things usually happen.

Jon Peterson

It is hard to understate the influence that D&D has had on computerized games. Today, gamification is bringing that influence to all kinds of software beyond games. It is surprising that more historians aren’t doing a better job of telling the story of D&D.

But Jon Peterson and those who have been working with him are doing some great work. His book, as good as it is, is quite a long read. But check out some of the shorter things he wrote during the last year in his 2014 year in review.

My classic D&D armor

I came up with some different rules for armor in classic D&D. Rather than trying to get the tables to look nice on the blog, I just went ahead and added it to the web site: “Vaguely historical armor”

I had chosen to go more abstract with weapons. I had started down the same path with armor, but instead I decided to actually make it more concrete instead.

Thoughts while watching the conversation between John and Zak

A conversation between John Wick and Zak S.

That conversation was spawned by John’s “Chess is not an RPG”. (I haven’t read that article at the time I’m watching the conversation.)

(Edit: I have now read the article...thoughts here.)

Note: These are just my thoughts. They are not necessarily absolute truths even if I seem to be stating them as such. As always on this blog, this is thinking out loud.

Role-playing—in the context of role-playing games—is making decisions in-character. Therefore you can role-play in any game that allows you to make decisions.

Since role-playing is making choices, the choices a game allows determines how much the game supports role-playing. By trading rules for rulings by a referee, you trade a finite number of responses to any choice for an infinite number. Sometimes called “tactical infinity”.

(There’s a point to be made that even with tactical infinity there may be limits on the choices. Infinity plus limits does not necessarily equal a finite set. But that’s probably a whole ’nother discussion.)

There is no denying that by the Moldvay edited Basic D&D booklet (pp. B2, B3, B60) and first edition AD&D DMG (pp. 7, 9, 230) DM rulings over rules is the explicit intent of D&D and AD&D.

I’d argue that it was there in the original game too, but the text is less clear. Also, descriptions of Chainmail games from before D&D indicate that Gygax and associates played that game very much in a “rulings over rules” fashion. For example, there was a story told of a Chainmail game where one side set fire to the woods where the other side had units holed up. (If anyone has a reference to a telling on that story, please post the link.)

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It should be noted that even the original D&D had an example of play that does give some idea of how the game is meant to be played.

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I laughed when John said that if you want to role-play don’t be a fighter. To me it is exactly the opposite. The fighter is the blank slate that only becomes interesting through role-playing. Although there has been some effort over the years to take that away from the class.

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I like Zak’s analogy of a supermarket versus a set of ingredients and a recipe.

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Although in a couple of editions of D&D a three minute combat might take three hours to play out, that hasn’t generally been the case.

Has there ever been an edition of D&D that explicitly says seducing a barmaid can be done in a minute with a single die roll? Even in editions with skills and even if it were a single roll, wouldn’t that typically be played out by doing a lot of things over time to accumulate bonuses to that roll?

Unless you just want to get it out-of-the-way fast because it isn’t something the group wants to spend time on. In which case this is a feature. And it still is a ruling instead of a rule.

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There is something about the simplicity of the battle rules in Diplomacy that really seems to drive the negotiation aspect of the game.

The combat system in Moldvay’s Basic D&D really is simple and not the majority of the book. In my experience, this is essentially how people played combat most of the time in AD&D. Others have told me their experience is similar.

That simplicity, however, seems to allow real tactics to be applied effectively. Rules mastery is not required. Which, I think, makes it easier to make decision more in-character and less as-player.

Maybe.

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What is the difference between a role-playing game and a conventional game?

When I am attempting to design a conventional game, I am trying to make a closed system. When I am attempting to design a role-playing game, I am trying to leave things open for player creativity and referee rulings. So the difference between a conventional game and a role-playing game isn’t that the rules tell you to role-play but that the rules leave space for role-playing.

Did the original D&D do this intentionally or accidentally? shrug Maybe both. The afterword seems to say that it was at least partially intentional.

While it may not be that people role-played in D&D because the rules were incomplete, I don’t think that can be counted out as a factor.

And, as always, I’m not sure that role-playing games even are games.

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Another thought: “Role-playing” in the sense of “playing a role-playing game” is making decisions for the character. Those choices may not be made purely in-character. (Role-playing₂ is not always purely role-playing₁.) I’m OK with some amount of “metagaming”.

A comparison of D&D5e fighting styles

I might generally be down on complexity in role-playing game mechanics, but I do enjoy running the numbers.

Here’s one comparison of three fighting styles in D&D5e. Caveats: This is based only on the PHB (as it is the only book out when I’m writing this). I’ve chosen a very specific situation to analyze; there may be no generalizations to make. This is only about averages; once you’re rolling dice, anything can happen. This doesn’t consider tactics and such. Also, there’s every possibility I made a mistake.

Huey, Dewey, and Louis are triplets. They’re all 1st level fighters with 16 (+3 modifier) strength, 14 (+2 modifier) dexterity, and 15 (+2 modifier) constitution. They each have 12 hp. They’ve all got “chain mail” (AC 16) armor. Their proficiency bonus is +2.

(The “chain mail” doesn’t let them use their dexterity bonus for AC, but they got it as part of the starting equipment. The only armor that would give them a better AC would be half plate, but they can’t afford it.)

Huey has chosen the Defense fighting style (+1 AC), a war pick (d8), and a shield (+2 AC). His AC is 19.

Dewey has choosen the Two-Weapon Fighting style (add ability modifier to off-hand attack damage) and two shortswords (d6). His AC is 16.

Louis has choosen the Great Weapon Fighting style (reroll damage rolls of 1 or 2) and a maul (2d6). His AC is also 16.

They’re going to have a little tournament among themselves. (They’ll use the “Knocking a Creature Out” rule to keep from killing one another.) Since they all have the same number of hit points, their chance of winning a bout can be determined by comparing their average damage per round versus their opponent’s AC.

Bout 1: The odds favor Dewey (4.9 average points of damage per round) over Huey (3.975).

Bout 2: The odds favor Louis (4.383) over Huey (3.975).

Bout 3: The odds favor Dewey (6.85) over Louis (6.083).

So, Dewey with his two shortswords is favored in two of the three bouts. Huey with his war pick and shield is not favored in any.

D&D5e Great Weapon Fighting

The Great Weapon Fighting style in D&D5e allows rerolling any 1 or 2 on a damage roll. How does that effect the odds? AnyDice time: D&D5e GWF

On RPG clones, retro and otherwise

Taxodermic Owlbear has assembled an impressive list of retroclones. (Though I might nitpick that only a few are technically retroclones.)

It is periodically asked if we need another clone or D&D knock-off. Rhetorically, since you only ask that if you think the answer is “no, we already have too many”.

But consider the passion and imagination that that list reflects. Very few of those games made anyone a living, and even people who write RPGs for a living don’t do it because it is anything close to lucrative. That list is proof to me that the traditional RPG hobby can have a life beyond the RPG industry.

And I think it is great that all those games can leverage a time-tested core while adding just a few or a lot of unique spins.

Some may say that that passion and imagination would be better channeled into other things. e.g. adventures or games with more originality. I say that telling someone what they should do with their passion and imagination is the quickest way to kill it.

Do we need another clone? Yes, I think we do. We need people to follow their individual muses and inspire us with the results.

Basic D&D 5e

About Basic Dungeons & Dragons 5e

The Basic version of the next edition of D&D, which we’ll call 5e whether Wizards does or not, will be a free PDF.

This isn’t big news to those of us who know there are lots of really good free RPGs out there—including clones of older editions of D&D.

But, the D&D brand is the most likely first encounter that potential new players will have with the hobby. Will this be a good introduction to the hobby for them? Let’s hope so.

A thought about tourneys in D&D

Whenever you read about any sort of martial competition, you are likely to run into lengthy discussion of the imperfections of the referees. To add a touch of the subjectiveness of judges to your D&D tournaments, apply the combatants’ charisma modifiers to their attacks or damage.

There are lots of other factors you could bring to bear as well: Wealth, social class, etc.

Classic D&D monster conversion and improv

One of the great things about classic D&D is that it is very easy to improvise monsters. This can be handy not only for “winging it” in general, but to “convert” adventures written for other systems on-the-fly. On G+, it was suggested that this may not be obvious to beginning DMs, so here are some thoughts on it.

If it matters to interpret anything I say below, this is aimed towards the 1981 version of non-Advanced D&D—often called B/X or Moldvay/Cook/Marsh—simply because that’s my D&D lingua franca. It probably won’t matter.

The first thing to say is: Don’t panic. It’s OK if you mess it up. Firstly because there’s a lot of variability in the game. Once the dice hit the table, a monster that was carefully design to be unbeatable dies in one round and a monster that was carefully designed to be no more than a distraction kills the entire party. Secondly because, if you give the PCs the freedom you should, they can figure out how to handle whatever you throw at them. Thirdly because the only way you’ll get any better is to mess it up first.

Let’s start with HD: Hit dice. A monster’s HD tells you most of what you need to know about it from a mechanical viewpoint. Just think of it as equivalent to character level. It isn’t, but it is close enough. (See “Don’t panic” above.) Ask yourself, what level should this monster be if it were an NPC, and set that as its HD.

If you want to roughly scale the monsters versus your players’ characters, add up the levels of the PCs. A group of monsters with an equal number of HD is—in theory—their match. e.g. For a party of 4 second-level characters this might be one 8 HD monster or eight 1 HD monsters. Generally you don’t want every encounters to be an equal match, so scale back accordingly. (Or, if appropriate, scale up.) But keep in mind that there are a lot of variables that determine the outcome of an encounter. This is no guarantee; simply a guideline. (See “Don’t panic” above.)

I say, don’t worry about trying to factor special abilities into this equation. But, if you want to, go ahead. Just make your best guess.

Also, keep in mind that many low HD monsters have one advantage over a single high HD monster: More actions. Eight 1HD monsters get 8 attacks per round. One 8HD monster might only get one.

Next up is AC: Armor class. The first thing to realize is that hit points (and thus HD) determine a monster’s (or character’s) combat effectiveness more than AC. That means it matters even less whether you pick AC “right”. There are four numbers you need to memorize:

9: The equivalent of unarmored

7: The equivalent of light/leather armor

5: The equivalent of medium/mail armor

3: The equivalent of heavy/plate armor

Note that they’re simply the odd numbers from 3 to 9, which makes it even easier to remember. If you’re unsure which of two categories it should be, pick the even number between them.

Then think about the monster’s dexterity. If you think it would be significantly better or worse than the average PC, then subtract or add 1 to 3 points.

Next, damage: 90% of the time, you can just give it one attack doing 1d6 damage.

If you think the monster should do less than normal, change it to d4. If you think they should do more than normal, change it to d8. If you think they should do a lot more than normal, change it to d10.

I generally like to stick to one attack per combatant. Big monsters who are typically on there own, however, can be well served by multiple attacks.

For saving throws, 99% of the time, you can just use the fighter saving throws using the monsters HD as its fighter level.

If you think the monster is particularly similar to one of the other classes, use it instead. You might decide the monster should have better or worse saves for some reason, in which case you can just use the next higher or lower line on the saving throw table.

For movement: 120 for the same speed as an unarmored PC. Adjust up or down to taste.

For alignment, when it doubt, choose neutral.

For morale: 12 means it never runs away; 2, it never fights. The book tells us 6–8 is average. 6 means it keeps fighting about 42% of the time when morale is checked; 7, 58%; 8, 72%.

Special abilities: If you never give an improv’d monster a special ability, that will be fine. (But I’m betting you’ll come up with some ideas.) Also, don’t worry too much that a special ability may be “too good”. (See “Don’t panic” above.)

There are two schools of thought here. One says that special abilities have more impact when only a few monsters have them. Others feel every monster deserves a special ability, which makes the game richer. Either way, my best advice is to spend some time reading through the monster sections/books to get a feel for what has been done. Keep notes of any you find especially interesting to reference during play. And brainstorm your own.

If you’re converting an adventure on the fly, the text or stats there might also provide inspiration.

Study: You can prepare to improv. While I hope this will convince you that anyone can do a good enough job improvising classic D&D monsters, as with special abilities above, reading the stock monsters or other sources of monsters can help to improve your ability to improv.

Make quick references: Perhaps the most important thing you can do to prepare to improv is to develop some quick reference pages or a DM screen. Having the combat and saving throw tables, AC table, weapon damage table, reaction roll and morale tables, etc. handy can help both improvising monsters and running the game. If, while running the game, there is anything you wish you had handy for reference, jot down a note about it. Then make sure you add it before the next session.

Finally, keep in mind that this game is not about combat. (Combat takes up only 5 of the 64 pages in the 1981 Basic rules booklet.) The things that really bring the game to life can’t be found in the combat stats. Think of a monster as an NPC. They have motivations, needs, desires, quirks, etc. Using reaction rolls and morale rolls (or good judgement by the DM) will mean that a number of encounters never get to combat and those that do sometimes end in surrender or retreat.

Generalizing hit points

Despite its issues, it is hard to argue with the success of the hit point mechanic in D&D. (That’s a post of its own.)

I think what makes it so great is that it spreads an outcome over several die rolls, and it gives the player several points at which to decide to cut their losses or press their luck. And it doesn’t simply function that way in one combat either. Combat and many of the other hazards encountered in the dungeon will deplete hit points. It’s a press-your-luck mechanic for the entire expedition.

Compare this to what has become a more conventional mechanic. The big burley fighter with the 17 strength (part of the top 1.4% of the world’s strongest people) walks up to a door. The player rolls 1d6...one. The door doesn’t open. The mage’s player then rolls 1d6...six, and—bing—the door opens.

Now, I’m not sure what the best mechanic for opening doors is, but I’m beginning to think that if anything is worth rolling for, it’s worth heading more in the hit points direction than the open doors direction.

Spells in Sovereign Stone have a casting threshold. Each round, the caster makes the appropriate die roll and adds its result to a running total. When the total exceeds the casting threshold, the spell is cast. That sounds much better to me than those games I played where a single die roll determined if my spell was cast or failed.

The AGE system from Green Ronin generalizes this into advanced ability tests that can be used for anything.

(I’m certain there are other systems with similar mechanics. I’m just listing the ones that come to mind.)

I think a reversal of this could be interesting. Say a party heads out on a stealth mission. The GM sets several thresholds at which the alertness of the place being infiltrated steps up. X failed rolls means that the denizens are suspicious. Y failed rolls means they know something is up and are actively searching. Z failed rolls means the jig is up, and the PC’s have been found.

Much better than a single failed stealth check by a single player killing the whole mission. Plus, the players have a chance to change tactics midway through depending on how things are going.

Perhaps the ultimate expression of generalizing the hit point mechanic is Robin Laws’ Dying Earth. The die rolls are a straight d6 with the same chance of success or failure (or exceptional success or exceptional failure) every time. The player can then spent points from their attributes for a chance to reroll. I found it very off-putting the first time I read it, but now I’m thinking that I need to give it a chance.

Plus the system of trumps in Dying Earth is great too.

Level drain and dragons

Why do mere undead get the “scary to the players” out-of-game-world mechanic of level drain* whilst the freaking dragons have to make due with mundane attacks?

Let’s start with the fact that flying and breath weapons are pretty impressive. Certainly PCs get to the point where those things aren’t so impressive anymore, but at that point the PCs aren’t really mundane anymore.

Secondly, there’s a good argument that dragons weren’t meant to be ultimate powers in D&D.

Thirdly, dragons aren’t there to represent the supernatural. Although we know that the cube-square law means that D&D dragons would have to be supernatural, in the milieu of the game, they aren’t. The out-of-game-world mechanic of level drain is justified to represent the sort of irrational horror of coming face-to-face with powerful supernatural beings represented by level-draining undead.

Or, at least, that’s my thinking aloud for today.

*I actually play it as XP drain, but I’m not going to call it “energy drain” because it isn’t about any diegetic rationalization. It is about simulating a horror that is best simulated by a extradiegetic mechanic.