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Dave Arneson's House Rules
#1
In this thread over at Finarvyn's Forum there was some mention of which House Rules Arneson may have used. It could be interesting to see if we can find examples of Arneson's house rules when running D&D.

Finarvyn Wrote:Historically, Dave and Gary didn't always use the same rules as each other. They also didn't stay with the same rules for themsevles. Both liked to "wing it" rather than being restricted by the rulebook. Gary's house rules linked above, for example, don't date back to the 1970's at all but instead go back maybe a decade or so. Heck, Gary spent a lot of time running non-OD&D for many of his later years.

Source: http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?bo ... hread=7726

gronanofsimmerya Wrote:Although Dave did use the "roll double your normal number of damage dice" if you rolled a natural 20.

Source:http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=7726

Spinachcat Wrote:1) THAC0 is about rolling UNDER not equal or over. So if you had a THAC0 13, you needed to roll 13 or less to hit. 1s are crits and 20s are fumbles. Attacking corresponded to your other ability / skill rolls.

2) Saving Throws did not exist. Instead of rolling the die, you had to defend to the other player via a short story WHY your character would survive what was coming at him. The player's voted and the DM was the tie-breaker.

3) SciFi / Fantasy blending was the genre. As one player put it, it was D&D meets Naked Lunch.

4) It was SO not Tolkein and not the pseudo-medieval Greyhawk. The world was odd and tweaked where magic was used to emulate technology in many aspects, but unlike the "logic" of steampunk science, this was a world were you could just cast spells to do stuff where nobody really understands the magic they wield.

5) Alignments changed DURING play based on actions. It was Lawful, Chaotic or Neutral which Dave called Selfish...

6) The +X on a magic sword represents the amount of positive magical energy in that weapon. When you meet a AC -3 creature, you need to make your THAC0 roll and you must have a +3 weapon because you need that much "positive" magic to counter the "negative" magic that protects that creature - thereby allowing your physical weapon to hurt things like ghosts and stuff. Part of going into dungeons was to retreive these things and most monsters would not weild magic items because they were "positive" magic.

7) Here's XP. If you survive an adventure, you gain a level. BAM. The world is strange, random and dangerous so power was there for those who dared, but so was death.

8 ) Roleplaying was just that. You were judged based how well you played your role of elf, dwarf, cleric, mage, fighter or thief. It was like, we all know about Hamlet so show us your Hamlet interpretation. The goal was to work within the cliche.

9) Everyone has Cleave. If you kill a monster, you get a free attack. And this was Melee or Ranged as long as you had the ammo.

10) We had a Caller / Leader. Yeah, we had a Leader who made large scale party decisions / story decisions and sometimes even allowed us to vote on stuff. It was ODD, but Dave says this is our character's leader regardless of our player thoughts.

It was based on Charisma...so we followed a Wis 8, Int 10, Cha 14 Thief. Talk about NOT a dump stat.

BTW, Dave gives out "roleplaying points" in game that you can trade in for re-rolls.

Source: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?286 ... oor-and-Me


Anyone know of more things?

-Havard
Currently Running: The Blackmoor Vales Saga
Currently Playing: Daniel S. Debelfry in the Throne of Star's Campaign
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#2
Thanks for posting all this! Was a great read!

I really love how the guys who created the rules threw them out the window left and right but years later those who followed let themselves get bound up within them.
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#3
Mythlym Wrote:Thanks for posting all this! Was a great read!

I really love how the guys who created the rules threw them out the window left and right but years later those who followed let themselves get bound up within them.

I second the opinion above - a fascinating read and look at the way Arneson ran games.
I sporadically blog (mostly) about role-playing topics at The Semi-Retired Gamer.
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#4
A quick random thought I had - Has anybody incorporated these house rules into a retroclone by replacing the appropriate sections? It seems like a cool project and would give us a closer approximation of the way Arneson did things. 8)
I sporadically blog (mostly) about role-playing topics at The Semi-Retired Gamer.
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#5
Semi-Retired Gamer Wrote:A quick random thought I had - Has anybody incorporated these house rules into a retroclone by replacing the appropriate sections? It seems like a cool project and would give us a closer approximation of the way Arneson did things. 8)

Interesting idea! The closest thing I can think of is Dragons at Dawn written by our own Aldarron, but I guess you are thinking more about a clone of D&D?

-Havard
Currently Running: The Blackmoor Vales Saga
Currently Playing: Daniel S. Debelfry in the Throne of Star's Campaign
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#6
Havard Wrote:
Semi-Retired Gamer Wrote:A quick random thought I had - Has anybody incorporated these house rules into a retroclone by replacing the appropriate sections? It seems like a cool project and would give us a closer approximation of the way Arneson did things. 8)

Interesting idea! The closest thing I can think of is Dragons at Dawn written by our own Aldarron, but I guess you are thinking more about a clone of D&D?

-Havard

True about D@D; BTW, it's a really cool game so far.

Yes! Stick pretty close to one of the clones where appropriate but replace the appropriate sections with the Arneson house rules that have been mentioned. It might even be a good idea to look into those Blackmoor ability scores/skills that (iirc) aldarron posted about. The abilities were close to the D&D standard but most had different names.
I sporadically blog (mostly) about role-playing topics at The Semi-Retired Gamer.
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#7
Slowly but surely I will try to put together most of what I got. For now, here are the houserules found in Dave's various post on Marv's forum (ODD74):


Usually if they stay in one spot five minutes screaming at each other a (not too powerful) wandering monster shows up to remind then where they are!

...when the mapper was killed and the map lost... (or) the players couldn't figure out how to read the map. "OK guys now where are you going?"

A fighter takes more damage, has higher saving throws, etc. If he kills an opponent he gets another attack. When all opponents next to him are gone he gets no more attacks. Thus he chops his way through the weaker creatures pretty quickly. The Great Svenny was good at that. MU needed their protection 'Badly'

Generally fireballs are "one size fits all". I allow smaller ones but the spell is still a spell. The components are used up. Why smaller ones? Well there are times you don't want to take down half the house to get one Goblin. "Like being sneaky."

On Ability Score generation:
....we always used 2d10 or 2d6 +6. Worked out OK. Plus if your rolls were bad you just started over.
(and)
I find that you are more content with;
1) Re-rolling the highest and lowest number.
2) Roll the two dice (not three) but add +6
3) If your total is less than 50-60 just start over.

After all you are a special being not some weak kneed court fop
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#8
I had my own house rule for Critical Hits (Crits), however being erudite, I didn't make it up on my own. I picked it up from elsewhere, I just don't remember where. (Some ancient issue of Dragon, Judges Guild or Dungeoneer? I've no idea.)

After an unmodified natural (nat) 20, if you rolled another nat 20 it was instant death. 19 is Triple Max (damage), 18 is Triple, 17 is Double Max, 16 is Double, and 15 is just Max. Anything else is just normal damage.

Due to the cumbersome formula for Crits in HackMaster, to speed up play I give it as an "option". Players can use the official critical hit tables or opt for my house rule. We call it the "cheese" crit, because the rule is cheesy.

And the formula is reversed for fumbles. In other words suicide on a double nat 1.
Tracy Johnson
BT







NNNN
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#9
There's a bit of a mix of house rules and other things in the OP so I thought I'd clean it up a bit to seperate out D&D houserules.


Adventures in Fantasy (probably something that fits AiF. These rules definitely do not describe Dave's pre D&D game, but do fit the sorts of things he was saying around the time of AiF)
Spinachcat Wrote:2) Saving Throws did not exist. Instead of rolling the die, you had to defend to the other player via a short story WHY your character would survive what was coming at him. The player's voted and the DM was the tie-breaker.

8 ) Roleplaying was just that. You were judged based how well you played your role of elf, dwarf, cleric, mage, fighter or thief. It was like, we all know about Hamlet so show us your Hamlet interpretation. The goal was to work within the cliche.

Pre D&D (non D&D)
Spinachcat Wrote:1) THAC0 is about rolling UNDER not equal or over. So if you had a THAC0 13, you needed to roll 13 or less to hit. 1s are crits and 20s are fumbles. Attacking corresponded to your other ability / skill rolls.

5) Alignments changed DURING play based on actions. It was Lawful, Chaotic or Neutral which Dave called Selfish...

7) Here's XP. If you survive an adventure, you gain a level. BAM. The world is strange, random and dangerous so power was there for those who dared, but so was death.

Rule 5 & 6 could be used in D&D too.


D&D Houserules
Spinachcat Wrote:6) The +X on a magic sword represents the amount of positive magical energy in that weapon. When you meet a AC -3 creature, you need to make your THAC0 roll and you must have a +3 weapon because you need that much "positive" magic to counter the "negative" magic that protects that creature - thereby allowing your physical weapon to hurt things like ghosts and stuff.


6c) most monsters would not wield magic items because they were "positive" magic.


9) Everyone has Cleave. If you kill a monster, you get a free attack. And this was Melee or Ranged as long as you had the ammo.

10) We had a Caller / Leader... who made large scale party decisions / story decisions and sometimes even allowed us to vote on stuff. It was ODD, but Dave says this is our character's leader regardless of our player thoughts. It was based on Charisma...so we followed a Wis 8, Int 10, Cha 14 Thief.

11) Dave gives out "roleplaying points" in game that you can trade in for re-rolls.

gronanofsimmerya Wrote:Although Dave did use the "roll double your normal number of damage dice" if you rolled a natural 20.

Something like rule 9 was in place in the pre D&D days, but it was likely more akin to the shared damage rule of EPT. Rule 10 was something I think Dave only did for convention groups. I don't think he had callers, etc. in his home games.
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#10
Here is a few more:

+3 for rear attacks
(Source: "A Quarter Century of Role Playing?" By Dave Arneson)


When I do my games, I give roleplaying points for people staying within their character. If they want to go out and kill things, that's easy to do, and a lot of referees that's all they do, but there's more to it. The richness is not in just rolling dice, the richness is in the characters and becoming part of this fantasy world. (Source: Pegasus #14, summer 1999)

One of the very first considerations for a party entering a new and unknown area should be to keep a low profile, i.e., keep one's eyes and ears open without drawing too much attention to oneself. ..... more and more wandering monsters were encountered ...As the adventurers .....made little or no attempt to conceal themselves or their activities. (Source: Dave Arneson, Oerth Journal # 6, Nov. 1997)



Arneson rules notes from Pegasus #1 1981:

Players roll hits and saving throws.

Players with dead characters are given monsters to play at each encounter. The referee must brief the player on the monsters goals and motivations – often no more complicated than guard this room or kill intruders. The player is given total control of the monster, speaking for them if need be and otherwise controlling their actions and decisions. The Player or players, as the case may be can be kept involved in the game by handing over control of each group or individual monster encountered until such time as they can introduce a new or resurrected character back into play.

Characters who limp back from an adventure with a lot of casualties in the party gain a bad reputation and have a hard time finding hirelings. The same is true of non-cooperative characters who fight among themselves.

Characters of opposite alignments cannot adventure together.
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