Weapon Specialization

[Dwayanu]

If there is no rule actually imposing randomness, then spending a lot of time and energy rolling dice is a foolish pretense except as it may serve as "just a suggestion". If one (A) knows what one wants and (B) is determined to get it by whatever means, then one may as well just get it done and get on with the real game!

Consider, though, what Gary actually wrote. Either he intended that, or he intended to be misleading as to his intent, or he was not of a mind with himself.

At any rate, I still don't see how the hell this is supposed to have any relevance at all to what I wrote about, much less offer some kind of hostile antithesis. It's knocking down nothing but a straw man.

[James Maliszewski]

Just for the record, the stats in The Rogues Gallery for Mordenkainen/Robilar/Tenser/Erac’s Cousin/Bigby/Serten were made up by Blume—they weren’t the “real” characters.

Do we have any idea what the real characters were like then?

[Dwayanu]

Just for the record, the stats in The Rogues Gallery for Mordenkainen/Robilar/Tenser/Erac’s Cousin/Bigby/Serten were made up by Blume—they weren’t the “real” characters.

Do we have any idea what the real characters were like then?

A whole lot more like Monty Haul, suggests my vague recollection of what Gary or someone once wrote.

[Matthew]

Yes, I've seen quotes from someone, probably Rob Kuntz, that support this. The Lake Geneva crew seems to have used an open-ended variation on the DMG's Method IV for generating their characters' ability scores. I can certainly believe it, considering both the greater attention given to high ability scores in Supplement I and the scores possessed by many Greyhawk characters (as revealed in sources like The Rogues Gallery, etc.).

Indeed. Pregenerated characters are usually of a similar order of ability.

Cool, because this is usually what happened in my group BITD.

I remember that at the age of about twelve or so we joined a games club run by some older "metal" guys (thinking back they could not have been more than sixteen or so themselves, but they seemed a lot older to us), and one day I observed them playing AD&D (I believe it was). One of the players lost his character some sort of haunted tree and went off to generate a new one. I watched him roll the dice dozens of times, which made me wonder if he was cheating... so I asked him what he was doing, and he explained that he was rolling up "characters" from which to choose a new one. I remember finding this utterly baffling, and definitely saw it as a kind of cheating, and was left wondering if the others in his group knew what he was up to. As the years went on, we began participating in their games, but I cannot say any other method than 4d6 drop the lowest die, six times, assign as desired, was ever considered in that context.

From my understanding, TSR was already heading into trouble by that point (actually in business your always trying to increase your profit and market share regardless). And you can't seriously be suggesting profit motive for the Blooms wasn't at issue. Did UA sell better by adding new core rules? Yes. Was that Gary's motivation in including it? Who knows, my guess is yes. And my guess is that Gary would have given his stamp of approval to any crap thrown into it. At that point he was "team player" Gary. Don't let his "I'm the only voice that counts" PR statements fool you. He knew better. He wasn't the only captain of the ship, and to sail forward some compromise was inevitable. Also don't forget, these clowns eventually pushed Gary out completely. Regardless of where you come down on it, Weapons Specialization is clearly a monkey wrench thrown into a system that already worked fine (for the reasons I've already mentioned). And its candy players would gobble up, because it gives them an edge over everyone else (and that edge is not in dispute, as its the reason so many of you girly boys claim you like to use it...too small party sizes and such). I suggest you read the qoute below written by Wheggie. Then you should apply it to your gaming...and your life.

Well, I do not have my copy of the Dragon Archive with me right now, but weapon specialisation was initially released years before Unearthed Arcana, probably something like 1982 I would think, just before he went out to Hollywood. The Blooms are actually irrelevant at this point, as Gygax was still in creative control. There was no money in Gygax publishing rules from his own campaign in the pages of Dragon, it was just him exercising his authority. Soon after that he stops writing for Dragon, as he leaves Lake Geneva. When he returned the company was in shambles, so he collected up his notes and had them published in a hardback to get some cash flow. Bottom line, weapon specialisation had nothing to do with the Blooms or Unearthed Arcana when initially conceived, it was just used to make money later. As I say, though, I have no love for weapon specialisation, but the facts are the facts. Gygax was definitely susceptible to outside influence, a good deal of material ended up in the PHB and DMG that he later said he felt pressured to include (weapon type versus armour class, psionics, weapon speeds, and I would not be surprised to find weapon proficiencies and variable weapon damage were of the same stripe, in fact I sem to dimly recall him saying as much about the latter, but I could be mistaken).

[James Maliszewski]

A whole lot more like Monty Haul, suggests my vague recollection of what Gary or someone once wrote.

That's interesting, because I remember thinking how comparatively under-powered I thought these famous named characters were when I read The Rogues Gallery, even though they were still remarkably powerful compared to anything in my own campaign at the time.

[Matthew]

If there is no rule actually imposing randomness, then spending a lot of time and energy rolling dice is a foolish pretense except as it may serve as "just a suggestion". If one (A) knows what one wants and (B) is determined to get it by whatever means, then one may as well just get it done and get on with the real game!

Consider, though, what Gary actually wrote. Either he intended that, or he intended to be misleading as to his intent, or he was not of a mind with himself.

At any rate, I still don't see how the hell this is supposed to have any relevance at all to what I wrote about, much less offer some kind of hostile antithesis. It's knocking down nothing but a straw man.

There are many types of randomness, but what Gygax and crew did was weight the randomness in a way that is not clear from the handbooks. As to strawmen and a hostile antithesis, I have asked you to explain what you initially meant, as I am willing to entertain the possibility I am at fault in my reading of what you wrote (though it seems to me likely that this is a mutual failing at this point). For the sake of clarity, here is my point restated:

In AD&D attribute scores are weighted so that very high scores are much more desirable than moderately high scores. That is to say, a fighter with strength 18 is much better off than one with strength 17 as compared to 16 or whatever. In Gygax's games this was no big deal because of the way characters were rolled up. However, since his audience (or perhaps himself by this point) utilised methods of generation that made it a bigger deal, and he felt that fighters were still not balanced against magicians, he introduced rules to redress this (in this case weapon specialisation). In my estimation, these rules failed to meet their goals, and any game master dissatisfied with this state of affairs should certainly seek to rectify the situation.

Just for the record, the stats in The Rogues Gallery for Mordenkainen/Robilar/Tenser/Erac’s Cousin/Bigby/Serten were made up by Blume—they weren’t the “real” characters.

Do we have any idea what the real characters were like then?

A whole lot more like Monty Haul, suggests my vague recollection of what Gary or someone once wrote.

The pregenerated characters for G1-3 or D1-3 are probably the best indication. Rogue's Gallery has some indications, but as Falconer notes many of the characters are not true reflections.

[James Maliszewski]

I remember finding this utterly baffling, and definitely saw it as a kind of cheating, and was left wondering if the others in his group knew what he was up to.

Not that it matters, but I would have felt the same way. Indeed, I do feel the same way even now. I suspect I've been heavily influenced by the Holmes rulebook which was my introduction to the hobby, where 3D6 in order, with the option to swap points on a 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 basis depending on a character's class, is presented as the only option.

I realize that this approach was never normative in AD&D but old habits die hard.

[Chainsaw]

Not to threadjack or beat a dead horse, as we have discussed the dramatically different significance of attributes in OD&D vs AD&D, but it is important to remember and differentiate. In our S&W game, we rolled 3d6 six times, in order, then played whatever class/race seemed logical. It's easy to generate unplayable characters in AD&D that way.

BITD, we didn't roll indefinitely until receiving ridiculous scores of 15+ in every stat or something, but usually until we got something "decent" (which usually meant at least a couple 15/16+ stats and nothing so low as to be handicapping) and then the DM (me) would call it and the rest of the character would be filled out (all of course, "if I remember correctly").

[James Maliszewski]

Not to threadjack or beat a dead horse, as we have discussed the dramatically different significance of attributes in OD&D vs AD&D, but it is important to remember and differentiate.

Oh, absolutely.

On this point, I just serendipitously stumbled upon this quote from Gary over in an old ENWorld post:

in 1972 we all rolled 3d6, but later when AD&D made the stats more meaningful, players would keep rolling until they got more viable numbers, so then we switched to various systems--roll seven or eight times with 3d6 and keep the six best totals or roll d4d and throw out the lowest die.

After all, the object of the game is to have fun, and weak PCs aren't much fun for most players. Even fine role-players want characters with at least one or two redeming stats...

[Chainsaw]

Sorry, James, didn't mean to suggest you were saying the opposite. I was thinking aloud more than revealing Great Wisdom.

Nice find, by the way.

[James Maliszewski]

Well, I do not have my copy of the Dragon Archive with me right now, but weapon specialisation was initially released years before Unearthed Arcana, probably something like 1982 I would think, just before he went out to Hollywood.

Specialization first appears in issue 66 (October 1982), appended to an article introducing some new illusionist spells. In that article, Gygax states that specialization arose as a result of conversations with Len Lakofka on how to beef up archery in AD&D. He later claimed that he'd been using weapon specialization in the Greyhawk campaign before he'd written it up for Dragon:

Indeed, we played weapon specialization even before i wrote it up in Dragon Magazine. By the time that article hit a couple of PCs in the campaign were doubly-specialized...

Make of that what you will, but it certainly suggests that weapon specialization was something Gary actually liked and approved of, regardless of our own feelings on the matter.

[James Maliszewski]

Sorry, James, didn't mean to suggest you were saying the opposite. I was thinking aloud more than revealing Great Wisdom.

No worries. Given my OD&D sympathies these days, I try to tread lightly on the question of comparing its approach to that of AD&D, but sometimes I slip up and wanted to make it clear I wasn't doing so in this case.

[sepulchre]

James wrote:

Do we have any idea what the real characters were like then?

What do you make of the stats listed in WG4? (correction WG5 - thanks James)

[James Maliszewski]

What do you make of the stats listed in WG4?

The ones in Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure, you mean? I don't have a copy of The Rogues Gallery handy, so I can't compare the two, but the stats in the module are definitely rather impressive, with most of the characters have scores of 15+ in three or four abilities. This would seem to be consistent with what Gary described in his ENWorld post. Whether the stats in WG5 are any more "true" than those in The Rogues Gallery, I leave to someone with more knowledge of the Lake Geneva campaign.

[Matthew]

Not that it matters, but I would have felt the same way. Indeed, I do feel the same way even now. I suspect I've been heavily influenced by the Holmes rulebook which was my introduction to the hobby, where 3D6 in order, with the option to swap points on a 2-for-1 or 3-for-1 basis depending on a character's class, is presented as the only option.

I realize that this approach was never normative in AD&D but old habits die hard.

Yeah, it is interesting. I seem to be prejudiced against rolling up multiple characters, amongst other approaches towards limiting randomness (such as rolling something other than a d6, or generating more than six attributes), but fine with others (4d6 and drop the lowest, trade 2:1 points, minimum and maximum score spreads, et cetera). No doubt just familiarity.

Not to threadjack or beat a dead horse, as we have discussed the dramatically different significance of attributes in OD&D vs AD&D, but it is important to remember and differentiate. In our S&W game, we rolled 3d6 six times, in order, then played whatever class/race seemed logical. It's easy to generate unplayable characters in AD&D that way.

BITD, we didn't roll indefinitely until receiving ridiculous scores of 15+ in every stat or something, but usually until we got something "decent" (which usually meant at least a couple 15/16+ stats and nothing so low as to be handicapping) and then the DM (me) would call it and the rest of the character would be filled out (all of course, "if I remember correctly").

No doubt. That seems relatively self explanatory to me.

On this point, I just serendipitously stumbled upon this quote from Gary over in an old ENWorld post:

in 1972 we all rolled 3d6, but later when AD&D made the stats more meaningful, players would keep rolling until they got more viable numbers, so then we switched to various systems--roll seven or eight times with 3d6 and keep the six best totals or roll d4d and throw out the lowest die.

After all, the object of the game is to have fun, and weak PCs aren't much fun for most players. Even fine role-players want characters with at least one or two redeming stats...

Yes, indeed, that looks like a familiar and useful quote.

Specialization first appears in issue 66 (October 1982), appended to an article introducing some new illusionist spells. In that article, Gygax states that specialization arose as a result of conversations with Len Lakofka on how to beef up archery in AD&D. He later claimed that he'd been using weapon specialization in the Greyhawk campaign before he'd written it up for Dragon:

Indeed, we played weapon specialization even before I wrote it up in Dragon Magazine. By the time that article hit a couple of PCs in the campaign were doubly-specialized...

Make of that what you will, but it certainly suggests that weapon specialization was something Gary actually liked and approved of, regardless of our own feelings on the matter.

Seems my memory served me well there. No doubt that Gygax thoroughly approved of weapon specialisation, even in later days taunting those "mage loving whiners" for their fancies.