AIF: The Restatement, Restated

[NeonNecromancer]

Hey all,

While researching Dave Arneson's work for an "Arnesonian" RPG supplement I'm working on, I started a cheat sheet of the Adventures in Fantasy rules (since the character, combat, and magic rules appear be be 90% similar to accounts of Blackmoor in the late-70s). This then led me into getting into the idea of cleaning up the entire rules to make them more understandable and then finding The Semi-Retired Gamer's posts on the subject on his blog.

After talking to Charlie at The Semi-Retired Gamer, I've started a semi-sharable Google Doc (if anyone else wants in, I can send them the link) for a new version of the rules. I have the character creation process with stats and simplified combat rules right now. So far everything in there is fully backwards compatible with the original books (I think). There is definitely a tension between trying to present the rules as written since AIF is an important historical document and the temptation of fixing the little things that would make the system better.

Surprisingly, most of the text can be used as-is with minor modifications; it's mostly been a lot of just adding introductory sentences to everything (like "after you roll to hit, then roll damage") and reformatting tables.


There are a lot of things that need to be clarified, though. My biggest gripes right now:

Why does STR matter the most when determining hit points? Why isn't HLT included at all? (This actually does almost have a slight historical precedence, since in very early Blackmoor rules hits and damage ("strength") were correlated.)

It doesn't seem to say anywhere that you can't fire a missile weapon and melee during the same turn. Does anyone think this would have been allowed?

In combat, it says all and any damage is 1d6, but that is clearly contradicted by the notion of hit dice (which doesn't seem to be explained in the text).

Does anyone actually know what Knowledge (the almost-hidden second optional stat) is supposed to be used for? (Also, would its abbreviation be "KNO" or "KNW"?)

[Havard]

Hey all,

Hi there NeonNecromancer! Welcome to The Comeback Inn!

If you haven't done so already, feel free to introduce yourself to the rest of the bunch over at the hello thread.

While researching Dave Arneson's work for an "Arnesonian" RPG supplement I'm working on, I started a cheat sheet of the Adventures in Fantasy rules (since the character, combat, and magic rules appear be be 90% similar to accounts of Blackmoor in the late-70s). This then led me into getting into the idea of cleaning up the entire rules to make them more understandable and then finding The Semi-Retired Gamer's posts on the subject on his blog.

Got any useful links?

After talking to Charlie at The Semi-Retired Gamer, I've started a semi-sharable Google Doc (if anyone else wants in, I can send them the link) for a new version of the rules. I have the character creation process with stats and simplified combat rules right now. So far everything in there is fully backwards compatible with the original books (I think). There is definitely a tension between trying to present the rules as written since AIF is an important historical document and the temptation of fixing the little things that would make the system better.

Count me as interested! I've been working on the same, but since I always have too many projects, its been left on the backburner.

Surprisingly, most of the text can be used as-is with minor modifications; it's mostly been a lot of just adding introductory sentences to everything (like "after you roll to hit, then roll damage") and reformatting tables.

Yep. I am not that surprised actually. Dave had plans for a 2nd edition, but sadly it never happened. I am sure that would have cleaned up many of the things that leave gamers confused.

There are a lot of things that need to be clarified, though. My biggest gripes right now:

Why does STR matter the most when determining hit points? Why isn't HLT included at all? (This actually does almost have a slight historical precedence, since in very early Blackmoor rules hits and damage ("strength") were correlated.)

I don't know why, but the way I understand it, Health is used to determine ability to recover wounds, resist disease, poison etc.

I think it might be worth considering replacing STR with Health for Hit Points, or combining Health and STA in order to make each Characteristic about as useful as the rest. STR already seems pretty useful so removing it from the formula for determining HP would probably not matter too much.

It doesn't seem to say anywhere that you can't fire a missile weapon and melee during the same turn. Does anyone think this would have been allowed?

Sounds a bit absurd if allowed?

In combat, it says all and any damage is 1d6, but that is clearly contradicted by the notion of hit dice (which doesn't seem to be explained in the text).

Maybe it means that d6s are used, but that it could be more than one d6?

Does anyone actually know what Knowledge (the almost-hidden second optional stat) is supposed to be used for? (Also, would its abbreviation be "KNO" or "KNW"?)

I am not sure, but could it be that Knowledge is used to roll when determining if Education rolls are successful?

I could also see it working for checking general knowledge related tasks. Ie to determine if a character knows this or that. I don't know if Knowledge is used more in the Magic rules? I would have to read up on those

-Havard

[aldarron]

Hey all,

While researching Dave Arneson's work for an "Arnesonian" RPG supplement I'm working on, I started a cheat sheet of the Adventures in Fantasy rules (since the character, combat, and magic rules appear be be 90% similar to accounts of Blackmoor in the late-70s).

Coolness. However AiF is very defnetly not 90% early Blackmoor, if that is what you meant (not "late" 70's).

The Character sheets are maybe 50% similar as I'm sure you've seen on my blog, and some principles, like averaging ability scores and roll under saves get a lot of re-use. Oh, by the way, the best way by far to get a handle on AiF character's is to study the characters Arneson created for Thieves World.

AiF Combat has some aspects derived from Arneson's 1975 material for Supplement II, and seems to build on ideas Arneson was developing for D&D (i.e. the Scott Rich letter), but has little in common with actual 1971-73 practice. I can tell you that in his development notes for AiF, Arneson had some very different ideas. I may be blogging about those notes soon if I get permission.

Magic in early Blackmoor, or spell casting at least, was nothing like what you see in AiF, however, it is a bit like magic in the Richard Snider Variant ruleset and I can say with confidence that is where it grew from, just as Powers & Perils magic obviously grows from the same root.

There's also a lot of entirely new material in Aif. The education rules, the treasure rules, the experience rules, the ageing rules, the social rank rules, the calendar, and so on, were invented whole cloth for the game.

AiF does reflect a lot of Arneson's ideas and also a lot of Snider's and some of them do go back to gaming practice 6 or 7 years earlier, but not 90% by a long shot.

This then led me into getting into the idea of cleaning up the entire rules to make them more understandable and then finding The Semi-Retired Gamer's posts on the subject on his blog.

After talking to Charlie at The Semi-Retired Gamer, I've started a semi-sharable Google Doc (if anyone else wants in, I can send them the link) for a new version of the rules. I have the character creation process with stats and simplified combat rules right now. So far everything in there is fully backwards compatible with the original books (I think). There is definitely a tension between trying to present the rules as written since AIF is an important historical document and the temptation of fixing the little things that would make the system better.

Yes please to the link. If you feel something needs to be "fixed", a side note is best.

Why does STR matter the most when determining hit points? Why isn't HLT included at all? (This actually does almost have a slight historical precedence, since in very early Blackmoor rules hits and damage ("strength") were correlated.)

Arneson thinks of Strength in wargamer terms and you see him employ the term that way at times (TotF forex). The strength of a character is like the strength of a unit in some ways. Health has more to do with resistance to disease etc.

I don't quite follow what you mean by " in very early Blackmoor rules hits and damage ("strength") were correlated." I guess you mean the theory the HD = damage dice? But I'm not sure how that as something to do with health.

It doesn't seem to say anywhere that you can't fire a missile weapon and melee during the same turn. Does anyone think this would have been allowed?

No. One action per turn was the norm. Multi-armed or hasted creatures excepted.

In combat, it says all and any damage is 1d6, but that is clearly contradicted by the notion of hit dice (which doesn't seem to be explained in the text).

I guess what you mean here is Percentile dice not HD as in shouldn't damage be 1d10? Is that the question?

Does anyone actually know what Knowledge (the almost-hidden second optional stat) is supposed to be used for? (Also, would its abbreviation be "KNO" or "KNW"?)

Useful here if you cite the page. In general though IIRC, Knowledge applies to the education system.

[NeonNecromancer]

Havard (and anyone else interested), PM me an email address and I'll send you the Google Doc invite.


Aldarron, you're right, but that's why I said late-70s. I'd have to check my notes, but I seem to recall Arneson and other players (Svenson?) being on record as saying that by the end of the '70s the Blackmoor campaign was using combat that was pretty much identical to AIF's. IIRC, that seems logical with the well-documented progression from 2d6, to 2d6 percentile, to 2d20 percentile.

Book 2 and the text therein is definitely almost all from Snider, including all the more..."unique" magic rules in AIF. What I meant with that statement was that I think the core/original root is from Arneson. Again, I'd have to check some notes, but using MP for spells as well as the elf songs I think had clear Arnesonian roots. I think someone even said somewhere that the runes made a comeback with the 3ed Blackmoor campaign (but I have no idea where I saw that or if true).

I guess what you mean here is Percentile dice not HD as in shouldn't damage be 1d10? Is that the question?

No, the text says on pg. 49 "any and all damage inflicted by a hit on an opponent is determined using one six sided die" so my question was how do hit dice fit into that? (Actually, I don't think hit dice are ever explained in the text...) We probably should infer that it's referring to PCs only, but humans are supposed to be 2 HD creatures otherwise. The Stength Bonus does kinda fix the faerry doing as much damage as a human problem, but not really.

Useful here if you cite the page. In general though IIRC, Knowledge applies to the education system.

That's what I thought, too, but I couldn't find any reference to Knowledge outside of the one sentence on pg. 2 mentioning it in the paragraph on Character Generation as one of the stats (but it's not in the list following that paragraph). I haven't given the Education section a deep read in forever, but skimming it again, I still didn't see any reference to it.


Some other things that have been bothering me about the AIF text as I go through it...


Who goes first in combat? It does say under Table Q that the larger Weapon Class goes first, but what about wizards? Same as with Sorcerous Combat? Lowest level and then lowest status? That sounds like it's some wizardly protocol thing and not general combat. I tried to look up what P&P did for this, but couldn't find the rule.


The missile vs. armor rules are all sorts of messed up. As I understand them, the rules listed gives us the following tables:

Code:

Plate:     long medium short
short bow  1/2  1/2    1/2
long bow   1/2  1      1
crossbow   1/2  1      1

Chainmail: long medium short
short bow  0    2/3    1
long bow   2/3  2/3    1
crossbow   2/3  2/3    1

...which seems like it's not at all what you'd want since chainmail is now better than plate at long range against a short bow and at medium range against a long bow and crossbow. (I kinda merged them in the current draft)

Additionally, I always interpreted it as "save to reduce damage, or take full damage", but I recall some speculation on (I think) the ODD74 forum that it was really "save to take no damage, or take reduced damage".

[aldarron]

Aldarron, you're right, but that's why I said late-70s. I'd have to check my notes, but I seem to recall Arneson and other players (Svenson?) being on record as saying that by the end of the '70s the Blackmoor campaign was using combat that was pretty much identical to AIF's. IIRC, that seems logical with the well-documented progression from 2d6, to 2d6 percentile, to 2d20 percentile.

Well, I'm a little confused. AiF was written in 1978 and published in 1979, so yes, Arneson ran AiF combat at that time, naturally. Adventure Games was founded in 1980 I think. "The Blackmoor Bunch" was pretty scattered by the late 70's, but Arneson did run some Blackmoor games from time to time at conventions at least - and more in the early 80's with the AG crew. However, what was left of the Blackmoor Bunch in the Twin Cities in the late 70s to early 80's was being DM'd by Jim Lafferrie most of the time and he used AD&D as it came out.

Arneson must have run a few Blackmoor games in the late 70's using AiF, and at conventions he used D&D by all accounts. In general it was a pretty topsy turvy time for him and he wasn't all that settled. By the early 1980's he seems to have left AiF behind for his own version of B/X D&D. There were definitely games played in this period and we see some of those characters in DA1, but quite a lot, maybe most, of Arneson's gaming was for playtesting various AG products. In any case, D&D seems to have always been the ruleset used. Certainly that's what we see in his Garbage Pits of Despair adventure, which he could have published in any system he wanted. He choose "Basic" D&D because that's what he played. It's also no secret that the Rules Cyclopedia became a life-long favorite of his.

Book 2 and the text therein is definitely almost all from Snider, including all the more..."unique" magic rules in AIF. What I meant with that statement was that I think the core/original root is from Arneson.

In general I'm on board with your ideas here. Book one is Arneson mostly, and the reverse for the other two. Dave and Richard weren't working in a vacuum though so you can bet they were in agreement with each other on what made it into the game.

Again, I'd have to check some notes, but using MP for spells as well as the elf songs I think had clear Arnesonian roots. I think someone even said somewhere that the runes made a comeback with the 3ed Blackmoor campaign (but I have no idea where I saw that or if true).

As I said, the magic system of AiF stems from the RSV. Snider set up MP in the RSV and Arneson liked what he did. The RSV was among the material he sent to Gygax for D&D and he is on record of having advocated for the idea to be used in D&D. (yes, I do still need to write up the blog posts on this stuff) Arneson *might* or might not have used it himself in 1973 Blackmoor, but there isn't any evidence and it seems more likely to me that he was mostly using the alchemical magic he had been using and the vancian system of the playtest.

As for Rune Magic or Song Magic, no that was new to AiF, courtesy of RS, no doubt.

I guess what you mean here is Percentile dice not HD as in shouldn't damage be 1d10? Is that the question?

No, the text says on pg. 49 "any and all damage inflicted by a hit on an opponent is determined using one six sided die" so my question was how do hit dice fit into that? (Actually, I don't think hit dice are ever explained in the text...) We probably should infer that it's referring to PCs only, but humans are supposed to be 2 HD creatures otherwise. The Stength Bonus does kinda fix the faerry doing as much damage as a human problem, but not really.

Hit Dice in AiF function no differently than Hit Dice in D&D right? They indicate the "level" of a monster and the dice for Hit Points. Is there any reason to think otherwise? They aren't equated with damage dice if that's what you are thinking. Still not sure what you mean.

Useful here if you cite the page. In general though IIRC, Knowledge applies to the education system.

That's what I thought, too, but I couldn't find any reference to Knowledge outside of the one sentence on pg. 2 mentioning it in the paragraph on Character Generation as one of the stats (but it's not in the list following that paragraph). I haven't given the Education section a deep read in forever, but skimming it again, I still didn't see any reference to it.

Well, again, look to Thieves World. That tells you what a character is supposed to have.

Who goes first in combat? It does say under Table Q that the larger Weapon Class goes first, but what about wizards? Same as with Sorcerous Combat? Lowest level and then lowest status? That sounds like it's some wizardly protocol thing and not general combat. I tried to look up what P&P did for this, but couldn't find the rule.

In the Twin Cites, players go first in marching order unless there is a reason they don't. There is no rule because that's their accustomed playstyle.

I'd have to dig in to the missile rules deeper so I'll save that one for later.

Additionally, I always interpreted it as "save to reduce damage, or take full damage", but I recall some speculation on (I think) the ODD74 forum that it was really "save to take no damage, or take reduced damage".

[/quote]

The Armor save rule is a bit contradictory in AiF depending on how you read it, but the "take no damage" rule was early Blackmoor (according to Arneson in the FFC) and a different system. You might want to look over Radigast the Brown's work as he does a very nice job of integrating Supp II with AiF combat. (If you don't have this I can send you a copy no problem).

[NeonNecromancer]

Hit Dice in AiF function no differently than Hit Dice in D&D right? They indicate the "level" of a monster and the dice for Hit Points. Is there any reason to think otherwise? They aren't equated with damage dice if that's what you are thinking. Still not sure what you mean.

Ah, OK. Yeah, that makes sense. Last time I looked I couldn't actually find the term "hit dice" defined in the text and for some reason I can't fathom now I interpreted "hit dice" to mean "damage" instead.

In the Twin Cites, players go first in marching order unless there is a reason they don't. There is no rule because that's their accustomed playstyle.

Good to know. I'll add that in when I get a chance.

The Armor save rule is a bit contradictory in AiF depending on how you read it, but the "take no damage" rule was early Blackmoor (according to Arneson in the FFC) and a different system. You might want to look over Radigast the Brown's work as he does a very nice job of integrating Supp II with AiF combat. (If you don't have this I can send you a copy no problem).

Is that the "Arneson's Combat System" PDF that harmonizes all the Arneson texts? I do have a copy of that downloaded. Checking it now, this could have been my source for that statement.

Code:

The paragraphs above, in a way, contradict themselves, for example:

Chainmail has a 60% chance of no damage, with a failed save giving the player ½ damage
or
Chainmail has a 60% chance of reducing damage taken by ½, with a failed save giving full damage

Given what Dave Arneson wrote in the FIRST FANTASY CAMPAIGN I believe he used the 1st example … Armor
would reduce all damage to zero if a Melee Saving Throw was made, and if this Melee Saving Throw failed the player
would take the reduction in damage.

I'll check FFC again, but this sounds like it might be the correct interpretation instead of the one I used.

[NeonNecromancer]

Hit Dice in AiF function no differently than Hit Dice in D&D right? They indicate the "level" of a monster and the dice for Hit Points. Is there any reason to think otherwise? They aren't equated with damage dice if that's what you are thinking. Still not sure what you mean.

Ah, OK. Yeah, that makes sense. Last time I looked I couldn't actually find the term "hit dice" defined in the text and for some reason I can't fathom now I interpreted "hit dice" to mean "damage" instead.

Actually, I just found a reference to a "2-HD sword" under Weapon Use in Courses of Instruction (pg. 13). Though, I'm pretty sure your interpretation is still correct since each HD listed for a creature matches exactly with an additional 5 to average hit points.