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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6466455" data-attributes="member: 42582">Many of the new spells and magic items were from modules.Your system for stat generation is a house-ruled one - one could even say "a more gritty house rule world" than the default world of AD&D. None of the four methods for stat generation set out by Gygax in his DMG makes a paladin likely, but each makes it more likely than the stat-generation system you describe.l**************************In AD&D auto-attacks occur on 5 or less on the reaction table (ie 1 in 20). But a result of 6 to 25 (ie another 1 in 5) result in a hostile reaction precipitating immediate action. In many cases, that immediate action will also be an attack.Furthermore, p 63 of the DMG tells us that "Reaction is determined by rolling percentile dice, adjusting the score for charisma and applicable loyalty adjustment as ifthe creature were a henchman of the character speaking." Those adjustments (found on pp 36-37) include penaltis of -5 for racial antipathy and -20 for racial hatred (reduced to -15 if the hated character isn't doing the talking but is merely in the company of the negotiator). So a party with elves or dwarves in it may have trouble negotiating with orcs or goblins.The alignment adjustments are also very severe: -35 for opposed alignments (eg CE to LG), and -15 for hotile alignments (eg LE to LG); although some of this may be ameliorated by the general alignment modifications (+15 for LG, +5 for neutral good - NPCs prefer to negotiate with those who might keep their promises). NPCs won't always be able to judge PC alignments, but often will (eg via a holy symbol for a cleric character).I don't think the rules of AD&D make negotiation, and avoiding automatic hostilities, quite as easy as you are saying. And even if only 1 in 4 encounters resuts in combat, that means that a group of PCs has to be capable of engaging in combat successfully. Which makes planning for combat a significant part of the game even when the goal is to avoid combat. At least from my perspective, that is one part of what is meant by saying that the game leans towards combat as a principal mode of conflict resolution.I repeat my assertion from upthread that the non-combat pillars are not as well-supported as the combat pillar.With respect to exploration, only a very narrow and rather artificial sort of exploration is supported. There are very detailed rules for finding, listening at and opening doors. But there are no rules for hunting and foraging, for finding water, for charting coastlines, etc - all of which are real elements of exploration in the real world. There are no rules for trading (contrast, say, Traveller, which comes out aroud the same time as AD&D). The wilderness rules in OD&D book 3 include travel times, chances of getting lost, and chances of encountering castles and creatures - and the main significance of these encounters is the threat of combat (eg there are rules for surprise, and evasion, but no rules to determine the likelihood that encountered merchants try to enter into trade negotiations).In the social pillar there are (i) no rules for dipomacy (you can't even use the reaction table - not even 5% of diplomatic interactions result in immediate attack), for the effects on loyalty of arranging marriages (a stock-in-trade of the mediaeveal era), etc, and (ii) no rules for finality of social interactions - if I bribe the orcs on the way through, do they stay bribed when I come back or do we have to check again? if my henchmen resists a bribe offer from an NPC today, can the GM force a new roll by having the NPC try again tomorrow? These sorts of questions are answered for combat (via rules for zero hit points, hit point recovery etc) but the social rules are silent on them. The DMG gives no advice in respect of them. It has no example of play involving negotiation or social interaction. The claim that AD&D's social pillar is as well-supported as the combat pillar (which has far more detail rules, plus a worked example of play) is not sustainabe when one actually looks at the rules provided.If your definition of exploration is exploring dungeons and your definition of social interaction is bribing your way past potentially hostile dungeon denizens then there is a degree of support. But someone who wanted to run a scenario involving complex social interactions among multiple NPCs (say, like the Penumbra d20 moudle Maiden Voyage, which I have been running recently) would have to do most of the mechanical legwork him-/herself.How many d% rolls, modified by CHA, are required to negotiate an alliance with a dwarven chieftain? The rules don't answer this question (unless you use magic, like a Charm spell or a Rod of Rulership), although they certainly will tell us how many d20 rolls, modified by STR, are required to beat that chieftain in melee.This is why I say the rules do not support social interaction as a mode of conflict resolution to the same degree that they support combat.*************************It depends on the nature of the agreement. If you extract a promise from the orcs to agree to a truce for the next 10 years, that would be good. But (i) the rules don't really support this sort of diplomatic negotitation, and (ii) the general trope of orcs is of being the sort who don't keep their promises (at all, if CE, or breaching them on technicalities if LE).But the sort of parleying being discussed in this thread isn't primarily diplomatic negotiations. It's doing deals to be allowed deeper into the dungeon. In these circumstances, paying money to the orcs so they'll let you get by and rescue the princess is just a way of enhancing the resources of an evil, hostile force. Even in the real world that sort of behaviour is regarded as closer to real politik than to moral purity, and a heroic fantasy morality just increases that contrast, I think.It would be pretty odd, for instance, for the Fellowship to bribe its way through Moria.Negotiating with elves, pixies, treants etc is a different thing, of course. I don't think that raises the same alignment issues at all.</blockquote>

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