D&Disms That Make You Go "Huh?"

[Rechan]

"Munchkin" - Are character optimizers somehow shorter? Did they used to only use halflings or gnomes? Was someone watching "Wizard of Oz" when the phrase was coined?

The lack of spells that would be usable in daily life.

Why anyone would like gnomes. Or flumps.

Dwarve females with beards - where'd that come from? Where's the art of it? I find it intriguing.

Dungeons never have bathrooms. Or outhouses.

This one doesn't make me go "Huh" so much as "Awww": Cleric as bandaid box. I can't think of any other game system that basically has one class or one character devoted to "Fix me!"

 

[FireLance]

Since I read quite a bit of fairy tales and mythology when I was younger, the following D&Disms were quite jarring when I first encountered them:

1. A gorgon was a bull-like monster with petrification breath instead of a woman with snakes for hair.

2. A basilisk turned people to stone with its gaze instead of killing them.

3. The key distinguishing trait of a troll was that it regenerated instead of turning to stone in sunlight.

 

[pawsplay]

This one doesn't make me go "Huh" so much as "Awww": Cleric as bandaid box. I can't think of any other game system that basically has one class or one character devoted to "Fix me!"

I've never understood this perception, but then, I started with Basic D&D, where a 1st level cleric has no spells at all.

 

[ceratitis]

I don't kow if this is what you are after but:

"muscular action closes the hole".

Whenever I read that in the monster manual, it makes me go "huh". Its just... one of those things that makes me go "only in D&D".

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

did you know this is actually true physiologicly? people with cut off limbs can go for a few minutes to several hours without bleeding thanks to this not so wierd after all.

in my view trolls will turn to stone at day time, after all one needs good reasons to be afraid of the night.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Back in 1e, it wasn't easy to be a Fighter and a Magic-User at the same time. Apparently Githyanki could do it, and they had a special word for it.

Elves were pretty common, and they didn't have any problems with it...

 

[Plane Sailing]

did you know this is actually true physiologicly? people with cut off limbs can go for a few minutes to several hours without bleeding thanks to this not so wierd after all.

I sincerely doubt that you could point to any vertebrate which could have prey cut its way out of its stomach and would just continue on with a little less vitality while 'muscular action closes the hole'!

e.g. This snake didn't survive the experience

 

[Huw]

Those wargaming convention which were left in earlier editions:

Measuring spell and missile ranges in inches
Related: spell and missile ranges trebling when you went outside
Combat rounds being 1 minute long

 

[Merkuri]

Dwarve females with beards - where'd that come from? Where's the art of it? I find it intriguing.

I'm not sure, but I think this may have come from Tolkein. There's a scene in the movies where Glimli talks about it, but I don't know if that was made up for the movie or came straight from the book. (There are other things that I thought were added for a 21st century audience that turned out to have been in the original book, so I'm not sure.)

I think people here and in other RPG forums love to talk about female dwarves with beards because it's funny and it certainly would be something to set them apart, but at the same time people find it disturbing deep down inside, so you don't really see it as an official part of any campaign setting or rule set (except in books by weird people, like Terry Pratchett).

Dungeons never have bathrooms. Or outhouses.

I don't think real dungeons did either. Most prisoners were simply given a bucket if they were given anything at all. But you're probably talking about the broad term "dungeon" as it's used in D&D to refer to any enclosed space with monsters and/or traps.

I recall hearing about a party who came upon a small room in a wizard's castle that had a ledge that took up half the room and a hole in the middle of that ledge. The party was curious and ended up sending people down the hole to investigate. Turns out the room was a latrine, and the wizard had the bright idea of making his castle without a cesspool. Instead, each latrine had a sphere of annihilation hanging inside. So much for DMs trying to add realism.

 

[JediSoth]

Here's an example of a bearded dwarven female from 1st ed:

You'll notice the red-bearded dwarf swinging the hammer has breasts and, in fact, the pre-gen character that matches the illustration is female.

JediSoth

 

[Merkuri]

Ouch. That's a tall dwarf with his/her torso on backwards, looks like.

Are you sure that's a beard? The rest of it is drawn so awkwardly that I could see if that was just supposed to be hair. After all, its face is pointing at its right shoulder, but if you just look at the "beard" it looks like the face should be pointing forward.