Dragon Reflections #88

Dragon Publishing released Dragon #88 in August 1984. It is 100 pages long and has a cover price of $3.00.

The cover is by Jim Holloway, one of my favourite RPG artists, and depicts a rogue hiding from an orc patrol. Interior artists include Keith Parkinson, Jeff Butler, Brian Born, Roger Raupp, Kurt Erichsen, Tom Wham, Dave Trampier, Mark Nelson, and Larry Elmore.

This month's special attraction is "Elefant Hunt," a light-hearted board game by Tom Wham. The players are big game hunters who explore the African interior in search of wild animals and other valuables. The cute art and interesting hunt mechanics elevate this above the typical roll-and-move game, but it will most likely appeal to kids.

There are three articles on falling in AD&D, and old-timers will know this was a real chestnut back in the day. "Physics and falling damage" by Arn Ashleigh Parker argues for a more realistic velocity-based falling system. He follows up with "Scientific facts behind the system," which uses natural-world physics to derive a falling damage equation. All the math boils down to "the number of d6 damage dice equals 5 times the square root of the distance fallen in feet, divided by 4." Parker was a physics major with a handful of published credits in Dragon.

In a brief rebuttal called "Kinetic energy is the key," Steve Winter argues that velocity is less important than kinetic energy and that the original falling damage system in the Players Handbook (1d6 points of damage for every 10 feet fallen) is pretty good. Winter was an editor working in the TSR game department at this time.

"The Ecology of the Rust Monster" by Ed Greenwood delves into the biology and behaviour of this favourite D&D monster. In the voice of Baerdalumi the sage, Greenwood describes the monster's temperament and biology and gives some practical tips for dealing with it. The game notes detail the effects of certain spells on the creature and address edge cases around their antenna attacks.

"Beyond the Dungeon: Part 2" continues Katharine Kerr's exploration of wilderness adventures. She explains how to create engaging encounters by pitting players against harsh terrains, environmental obstacles, and the challenge of resource management. The article also emphasizes the integration of non-dungeon settings into the broader campaign world to deepen storytelling. I enjoyed this much more than the first article, which was a bit pedantic for my taste.

"Key to Ramali" is a short story by Ardath Mayhar. A weary intergalactic negotiator needs the help of his malfunctioning mechanical camel to secure a trade deal. It's a humorous little tale with patches of creativity, but it is no more than light entertainment. Mayhar published dozens of science fiction, fantasy, and western novels.

Len Lakofka brings us a diverse trio of new "Gods of the Suel pantheon." This month, we have Syrul, Goddess of False Promises and Deceit, Fortubuo, God of Stone, Metals, and Mountains, and Wee Jas, Goddess of Magic and Death.

"Off the Shelf" returns with reviews of the latest sci-fi and fantasy:

• The Chaos Weapon by Colin Kapp is a rousing tale of space marshals confronting a chaotic menace and is "well worth reading."
• The Paradoxicon by Nicholas Falletta is a comprehensive exploration of paradoxes and is of great use to "those who like including puzzles and riddles in their game campaigns."
• The Sword and the Chain by Joel Rosenberg continues this series about college gamers transported to a fantasy world and is "delightful."
• Across the Sea of Suns by Gregory Benford, a tale with confusing dual plots about an interstellar mission and an alien invasion, is "a disappointing book."
• Salvage and Destroy by Edward Llewellyn, about aliens awaiting the end of human civilization, is "a good science fiction tale from a talented writer."
• Neuromancer by William Gibson, a dark and gripping vision of our cyberpunk future, is "a novel worth reading."

There is a feature-length game review in this issue. Rolemaster by Iron Crown Enterprises is a comprehensive RPG system offering exceptional player flexibility and detailed mechanics, but it is burdened by inconsistency and complexity. Reviewer Arlen P. Walker says, "If you want a freer, more open game than you are currently playing, I'd say it is probably worth it."

Finally, the Ares Section includes four articles:

• "Before the Dark Years" by Jim Ward and Roger Moore is a detailed timeline of the Gamma World universe.
• "The Marvel-Phile" by Jeff Grubb details the diverse inhabitants of the Marvel Superheroes RPG.
• "The Battle at Ebony Eyes" by William Tracy is a Star Fronters game scenario.
• "Yachts and Privateers Return" by Douglas Niles has revised statistics for various Star Frontiers ships.

And that's a wrap! There was a little too much physics in this issue, but I did enjoy Katharine Kerr's article on wilderness adventures. Next month, we have new monsters, special shields, and war words!

 

[Celebrim]

Like Samual L and the Rock in the beginning of the movie The Other Guys.

Wrong genre savvy.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"This game would be more fun if we had to calculate the square root of how far your character fell" is such an artifact of its time.

More fun for whom, Arn?

That said, I think it's good that we're now in an RPG environment where there are more options for people who want more or less simulationism in their games.

 

[Celebrim]

"This game would be more fun if we had to calculate the square root of how far your character fell" is such an artifact of its time.

More fun for whom, Arn?

The complex math that Arn derives his falling damage from isn't even really the bad part of the system. All that math just resolves out to a handy dandy table of the sort common in 1e AD&D. And, as a table it's not that bad. I see what he's going for albeit there is an assumption of rigor and accuracy to his calculations that I think is unwarranted. He's rounding to far more decimal places than he should.

No, the first reason Arn wasn't proclaimed a genius is that for all his math, the resulting system is neither particularly good for the game nor particularly realistic. The resulting table looks quite like 1d6/10' for distances above 90' or so or at least close enough to not bother with, but is massively different at 30' or below. How much damage from 10' of all is probably the killer here, as it averages 14.5 damage from a 10' fall. Straight up lethal to most 3rd level characters of the time.

But this isn't even the real problem. The real problem is that Arn fudges his numbers by introducing a novel saving throw mechanic that is for some reason "roll low" in an otherwise roll high system and which is incredibly nitpicky and iterative (exploding saving throws!) and filled with a bunch of GURPS like modifiers for every circumstance that he doesn't even bother to collect into a table. This saving throw on top of the derived table was I think a step of complexity too far for just about everyone but Arn. The whole system is just not at all elegant while not at all convincing as being more realistic. The rebuttal to it is sound.

 

[talien]

It's easy to forget that D&D originally was a two-dimensional system. Its Chainmail roots are obvious, but implicit in that is we didn't start with rogues either, or climbing walls. The entire concept of a three-dimensional space wasn't really part of the game, and flight wasn't addressed much until later.

So falling damage -- one of the fundamental aspects of a three-dimensional space -- always felt tacked on, because it was (and why thief skills seemed also tacked on with a percentage system so different from the rest, because they were).

I don't mind that characters can fall and survive. They're heroes after all, and do ridiculous things. I DO mind that the heroes don't seem to be AFRAID of falling, and that's where all this drama started. I've traumatized our hexblade so much he refuses to engage in anything involving acrobatics or the hint of falling because of my customize rules involving falling, dragging, tumbling, and otherwise getting smashed up into blue paste (he's a blue tiefling).

Which is why I made the Mournwall where a bunch of combat took place a 600 ft. drop so PCs had one round to rescue anyone who fell off of it (5E is now 500 ft. fall per round I believe).

 

[Rabulias]

In my own system, a 30' fall would probably average about 13 damage which is around what 3d6 would produce, but the maximum damage from a 30' fall in my game would be around 78 damage. This later result would be extraordinarily rare though, like 1 in 100,000 falls. I don't use a normalized curve. The result is that I can have pit traps that have a challenge about like you'd expect but players learn over time, "Falling is bad" because relatively soon they get hit by a 30 foot fall that did say 40 damage and left them near death (or dead) so while the average result doesn't wreck the game, there is a strong incentive not to treat falling as trivial. Falling becomes 'exciting' in a way real falling is exciting. "Oh crap!" moments.

Have you posted your falling damage system here or elsewhere?

 

[David Howery]

From what I remember back in the day, most of us just ignored everything about falling damage being unrealistic and just stuck with the RAW for it. The main thing I remember about this issue was how much of a hoot it was reading the Elefant Hunt game... I think I still have that issue with the game still intact and uncut....

 

[Celebrim]

Have you posted your falling damage system here or elsewhere?

Yeah, somewhere.

The basic rule of the system is 1d20 per 10' of falling, divided by 1d6. And yes, I hate the inelegancy of division as I have a general rule that anything other than at most division by two is too complicated for the table, but this has worked for me in its present form for a long time, and the inspiration came out of a Dragon article before that.

The nitty gritty details are more complicated than that. I also roll an attack on behalf of the ground if the ground isn't yielding (soft turf, mud, sand, etc.). There are a couple reasons for that. One is that 1d20/1d6 actually averages slightly below 3.5 damage per 10', and the other is that it models essentially "padding". Also, "spikes" and such can be thought of under this conception as just "much less safe ground to fall on".

Also there are variances for the size of creatures in terms of maximum dice and modifiers to the divisor and so forth. The whole thing is probably too nitpicky, but it works for me.

Some discussion from about 10 years back I found: D&D 5E - A character in free fall, falls how many feets by turn?

 

[Smackpixi]

Just for fun, next time one of my characters falls I’m gonna say, “you’ve fallen 13 feet, roll 5 times the square root of 13 divided by 4 d6s for damage” with as straight of a face as I can manage.

 

[Bolongo]

"the number of d6 damage dice equals 5 times the square root of the distance fallen in feet, divided by 4."

That's wild, because it comes to either 4d6 or 8d6 for 10 feet, depending on how you read that sentence.

 

[Lanefan]

Just for fun, next time one of my characters falls I’m gonna say, “you’ve fallen 13 feet, roll 5 times the square root of 13 divided by 4 d6s for damage” with as straight of a face as I can manage.

The scary thing is that one of my players could probably do that calculation in his head and give me the answer almost before I'd finished uttering the sentence.