How to Make D&D Accessible to the Non-Mathematically Inclined?

[Sepulchrave II]

So, I'm starting a new game soon. One of the players is a newbie, with absolutely no mathematical aptitude: a totally artsy, creative type.

I'll be emphasizing role-playing, and saying 'OK. Roll the die,' when appropriate. But it seems that a reasonable level of competence in math is a requirement to play the game at even the most basic level.

How have other people dealt with this problem? Do you find that it enriches or detracts from the game: I guess min/maxing and powergaming is a nonissue for the nonmathematic, but does it get incredibly frustrating? Any tips?

 

[anton1066]

If they cannot add simple two digit numbers together......they probably cant role play either.

 

[Felix]

I'm starting a new game soon.

And... Wyre? *tear*

How have other people dealt with this problem? Do you find that it enriches or detracts from the game: I guess min/maxing and powergaming is a nonissue for the nonmathematic, but does it get incredibly frustrating? Any tips?

There's a guy in my group who is horrendous with D&D math. Last campaign he was an archer and listening to him tally his attack rolls and damage rolls was endless... "Let's see, rolled a 14, plus 2, plus 3, rapid shot minus 2, bless plus 1: 18 ... damage is, roll of a 3, plus 2, plus 1: 6." "Don't forget your Favored Enemy bonus" "OH, yeah, 10" "And point blank shot" "Right 11".

Every. Single. Round.

The true horror is that he's created a two-weapon fighter this time around. Oh, merciful gods!

Our solution was to sit him next to me since I'm the resident Rules "Squeeze-a-bonus-from-somewhere" Lawyer.

And the scary thing is that this guy is an aerospace engineer for the government: math is what he does. But I think a big problem comes from his reliance on e-tools and a refusal to read the rules rigorously. He doesn't enjoy reading the rules, he just likes the role-playing, he relies on me for rulings and page numbers, and e-tools just gives him numbers: he doesn't know where his bonuses come from, he just reads what e-tools spits out.

So I would recommend sitting this guy next to the player most familiar with the rules and try to make it easy for him to understand where the bonuses are coming from. Because I don't think that D&D math is too complicated (this aerospace engineer eats tougher problems for breakfast), but rather that it needs an intuitive understanding of where the bonuses come from, and what situation may apply their own set of circumstance mods.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I've played with many mathematically challenged people who made fine roleplayers. Usually, I either just correct them as needed or let other players do so.

I understand that this can be tedious to some, but its never bothered me.

Other things you can do:

1) You could make flash cards for common stuff;

2) You could have stats behind the screen as if the PC were an NPC. The player tells you what he wants to do, and you tell him what to roll...and compare that to your notes.

 

[Faraer]

See Ed Greenwood's "Up on a Soapbox: Players don’t need to know all the rules" in Dragon #49.

 

[Peni Griffin]

Mr. 1066, math and roleplaying are independent variables and inability in one is not indicative of inability in another. I can't reliable add two-digit numbers and I've been roleplaying up a storm since 1979. The math portions of my brain have largely been co-opted for story and character skills, which are much more useful to me as I have a husband, a calculator, and in extreme cases a hired accountant for the numbers, but have to write my own stories, or they won't get written, much less published.

Numbers are arbitrary symbols which convey little meaning. That's what they are to me in real life, and guess what? That's exactly what they are in the game! They exist to represent relative values. That's it.

If you have someone with actual math anxiety, take care to assure them that the numbers aren't actually math here. They could be colors or letters in a different system. Yeah, you have to add and subtract modifiers, but those can be counted on the fingers if necessary and will always be written down for handy reference.

It used to be SOP, back in the day, to start newbies off with fighters because they were simplest. I'm not sure that's true anymore. Ask her in very general terms what kind of hero she'd like to be and point her to the classes that suit that best. Most likely she won't have a class in mind. Classes are as arbitrary as numbers, but they're based on images and stories, so let her pick the class first, then roll the dice, then explain to her which abilities should get the highest numbers in order to be most effective in that class. She'll get that. Then walk her through the rest of character creation, making her write things down by hand - that way stuff will be arranged in a way that's intuitive for the player, not some random person designing sheets at a game company. Be ready to say things like: "yeah, it can be confusing, but don't worry - everybody forgets to use something once in awhile."


In play, the player tells the DM what she's doing, and the DM tells her which die to roll, and whether she wants low or high. Seat her next to somebody patient who can keep an eye on the modifiers, reminder her which ones are relevant, and won't yell at her if she gets confused and adds her ability score to a die roll instead of an ability modifier. If she gets that deer-in-the-headlights look, ask direct questions: "Forget what you can do right now, what does your character *want* to do?" "Um - run away. Terribly fast." "Okay, if you do that you'll have to run past three of the orcs, and each one gets a chance to hit you. Do you want to risk it?" Let other people advise her freely without regard for normal restrictions on what PCs can talk to each other, unless they inundate her with conflicting advice.

If she has the game in her at all, after a session or two of this she'll settle down and find style of play that doesn't slow you down too badly. Some people never do get the hang of the dice, but an awful lot of things in the game don't need the dice.

 

[Pielorinho]

What i generally do is to put as much of the information on the character sheet as possible.

For example, don't just put the archer's attack bonus down. Also put a separate line labeled, "WITHIN THIRTY FEET!" with PBS included. For a two-weapon fighter, do something similar.

Make sure all bonuses are calculated correctly, once. After that, they just need to look at the character sheet.

If some weird modifier comes into play--say, someone casts Bull's Strength on the fighter-- have a player handily figure out what their new mods will be, and write them down. Index cards are good for this: write down the modified attack sequence, hand it to them, and have them work from that till the end of combat.

The most difficulty I've seen with the math is from people who don't just figure it out ahead of time, who try to figure it out during each combat round, and screw things up royally that way. Take a few extra lines of the character sheet to write out all their common attack sequences, and it'll save a lot of grief in the long run.

Daniel

 

[Brimshack]

I once had a player who claimed to have the mathematical equivalent to Dyslexia. This was a new one, but no problem. What I asked her to do was to always tell me the die roll and the appropriate modifier at the same time. I could just add them in no time and we would be on with the game. When she remembered to do this, it worked great. Unfortunately, she often forgot, sometimes added them together and sometimes just gave me the die roll, etc. So, I never knew what any given number meant from her, and I always had to ask for clarification rather than simpy adding them up and moving on. To make matters worse, she often liked to exlain her problems which required that this among others had to actually be a problem from time to time, just to provide the topic of conversation for a minute or three. And finally she never learned the rules, so she never knew which modifiers were appropriate to any given roll. One of my players bought her a book as a gift to help, and she clearly never read it. In the end I concluded that she was simply unwilling to do anything for herself, and that our efforts to help her were little other than music to a passive aggresive ear. It was tiresome and frustrating to the point that I eventually gave up and stopped inviting her.

Now had her only problem been math, I still think the solution would work fine. The player still has to know enough of the rules to identify the correct modifiers. But if they can't do that, then math is not really the problem. The trick is to be consistent. Even f they suddenly realize they know the final number, they need to always say the two bonuses, so that you can both get used to the pattern enough to make it second nature.

 

[Asmor]

There's a guy in my group who would always have issues figuring out his attack rolls (i.e. +14 to hit, rolls a 19) and so he'd just whip out his cell phone to add them up.

It worked but was kind of slow, so we always ragged on him to get a real calculator. So eventually he went to the dollar store and did just that. Got a cheap, crappy 1-dollar solar calculator and that's all she wrote.

 

[charlesatan]

Reinvent the character sheet.

See http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060929a