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

[Imaro]

It's amazing that some people can even function in the world.

I'm with Steel on this one. The only "math" required in D&D is adding.

There's multiplication( crit mods) and division(1/2 dmg from succesful save) as well.

 

[Mighty Halfling]

I have this problem quite a bit. This is mainly in the heat of play because I can certainly add, subtract, multiply and divide. I roll the die and just can not add the two or three numbers. I stammer, studder and stall as my mind tries to crunch the numbers.
It's just very difficult for me to fuse all those numbers together even when I have my bonuses explicitly written out on a scratch pad. Even with the scratch paper to help, I usually have to recalculate because I've moved or some other factor is added in.
What I tend to do most often, is I say "I rolled a 17 and then plus 4 to hit and plus 1 for Bless and plus 2 for flanking" and then start to calculate the number. Before I'm done, two other players have figured it out for me.
They all know I'm horrible at it.

 

[RFisher]

My goal when running any game is that the players shouldn't need to know any of the rules. A player should be able to simply describe what he wants his character to do, & it is up to me to translate that into game terms & translate back to him what his character's limitations are.

Creating characters is different, though. Players need a grasp of the character creation rules if they are to fully enjoy a game. Having help making a character can get you by, but it's just getting by.

Creating characters in D&D requires a lot of addition & subtraction. Things that the majority of people can handle without a problem in small doses, but that can be intimidating to some when there's a lot of it.

In play, I often feel that knowing the best option in D&D isn't very intuitable. e.g. Playing a fighter with power attack, it takes some arithmetic & analysis to decide when & how to use it best. At the least, it requires studying some guidelines from someone who has done the analysis. If you don't have the taste for that, you have to relie on someone else--the DM or another player--to help you out. Or just accept that you stabbing in the dark even more than the other players. Likewise knowing when to grapple or many other things.

That's a big part of the reason why I tend to prefer games with a higher level of abstraction & try to use negotiation between the player & DM to determine the chances of success rather than a detailed set of rules. While I very much enjoy a game with a complex set of rules, I don't enjoy it unless the other participants have a decent grasp of the rules as well. & I want to play RPGs with people who don't have a taste for mastering complex rule sets.

 

[RFisher]

What I tend to do most often, is I say "I rolled a 17 and then plus 4 to hit and plus 1 for Bless and plus 2 for flanking" and then start to calculate the number. Before I'm done, two other players have figured it out for me.

I know exactly what you mean. I've never been fast at arithmetic in my head. Teachers would claim that this is because I didn't apply the mental tricks they wanted me too. But, the truth is my mental processes just don't run as fast as most people. In any sort of timed quiz situation, I'm sure to lose unless I have a big advantage in raw knoweldge of the topic at hand.

For instance - Dont take Power attack, take Weapon focus instead.

Unfortunately, they made Power Attack an early gateway feat.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

What I tend to do most often, is I say "I rolled a 17 and then plus 4 to hit and plus 1 for Bless and plus 2 for flanking" and then start to calculate the number. Before I'm done, two other players have figured it out for me.

That's just it - it isn't about doing simple math; everyone can more or less do that. It's about doing simple math really, really fast. That is a little more difficult for some people. I'm one of those who can compute that number in a split-second, but I also understand and make allowances for those who can't.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

Some excellent advice here; also, from some posters, a lack of empathy and tolerance which surprises me.

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.

The process of character creation is done; in fact, the game is predicated on our arithmetically-challenged player's vision of what their character should be. So everyone is playing a 4th-level gestalt character - simply because a 4th-level gestalt character was the best way of describing the abilities which the player wanted their character to possess. This might sound nuts, but like you say, classes are as arbitrary as numbers.

Reinvent the character sheet.

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

Very nice. I had something similar in mind, and I've been working on a custom character sheet. The player is highly visual, and I think a pic on the sheet as well as a matching miniature should go a long way towards 'grounding' the player. It strikes me that the experience of the game will be quite different from the average player: in some ways, it has the potential to be more authentic, as it isn't bogged down by any metagame thinking regarding making numbers bigger.

It's amazing that some people can even function in the world.

I'm with Steel on this one. The only "math" required in D&D is adding. Everyone can add unless you are 3 or have the IQ of melon.

There is no mathematics in D&D.

Some times, the game calls for some simple arithmetic. But if the player is not capable of low digit addition and subtraction, they need to be somewhere other than gaming.

Like... grade 1, say.

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

GlassJaw, Steel_Wind, anton1066: thank-you for your comments. You all demonstrate an amazing appreciation of the complexity of the human mind.

 

[Pielorinho]

Creating characters in D&D requires a lot of addition & subtraction. Things that the majority of people can handle without a problem in small doses, but that can be intimidating to some when there's a lot of it.

That, I think, is the key. I've played with a guy who's really fun, but who can't seem to remember that using his sword two-handed results in the 1.5 str modifier, or who forgets to add that in at all, or who doesn't remember how to figure out what Smite Evil does to the mods, and so forth.

Of course, I've been with other players who have trouble adding 24+17 in their heads, the sort of calculation that comes up plenty of times in a high-level game. If you have the skill to do that, then bully for you: we human calculators make great secretaries and accountants. But plenty of high-functioning people aren't particularly proficient at double-digit addition, and it takes a lot of attention from them to complete such tasks that seem simple to you and me; insulting them says more about the insulter than it does about them, in my opinion. Of course, when those insults are rife with errors of punctuation and usage, they kind of lend themselves to snappy retorts from the discalculiacs .

Daniel

 

[atomn]

I have a simple idea - ignore the math.

If they're having trouble with factoring in all of the modifiers and such, I don't think this is a good idea at all. I think dumbing down the rules won't give the player incentive to learn the rules, where if they have to actually follow the rules they'll be more apt to understand and learn them.

 

[delericho]

Make sure he has an up-to-date character sheet with all the totals correctly worked out ahead of time and clearly stated.

Reduce the use of situational and circumstantial modifiers. You won't be able to get rid of them entirely, but you can minimise their impact.

Don't sweat the small stuff. The odd +1 or -1 here or there doesn't matter. (But, I'll bet you find the player is far better at applying his bonuses than he is at remembering his penalties...)

If none of those help... play a different game. There are plenty of rules-liter games out there, and your player will be better suited to one of them.

 

[Pielorinho]

If they're having trouble with factoring in all of the modifiers and such, I don't think this is a good idea at all. I think dumbing down the rules won't give the player incentive to learn the rules, where if they have to actually follow the rules they'll be more apt to understand and learn them.

If your goal is to have them learn the rules, then this seems like good advice. But if your goal is to have fun with them, then this advice may not be so good: folks who have trouble with relatively simple math tend not to find it much fun, and punishing them for their avoidance of it isn't going to make it more fun for them.

Daniel