TSR Monster Paralysis: Reason for Lack of Durations in OD&D, Holmes, AD&D

[Snarf Zagyg]

If anything, this reinforces to me the notion that Gygax thought the first line of defense wasn't the (usually 25-75% chances) saving throw, but not being subject to the attacks in the first place. If you have ghouls within striking range of your character, or an enemy magic user with Hold Person prepared (and in a position to successfully cast it on them), you were already in a fail state.

I would largely agree with this. The idea that every encounter was just, "Darn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" was not the way to succeed in OD&D.

You have to remember that the game evolved from the idea that a single hit would kill you, and only gradually did additional plot armor (more hit points, saving throws, etc.) come in. But yes, I would say that there is truth to this statement.

(I would also add that most players had multiple characters, so losing a character for part or all of an adventure did not mean that you were sidelined for the whole thing.)

 

[Umbran]

I would agree in the case of what we probably can call "normal" or "usual" play -- but playing OD&D by RAW (as much as that is even possible) is decidedly not that. We shouldn't use rules systems that actively work against our goals. We shouldn't use OD&D to play a game that considers fairness and fun to be important.

I am sorry, but I think my point still holds - if play is such that the basic way to have a good time is to stop playing, that strongly suggests either a design failure, or a design goal that isn't about entertainment. If a large point of play isn't about entertainment.

If you are running a "game" as a military training tool, okay, fine, it may not be fun, because the design goal is making you effective in real-world military conflicts. While we can point to many potential positive outcomes from playing RPGs that aren't "entertainment", it seems a tad pretentious to claim them as direct design goals for D&D.

 

[Umbran]

(I would also add that most players had multiple characters, so losing a character for part or all of an adventure did not mean that you were sidelined for the whole thing.)

And that's fair enough, but then as a design element, that permanent paralysis isn't independent - it success as a design feature is dependent on other elements being present.

It then cannot be justified as simple, "Bad things happen, oh well." It is perhaps justified as, "Yeah, bad things happen, but we give you other viable options of play." And we should recognize that when, for other reasons, we have eliminated those other viable options, the design element ought to be reconsidered.

So, as the game has shifted to having much more complex (and time consuming) character creation and development, and focus on the narrative of individual characters as having rising emphasis as compared to the narrative of the campaign world, we shouldn't be surprised at some design changes.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I am sorry, but I think my point still holds - if play is such that the basic way to have a good time is to stop playing, that strongly suggests either a design failure, or a design goal that isn't about entertainment. If a large point of play isn't about entertainment.

I am going to push back on this for two reasons.

1. It was common back then for players to have multiple characters. So having one character killed, or otherwise removed from play for a significant period of time, did not necessarily remove the player from the game.

2. Further, fun can't be measured on a single axis. To give a real life example, when I was much younger, I was spending time with my relatives. My uncle was sitting out on the porch. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, "Watching the grass grow." At that age, I didn't understand it. I couldn't imagine someone finding "fun" in just doing nothing. And yet, he found that to be the best use of his time.

In the same way, some people find "fun" in overcoming challenges- to them, the overall experience is what matters- that is what is fun. That parts of it are setbacks or even ... boring ... just makes any eventual success more fun.


ETA- I saw your additional post while I was writing this. I am not saying that modern play isn't different, or that design changes have occurred!* I would actually posit that because more people find "fun" in constant engagement, the actual play of a lot of OD&D and AD&D table was less lethal than the RAW (and grognards) would have you believe. I would only note that there are those who find their fun in different approaches, and that's perfectly fine!


*I would further argue that the videogame industry has followed this trend, with games becoming easier (and more forgiving) over time, because that appeals to more people.

 

[Horwath]

Bring some henchmen?

not all groups are keen on bringing a platoon of henchmen with their PCs to dungeon crawls.
All the focus should be on PCs and having henchmen can lead into the dreaded "DMs PC".

I understand that "sitting out" is no fun and needs addressing (although i hesitate to call it "bad design" since that label gets slapped on anything people don't think is fun, which is not the same thing). But exactly how to address that in a game where Bad Things Happen is an open question.

over editions perma effects and long duration CCs(longer than a round or two) kept getting a save for every round.
So it was recognized that failing one saving throw and be eliminated from the combat is a bad design to a degree.

In general; save or suck effects or spells are for PCs to use on NPCs and very rarely on PCs by NPCs.

Would it be better if those "perma-paralysis" situations were made insta-death instead? I'm not sure one way or the other.

probably,
we had a 3.5 game where we spent 3 sessions turning back a PC from being turned to stone back into living.
At it was planned to be near beginning of 3 sessions.
well, at least friend had time to catch up on his Dota ranking during those sessions.

 

[Reynard]

not all groups are keen on bringing a platoon of henchmen with their PCs to dungeon crawls.

I think if that's the case, maybe OD&D isn't the right game...

 

[zenopus]

@zenopus

One more thing that might tie into this. I am preparing a deep dive into the system shock concept in AD&D (1e). While researching the issue, I learned that Len Lakofka claimed that his greatest contribution to D&D was convincing Gygax to NOT include "Hold Person" among the spells that would require system shock rolls.

I haven't seen anything that generalizes that to paralysis in general, but I believe that this would have likely been Gygax's intent (at least until he was convinced otherwise).

If that was indeed, the plan, then restoration from paralysis would have required a system shock roll- meaning that paralysis was a very big deal.

Great point. I didn't mention it in my post, because it was getting too long already, but OD&D Vol 1 (Men & Magic) expressly mentions paralysis as one of the effects subject to Constitution's "withstand adversity" aspect in OD&D, which is the forerunner of "system shock". The description of Con says it will influence "how well the character can withstand being paralized, turned to stone, etc" (page 10), and then the Bonus/Penalties tables shows that while characters with a Con of 9-12 have only a 60-90% chance of survival, and 7 or 8, 30-40% chance (page 11). So I absolutely agree that in LBB OD&D, it was expected that a character with a Con under 13 would have to make this roll to survive being paralyzed, no matter what the duration was.

The Greyhawk supplement revamped the Con bonuses/penalties, changing the "adversity" rolls to "Probability of Resurrection Survival" and "Probability of Surviving Spells", which is asterisked as "polymorph, stone, etc" (page 9). The change to "Surviving Spells", makes it less than clear whether this is supposed to include monster effects that are not clearly spells, such as paralysis.

Holmes even carried over the mention of this in the description of Con, "It will influence how a character can withstand being paralyzed or killed and raised from the dead, etc." (page 5), but there's no further explanation of how Con influences this in the Holmes rules, other than possibly some ad hoc effects in the Sample Dungeon (sleeping gas, drowning) that are influenced by Con, and give a different impression than what was originally intended in the LBBs, and then revamped in Greyhawk and then again in AD&D.

 

[Mannahnin]

Today on the Zenopus Archives, I look at a possibly surprising reason why monster paralysis in OD&D, Holmes and the AD&D (mostly) doesn't have any duration: a 1989 letter from Gygax suggests that he originally viewed it as permanent until removed...!

See the letter and read about it here:
Gygaxian Monster Paralysis: Permanent?

Although since the Ghoul monster entry in OD&D references Chainmail, in which the duration of Ghoul paralysis is "one full turn", I'd be disinclined to assume it's meant to be permanent. Turns in Chainmail of course are one minute long, so one could certainly interpret Ghoul paralysis as lasting either for a D&D round (one minute) or for a D&D Turn (ten minutes). Gary eventually did put a duration in 1979's Village of Hommelet, right? And Moldvay's 1981 Basic set made "the usual type" of paralysis (in both the Carrion Crawler and Ghoul entries) last 2-8 Turns if not cured sooner by Cure Light Wounds.

FWIW, I think this is actually very in line with most, if not all, of the stories/fantasy that OD&D was based on. From Frodo being paralyzed by Shelob to Snow White being paralyzed by an apple, people who are disabled by magic are basically are out of action until someone comes to their rescue. Sometimes, you even had to kill the caster to stop a spell.

Eh. Both of the items you've cited are examples of disabling poison which renders the victim unconscious. Indefinitely in a death-like sleep in Snow White's case, and for a few hours in Shelob's case (as Shagrat explains). These aren't wakeful paralysis.

Paralysis in fiction, especially associated with monsters, is most often (almost always?) a consequence of fear. Someone startled and frozen in terror, unable to move or get away. The Universal Monsters Mummy commonly caused this effect, for example, which allowed it to shamble up and kill the victim without said victim running away. Mummies do this in D&D, too. The sight of one in B/X causes a save vs paralysis or the victim is frozen in fear until the mummy attacks or leaves LOS. The AD&D mummy, as one would expect, has a more complex version of the same rule.

Roger E. Moore in his well-known The Elven Point of View article from Dragon #60 (and Best of Dragon #3) suggests that Ghouls paralyze by triggering fear of mortality, and speculates that Elves' resistance to Ghoul paralysis may be derived from their long life and (relative) lack of that fear.

The idea that certain conditions like this would be temporary (in terms of a single encounter) is a gamist innovation that took time to be introduced into D&D, and even longer to be fully adapted as a standard. The progression that you present here makes a lot of sense to me. At this point, we've basically done a 180 to the point where permanent conditions like this are almost unheard of; even most cursed items are gone in 5e.

The idea that durations would be specifically linked to an encounter is certainly gamist, but some conditions and magical effects being temporary has been part of the game since its inception, and derives both from reality and folklore. Real conditions such as conversion disorder ("hysterical blindness") resulting in blindness, inability to speak, frozen breath, seizures, numbness, or paralysis, or being stunned, in shock, or frozen in fear are normally temporary and wear off once the stressor goes away or the person has time to acclimate and recover.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't think it is about "losing". If you want them to "lose" you'd take all their hit points and kill the character.

As Horwath has noted, it is about whether or not the player gets to play, and how play happens within a social context in which eliminating a player is often awkward and boring.

And it isn't about wargaming roots, either - it transcends game genre. Older multiplayer games have a tendency to eliminate players as you go along. Many more modern games have structures in which all players get to continue to play until the game end condition is met, and we figure out who won afterwards.

I recall potions scrolls & so on being fairly common☆ back then. Being prepared with supplies & a crisis management plan to undo stuff like that was almost part of standard prep for the group a lot of the time. Paralysis till someone in the party pours a potion down your throat or whatever was a lot less painful than negative levels or the later less disruptive attribute damage version . My ad&d 2e book lists remove paralysis as a 3rd level spell that fixes 1d4 targets & 3.5 changes that to being a second level spell with a flat four target effect. Bob didn't spend the session sitting on his hands, he got fixed or rolled up a new PC quick.

☆ so much so that the 2e dmg literally says that a potion of healing(and many other things) should be readily available.

 

[Umbran]

I am going to push back on this for two reasons.

1. It was common back then for players to have multiple characters. So having one character killed, or otherwise removed from play for a significant period of time, did not necessarily remove the player from the game.

Yeah, I addressed this in another post. It is a fair point, but means that the design point we are talking about isn't independent - it has other supporting design points, and the thing must be evaluated as a structure.

2. Further, fun can't be measured on a single axis. To give a real life example, when I was much younger, I was spending time with my relatives. My uncle was sitting out on the porch. I asked him what he was doing, and he said, "Watching the grass grow." At that age, I didn't understand it. I couldn't imagine someone finding "fun" in just doing nothing. And yet, he found that to be the best use of his time.

I understand that there are different forms of fun. However, I think this is a bit blithe.

I like having folks over to dinner. I also sometimes actually like doing yardwork. What you're suggesting is that, when folks expect to be sitting down to dinner with friends, that It is a good plan for the dinner party to randomly shove someone out of the house with a rake to bag up leaves alone.

Your uncle chose to go sit outside. The player of Wograff the Barbarian didn't choose to get paralyzed and have to sit on his thumbs for an hour or more until the combat was over.

I would actually posit that because more people find "fun" in constant engagement, the actual play of a lot of OD&D and AD&D table was less lethal than the RAW (and grognards) would have you believe.

I got into D&D with 1e. I don't generally have to listen to grognards to tell me how lethal the game was or wasn't, 'cuz I was there at the time. The play I recall wasn't as lethal as all that. However, the play I recall did have those long, boring spans for people who suffered one of those long-lasting issues.

Back then, we were young, and didn't have the experience or game design chops to build our own solutions to the issues we had with the game. But game design itself was young, and inexperienced. I am really not surprised that design has moved on.

To go on with an analogy that I am sure will fall apart eventually but... design has moved on from Model T cars, too.

That doesn't say that there aren't folks who like maintaining and driving Model T cars. But do we really claim that the model T is what we call "good automotive design" today? Accepting that there's always a bit of fashion to be found in design, there are technical aspects to it as well that have more objective measures attached to them. Do we have to say that so long as someone likes it, it is overall a good design, technical aspects be darned?