Where do crits come from?

[RFisher]

Along a similar note, I'm curious how many older RPGs used crits, and if they were "borrowed" from D&D or evolved in parallel.

It seems to me they were a common house rule in D&D games. A few of those house-ruled D&D games evolved in Runequest, Rolemaster, &c...

Personally, I always thought criticals were a fairly natural expansion of the nat-20-always-hits/nat-1-always-misses thing.

So, kind of a bit of both I think.

 

[tzor]

P.S. Don't know how many of you already know this, but there's actually an essay/rant by Gary Gygax in the 1E DMG about how critical hits are a bad addition, antithetical to the spirit of the AD&D game, and that people who include them in their games (and pressure him to include them in the official rules) are all poopy-heads (or words to that effect ).

I have to look that up in my copy. (You wouldn't happen to know the page number by any chance?) Bear in mind that the DMG also mentioned using only TSR minis so that you can be assured they were all the proper scale. The early years of AD&D had a lot of competition and there was a tendency by players and DM's to include non AD&D rules into their general games. Merging Adruim Grimore rules was quite popular. Given that there might have been IP pressures real or imagined to keep DMs from going fully hybrid on the rules.

Bear in mind that 1E AD&D had an odd feature on the combat tables. A natural 20 tended to cover a larger number of AC values than the other values on the table. It wasn't quite a natural 20 hits everything but it was definitely better than a being one greater than a 19.

 

[pawsplay]

However, when you think about it critical hits aren't really an "obvious" thing; that is, I don't think that crits are something that have spontaneously come up time and time again so much as people borrow the idea from some other game.

As a young gamer, I remember the omnipresence of special rules for natural 20s (which we called "natural 20s").

Many early games, Palladium, Rolemaster, even GURPS, had critical hits.

 

[Glyfair]

As a young gamer, I remember the omnipresence of special rules for natural 20s (which we called "natural 20s").

Many early games, Palladium, Rolemaster, even GURPS, had critical hits.

Even before I started delving into other sources we always considered a natural 20 to be something special. A natural 1 as well. At times they would be "handwaved" criticals and fumbles (minor ones such as dropping the weapon, or making a visually impressive hit to impress the onlookers).

 

[Contrarian]

Everybody can stop staying "RuneQuest" now. Empire of the Petal Throne had a critical hit rule in 1975. Here's a review that mentions the crticial hit rules.) That's three years before RuneQuest.

 

[Doug McCrae]

You wouldn't happen to know the page number by any chance?

See page 61 of the 1e DMG for Gary's crit-hatin' frenzy.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Everybody can stop staying "RuneQuest" now. Empire of the Petal Throne had a critical hit rule in 1975.

Thanks for that. I agree, too many people were saying RuneQuest.

 

[sniffles]

Thanks for that. I agree, too many people were saying RuneQuest.

I don't think anyone claimed RQ was the first to include critical hits - just that it had a mechanic for such and it worked well.

 

[Fifth Element]

I think the 1E DMG was out before either quotes. Maybe he had a change of heart.

Either way, ironic

I think he meant that as long as D&D was played *his* way, it was a fun game. If you change any of his rules, it's no longer D&D and therefore no longer fun.

 

[Glyfair]

I don't think anyone claimed RQ was the first to include critical hits - just that it had a mechanic for such and it worked well.

And it was an early entry with the mechanic as well.

I think he meant that as long as D&D was played *his* way, it was a fun game. If you change any of his rules, it's no longer D&D and therefore no longer fun.

Actually, if you read his early "rants" in The Dragon, you'll see that AD&D was intended to be a system that was consistent from table to table. That way a player clould move about the country, play in different games, play in convention games, and not have to worry about rule variations.

OD&D was about riffing on the basic game system. AD&D was supposed to be about having a consistent set of rules.