Session Zero Lecture

 

Welcome to Dungeons & Dragons. I’m so happy we can all be here together today. 

Some of you are new to D&D, which is AWESOME, and some of you have played the contemporary version of the Great Game. Also awesome. To start out, let’s talk a little bit about what it means to play old school D&D. 

The contemporary game is based on the premise that the player’s characters are heroes and they play through an adventure that is produced by a dungeon master, in which these characters will be heroes and will triumph. 

In the beginning, however, D&D was player-driven. The referee (not dungeon master) would provide a premise, a location, and several people, places and things with which to interact. Then the players would set their own goals and agendas and set off for whatever adventures they wanted. 

There has been a continuity of the old way. Guys have published their own rule books that capture the essence of that play style and use a lot of the rules from the first decade of our hobby. These rule sets are recognizable and intelligible to other folks who play the same way, and soon you recognize them too. 

This is my rule set. It’s called Crown & Valor. The emphasis of this rule set is simplicity and clarity. It is based on rules drawn from original d&d and the first three  editions of basic d&d with just a splash from the contemporary game.

A good example of Crown & Valor’s simplicity is in its character class offerings. There are six of them; just six. You will see that six is plenty for a full robust D&D play experience. 

In chess, there are six different kinds of pieces: king, queen, bishop, knight, rook and pawn. Each has its own rules for movement and some have special abilities and/or limitations that make for interesting choices in the game. If every piece could move just like the queen, that would not be as interesting as real chess.

Coincidentally, there are also six different kinds of pieces in Crown & Valor. These pieces are the Cleric, Fighting-Man, Magic-User, Dwarf, Elf and Hobbit. We call these the standard character classes. Admittedly, these are more complicated than chess men, but this is a useful analogy because the six Crown & Valor  classes are somewhat uniform. That is, two Fighting-Men are more alike than they are different. Just as one chess pawn follows the same rules of behavior as the others, each kind o character has rules about what he is good at and not good at. 

In 1968, an English wargames enthusiast named Tony Bath invented the hit point. 

Who here can explain what a hit point is? 

(Something about a measurement of health, life and death etc.)

In the game of chess, how many hit points does the king have? How many hit points does the rook have? 

They all have one hit point. That means  they’re alive or dead. One is alive, zero is dead. 

Our figures in Crown & Valor, like in all forms of d&d, have varied numbers of hit points. That means that sometimes they will be able to take one or more assaults that would kill a chess man. You can add equipment to him to make him harder to hit. As you play him, he will get more hit points. When they take damage but do not die, they will slowly mend up just like real people do. 

The pieces we use in chess play on a game board. It is a very abstract representation of a battlefield. Their actions are restricted to fighting each other. 

Our figures in Crown & Valor also play on a kind of game board. It’s less limited than a chess board. This game board is mostly in our imagination and it represents a whole world. Our figures can do anything a real person could do, and in some cases, their abilities let them do more. They can explore the wilderlands, delve into the mythic underworld, conduct war campaigns, quest for magic artifacts, start a religion, rule a country, or whatever else you want him to try. 

This freedom of action is what differentiates this kind of game from all others. 

You may notice that I often use the word “figure” to refer to your character. I do this because d&d has its roots in the wargaming hobby. A miniature figure placed on a tabletop battlefield would represent one hero or a unit of many soldiers working together. You can find such figures online. Some hobbyists will collect and paint them. I keep a figure of the last character I played, back in 2019. His name is Robert Bluetooth. He is a cleric to Freya. 

In addition to recalling the hobby’s roots in wargaming, I choose to say figure because you do not have to actually role-play your guy to get the whole experience. But you can. Some people like to use distinctive voices and even wear costumes. Some people will speak in the first person and say “I crush that goblin with my mace.” Some people will refer to the character in third person: “Bluetooth attacks the goblin with his mace.” And some people will just refer to the game mechanics. “I’ll move my figure to this goblin figure and roll to hit.” All of these approaches are equally valid. 

You have heard the term Dungeon Master. What are some other names for this job?

(Solicit names)

I am not a Dungeon Master; I am the Referee. A referee’s job is to keep things moving and make impartial rulings. We have numerous rules to adjudicate many situations. But when we come to a corner case, it will be my job to decide what to do. 

I will also present the world and the various people to you. I’m not master of anything. It’s up to you to choose your figure’s destiny. 

For those of you who have played first-person video games or have played contemporary rile-playing games, our point of view will be quite unusual. Rather than a tone of heroic fantasy, it will feel more like a war story. Your characters are quite ordinary to start - very much like you and me - and will gain in skill and power by collecting treasure. They will be the focus of our story, but not the focus of the world. There is no set outcome and you’re not guaranteed to win.

Treasure is the measure of power in this kind of d&d. One gold piece equals one xp. (Repeat.) This is a departure from contemporary games which use various ways to hand out XP. We earn XP from killing or otherwise defeating enemies and monsters, but it’s a small amount compared to the treasure XP.

You will find that this game is much more deadly than what you’re used to. I’m not responsible for keeping your characters alive. I’m responsible for presenting the world for you. It’s up to you to be as careful or as aggressive as you like, and find out what happens. 

For this reason, think carefully about what gear your man will bring and how to proceed in the face of the unknown.

It will help to hire people to carry torches, haul gear, and even to help fight on your behalf. In fact, the Fighting-Man class has a great class feature where he can lead units of men effectively at low levels and eventually lead armies. We call these kinds of people henchmen or hirelings.  They are a central part of this kind of game. 

The lethality of this version of the game will probably be a surprise. At zero hit points, you’re dead. Magical healing is scarce or expensive, and natural healing is slow. But the death of one figure is not the end of the game for you. 

You know when you play Mario Brothers, Mario dies. A lot. Sometimes it’s your fault and sometimes it’s just bad luck. But when he does die, he comes right back so you can keep trying. 

In a similar way, when you lose one figure, you can grab another and keep going. To that end, we will roll up several characters to begin. That way, when one dies or needs to do something else such as heal up or research a new magic spell, we can bring in the next guy. Or maybe you just get bored with your first one and want to try a different character class for a time. 

So the first thing we do to make up a character is determine his basic physical and mental abilities; three physical and three mental. In d&d, there are six ability scores, sometimes called stats. Why? It’s arbitrary. Some games have three and other games have nine or more. In 1971 or 1972, Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax decided there should be six, so it’s six. They are: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution and Charisma. 

Each of these has two numbers attached to it. The first is the base score and the second is the modifier associated with that first number. Don’t worry about this yet. The math will make sense later. 

Ability scores range from 3 to 18, and cluster around 10-11. Why 3 to 18? Because those are the numbers generated when we throw three six-sided dice. When Dave and Gary started, all they had was six-sided dice, so that’s what they used for just about everything. 

So we throw three six-siders, total them up, and write the total next to Strength. Then do it again for Intelligence, and Wisdom, and so on down the line. 

Now peek at the character sheet. Look at how little space is devoted to those numbers. They’re not a huge factor in determining a figures success or failure. 

For those of you who have played any version of the game before, you’re going to look at these numbers and be kind of bummed. They seem very pedestrian or boring or LOW. In Crown & Valor, low stats are not a death sentence. Three means you have the minimum ability necessary to be an adventurous man, and 18 means the best in the realm at that thing. But even a 3 is not weak - it’s just the bare minimum one would need for the sort of life these figures lead. 

In this rule set, scores of 14 or above are exceptional. That means you write a +1 next to them. This is a modifier to any die roll your man will make on a d6. It represents about a 17% bonus to those rolls. Stats which are 6 or below get a -1. 

There are a couple of reasons we do it like this. One is, people like to roll dice. Another is, as we throw the dice and see the numbers, our figures reveal themselves to us. This one is clever; this one is strong; and so forth. 

Now let’s assign a character class to each of your four sets of ability scores. However, only one of these four can be a demi-man. The rest have to be a member of a human class. They can all be the same or all different; but at least three must be humans. This is a rule I use when I referee any rule set; it does not appear in the Crown & Valor book. The reason why I made this rule is to keep the adventuring party majority-human. 

Let’s go ahead and read about the seizure classes available to you. 

Now assign classes to each set of ability scores. 

Now that we know their classes, we can determine their hit points on 1d6. Note that a character adds his Constitution modifier to the total. This suggests that a character of most classes with a CON score of 6 or lower who rolls 1 for his hit points will begin the game with zero hit points. He will start out dead! 

So be it! Not to worry. When your bullpen is empty, you can make a whole new list of backup characters. 

Now choose one of those characters to be your starting character. We will assign his former job, his age, his birth date, and his alignment. We can mark down his class-based special abilities. We can hand out his starting equipment. Once we know what he is carrying, we can tell how many squares he can move in a Turn. 

There are a few other details to fill in, but the character is basically ready for play. You might give him a name, or you might wait to see if he lives to second level before naming him! In the mean time, you can always refer to him by his character class or his former job. 

Next we will talk a little about the world in which these characters live and the town in which they begin play.