Take a Dive (or Why Adhering to the Rules is Bad, and Arbitration is Superior)

This is supposed to be a blog about OSR, and occasionally it even resembles one. But, here we are, talking about 3rd edition again.

I'll start off by pointing out that I'm using this story to contrast and outline why a particular and integral part of OSR is both necessary and good.

To set the scene, the seven of us were downstairs, in my then-girlfriend Rachel's house (well, this was highschool, so it was her parent's house). We were playing either the second or third session of the Wheel of Time RPG game I had begun running on Tuesday afternoons. The crew was:

• Nigel, my younger brother. His character was a Whitecloak (sort of a templar type character from a nation called Amadicia. Their proper name is the Children of the Light, and they take a very liberal view of their authority and jurisdiction to punish evil-doers). His character was an Armsman, the WoTRPG equivalent of the Fighter.
• Harriet was playing a Noble, and she was in this alternate reality, the heir apparent to the Kingdom of Andor, and a titled Princess. Roughly similar to the Aristocrat, but stronger.
• Ana, who had only come to the States the previous year from New Zealand. She's a better friend than I deserve. Ana was playing a Wanderer, and in her backstory, her character was created by the Forsaken, a sort of human looking Shadowspawn (monsters created by evil wizards essentially). Pretty much the Rogue class, but not as strong.
• Dermot was playing an Aiel (red haired crazy people from a desert - yes, I realize "red hair" and "crazy people" is redundant). He was an Algai'd'siswai, an unarmored spear fighter basically. Roughly analogous to the Monk. 
• Daniel was playing a male Channeler, which is basically a Wizard that will eventually go crazy. He'd made a deal with the Dark One to avoid the Taint on the male source of power called Saidin.
• And fnally Rachel was playing a female Channeler, specifically part of the only "official" order of wizards remaining in the world, and descended from the pre-apocalyptic order, called Aes Sedai.

Events in the game had been set up so that the second apocalypse was happening early, and the party was spread out (this was a mistake in retrospect, but I had maybe been playing for three years at the longest at this time). Despite my overlong description of the players and their characters, this story really only involves two of them: Nigel and Harriet.

Nigel's character had been in Amadicia to start with, and it had turned out that he had the ability to channel (I was setting him up to either be the Dragon Reborn, or a False Dragon - a Christ/antichrist type figure in the lore). Now, he had to flee, and his fellow Children of Light now hated him. Had I the chance to do this over again, I'd have sprung this on Nigel much, much later, after giving him a chance to rise in the ranks of the Children, and to make connections with his fellow warriors. Then, it would be a test of their loyalty to his character or to their codes when this event happened.

So, his character was on the run for his life toward Andor...

And in Andor, Harriet was dealing with the fact that Andor was being invaded by evil creatures from a plane of mirrors (I was mixing D&D and the Wheel of Time like some kind of insane alchemist) in league with the Dark One, or perhaps even extensions of him, or remnants of the Age of Legends. I'm not 100% sure what it was I was doing with this. Either way, they were replacing important people in Andor with their kind, and when they chose to replace the Princess, Harriet had to find a way out of Andor, fast.

Assuming I remember this correctly (bear with me, this was thirteen years ago), Harriet was able to order some of her guards to get her out of the palace, and they successfully reached the carriage and then made their way out of the city. However, several days later on the road, they were attacked by some of the Mirrorspawn, and it just so happened that an exhausted and saddlesore Child of Light was coming down the road from the opposite direction.

Doing battle, both Nigel and Harriet gave a good accounting of themselves, and either slew or drove off the Mirrorspawn, and the two of them continued to travel together. This time picking a road that led neither to Amadicia or Andor. I'm fairly certain my grasp of WoT's geography was rather poor at the time, but if I were running it now, they've have been headed to either Lugard or Murandy. I have no idea where I sent them.

Anyway, in the session in question, they'd been traveling together for some time, and they had chosen to stop at an inn and spend the night in what they hoped was safety. During the fight with the Mirrorspawn, Nigel and Harriet had taken some of their swords (incredibly sharp things polished to a mirror shine) presumably to sell, but perhaps to use.

That night, a Myrddraal (a deadly, eyeless man thing that can only die by severing its head from its neck, and carries a sword with an infectious evil that can kill with a scratch) shadow walked into the inn searching for Nigel. Its mission was to kill Harriet's character, and leave Nigel's Child of Light cut off and alone, the better to twist him to the Dark One's purpose. It was frustrated in its mission because Nigel happened to walk out of his room at the very moment it was trying to open Harriet's door.

Caught in a lit hallway with no shadows large enough to flee, the Myrddraal did the only thing it could think of, which was to draw its sword and try to intimidate Nigel into making an alliance with it. He, being a Child of the Light, and opposed to Shadowspawn in all their forms, had none of it and charged. His intention was to slam into it, and carry it out of the window at the end of the hall.

Which would be fine if 3rd edition had proper rules for this (or so I thought, at the time). But it really doesn't, since Bull Rush attacks can only push an opponent back 5 feet, and it doesn't have any real rules for things like the likelihood of falling out of windows, or crashing through them, or any sort of sensible procedures for how characters, momentum, and fragile materials interact.

So, I made a judgement call, the primary job of GMs everywhere.

I chose to ignore the rules as written, and decided that since Nigel's character was strong enough, he could carry the Myrddraal down the remaining length of the hall and through the window if he succeeded on his Bull Rush attempt. And to succeed, the Myrddraal had to fail in its attack of opportunity against him, which it wasn't likely to do. However, it rolled low, and I judged that Nigel's rush had taken it by surprise. In the crash through the window, however, I called on both of them to make Dexterity checks to keep hold of their weapons. Nigel and the Myrddraal managed to fail this check, and so they tumbled from a second story window, and landed at the top of a steep hill leading down to a stream.

And then, in their attempts to hit one another, they managed to roll right down the hill, hitting rocks, trees, and all manner of things on their way to the bottom, where they came to a stop in the cold water of the stream, each with a sackful of subdual damage (enough to knock them unconscious). I made a roll, and decided whether that were face up or face down. The Myrddraal was face up. Nigel's character was face down. He was going to drown unless someone helped him.

Cue Harriet, who, upon hearing the crash of the window outside, went to investigate. There at the end of the hall was the shattered window and two swords. One old, battered, but functional and sharp, and another that looked like it had been forged from shadows in the pits of Hell. Not wanting to touch the black one (smart on her part) Harriet used a blanket to wrap both swords, and then she went outside. She began searching in the dark with her lantern in one hand, and the swords in the other. However, the clock was ticking for Nigel.

I probably shouldn't have, but I allowed him to make the Constitution checks to hold his breath (technically, he shouldn't be able to do that because his character was unconscious, and already had more subdual damage than his current HP). Harriet searched the hillside as quickly as she could, and the entire table collectively held their breath as Nigel kept barely managing to make his Constitution checks. But then, he failed one. And now only had two rounds left, or he would drown and die.

Everyone was on pins and needles while this whole situation hung by a thread.

Harriet came to his rescue, making a really damn good roll on her Search check, and she found both of them in the stream. She set the lantern down and turned Nigel over, and then slapped him awake (again, I had to make a call - Nigel shouldn't have been able to wake up for at least a couple of hours, but I felt it was dramatically appropriate, and really, hang the goddamn rules when they interfere with stuff like this). So, battered, half-drowned, Nigel staggered to his feet, and Harriet pushed the swords in his face.

He drew one at random, and with two strokes (coup de grace attacks) chopped through the Myrddraal's neck, and then collapsed on the bank of the stream, exhausted and unconscious once again.

Unfortunately for Nigel, the sword he'd used to hack the Myrddraal's head off was the Myrddraal's own sword, and just touching the things can infect you with their evil. So, he was unconscious, and had a death grip on a killer sword. His recovery wouldn't be easy.

But that's a tale for another time.

How OSR Relates

It is situations like this, where the rules come into conflict with the player's imaginative solutions, where the game world is defined for the worse by the rules, that GMs are necessary. Personally, I think I was too lenient in this circumstance, but back then I was under the impression that dying wasn't any fun, and that I shouldn't kill characters off for making mistakes. Nigel's Child of the Light probably should have drowned in that stream.

However, I know I didn't make a mistake when I made those judgement calls, because Bull Rush, a special attack in 3rd edition and the WoTRPG is far less effective than simply attacking the opponent. To make it worthwhile to do, and to encourage the sort of imaginative roleplaying I wanted from my players, I had to ignore the rules. If all Nigel had been able to do was push the Myrddraal five feet, it would have likely been forced to kill him in the following round. Myrddraal are far too powerful for a beginning character, but they're also one of the Dark One's most ubiquitous and intelligent servants (in many ways, D&D is not the system for settings like this).

Additionally, there were no real rules for having subdual damage be done for striking objects while under the effects of momentum. By RAW, they should have taken the damage for falling ten feet, and then come to an immediate stop no matter the angle of the slope or the fact that they were still moving, grappling, and certainly not on their feet. Proponents of RAW may be completely fine with the nonsensical reality created by the rules when interpreted this way, but I am not. And they can scream DM fiat all they want, because it's necessary for RPGs to function, because no rule set can account for every situation or corner case that may come up.

Frankly, I don't even think there should be a Bull Rush attack. A player should simply be able to declare they're going to try to do a particular action, and then leave it to DM arbitration. Some OSR games have Feat or Maneuver dice for such situations, something I'm somewhat in favor of. But having a feat like Improved Bull Rush, whose sole benefit is that Bull Rush no longer provokes an attack of opportunity (and requires Power Attack to boot!) is the sort of nasty little sectioning off of the rules with dubious benefits that drove me away from 3rd edition and into the waiting arms of the OSR.

I know in my bones that cleaving to the rules and letting things be resolved RAW in that situation would have made that particular session inferior in quality. It would have been less fun, and it would have been a boring by-the-numbers death of two PCs for no real reason. Had it been an OSR game, things would have been different. Nigel probably would have died (from drowning, likely), but he wouldn't have been hampered by the overly restrictive Bull Rush rules that I had elected to ignore.

Ultimately, 3rd edition (and games like it) are at odds with the DM, creating concrete abilities that can be number crunched and either discarded for being inferior (no one uses Bull Rush in most 3rd edition games once they realize how inferior it is to simply attacking) or it gets optimized so that it is as close to an "I win" button as melee can possibly get in such games. Frankly, I'd much rather play something that requires less prep, and something where I can reward my players for being clever, rather than just good at looking up builds online.

Plus, arbitration allows us all to be surprised by what happens. Very few games have any kind of concrete rules for what a kick does. But kicking someone off of a high ledge is an extremely satisfying way to win an encounter - just play Dark Messiah of Might & Magic if you don't believe me. By RAW in most games, kicking someone would do unarmed damage, and no more. With arbitration, it can now do whatever common sense says it should, and can be moderated by the circumstances.

Or, we can heal by drowning.