Judges Guild take on social mechanics

I wrote about social mechanics a while back, and the notion of influencing the player characters wasn't all that popular among some of my readers. I still think the same rules should apply to all characters in the game, in some fashion, but I can see the logic of the detractors.

Going back in the history of the hobby, I found some "social combat" rules from Judges Guild. These rules are called "Offensive Locution (Attacking with words)" and they include repartees and witticisms. The former will basically interrupt combat and stun the opponent with your verbal skill. The latter is a way to make people laugh and make the destabilized. Naturally, this being old JG rules, it involves oddball mechanics and dice Gygax style.

As if that wasn't enough, there's even a "prestige class" for fighters called Buffoon. Funnily enough, the stat requirements demand a high CHR and low STR and WIS! He always succeeds at repartees, and is described as a face man for scams and theft. Kind of neat.

I find it interesting that way back in 1978 in the Ready Ref Sheets, someone thought of the idea of rules for influencing people. While it's not a general Social Interaction mechanic by any means, it is an intriguing addition to a game.

For the T&T minded in the audience, I suggest the following rules to use something similar in T&T.

Buffoon - a talent always tied to CHR. Whenever you want, you may taunt and jeer and by wit and by the sharpness of your tongue incite rage or cause debilitating laughter. Roll a opposed Saving Roll on CHR, adding your Talent rating. The difference is the amount of turns the opponent is effectively useless for offensive actions.

New Loot - pictorial evidence!

Here it is! My holy grail for a time have been to get hold of a copy of the 1974 edition of D&D for a decent price. In addition to that, a 1st or 2nd ed. of T&T and The First Fantasy Campaign have been at the top of the list.

You see that stuff up there? Not only is that a copy of FFC, in pristine condition, from the personal collection of Ken St. Andre. Ken even had a few extra maps, from a few other Judges Guild products it seems like.

But wait, there's more!

You see that little black book? It's the British 1st edition of Tunnels & Troll, which looks identical to the 2nd American edition I have browsed. That means puny damage from most weapons, ablative armour and some other goodies from the earlier editions. You get Adventure Points for gold! The cover looks very funky, but the innards is pure gold. Eh... adventure, I mean.

This was all from an auction Ken ran, with a percentage of the proceeds going to a fund to help artist Jeff Freels with some quite serious medical expenses. Take a look at the stuff Jeff is selling. He's an amazing artist.

I'm dancing the happy dance today, both for me and for Jeff.

Playing Trail of Cthulhu

So, after a bit of a hiatus, I have again played a rpg session. A friend had a vacancy in his ToC group and I jumped at the opportunity.

It's always interesting to play with pre-gens. You never know what you're getting, and you'll have to make the best of it. This time I got to be a journalist who wanted adventure. I must confess I don't understand why he went to a god forsaken piece of Scotland to find it! Anyhow, it was fun and interesting to try to fit into the strongly class based society, where how you're approached has everything to do with name and who you know. Damn is it annoying to be treated like dirt just because you're not an upper class snob! Historical role playing can be an eye opener sometimes.

I wonder if most of us don't let our players off the hook to easy in our fantasy games. In Judges Guild's Wilderlands, you had a value for social class. Maybe it could be used to good effect in more settings?