Day one is Tunnels & Trolls, in honor of my very first RPG. I’m using the Deluxe rules, no complications. Stats are 3d6 in order and all that jazz. So what do we get?
Strength 12
Constitution 5
Dexterity 8
Speed 11
Luck 11
Intelligence 9
Wizardry 8
Charisma 18+10 = 28
Phew, that’s poor. Except Charisma, which is ridiculous. This particular version of the rules allows you to roll and add when you get triples, so when I rolled an 18 on Charisma, I rolled again and added. If I’d gotten triples on the second roll I would have kept on rolling and adding. It’s ludicrous and it means my yet unnamed character starts at level 2, since level is determined by the highest first digit of any stat.
Charisma, alas, is strictly a social interaction stat so Kevin here is going to be one of those people who gets by on charm. I don’t think he really realizes it, though. He thinks he’s a bold warrior type. Quirkily enough, warriors get +1d6 per level on any melee weapon damage so Kevin will be a bit less hopeless than he would be without his spectacular Charisma.
I am briefly tempted to make him an elf to multiply his Charisma by 1.5. That’d actually also boost his magical stats to something plausible for a wizard… but nah, let’s lean into the flaws, it’s more interesting.
What are his personal adds (which are effectively a combat bonus)? One point for each of Strength, Luck, Speed, and Dexterity that are above average… so no adds at all.
Back to dice. Randomly generating his height and weight, I discover that Kevin is 5’7″ and a skinny 150 pounds. He starts with 110 gold, which should be easy to spend. The weapons lists are not the weird joy they were in Fifth Edition, but they’re still pretty cool. Kevin’s limitation is his Dexterity, which will vastly limit the weapons he can use. For example, he’s too clumsy to handle a medium sword: if he wants a blade, it’s a short sword or nothing.
The mini-max choice would be a medium pick of some kind, which does 5d6 and requires a mere 12 Strength and 8 Dexterity. It just doesn’t seem flashy enough. An axe could be cool but he’s under by 1 point on both Str and Dex. It’s fine: 55 gold goes to a small sabre, which is flashy and does 3d6 of damage (plus 2d6 for his level). Another 50 gold gets him a full suit of light leather armor, which will take 3 hits for him. Puny but that’s life as a new T&T character. His last five gold is exactly the cost of the “basic delver’s package,” which is a cheap backpack, a waterskin, some chalk, and so on.
Since Tunnels & Trolls experience points are spent on improving stats, there’s hope of a substantial improvement in combat damage someday. And the one advantage to low stats is that they’re cheap to improve.
Finally, a bit more choice: I get to pick a talent! Cool. Actually two talents because he’s level 2. These are sort of like skills or areas of knowledge. Kevin’s first talent is Culture Knowledge: bars. He’s good at those; he understands the typical patrons, he knows a lot of bartenders, that kind of thing. His second talent is, let’s see, Outdoorsmanship — it’ll come in handy now and again and reminds me that Kevin isn’t useless. Just… oddly shaped. I suspect he learned it camping with his father before he grew up and glowed up.
I’m not sure who told Kevin he had a future as an adventurer. Maybe people just hate to disappoint him and tell him it’s a bad idea. Regardless, there he is: bold, stupid, and absolutely the life of any party. He’s going to wind up as one of those characters whose success depends on how well I can sweet talk the GM.
