RPG Players' Guide Supplement

One of the first posts I ever did when I moved to Blogger was on organization in role-playing. I had said I would go into more detail on it at a later time, and I actually drafted at least one post which did exactly that, but I never got back to it for all sorts of reasons.

Well today, in working on the project I told you I was getting into for the site, I came across my old AD&D Players' Supplement. I figured I'd tell you what was in there, just so you have an idea as to what I was talking about:

• House Rules: This is an entire page of all house rules in use, including allowed races and classes, how proficiencies are used, and so on. The first line reads, "Max HP at 1^st and 2^nd levels"
• Mimeograph of the New Weapons List from the FHB
• Photocopied article from Dragon #232, called "A Flurry of Swords"
• Several run-offs of a bunch of Sage Advice columns (also from Dragon, various issues), which clarify a slew of rules
• The Monster Manual entry pages for all the available races (Men, Dwarf, Elf, etc.)
• A character questionnaire (I'm working one up for the site right now, in fact): with questions like, "Where were you born? What is your favorite animal? Did you have a pet when you were younger? What was his name?" Notice the question, "What is your favorite color?" was not mentioned... fighters tend not to do so well with that one, historically.

This was all put into a regular school folder - one of those paper/cardboard ones with the braids - and was great to pass around in-game, especially for inexperienced players. It could have a been a lot thicker, with several more articles and write-ups and so on, but I intentionally kept it as generic and all-encompassing as possible. After all, there's no reason to copy a bunch of stuff from books you already have.

This just keeps a lot of generalized information basically all PCs would know as a matter of common sense in one, accessible place. I mean, there's nothing in the Elf MM entry that a human character wouldn't know - or at least have heard about - in-game, even if he has never really had much experience with them until his adventuring career begins. The same way we, in our real world, know that hot, young girlies who rarely wear panties in public are probably not that hard to bed... even if we have yet to do so (it's really just a matter of time though, really).

I'll have a whole lot more information along these lines coming on the website, but I urge all GMs and players of any game to do the same. It saves time, makes things easier to locate, and keeps you from having to lug around scores of milkcrates full of books, supplements, and magazines you may or may not need during the game!