The Dwarf Died Again: In defense of the classic D&D saving throws

In a recent reddit thread from a self-described "trolly" poster asking for people to sell them on trying old-school D&D in addition to the more "rules-light" OSR games they've recently been enjoying, I offered to explain what I saw as the design principles behind the old-school saving throws*. As I started fleshing out my thoughts, I realized they would end up far too long for a reddit comment - and figured I might as well drop 'em here!

Fair warning, I'm probably not going to be saying a whole lot that's actually new in this post; most of my explanations are going to be familiar to anyone who has read a lot of blogs or other material focused on old-school D&D. There is nothing new under the sun, etc. (read Jon Peterson's The Elusive Shift if you want to see just how true this is in the RPG space). That said, I do hope some of what comes out of me putting these concepts in my own words ends up being helpful to you the reader (whether you be /u/vmoth or someone else who stumbled across this).

The question at hand: what are the design principles behind the old-school saving throws? I'm going to take a descriptive and/or revisionist approach to answering this question, rather than a historical approach. AKA I am not going to attempt to explain what Gygax, Arneson, et al were thinking when they wrote D&D. Rather, I'm going to look at the saving throw mechanic as it exists in old-school D&D and explain what I think the old-school idiosyncrasies actually add to the experience, as well as why I (as an amateur game designer - for all GMs are) choose to keep them in my game.

Throat-clearing and introduction behind us, let's dive in.

What are the classic D&D saving throws?

Quick recap for anyone who's not familiar: a saving throw is a game mechanic whereby a character about to suffer some horrible fate has a chance to avoid said fate by rolling a die (usually a d20) and attempting to hit a specific target number. Oftentimes this target number is also itself referred to as a saving throw (or just a "save").

That's the basic idea behind saving throws. Old-school D&D saving throws then have a few defining characteristics that distinguish them from the saving throw mechanic as it appears in newer versions of D&D and in many newer OSR games and retroclones. My answer to our question of "what are the design principles behind the old-school saving throws?" then lies in a closer examination of these distinctive features that set the old-school saving throws apart from their successors.

In roughly descending order of how controversial these are to a "modern" RPG sensibility, the features that make old-school saves unique are that they:

Reference specific dangers
Are not tied to ability scores
Use static targets
Vary between the classes

Each of these characteristics is, to a greater or lesser degree, often maligned by folks like /u/vmoth as "clunky" or outmoded in favor of the (assumed better) newer/modern/simpler way of doing saving throws. I disagree. I think the old-school saves are great! And while I'm not knocking other systems, I'd like to offer an explanation as to how each of these old-school D&D-specific saving throw characteristics acts to reinforce theme and to balance the game - and why removing any of them in an attempt to "streamline" the mechanics sacrifices something distinctive about the original game.

My defense of the old-school saves doesn't mean I think they should never be tweaked, of course - but I do maintain that it's generally helpful to understand the reasoning behind a rule before dismissing it out of hand (see: my first two blog posts).

Characteristic #1: old-school saves reference specific dangers

Perhaps the least liked aspect of the old-school D&D saving throw mechanic is that each of the saving throws is named after a specific danger characters can expect to encounter in their adventures. With some minor variations between editions, the old-school saving throws generally are broken out into the broad categories of Poison/Death, Wands, Paralysis/Petrification, Dragon Breath, and Spells.

A new player will first encounter these saving throw categories while creating their initial character. Think for a moment about the psychological effect of this. Somewhere between rolling up ability scores and choosing a character name, a new player is going to find out how likely their erstwhile hero or heroine is to survive encounters with 5 specific dangers, writing down those target numbers on their character sheet right alongside starting equipment and hit points. This is a fantastic way to set the scene for the type of game you're playing. Before even setting foot in a dungeon, we've established that old-school D&D takes place in a world in which one wrong turn might lead you to be dodging fiery dragon breath, avoiding dastardly rays from magic wands, or trying to survive the venomous fangs of a giant spider (crab spiders being a particular "favorite" of my group).

"Crab Spider Attack" by Jacob Fleming (courtesy Gelatinous Cubism Press)

This scene-setting aspect of the old-school saves can also come in handy when running games not set in the proverbial "fantasy dungeon" setting. If I tell you to create a character for a one-shot and you're writing down targets for saving throws against Toxic Waste, Lasers, Panic, Grenades, and Gamma Rays, you already have a pretty good idea of what kind of world this is just from the dangers you have to save against.

One thing I'll note - just because the saving throws reference specific dangers does not mean those are the only dangers the saves can handle. One erroneous charge often leveled at old-school saves is that they are inflexible due to their specificity. Not so! There is ample precedent for using the classic saving throws for dangers not specifically falling into their nominal categories - including in the text of the Moldvay Basic D&D set itself, which references a falling ceiling block trap that requires a save vs petrify to avoid (B52). This seems very odd at first glance; dodging a falling ceiling block is not the same thing as a medusa's petrifying gaze. There is a logic to this, though...

The save vs petrify/paralysis, far from being only used for resisting petrification and paralysis, is generally used for any effect which requires a character to move quickly to avoid danger or which might restrict a character's free movement. This is not limited to Moldvay; AD&D 2e provides another example of this more liberal application of the petrify/paralysis saving throw by using it for resisting disarm attempts.

These (admittedly mostly unwritten/implied) rules for applying old-school saves to "off-label" uses exist for the other saving throw categories as well. If you wanted to rename the old-school save categories in a less evocative (but perhaps more descriptive) way that incorporates these implied uses a bit more explicitly, you might rewrite them as saves vs Instant Death/Poison/Generic Danger, Aimed Devices, Inhibition of Bodily Autonomy, Area of Effect, and Spells/Generic Magic.

Rather than elaborate further here, I'll direct the interested reader to the best reference I'm aware of for this: LLBlumire's Which Saving Throw Should I Use?. I cannot recommend that post enough to anyone interested in learning more about how to apply the old-school saves. It's concise, too (unlike me)!

Characteristic #2: old-school saves are not tied to ability scores

The second idiosyncratic characteristic of old-school saves when compared to saving throw mechanics in similar and/or successor games is that they aren't primarily tied to a character's ability scores**. For players coming from newer editions of D&D (or rules-light OSR games like Into the Odd where saving against ability scores is one of the core mechanics), this seems quite odd. Why wouldn't you just use the modern convention of tying the saving throws directly to ability scores? Or perhaps the slightly older practice of splitting the saves into three general categories (e.g. Fortitude, Reflex, and Will) that are then each influenced by specific ability scores? Aren't both of those cleaner and more elegant than the clunky old-school saves that are disassociated from ability scores for no good reason?

Well, no. There are actually a few really good reasons to divorce saving throws from ability scores: namely, limiting the importance of ability scores and allowing flexibility for the in-fiction explanations of successful saving throws.

First, limiting ability score importance. Old-school games often feature character generation methods that generate ability scores with a significant element of randomness. There are many advantages to this approach (faster character creation, more varied characters, challenge of making the most of non-ideal characters, increased rarity of "optimized" characters making them more special, verisimilitude, etc.), but it also comes with downsides - namely, that some characters will have higher ability scores than others, which is unfair.

The degree to which this unfairness will be tolerated by players depends mainly on how invested they are expected to get in their characters (often correlated to campaign length) and on how important the ability scores are to the game mechanics. In a one-shot or very short campaign, players are a lot less concerned about having to play a character who's objectively worse at everything than the other characters... but if you're talking about a 20+ session campaign, people will start to get annoyed. Limiting the use of ability scores to providing a specific enumerated set of bonuses, but not having them define absolutely everything about a character's capabilities, is one of the core reasons why old-school D&D can get away with using highly random ability score generation methods.

This is also why 5e (a game where the core mechanic used for literally everything is the ability check) has point-buy or standard array as the default methods for generating ability scores, and it's one reason why some people describe Into the Odd (a game where ability scores are highly random but also have a huge amount of influence on almost every roll the players make) as great for one-shots or short campaigns, but not well-suited for long campaigns. But I digress...

Second, flexibility for in-fiction description. The other reason not to base saving throws on ability scores is that tying them to ability scores causes the saves to specify, in-fiction, how the character is avoiding the danger in question. Reflex saves are for dodging out of the way of things or diving for cover. Constitution saves are for "toughing it out". There's nothing inherently wrong with this of course - but consider the alternative. When a character passes a save vs poison, all I know is that the poison did not kill them. This could be because of his natural dwarven resistance to poison - it could be because the cleric's deity protected her - or it could be because the thief was just quick enough to suck the poison out of the wound before it entered the bloodstream.

There's a significant amount of GM freedom that comes with this more "hands-off" approach to saving throws. For example, it is possible to have a villain wielding a spell that in-fiction always kills its target on a successful spell cast, but still allow the PCs to go up against a foe wielding such magic without it being a guaranteed instant-kill by allowing a saving throw (perhaps at a penalty). Any avoidance of the spell by PCs can be described as truly superhuman/heroic exploits or dazzling amounts of luck, without enforcing that the spell is resisted with a Will save and thus anyone who is strong-willed enough can just survive.

Characteristic #3: old-school saves use static targets

The next characteristic of old-school saves I'll discuss is that they use (nominally) static target numbers, rather than variable targets based on (e.g.) spellcaster level***, which is to say, a character's chance to save vs any particular danger does not change with the severity of said danger. This isn't quite as controversial, I don't think, so I won't spend as much time here.

The main advantage of this approach is simplicity - fixed save targets are easier and quicker to use at the table than variable targets. You don't have to factor in a bunch of info as the GM when a character makes a saving throw - just decide which save to apply and go for it. There's no need to stat out every enemy spellcaster to determine their save DC. It's one less thing for players to deal with when rolling them. One could certainly protest that this it would be more realistic for various dangers to have variable ease in evading them - and this isn't wrong... but when adding any bit of additional complexity to any system, it's always worth asking if the benefit is worth the cost.

Characteristic #4: old-school saves vary between the classes

Lastly - while the old-school saving throw targets are usually static with respect to the specific danger faced, they do vary between the classes. The main advantage of this approach is that it reinforces one of the central pillars of D&D, which is class-based play. In addition to varying abilities, hit points, and equipment training, different classes are just better at avoiding certain kinds of dangers. In a system that relies on differentiation between classes for a good deal of the implicit worldbuilding and archetype reinforcement, having one more knob to turn to add class differentiation is helpful.

While this does add complexity, it's a front-loaded complexity. You write your saving throw targets down when you create a character or level up - they aren't going to change in the middle of an adventure, so it won't slow you down at the table.

Wrapping up..

That's probably the longest reply to a reddit comment I've ever written. Thanks, /u/vmoth, for the inspiration for my first blog post in a long while! I hope this was helpful.

I'll leave you all with this: I'm not knocking the saving throw systems in 5e, or WWN, or Into the Odd, or Swords and Wizardry, or any other RPG that does things differently than old-school D&D. All I'm saying is that the old-school saving throws should be viewed not as a primitive version of a mechanic that later evolved into a more fully realized, more streamlined descendant... but as a game mechanic designed with specific features to achieve specific goals.

May your saves vs death always succeed.

Midjourney AI's interpretation of "old-school D&D saving throw". I find this image oddly evocative, baffling though it is.

Monday, November 28, 2022

In defense of the classic D&D saving throws