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Page 35
The
first edition Dungeon
Master's Guide
contained an extensive section on insanity, which could be used when a
character suffered a curse or some manner of mental trauma or attack.
Each type featured a short desciption of the kind of
behavior that a character would exhibit. So a character with
Dipsomania, for example, would overindulge in alcohol whenever the
opportunity presented itself. These were not actions for the player
to take, of course - but they could make for interesting story
elements, such as a kleptomaniac character uncontrollably taking small
items from a nobleman's home and getting into big, big trouble for it.
They
are listed here to add color to characters and stories - not to
glorify, or even belittle real world mental disabilities. This same
information appears, in much more accurate detail, in psychology
textbooks everywhere.(Unfortunately, the DMG
makes the same mistake that many others do about the nature of
shizophrenia, which is not the same thing as split personality
syndrome.)
Page 36
DMG
- Page 84-85 (EXPERIENCE) - The words slain, slaying
or killed
are used 15 times in 11 sentences - but what isn't mentioned here is
that those
sentences aren't consecutive. This
section of the book deals with experience points, which are given as a
reward to characters for slaying monsters, collecting treasure, and
achieving adventure goals. So those three words are more common on page
84 than the rest of the book. It's interesting to note that
the
word "killed" is the third word on page 85, which is included here just
to bump the count up by one (and those three words do not appear
anywhere else on that page).
DMG
- Page 87 (ECOLOGY) - The concept of dragons, ogres, and giants having
humans as a primary component of their diet comes to us from fairy
tales. Dungeons
& Dragons didn't invent it. I wonder how B.A.D.D.
felt about Hansel
& Gretel and Jack and the Beanstalk, or
most of the Brothers Grimm.
DMG
- Page 110 (HANDLING TROUBLESOME PLAYERS) - This is a tip to keep some
players from ruining the game for everyone. It's a tip that works with
any group of people who are enjoyng a pastime - get the members of the
group to help the offending player understand that he or she is ruining
their fun. Sometimes, you'd rather keep a player in your game rather
than turn them away. That's what the "saved" comment is referring to.
(At page 120, the Dungeon Master's Guide
begins to list various types of magic items.)
DMG
- Page 151 (NECKLACE OF STRANGULATION) - This was a cursed magic item.
No real, living person was ever harmed by these words written on a page
- but many a character was done in by putting one of these on after
finding it in a treasure horde. (And when that happened, they rolled up
a new character and kept playing, rather than pull a Black Leaf.)
DMG
- Page 151 (PERIDAPT OF FOUL ROTTING) - Again, a description of a
cursed magic item,
using words that have harmed no one. In this case, a character who has
been affected by this item could find themselves on a quest to identify
the source of their problem, and then seek a cure for it.
DMG
- Page 162 (MINOR MALEVOLENT EFFECTS) - "User's sex changes" is the
actual text here. This was taken from a list of effects that a
Dungeon Master could apply to an artifact - a super-powerful
magic item (think of the One Ring from The Lord of the Rings).
This
effect changed the
character's sex, nothing more and nothing less. In some games it
presented a roleplaying challenge to play a character that was now of
the opposite sex as before - in others it was a source of comedy.
