TTRPGs

Waggamaeph

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© Daniel S. Wall, April 6, 2026.

Waggamaeph Dinner Party (Sculpted by Cindy Dukino, painted by Noel Meyer)

“The gods have yet to properly apologize for the creation of this troublesome creature.”

– Magut, the Cynic.

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Waggamaephs are small furry humanoids with tremendous agility and speed. Their height and weight are comparable to those of a Halfling, but these critters are covered with long thick hair which tends to obscure their features. Waggamaeph fingers and toenails are slightly harder and sharper than usual for humanoids, just sufficient to give them effective claw attacks. They are further blessed with very sharp teeth and an effective bite attack. The speed with which a Waggamaeph delivers all of their attacks can be genuinely disconcerting. Survivors of a random Maephing will often find a variety of different injuries all over their body, often leaving them confused as to how a single opponent could have done so much harm in so little time.

Hill Maeph Warrior (painted by Andy Sneed)

Waggamaephs typically spend the bulk of their lives wandering about the wilderness with no apparent purpose or direction. They are particularly fond of meadows, most of which are a little worse for the wear after a day or two of frolicsome Maeph antics. Waggamaephs have also been known to join small parties of other humanoids. This choice too seems to occur for no clear reason other than a whim. The decision to leave is likely to be just as random. Indeed, if there are reasons for any aspects of Waggamaeph behavior, those reasons are most likely as mysterious to them as they are to anyone else.

The personality of a Waggamaeph is usually a source of both amusement and frustration to those unfortunate enough to travel with them. Relentlessly playful, Waggamaephs can be quite clever when engaged in pointless gags and reckless hijinks. In most other respects, they are rather dense, lacking the attention span necessary to grasp anything of great significance.

Hill Maeph Scholar (painted by Andy Sneed)

Few would be foolish enough to rely on a Waggamaeph to do anything important. When treated well, however, these creatures can be loyal and entertaining companions. They can be quite good in a fight, moving freely about a crowded battlefield as if free attacks weren’t even a thing and unleashing considerable wrath on any enemy unfortunate enough to gain there attention. While it is useless to tell a Waggamaeph to do anything which requires planning, concentration, or a dependable memory, the shear unpredictability of these little fur-balls has been known to foil the plans of many an enemy. One simply never knows where they will turn up. At their best Waggamaephs are kind of cute; at their worst these critters are a source of lost sleep and frustration to both friend and foe alike.

There are actually 2 different types of Waggamaephs, “Hill Maephs” and “Valley Maephs,” each favoring the environmental features from which they get their respective names. Hill Maephs are significantly stronger and tougher than their valley kindred, though they are not quite as fast and nowhere near as cute. Valley Maephs are significantly more attractive than their upland cousins, but they are unfortunately more fragile as well. It would take some familiarity with Maeph-kind to notice the difference.

There is a playful rivalry between the different types of Maephs, but it seldom leads to more than a prank or a small tussle. They have been known to socialize with one another and even to reside together for small periods of time. A gathering of both Hill and Valley Maephs can be something of a travesty, however, as a large number of Maephs in one location is always a bad idea. Such gatherings are generally hard on the local environment, the neighbors, and even the Maephs themselves. For this reason such events are rarely prolonged for more than a day or two.

Game-Specific Rules for running Waggamaephs in Tunnels and Trolls (the Delux Edition) can be found here.

Called Shots for First Edition D&D

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Introduction: I have fond memories of first edition D&D, but those memories do include a host of house rules. One aspect of the game that generated a lot of interest in house rules was the pace of combat. Without feats and other such innovations common to later editions of D&D, physical combat in first edition could be particularly stale as there just weren’t many ways to generate extra damage, even at high levels. Spell casters had options, of course, and specialty classes such as Thief or Ranger could generate extra physical damage under the right circumstances, but for basic fighter types, a fight with a big monster meant whittling them down slowly.

This is what had a lot of us experimenting with called shots. My own friends and I tried a lot of things, mostly variations on a penalty to hit roll in exchange for the possibility of a one-shot kill (or some comparable effect likely to take the intended victim out of the fight). Balancing the cost of the penalty against the benefit of a successful called shot was of course difficult. If the options for a called shot were too generous, even the biggest enemies went down with ease, and if the GM decided to turn that possibility on the players, then a TPK was just a few die rolls away. If the called shot option was too stingy, then you had to slog your way through even mediocre opponents, the game slowed down, and everything got tedious.

Really tedious!

In any event, what follows is the system I ended up with after a couple decades running first edition D&D. I really think this hit the sweet spot for my gaming group, but a lot depends on other factors in the game. We had a system for extra proficiencies, and we used special abilities and problems, both of which also contributed to slightly more dangerous player characters. In combination with those systems, our rules for called shots helped us to speed up the game and boost the power of physical attacks without completely obliterating the core system.

***

Called Shots and the To-Hit Roll: At its core, the system calls for a simple penalty of -4 on the attack roll for any called shot. (If the call was hyper-specific, then GM could boost the penalty to -6 or even -8, but that was her call.) Along with that, a natural 2 becomes an automatic miss, although it does not become a critical fumble. If a called shot is successful in striking the target, the damage is treated as applying directly to a focused body-part. This can be called out (E.g. a head, a leg, a tail, or a player can just declare that they are taking a “Kill shot”). Either way the damage is now measured against 20% of the target’s total hit points (rounded high). If the damage equals that percentage or exceeds it, there is a chance, the called shot succeeds in destroying the body-part in question.

Chance of Success: The chance for success at this point is equal to twice the damage done on the attack or 5% per stage on the to-hit charts from the DM’s Guide, whichever gave the attacker a better chance of success. (Note that the highest stage of the to-hit chart for fighters would be 55%, and at least in our old games, the best fighters could generate damage in about the 20-30 point range on a single attack, thus making it a toss-up as to which chance worked best for a given attack.)

It is best for players using the option to write the percent chance of success based on the to-hit chart on the character sheet. This should enable a player to compare the chance using double damage versus the chance based on the to-hit chart quickly.

Successful Called Shots: Success generally meant death in the event of a “kill shot” or in the event of a specific called shot with lethal implications (e.g. a head, in most cases). Results such as decapitation which might be necessary to kill certain monsters could also be achieved in this manner (assuming the appropriate weapons). If a leg, an arm, a tail, or a wing had been the focus, it was generally considered severed or otherwise destroyed and the GM would apply whatever penalties seemed best to the maimed character as a result of the injury.

Failure: In the event that a called shot was not successful, the damage was scored normally against the target’s hit points.

Target-Based Limitations: Called shots were useless against any target that lacked meaningful anatomical vulnerabilities (e.g. an ooze, a zombie, or a ghost). Such creatures were simply not venerable to called shots.

Tactics-Based Limitations: Certain damage effects were not applied to called shots, or they were applied in unusual ways. Thieves and Assassins could either add their backstab multiplier to the damage of a called shot or apply it as a multiplier for a normal shot under the normal rules, but the player had to choose. (Most chose the latter.) Rangers add their giant-classed bonus to the damage, but leave it out for purposes of calculating the odds of success on the percentage die roll.