Handedness?

Sometimes it can be helpful to a dungeon master for a character to have a favored hand written on his character sheet. This can quickly solve some arguments which might pop up over throwing stuff while still armed, as well as some odds and ends.

Now, we both know that if we just let characters specify what hand they favor, then they will always claim to be ambidextrous, which we just can’t have. That and I love charts that allow us to use our poor and often neglected 12-sider.

Roll—Handedness
1-9—Right Handed
10-11—Left Handed
12—Ambidextrous


Quick and simple. This chart should be consulted at creation time, but it is also worth noting that the Ranger Class, which is hard to qualify for anyway, should not be effected by this chart, as all Rangers are ambidextrous as a class ability granted to them by their gods. If a ranger loses his abilities and becomes a fighter, then he’ll lose that skill as well.

UPDATE: Knightsky brought up an article that he read in White Dwarf Magazine that he incorporated into his own games, which I think is cool. It involves 2 dice, a d20 and a d6. If the d20 # is higher, you are right handed, if the d6 is higher then you're left handed, and if both numbers are the same, then you're ambidextrous.

5 comments:

Timeshadows said...

Nice chart, both because it uses the d12, and it fairly accurately depicts that only about 15% of the global population is Left-handed.

For Urtutsk, in the full shebang, I use a chart for each Ethnicity of Humans. Makes little differences fun. Half-bloods, too. :)

Dyson Logos said...

The only stats I can find that are backed up at all on Ambidexterity puts it at less than 2% of the population (Sports magazine, Aug 1988). Various studies place the right handed population at between 70 and 90% of the population. The most recent study I've seen has only 7-10% of the population as lefties ("Frequency-dependent maintenance of left-handedness in humans", Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B, 263, 1996)

In other words, I would switch up to a d20 or even more likely d100 for the table.

JB said...

I prefer the Top Secret method of determining handedness: roll a D10 and a D5. If the D5 is higher, you're left handed, otherwise you're right. If you roll the same number on both dice, you are ambidextrous.

Hmmm...actually, after checking my TS book, that is NOT how you determine handedness. I have no idea where I got this rule (I have often used it). Dragon Quest, maybe?

Knightsky said...

roll a D10 and a D5. If the D5 is higher, you're left handed, otherwise you're right. If you roll the same number on both dice, you are ambidextrous.

I use a similar method, that I think(?) I ripped off from White Dwarf magazine many moons ago. Roll a d20 and a d6. If the d20 is higher, you're right-handed, if the d6 is higher you're left-handed, and if they're the same, you're ambidextrous.

RipperX said...

RE: Timeshadows, Thanks, but aren't you suppose to be on vacation? Step away from the computer! The PC is my preferred form of entertainment too, but when I take off, I don't even look at one.

RE: Dyson Logos, I had no idea that somebody actually did a study on this? Who would be foolish enough to spend that kind of money on something so obvious? I honestly will never figure out rich folk.

RE: JB, dude, you were so on the right track, except that I've never even seen a d5. Of course I've never seen a d30 either, but I went with knightsky's version because the dice are more common.

RE: Knightsky, I went ahead and put your version right on the post. Folks don't always check out the comment section when they are hunting for a rule and I wanted it to be right there. Thanks for your input, it helped me out, and I bet that it will help others out as well!

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