AD&D 1st ed: Why on earth did anyone play an illusionist? [Archive]

SimperingToad

2011-11-27, 11:05 AM

First off, thanks for the indirect insult. I actually playing a gnome illusionist/thief despite my group members telling me a elf thief/magic-user would be more powerful, because I like playing gnomes over elves. I understand that a person would like play a character despite it being less optimal.

Part the One: Reread your first post. All that was done was complaining about lack of bonuses in AD&D over AD&D2e, with the accompanying implication AD&D wasn't fun without them. What is one supposed to think? I even resorted to happy face me to ward off the evil spell of misunderstanding. Either a saving throw was made, or spell failure.

I'm just wondering if there's something to the illusionist class that makes up for its apparent difficulty to play over a regular magic-user. More from a game designer perspective.

Part the Two: Now this would have much been better to ask in the first post. It's really not more difficult to play an illusionist, but it does take a different mindset. The MU is more direct by and large. To pick one part of adventuring as an example, they can get in the face of opponents and hit 'em with the artillery, whereas illusionists are more like stealth spellslingers, misdirecting and playing with the head. They do seem to work better when combined with the sneakthief thought process. It's kinda like the cleric buffing the fighter to make him better, only the illusionist 'buffs' the thief. Need a distraction? Audible Glamer. Need to get out of the city but the APB has been issued? Change Self. Need something to slow down pursuit? Wall of Fog. Subtlety over substance. Just let the mind go crazy and have fun with it. :smallcool:

nyarlathotep

2011-11-27, 07:01 PM

Realistically it's because the game was elf and humancentric. For some reason the designers decided that only humans and elves could be anything, all other races can only be what their race was in Lord of the Rings.

holywhippet

2011-11-27, 07:47 PM

gnomes can only get to level 7.

I believe that in 1st edition most campaigns generally didn't take characters up into the double digit range for levels. Even if the rules allowed it the game was optimised for low level play.

kaomera

2011-11-27, 08:23 PM

The game was intentionally human-centric, elves got dragged along for the ride because of good ability bonuses and multiclassing options. However, multiclassing is a double-edged sword...

Which comes back around to the levels 1e was played at. My personal experience was mostly lower-level games, typically starting at level 1, capping out in the early teens if they even got that far. However I have talked to a lot of other players who did experience much more high-level play in 1e.

Demi-humans and multiclassed characters in particular generally suffered at higher levels. A lot of groups seem to have thrown out the demi-human level limits because of this. However, simply starting a campaign at a higher level could be really unbalancing. I played in one game where, in order to play through some specific modules, we started everyone at 7th level... That's 95K XP for a Paladin, but only 42.5K for a Thief (even higher for a Monk / lower for a Druid, but practically no-one ever bothered with either of those classes...) Multi-classed characters would have had even higher total XP, but the DM wisely made them start at 6/6 or 5/5/5... Ideally I think the game should have been started at a fixed XP value rather than just starting at 7th level, but it ended up working out OK, so whatever...

Jerthanis

2011-11-28, 02:30 AM

What I've always wondered was, for those groups who played with Demihuman level limits AND played to the point they came up... what happened? Would they stop accruing Experience Points, letting the rest of the party split it fewer ways and level up faster, or would they keep soaking up their share without getting more powerful? Did they just always retire the character at that point?

For my group, we never interacted with the limits because A.) We played mostly humans anyway, B.) Never really played a game past level 3 due to lack of attention span and C.) If we had, we would have thrown them out anyway because I don't think I'd have wanted to tell my players "Pick a better race next time, idiot... it's all Humans and Elves up in if you want to play at the big-boy tables" (exaggeration, of course)

Kenneth

2011-11-28, 03:52 AM

this is what happened.. it just cost double the exp to gain levels after that point..

for insatce an 18 str dwarf could get up to lelve 18 before he had to earn doubel teh exp per level to advanced to the next level.

ken-do-nim

2011-11-28, 10:00 AM

Illusionists in 1E are insanely powerful and flavorful at the same time; probably my favorite class in the game :) However, it does require a good DM to work through all the crazy quasi-real things you want to create.

holywhippet

2011-11-28, 04:29 PM

I do still recall the old Gold box PC games which were based on AD&D. The first game (Pool of Radiance) had a level 6 cap for all characters so it didn't matter what kind of multiclassing you did. However, the racial level caps came into play for the rest of the series. Not far into Curse of the Azure Bonds your non-humans would hit maximum levels and advance no further unless they happened to be a rogue.

This still persisted through to Secret of the Silver Blades. By the time Pools of Darkness rolled around it was beyond a joke. Your non-human, non-rogues had been left behind in terms of power two games ago. Dedication to the rules is one thing, but that was one feature that was just crazy to keep going.

MeeposFire

2011-11-28, 06:28 PM

Illusions were very powerful but also hard to adjudicate hence why one of the most common questions into dragon for the 1e run was about illusions.

ken-do-nim

2011-11-28, 09:08 PM

Ravens_cry

2011-11-28, 10:29 PM

Yes, but as been has been said of 3.X, been able to houserule problems away is not an excuse for problems.

kaomera

2011-11-28, 11:38 PM

I think that the demi-human level limits where intended as the solution to the problem of ''Why would anyone ever play a Human?''. Even Elves (unless they where straight Thieves) labored under limits - with 18s in Str and Int they could reach 7/11 F/M-U. And it had the 1e ''charm'' of being fairly arbitrary... The assumption, IMO, being that what most groups wanted was rules to play by, and if you wanted something specific (like to be able to play a higher-level Gnome) you where welcome to do that, but the rules didn't have to specifically support it, because they couldn't support every option or desire in any case.

It was, certainly, a limit on the game; and I totally understand why so many groups did away with the level limits. However, I do not believe it was really any more of a problem than the fact that a straight Fighter can't cast spells. The limit was obvious, and players knew what they where getting into when they rolled their character. It wasn't like you got to 7th level or whatever and suddenly found out you couldn't advance any further...

hamlet

2011-11-29, 08:09 AM

I think that the demi-human level limits where intended as the solution to the problem of ''Why would anyone ever play a Human?''.

That is correct. It was the best way that Gary Gygax could come up with to make humans a more viable player race over the long game rather than consigning them to "elves, but without the infravision" kind of cubbyhole. Gary's view of fantasy was humano-centric, which is tremendously at odds with today's modern view of fantasy, which is itself heavily colored for better or worse by the theme-park version of Tolkien while Gary was originally far more influenced by a series of books that are, nowadays, largely forgotten. The rule, as unpopular as it might be, was there for a reason, and all things considered, it was a fairly effective rule in solving hte problem it addressed.

All that said, though, Gary himself said on more than one occasion, and in writing I believe, that if you didnt' like level limits, then just get rid of them. There's a quote out there somewhere to the effect that Gary's greatest fear was for the players to discover one day that they didn't actually need any of the books that he was writing and publishing. AD&D really boils down to Gary's playground. It's designed around his vision of fantasy role play and the rules and text are designed to evoke his vision, not neccessarily yours. That's why 2nd edition, the red headed step child of D&D, is so vanilla and bland reading by comparison. It's designed, among other things, to be a clean spring board for the creation of your own vision rather than Greyhawk. That's why 2nd edition was known, above all, for it's fabulously cool campaign settings.

As for Illusionists, they're not a class for everybody. They don't blow things up, or outright kill enemies. They're all about subtlety, trickery, obfuscation, and misdirection. Not everybody thinks along those lines, and thus the Illusionist is not really for everybody.

Knaight

2011-11-29, 08:46 AM

Part the One: Reread your first post. All that was done was complaining about lack of bonuses in AD&D over AD&D2e, with the accompanying implication AD&D wasn't fun without them. What is one supposed to think? I even resorted to happy face me to ward off the evil spell of misunderstanding. Either a saving throw was made, or spell failure.

Creating options that are completely superfluous and handled better by something else in every single case is bad game design. It has nothing to do with "bonuses", or "roleplaying", and everything to do with sloppiness. There is a subset of people (myself among them) who are willing to play a particular concept even when the rules attitude towards that concept is a "and screw you too" variant, our existence doesn't obviate the sort of terrible rules design required for this to happen.

Jay R

2011-11-29, 04:23 PM

First of all, the value of illusion spells depended tremendously on the DM, who had to decide if they were "believable". With some DMs, the illusions were nearly unbeatable.

Secondly, a lot of 1e characters were actually OD&D characters who were updated. The rules for OD&D didn't include Illusionists, but the class existed, based on two articles in The Strategic Review (precursor to The Dragon), and was more powerful than a Magic-User with those DMs.

Therefore the first 1e illusionists were played because it was more powerful than a MU in OD&D.

Kish

2011-11-29, 04:36 PM

I do still recall the old Gold box PC games which were based on AD&D. The first game (Pool of Radiance) had a level 6 cap for all characters

Actually, no. Level 6 for clerics and "magic-users," level 8 for fighters, level 9 for thieves.

The rule, as unpopular as it might be, was there for a reason, and all things considered, it was a fairly effective rule in solving hte problem it addressed.
Mm...only if you consider reversing a problem to mean the original problem has been "solved."

That is, it created the, "Why would anyone play anything but a human?" problem. I'd call that doing a great deal worse than breaking even.

kaomera

2011-11-29, 07:15 PM

That is, it created the, "Why would anyone play anything but a human?" problem. I'd call that doing a great deal worse than breaking even.
The answer to ''Why would anyone play X'' is always going to be ''Because it's cool.'' 1e demi-humans get a ton of bonuses, and they are very front-loaded. If you're trying to create a game where all of the options are carefully balanced against each other then that's a poor design choice, but I also think that game isn't 1e AD&D. 1e's agenda lies more towards encouraging a world where demi-humans are uncommon enough to be interesting, and where the big-time movers and shakers are going to be human. And IMO there is value in that.

MeeposFire

2011-11-29, 07:28 PM

The answer to ''Why would anyone play X'' is always going to be ''Because it's cool.'' 1e demi-humans get a ton of bonuses, and they are very front-loaded. If you're trying to create a game where all of the options are carefully balanced against each other then that's a poor design choice, but I also think that game isn't 1e AD&D. 1e's agenda lies more towards encouraging a world where demi-humans are uncommon enough to be interesting, and where the big-time movers and shakers are going to be human. And IMO there is value in that.

Those bonuses are not just front loaded but they are also very minor in the long run. Game wise the bonuses are not anywhere near as good as the penalty is bad and they both kick in at opposite times. I would have prefered a different way of making humans exciting to pick.

kaomera

2011-11-29, 08:04 PM

Those bonuses are not just front loaded but they are also very minor in the long run. Game wise the bonuses are not anywhere near as good as the penalty is bad and they both kick in at opposite times. I would have prefered a different way of making humans exciting to pick.
I'd argue that infravision and detecting secret doors / sliding or shifting rooms aren't very ''minor'' in a dungeon environment, or at least they weren't in my experience. But I totally understand your preference for a better way of handling the issue of encouraging a human-centric world. (That's how I look at it, at least - I also feel humans ought to be an interesting / desired choice just because, well, the players are human and so are most of the iconic heroes in the source material...)

The problem (IMO) lies in the fact that I haven't seen a better way to handle that issue. If you neatly balance the races you're really just saying that it doesn't matter. I find that it leads to a situation where everyone is playing some kind of weird alien, but you aren't really allowed to address that situation. (idk- this may well be something that would be better served getting it's own topic)

Anyway - back to the question at hand, ''Because it's cool'' is kind of a flippant answer, but I think that's because ''Why would you play that?'' is sort of the wrong question, or at least it's not a question you should be asking yourself about your own choices... ''Why is this cool?'' is a much more significant question, and while the answer is going to be different for each player, I think it's well worth asking.

Premier

2011-11-29, 08:14 PM

Another aspect of the thing is something that Gary Gygax once discussed... either on Dragonsfoot, in which case it should still be there, or somewhere else and I just read about it there.

Anyway, he said that one conscious design idea behind demihuman races was to use them as "crutches" for players who have rolled not-too-stellar ability scores during character generation. They all have a variety of bonuses over normal humans which can balance out suboptimal abilities, as they're strong enough to make a difference up to the point where the level limits come into play.

On the other hand, if you rolled really well for abilities, the level limits encourage you to stick with the "default" human race and see if you can keep the character alive to the point where a high level combined with good scores let him outshine the demihuman racial bonuses.

MeeposFire

2011-11-29, 08:53 PM

I'd argue that infravision and detecting secret doors / sliding or shifting rooms aren't very ''minor'' in a dungeon environment, or at least they weren't in my experience. But I totally understand your preference for a better way of handling the issue of encouraging a human-centric world. (That's how I look at it, at least - I also feel humans ought to be an interesting / desired choice just because, well, the players are human and so are most of the iconic heroes in the source material...)

The problem (IMO) lies in the fact that I haven't seen a better way to handle that issue. If you neatly balance the races you're really just saying that it doesn't matter. I find that it leads to a situation where everyone is playing some kind of weird alien, but you aren't really allowed to address that situation. (idk- this may well be something that would be better served getting it's own topic)

Anyway - back to the question at hand, ''Because it's cool'' is kind of a flippant answer, but I think that's because ''Why would you play that?'' is sort of the wrong question, or at least it's not a question you should be asking yourself about your own choices... ''Why is this cool?'' is a much more significant question, and while the answer is going to be different for each player, I think it's well worth asking.

Stuff like detecting doors and infravision are nice but not worth losing a lot of future advancement to get especially since you can get those from spells, items, etc.

The problem with the rule of cool is if you keep thinking of cool things for all classes and races. Sadly this is what happens to me all the time so rule of cool just isn't enough anymore. Right now I am having too much fun with a drawing I saw which is making me consider a pixie pirate with the fey theme that allows for a companion (or should I go pixie samurai on a pagoda on a displacer beast?). Of course these compete with my shardmind (in truth a human being taken over with plungent crystal) lazylord, pixie vampire (we call him stirge), my blackguard with the vice of fury of a love god (fury of love scorned of course), or my bard (just love bards any edition). Too much fun.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-wappfMz_Bp8/TrvDC08AfbI/AAAAAAAAApk/zfmU8EdwBQY/h301/hotFW%2BCaptain%2BFlikaFlak%2BVendetta%2Bjared%2Bh indman.jpg

kaomera

2011-11-29, 09:16 PM

Stuff like detecting doors and infravision are nice but not worth losing a lot of future advancement to get especially since you can get those from spells, items, etc.
That's certainly a valid way to look at it, but myself I see it as possibly giving up some advancement, if the game actually goes on that long, for some abilities that you could theoretically get from spells or items, but realistically you probably would not. But I think in either case what it comes down to was that there is no single unified 1e experience.

What I'm talking about with regards to ''Why is this cool?'' is that you want to be asking that specific question. With 1e I think that is or at least ought to be something of a given. Not everything is really going to be cool or useful or even fit in every game. What I've seen in 3e / 4e (just my personal experience) is that there is an expectation that everything is cool. And that's certainly an awesome idea. But, unfortunately, you end up with players taking options without ever really considering why (or even if) they personally find it cool, which can lead to a lot of disappointment in the game. Not that you didn't run into disappointment in 1e, of course; but for me at least it seemed more obvious what would and would not work, and the DM had far more room to steer things in a better direction or even outright ban / disallow certain things.

MeeposFire

2011-11-29, 09:39 PM

That's certainly a valid way to look at it, but myself I see it as possibly giving up some advancement, if the game actually goes on that long, for some abilities that you could theoretically get from spells or items, but realistically you probably would not. But I think in either case what it comes down to was that there is no single unified 1e experience.

What I'm talking about with regards to ''Why is this cool?'' is that you want to be asking that specific question. With 1e I think that is or at least ought to be something of a given. Not everything is really going to be cool or useful or even fit in every game. What I've seen in 3e / 4e (just my personal experience) is that there is an expectation that everything is cool. And that's certainly an awesome idea. But, unfortunately, you end up with players taking options without ever really considering why (or even if) they personally find it cool, which can lead to a lot of disappointment in the game. Not that you didn't run into disappointment in 1e, of course; but for me at least it seemed more obvious what would and would not work, and the DM had far more room to steer things in a better direction or even outright ban / disallow certain things.

Well if you want a 1e "what is cool" I still have that problem. I think fighters are cool. As are mages (ahem magic users), clerics, rangers, thieves (though typically only if playing 2e since being able to pick where your skills go is nice), monks, and bards (though I prefer 2e bards since they are not so insane to create and play). For me it is easier to say what is not cool rather than trying to decide what is cool since I find that part way too easy. Nowadays I tend to play what seems interesting to play mechanically and then pick the "cool" part after since nifty concepts are things I find easily.

LibraryOgre

2011-11-30, 12:33 AM

Ad res, it very much depends on the DM. If he's liberal in interpretation of illusions (as I believe he should be), then the illusionist has a lot of power, especially in terms of flexibility. His spells can be ANYTHING, so long as you don't need to be too solid. A clever illusionist can do a lot of damage, though his targets are going to get an extra saving throw.

Basically, an illusionist is the modern special effects programmer. If he can think of it, it appears on-screen, and people mostly react as if its real.

Jay R

2011-11-30, 07:29 AM

On choosing to play a nonhuman in OD&D and 1e:

1. Depending on the DM, infravision and detecting secret doors can be anywhere from useless to essential. (If lots of treasure, or ambushes, are behind secret doors in the dark, somebody in the party better have theses.)

2. Most games didn't go that high. An elf is sacrificing levels he'll never see anyway to get advantages from day one.

3. When the game went that high, the DM was very likely to remove the limitation so the character could keep up.

4. The biggest reason to play an elf, dwarf or hobbit wasn't rules-oriented. It was to play an elf, dwarf, or hobbit. We came into this hobby from reading fantasy.

kaomera

2011-11-30, 08:37 AM

Well if you want a 1e "what is cool" I still have that problem. I think fighters are cool. As are mages (ahem magic users), clerics, rangers, thieves (though typically only if playing 2e since being able to pick where your skills go is nice), monks, and bards (though I prefer 2e bards since they are not so insane to create and play). For me it is easier to say what is not cool rather than trying to decide what is cool since I find that part way too easy. Nowadays I tend to play what seems interesting to play mechanically and then pick the "cool" part after since nifty concepts are things I find easily.
Well, the point I was trying to make was this (and an attempt to relate this back to the OP):

A player would choose to play an Illusionist ''because they're cool''. However, if that's as far as the player has thought this through, there could well be problems. You need not only to have a better understanding of what, specifically, you find cool about your character, but also be able to communicate it in an effective manner - and then you need to get the rest of the group (and especially the DM) onboard. In a sense I kind of feel like you should be ''pitching'' your PC the same way a DM would pitch a campaign concept.

This relates especially to the Illusionist, because much of the classes abilities rely on ''what the DM will let you get away with''. And, additionally, the class has the potential to either work really well with the rest of the party (and be a lot of fun) or else step on a lot of toes (and be a bore). A lot of this can be handled by simply having a consensus of expectations among the group, but with players with differing backgrounds in 1e I think that could be tough. (More recent editions have done a lot to try and cement that consensus - provide a consistent experience...)

The big problem for me is players who pick a mechanical concept, without any real idea of what makes the character cool. This has resulted at times in a situation where some or all of the PCs are just flat-out boring to me, they have no real connection to the world or the fiction and are just a pile of stats and mechanical advantages. For some people it's enough (and I'd like it to be enough for me - I feel like I should be able to run a game for a variety of different player wants / needs), but for me it just seems to make it very hard to justify spending the time and energy on DMing.

On choosing to play a nonhuman in OD&D and 1e:

1. Depending on the DM, infravision and detecting secret doors can be anywhere from useless to essential. (If lots of treasure, or ambushes, are behind secret doors in the dark, somebody in the party better have theses.)

2. Most games didn't go that high. An elf is sacrificing levels he'll never see anyway to get advantages from day one.

3. When the game went that high, the DM was very likely to remove the limitation so the character could keep up.

4. The biggest reason to play an elf, dwarf or hobbit wasn't rules-oriented. It was to play an elf, dwarf, or hobbit. We came into this hobby from reading fantasy.
1 I agree with (but especially the ''depending on the DM'' part. 2 I would have tended to agree with based on my own personal experiences, but having talked to a lot of different players over the years I think it would be more accurate to say that some games didn't go that high (I've encountered at least a few players who never actually played 1e at lower than 9th level...) 3 & 4 I definitely agree with. I think that 3 follows very much from 4 (at least to my view of DMing 1e) in that it's part of the DM's responsibility to help the players embrace and express what they found cool about their characters and the game. If you want to play a Gnome Illusionist because that's what your excited about, then I think that it's only natural and reasonable for the DM to adjust the local rules so that they help and not hinder your ability to make that character cool.

nyarlathotep

2011-11-30, 12:19 PM

3 & 4 I definitely agree with. I think that 3 follows very much from 4 (at least to my view of DMing 1e) in that it's part of the DM's responsibility to help the players embrace and express what they found cool about their characters and the game. If you want to play a Gnome Illusionist because that's what your excited about, then I think that it's only natural and reasonable for the DM to adjust the local rules so that they help and not hinder your ability to make that character cool.

While that is true it doesn't excuse bad game design. For instance in 3rd edition I tend to give pounce to melee character for free and in all editions of D&D I use a modified armor as damage reduction rule. Does that mean that my house rules determine how well the D&D system is designed? No of course not.

kaomera

2011-11-30, 05:18 PM

While that is true it doesn't excuse bad game design.
What bad game design? It's certainly imperfect, but bad I'd have to disagree with.

For instance in 3rd edition I tend to give pounce to melee character for free and in all editions of D&D I use a modified armor as damage reduction rule. Does that mean that my house rules determine how well the D&D system is designed? No of course not.
This sounds to me more like ''doesn't work the way I'd like'' than ''doesn't work''.

Jay R

2011-12-01, 09:27 AM

4. The biggest reason to play an elf, dwarf or hobbit wasn't rules-oriented. It was to play an elf, dwarf, or hobbit. We came into this hobby from reading fantasy.

3 & 4 I definitely agree with. I think that 3 follows very much from 4 (at least to my view of DMing 1e) in that it's part of the DM's responsibility to help the players embrace and express what they found cool about their characters and the game. If you want to play a Gnome Illusionist because that's what your excited about, then I think that it's only natural and reasonable for the DM to adjust the local rules so that they help and not hinder your ability to make that character cool.

We are mostly in agreement, but there's a distinction I want to draw. We wanted to play elves, dwarves and hobbits, because we loved the books they were in. We wanted to be like Legolas, or Thorin, or Bilbo. D&D was valued because it could take us back someplace we already loved. Nobody ever came to D&D with a desire to be a gnome Illusionist, because that's a D&D creation. Gnomes existed in many forms, but the D&D version was its own type*, and Illusionists were invented in an article in The Strategic Review for D&D. You might want to be a gnome illusionist because you liked the D&D rules for it, but we wanted to be elves, dwarves or hobbits before we read the rules.

*As far as I knew. Gygax may have taken them from some fantasy novel, but if so, neither I nor anybody I played with recognized it, and they didn't exist in OD&D as Player Characters anyway.

JackShandy

2011-12-01, 05:54 PM

The limit was obvious, and players knew what they where getting into when they rolled their character. It wasn't like you got to 7th level or whatever and suddenly found out you couldn't advance any further...

Yeah -- that was Basic D&D where you bought the Expert rules and suddenly discovered level limits.

Premier

2011-12-01, 06:54 PM

Let's be fair, the BECMI series only really had level limits in name. Sure, you didn't gain any more HP after a while, nor improve your saving throws - but if you were a demihuman, the latter were pretty damn good by the time you hit the level cap, anyway. You also continued to improve your ability to hit targets and even got special "half damage vs. spells / dragon breath" bonuses. Only these things weren't called new levels, big deal.

kaomera

2011-12-01, 08:13 PM

Illusionists were a fairly orrigional take on the general theme of the trickster-magician. There were various fictional characters with similar abilities, although the shadow-infused / quasi-real aspect is, AFAIK, specifically a D&D thing. Gnomes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnome) I had always assumed to be a combination of a synonym for the mythological Dwarf and the book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomes_%28book%29) by Wil Huygen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wil_Huygen).

But, yes, I think that far, far more players came to D&D wanting to play the characters from Lord of the Rings than an Illusionist and / or Gnome.

One thing about racial level limits: I think it's an example of unfocused, pre-theory design (and I don't think that's automatically a bad thing). 1e was, as far as I have heard, largely compiled on the basis that Gygax thought that someone wanted to see any given element, but the elements of the rules were possibly not significantly considered as a whole, and I think that they were certainly not judged at the time by standards that would not even be invented for another 20 years. Anyway, if I can get my thoughts together on this I'll make a post over in the Roleplaying Games section, since I think this is getting a bit beyond just older D&D.

bloodtide

2011-12-02, 01:00 AM

LibraryOgre

2011-12-02, 01:33 AM

1E was not all about 'wow' powers and abilities like 3E/4E. You did not play a class to 'get' things....you were just having fun.

It's also worth pointing out that the difference between a "powerful" and "weak" class was a lot smaller in 1e and 2e... it's not like you're playing tier 6 in a tier 1 game when you're an illusionist.

TheGreyArcher

2011-12-02, 05:47 PM

Well, I know for example that Thief/Illusionist combos were VERY powerful.

Illusionists required a 16 Dex and 15 Int. To Receive a +10% bonus to XP, Thieves needed a 16 or higher.

A Thief being able to cast Phantom Armor, Invisibility, Wraithform, Blur, Spectral Image.... pretty dang powerful.

Splitting experience points between two classes did hurt, but the +10% XP bonus to thief and their ability to level so fast compared to other classes made this split-classing an obvious choice.

I once ran a villain who was a level 12 Thief / Level 7 Illusionist.... they worked out great against the party!!!

Ravens_cry

2011-12-03, 12:21 AM

It's also worth pointing out that the difference between a "powerful" and "weak" class was a lot smaller in 1e and 2e... it's not like you're playing tier 6 in a tier 1 game when you're an illusionist.
It's also worth pointing out that items and gold gave you XP back then.
So players had even more reason to be the loot hungry "Steal everything that isn't nailed down and then steal the nails" mentality.
"Tomb of Horrors" was changed to having magical doors that only acted like adamantine in the confines of the tomb when the first players realized that doors of solid adamantine were worth more than any reward from that meat grinder of death trap of a character destroying hell that was "Tomb of Horrors."

kaomera

2011-12-03, 09:30 AM

1e Tomb of Horrors was a great module. Of course, the only way to get players to actually try to get very far inside was to run it as a tournament module (or else concoct some reason why Acererak actually needed to be put down). If the players actually get far enough inside to grab the adamantite or mithril doors and then figure out a way to get them back to civilization, good for them! There were often art objects, etc. lying around that could be of great value, if only you could get them to someone who could pay for them (and who wanted them, of course), but that in and of itself would surely prove a challenge. The doors don't have any specific value attached to them, but IMO if the players figure out that they could be worth something and can retrieve them, they ought to be rewarded for it.

The game was about defeating evil and amassing treasure, preferably in the most efficient manner possible (and efficient usually means not dying). The idea that you had to kill every damn thing in the dungeon really didn't work out that well.

Ravens_cry

2011-12-03, 01:35 PM

It was a different style of play all right. Rather more confrontational DM vs. Players than I like personally.

Randomatic

2011-12-03, 05:43 PM

It was a different style of play all right. Rather more confrontational DM vs. Players than I like personally.

That's more a relic of it's wargaming roots. The original DMs and Players had years to decades of experience playing against each other. The vs. mentality was only natural.

Ravens_cry

2011-12-03, 05:46 PM

That's more a relic of it's wargaming roots. The original DMs and Players had years to decades of experience playing against each other. The vs. mentality was only natural.
Oh, I am not saying it is not understandable. THAC0 was also a product of gaming roots, working to reduce the charts and die rolls to just a die roll.
I still don't have to like it.

kaomera

2011-12-04, 12:19 AM

It was a different style of play all right. Rather more confrontational DM vs. Players than I like personally.
That's an interesting perspective - personally I've found a bit of the opposite. When I was playing 1e the ''nuclear option'' always seemed to be close at hand. If the players could only get away with what the DM allowed them to, then the DM could also only get away with what the players where willing to stand for. The DM's authority wasn't likely to stand if even two or three players found common cause to stand against him. Players where more willing to deal with a character dying (occasionally), but only if they where enjoying the game otherwise.

In the last few years I've left several games because they just were not fun for me, and the reaction has ranged from head-scratching to outrage. And a fair amount of that is because I just don't get much enjoyment out of trying to out-rules the ''other side'', either as a player or as a DM; at least not enough sometimes to justify the extra work.

Ravens_cry

2011-12-05, 10:18 AM

Winter_Wolf

2011-12-05, 12:01 PM

Ah, the good ol' days! Heehee. *wipes a tear of nostalgia away.* I've never DMed a 1e/2e game, but some wild rides as a player.

Cursed magic items were brutal. But you also got a lot of really creative ways of turning them into situational beneficial things. Like a mini-game inside of the game. In some groups it would be a contest of "well okay, now let's see how you guys can make this horrible cursed thing into a reward". It's very much on a per-group basis though. Although old issues of Dragon Magazine were filled with amusing anecdotes about turning cursed/evil items to advantage, leading me to believe it happened a lot.

Introducing artifacts into a game was a sure sign that you hated your players and wanted the game to destruct though. I'm looking at you, Deck of Many Things.

hamlet

2011-12-05, 12:17 PM

Admittedly, I have not played so much as read through the first edition AD&D books, of which everything I would need to play and DM.
Of especial note, are the rules for players creating magic items and spells as well as many magic items, especially cursed ones.
Maybe I am reading too much into it, but they seem to be worded towards screwing with the players, especially how cursed items can not be detected by any means aside from putting them on and often have very deadly or suck making effects and even certain non cursed items can be brutal if you are, but not limited to, the wrong alignment.

The rules were not designed to "screw over the players" so much as to impart the lesson that adventurers were supposed to go out adventuring rather than stay at home making magic items. Really. Gary said so himself over on Dragonsfoot many moons ago.

Also: Don't judge the game if you haven't played it. Reading it and playing it are two quite different experiences.

Ravens_cry

2011-12-05, 12:51 PM

In my opinion, something you make yourself, that you have a connection to, is more special than something you pulled from some hoard.
And it is not like is not like there isn't precedent in fantasy literature, like Conan forging his sword and Wizards are commonly making some bauble or wand.
And while I respect your position, an RPG is not your mom's Brussels Sprouts Tuna Surprise, it is rather more a commitment to sit down and play, to "try it."
I do indeed hope to give it a run, either as player or DM, some time though.

Randomatic

2011-12-05, 09:00 PM

The rules were not designed to "screw over the players" so much as to impart the lesson that adventurers were supposed to go out adventuring rather than stay at home making magic items. Really. Gary said so himself over on Dragonsfoot many moons ago.

Also: Don't judge the game if you haven't played it. Reading it and playing it are two quite different experiences.

That's actually one of the problems that I see with 1E, so much of it is what Gary thought was appropriate for the game. No magic marts, not for balance, but because Gary thought players shopping was a waste of game time, and that treasures needed to be "earned" by finding it in a dusty dungeon, etc.

Also, I think for people that didn't play 1E previously that the ship has already sailed. I don't think modern players would end up with anything near the same experience now that the hobby has been colored by 30 years of differing ideas. Though even back in the day the experience that you had was going to be more colored by your gaming group than modern rulesets are.

I suspect the people that fell in love with 1E and don't feel satisfaction with the direction the hobby has gone had DM's and groups that were much better suited to that style of play. While people like myself had horrid DM's and couldn't wait to move on to a different system. Less colored by the actual gaming system, and more by their early experiences with them.

I know I can't even think of playing GURPS to this day without reflexively gagging. Not that I have much of a problem with the system, but because I was introduced to the system by a socially Mal-adjusted freak.

kaomera

2011-12-05, 09:27 PM

Also, I think for people that didn't play 1E previously that the ship has already sailed. I don't think modern players would end up with anything near the same experience now that the hobby has been colored by 30 years of differing ideas. Though even back in the day the experience that you had was going to be more colored by your gaming group than modern rulesets are.
This is, I think, a key issue. Gygax was actually pretty adamant that DMs and players take what he had written and make it their own. I think that some of the haphazard design of 1e was actually deliberate (more or less). The Advanced books in particular were just a collection of possible rules, ones that either Gary thought were good or else that players had asked for (iirc I've read somewhere that some things like the extended weapons tables were not something that Gary would have included on his own). This includes both house-rules and just a general understanding between the group of what the fictional reality they were playing in was and what was happening.

More modern games also typically are intended to be ''owned'' by the players and DM, there's specific statements to that effect in most of them. But despite this I find that they tend to end up lacking in that department, as played. There are advantages to this - it's much easier to fit into a new group in 3.x or 4e, fewer issues to worry about when finding your place. However I do find this unfortunate, for me, in terms of making the game fun, and I don't think there's a really good reason for it.

Dimers

2011-12-06, 03:52 AM

Cursed magic items were brutal. But you also got a lot of really creative ways of turning them into situational beneficial things. Like a mini-game inside of the game. In some groups it would be a contest of "well okay, now let's see how you guys can make this horrible cursed thing into a reward".

First in a series of three (badly drawn but smart) comics about a playing group with such a mindset:

Clicky! (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=46)

TL;DR -- I'll put on a magic strangling necklace so that I can't breathe poisonous fumes. No worries, it's all in the plan.

Ravens_cry

2011-12-06, 04:04 AM

First in a series of three (badly drawn but smart) comics about a playing group with such a mindset:

Clicky! (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=46)

TL;DR -- I'll put on a magic strangling necklace so that I can't breathe poisonous fumes. No worries, it's all in the plan.
Heh, I love that comic. I think my favourite arc was The Matrix expy/pastiche because their munchkinny ways actually made sense in-character as their characters were basically playing a video game but with deadly consequences if they "lost" so scrambling for every possible advantage made sense and the fact that the world was artificial in-in-universe excuses the existence of bugs in the game for them to latch on to.
I also like the Eberron campaign.
In my view an excellent example of how good writing and characterisation can save even so visual a work as a webcomic.

hamlet

2011-12-06, 08:37 AM

Premier

2011-12-06, 09:44 AM

That's actually one of the problems that I see with 1E, so much of it is what Gary thought was appropriate for the game. No magic marts, not for balance, but because Gary thought players shopping was a waste of game time, and that treasures needed to be "earned" by finding it in a dusty dungeon, etc.

So in other words, you're complaining that the game's designer made some decisions about what the game should be like, what elements it should and shouldn't have. Well, that's called game design.

I suspect your real problem, though you likely haven't phrased it this way even to yourself, is that 1st edition AD&D does not take the exact same game design decisions as 3E / 4E / your game of preference. But I think that's a rather close-minded approach, taking something to task for not being exactly the same as something else that you've already decided to be the best thing since sliced bread.

Another issue at hand is the matter of genre emulation, something that old-school RPG designers took for granted, and which modern-day ones (or at least WotC, specifically) seem to be largely ignorant of. It is the concept that you design an RPG with the intention of giving it the same feel, style, vibe and elements as a certain literary (or movie, etc.) genre - or possibly a certain distinct mixture of genres.

This concept is evident in old-school games. If you're familiar with the reading list of Appendix N in 1st ed. AD&D, you can see how Gary has deliberately formed the rules of the game so that gameplay will feel like a mixture of Tolkien, R.E. Howard, Jack Vance, and others. The race and class system is set up so as to encourage a varied party like the Fellowship of the Ring. The combat system lets you fight like Conan, tearing through hordes of foes and strange monsters with seemingly limitless energy, without getting exhausted and pulled down into the mud by some peasants. Magic is designed to emulate Vance's Dying Earth series, with capricious wizards treating their magic as a precious but ultimately predictable commodity. And this is why the rules discourage making your own magic items or having Magic Mart in town. Because the game was designed to play and feel like LotR and Conan, and LotR and Conan don't have Magic Mart.

These are all conscious design decisions. The same can be seen in other old-school games: the rules and elements of Star Frontiers are set up to play like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers; Cyberpunk (and Shadowrun partially) reflect the sensibilities of the cyberpunk genre (duh). Even the totally not old-school first version of World of Darkness is consciously riffing on the feel of Anne Rice vampire novels.

WotC's D&D? Not so, or at least I can't see it to be the case. Reading the rules, I just don't see evidence that the designers were familiar with fantasy literature or that they had made some conscious decisions to make their game "play like these stories, but not like those." They only concern themselves with the rules, saying "we want to make this work this way, not that"; but it's a simple, shall we say, "algorithmic" involvement with the rules with no real concern on how the game will feel like in actual play. They just never stopped for a moment, thought about it, and went "Okay, we want the game to feel like a mixture of Bernard Cornwell's medieval historical novels mixed with Lovecraft-style eldritch abominations and existential dread." (Or whatever.) Play WotC D&D, and it feels nothing so much as a mish-mash of various elements from MMORPG's and anime cobbled onto the basic rules framework of D&D.

Of course, I might be wrong and WotC well might have made a very conscious design decision along the lines of "We want this game to feel like and MMORPG mixed with commercial (not serious/artsy) anime." In which case I'm just as entitled to reject these choices on grounds of personal preference as you are to reject Gary's choices on grounds of yours.

rexreg

2011-12-06, 03:41 PM

A long time ago, in a 1st ed. AD&D campaign far, far away, I played an Illusionist.
Our party was mid-level.
Our employers crossed us, refusing to pay us, so we decided to whup on them. Their response was to hole themselves up in a mill. We broke down the door (Fighter's job). As the door was smashed to flinders, I created the Illusion of a Red Dragon bursting through the door. At the same time, our Magic User cast a Fireball, making it appear as if it were bursting from the mouth of the dragon.
Panic ensued inside the mill.
Thusly did the battle conclude.

That, my friends, is what an Illusionist is for.

kaomera

2011-12-06, 09:48 PM

Another issue at hand is the matter of genre emulation, something that old-school RPG designers took for granted, and which modern-day ones (or at least WotC, specifically) seem to be largely ignorant of. It is the concept that you design an RPG with the intention of giving it the same feel, style, vibe and elements as a certain literary (or movie, etc.) genre - or possibly a certain distinct mixture of genres.
Actually the genre emulation in 1e fell pretty flat for a lot of players, both because it was (largely) taken for granted, and because of Gygax's insistence on letting the players and DM decide for themselves what they wanted to do with the game. Not that I would see it done any other way, personally; but a lot of players actually wanted to be told (or: given direction) how to play D&D.

Skip forward to 3e and then 3.5, 4e, etc. (passing 2e along the way, with it's more genre-specific settings) and I think that WotC was, in fact, aiming for genre emulation - they just saw D&D as having developed into it's own genre. I agree to a certain extent, but while with 3e they where aiming to recreate what they felt where the best and/or most popular tropes of D&D, they where designing it based on 2e play by 2e players, and I think that 3e changed people's playstyle even as it tried to emulate older styles of play... Same thing with succeeding editions. Even 3.5 and Pathfinder, which have a much smaller jump to deal with, have this issue to some extent, IMO.

It's really hard to deliberately make a game D&D while still innovating or catering to newer desires and expectations, because what D&D is has never been and never will be a static thing. Even ''Appendix N'' constantly changes as new books and other media are released. Movies, video games, the internet - all of these change the playing field, and at a faster and faster pace as time goes on. I think that, going forward, the best course of action would be to pick a specific, limited set of elements that say ''D&D'' to the designers, and then just design the best damn game possible, without including the baggage of trying to ''be D&D'' beyond those elements.

ETA:

That, my friends, is what an Illusionist is for.
Also, this.

olthar

2011-12-06, 10:27 PM

Lots of reasons.

1: min/maxing wasn't done to the same extent probably because DMs had more control over the game.

2: The rules were more open to interpretation. In fact, they didn't even pretend that the rules were hard and fast (unlike 3.5 where the dmg almost literally says "don't memorize all of the rules, memorize most and hope your players know the ones you forget"). DMs were very free to make whatever and who cares if it fit the system.

This made illusionists the ultimate character in some ways. If you can imagine it, then you can make it with an illusion. Which means the power of an illusionist scaled with the player's imagination. Since D&D players tend to have that skill in spades, illusionists can be pretty powerful.

3: The same reason that some people specialize in evocation and ban conjuration and transmutation in 3.5, fun. If you agree with the premise that it is a weak class, then it can be fun to be weak.

That's actually one of the problems that I see with 1E, so much of it is what Gary thought was appropriate for the game. No magic marts, not for balance, but because Gary thought players shopping was a waste of game time, and that treasures needed to be "earned" by finding it in a dusty dungeon, etc.I'd say this was one of the best parts of 1e. Magic marts don't balance the game, they increase the power disparity astronomically. Simply, without a magic mart there is no ability for the wizard to have every spell in the game unless the DM wants that to occur.

Besides the whole concept of a magic mart makes no economic sense. Peasants make at most a silver a day yet any town with a few hundred people has thousands of gold worth of magical items just sitting there for someone to walk in and steal it? Any intelligent adventurer would spend his or her entire life planning the perfect heist for the magic mart since it has more predictable and probably better treasure than any dusty dungeon would have. In turn the magic marts would have the most insane security that the highest paying job in the world would be security guard.

Add to that the fact that scribing scroll and enchanting items and such drains xps. So even the most minor of magic marts would have taken hundreds of mages of xps to make to sell the items as such a low price. Wizards are smart people and should know that an item is much more valuable when it is rare so why make 20 when you can make 1 and sell it for 20x the price?

The only type of setting that a magic mart makes sense in is one like Eberron where they actually thought about the consequences of having that much magic available to anyone. In a more traditional setting the magic mart makes no sense at all.

Knaight

2011-12-07, 08:37 AM

I suspect your real problem, though you likely haven't phrased it this way even to yourself, is that 1st edition AD&D does not take the exact same game design decisions as 3E / 4E / your game of preference. But I think that's a rather close-minded approach, taking something to task for not being exactly the same as something else that you've already decided to be the best thing since sliced bread.
Close minded is assuming that nobody has actual good reasons to dislike 1e.

Another issue at hand is the matter of genre emulation, something that old-school RPG designers took for granted, and which modern-day ones (or at least WotC, specifically) seem to be largely ignorant of. It is the concept that you design an RPG with the intention of giving it the same feel, style, vibe and elements as a certain literary (or movie, etc.) genre - or possibly a certain distinct mixture of genres.
WotC is not indicative of modern designers as a whole. Plenty of modern designers are demonstrating how to design games that actually give the same feel, style, and vibe well. See: Burning Wheel, Spirit of the Century, Chronica Feudalis, Carnage 3:16, Jaws of the Six Serpents, and Dogs in the Vineyard, all of which are far better at genre imitation than 1e. It's yet another one of the ways that having material to draw on and experience with a bunch of games produces better results than just making stuff up with no practice - modern designers and the early designers are not on anything that even remotely resembles a level playing field. As for a distinct mixture of genres, WotC does this. WotC D&D fantasy is basically its own distinct mix, as D&D has been from the beginning. Shadowrun is similar, though I'd argue that they support their aesthetic better. Mouse Guard is better still.

This concept is evident in old-school games. If you're familiar with the reading list of Appendix N in 1st ed. AD&D, you can see how Gary has deliberately formed the rules of the game so that gameplay will feel like a mixture of Tolkien, R.E. Howard, Jack Vance, and others. The race and class system is set up so as to encourage a varied party like the Fellowship of the Ring. The combat system lets you fight like Conan, tearing through hordes of foes and strange monsters with seemingly limitless energy, without getting exhausted and pulled down into the mud by some peasants. Magic is designed to emulate Vance's Dying Earth series, with capricious wizards treating their magic as a precious but ultimately predictable commodity. And this is why the rules discourage making your own magic items or having Magic Mart in town. Because the game was designed to play and feel like LotR and Conan, and LotR and Conan don't have Magic Mart.
Modern games do this, and 1e didn't do it well. The race and class system is set up so as to encourage a varied party as in Fellowship of the Ring - which it really didn't do, as it produced an overabundance of rogues, magic users, and clerics relative to the LoTR style, stripped the races of their significance as a result, and produced the foundation of what would later be a distinctly D&D style. The combat system might look like Conan a bit, but it does so in a way as to directly clash with the rest of the aesthetic - Conan doesn't touch every point of the floor, walls, and ceiling with a ten foot pole before taking any action. Vance's Dying Earth series makes 6 spells memorized a legendary feat done by near mythical figures. 1e makes it a fairly early level phenomenon. Its genre emulation of clashing genres without actually bothering to blend them, which produced a unique genre through later distillation. That early work is a large part of why D&D doesn't do anything but D&D fantasy well, where other fantasy games can handle large swaths of literary fantasy.

These are all conscious design decisions. The same can be seen in other old-school games: the rules and elements of Star Frontiers are set up to play like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers; Cyberpunk (and Shadowrun partially) reflect the sensibilities of the cyberpunk genre (duh). Even the totally not old-school first version of World of Darkness is consciously riffing on the feel of Anne Rice vampire novels.
Shadowrun and Cyperpunk are examples of actual competent design relative to 1e. They emulate their genres well, though this is no different from modern games.

WotC's D&D? Not so, or at least I can't see it to be the case. Reading the rules, I just don't see evidence that the designers were familiar with fantasy literature or that they had made some conscious decisions to make their game "play like these stories, but not like those." They only concern themselves with the rules, saying "we want to make this work this way, not that"; but it's a simple, shall we say, "algorithmic" involvement with the rules with no real concern on how the game will feel like in actual play. They just never stopped for a moment, thought about it, and went "Okay, we want the game to feel like a mixture of Bernard Cornwell's medieval historical novels mixed with Lovecraft-style eldritch abominations and existential dread." (Or whatever.) Play WotC D&D, and it feels nothing so much as a mish-mash of various elements from MMORPG's and anime cobbled onto the basic rules framework of D&D.
Again, WotC D&D and modern games are not synonymous. WotC D&D is frequently mocked and loathed among "indie" gamers. That said, the reason it feels like various elements from MMORPGs is because said MMORPGs are blatantly ripping off single player RPGs, which are themselves blatantly ripping off early MUDs, many of which basically used D&D in its entirety. This is like complaining that something looks like a photograph of itself, or art drawn using a photograph of it as the only reference. It's inevitable. As for elements from anime, the vast majority of anime isn't similar at all. A small subset of shonen is about all that is relevant, and much of it is drawing on D&D to some extent - The Slayers and Record of Lodoss War being the most obvious examples, as both are clearly campaigns of D&D made into anime. .hack is similar, as it is set within a videogame.*

Of course, I might be wrong and WotC well might have made a very conscious design decision along the lines of "We want this game to feel like and MMORPG mixed with commercial (not serious/artsy) anime." In which case I'm just as entitled to reject these choices on grounds of personal preference as you are to reject Gary's choices on grounds of yours.
Gary's choices are poorly carried out, and not thought out particularly well. As I've said before, if AD&D came out as a modern game, it would be taken as a worthless piece of junk. The only reason it is impressive is that it was made with basically no precedent, without any of the tools that later designers depend on. To use an analogy, a simple wooden spear with a point is a sad and pathetic tool compared to a metal spear with a point on a blade, on a highly refined shaft. A blacksmith operating at the time metal spears were the norm who tries to pass off a simple wooden spear is going to be laughed at, as the tool is simply inferior. However, coming up with the notion of taking a long stick, sharpening it with a piece of jagged rock, and using it to kill things when the closest thing to a manufactured tool before that was a branch-club is impressive.

*Also, all three of these are pretty much terrible in every respect.

ken-do-nim

2011-12-07, 07:16 PM

All I can say Knaight is that I feel bad for you. AD&D is a pretty awesome game, and each iteration away from the original has lost something.

Kaervaslol

2011-12-07, 07:36 PM

Having played both TSR era D&D and WoTC era D&D I must say that I prefer the former, for the simple reason that it plays better than the latter.

I know it does not have an unified mechanic (thank god for that, my thief does his unique thing with his unique table, it actually feels that I'm playing a different character!), but it has a better leveling and multiclass system, that actually avoids stupid **** like Fighter 1/Paladin 2/Obscure class 12/Wizardmongler 5.

It also plays better and faster than current itineration of the games, and it's a breeze to gm.

But the best thing of all? I can do whatever the hell I want to the system and it will not break. So instead of playing AD&D I'm playing a game based on AD&D that best suits me and my group.

And about the 10 foot pole thing, that tends to happen when you have a **** DM.

And comparing games to technology is silly.

Since the point of an RPG is to have fun with friends, it would be silly to imply that with the further development of the game the fun increases.

I understand your analogy with technology, but it does not apply here.

The point of the spear is to hurt things. A steel spear hurts more and it's tougher than a wooden spear. There is a measurable improvement over wooden spear.

The point of D&D is to have fun with friends. Modern design is not objectively more enjoyable than any other old design based on the date it was released, or because it's new.

But seriously, what elements of the game are better designed in the current version of the game rather than the older editions?

Randomatic

2011-12-07, 08:44 PM

I was distracted by something shiny, and didn't have time to post a reply.

And Gary's first response to this was "If you don't like it, change it." Really, the AD&D books would have been better titled "D&D How I like to Play it by Gary Gygax." He was extremely explicit about this, actually. If you don't like the magic creation rules, which many did not, then change them. It's not inherently bad design because you disagree with the goal or effect of the design choice.

I didn't mean to imply that Gary Gygax was tyrannical about his style of gaming. I'm well aware that he was fine with whatever you decided to do at your own table, and would have been happy to know that he had inspired your imagination.

I suspect your real problem, though you likely haven't phrased it this way even to yourself, is that 1st edition AD&D does not take the exact same game design decisions as 3E / 4E / your game of preference. But I think that's a rather close-minded approach, taking something to task for not being exactly the same as something else that you've already decided to be the best thing since sliced bread.

Another issue at hand is the matter of genre emulation, something that old-school RPG designers took for granted, and which modern-day ones (or at least WotC, specifically) seem to be largely ignorant of. It is the concept that you design an RPG with the intention of giving it the same feel, style, vibe and elements as a certain literary (or movie, etc.) genre - or possibly a certain distinct mixture of genres.

I moved away from DnD and towards it's many competitors over 20 years ago. Now I play the games that I'm interested in participating in using over a dozen different gaming systems depending on what my gaming group feels like playing. I don't have one true system that I play, so I wouldn't expect any system to be identical to any other.

I also agree with Knaight. Old School DnD tried to emulate many genres, but with it's miss-mash didn't capture the feel of any of them.

1: min/maxing wasn't done to the same extent probably because DMs had more control over the game.

2: The rules were more open to interpretation.

I'd say this was one of the best parts of 1e. Magic marts don't balance the game, they increase the power disparity astronomically. Simply, without a magic mart there is no ability for the wizard to have every spell in the game unless the DM wants that to occur.
Besides the whole concept of a magic mart makes no economic sense.

Min/Maxing was alive and well in earlier editions. It was the lack of ready communication of the internet, and black listing people that played differently than you do that made it seem less prevalent.

The rules being open to interpretation was as often horrible for the game as it was beneficial. I'm actually really glad that 1E has passionate defenders, because I'd hate to think that the extremely poor DM's that I had were indicative of the hobby at large.

It really takes me a strong suspension of disbelief to accept a game without magic marts. I can understand not liking the aesthetic, but they make complete economic sense. Anything that exists will be bought or sold by humans, that is pretty much a fact of nature.

It's completely irrelevant that peasants will never be able to afford magic items. Most people can't afford a yacht, or a million dollar beach front condo either, but they are still readily available.

The main issue that I have is that regardless of design intent, magic items are plentiful and readily available in all editions of DnD. Head over to the local monster infested ruined castle and even a starting group of adventures is likely to come home with some magical swag. It therefore makes absolutely no sense that people wouldn't be buying and selling them.

Security is also an issue, but easy enough to arrange. You'd also make an enemy of all the other adventuring groups that rely on shopping at those marts, so there wouldn't be a shortage examples for the campaign world on why you didn't rob them.

All I can say Knaight is that I feel bad for you. AD&D is a pretty awesome game, and each iteration away from the original has lost something.

I'm glad that you enjoyed and still enjoy AD&D, however I'll reiterate, it was too open to the whim of the DM on whether it was awesome or horrid.

Having played both TSR era D&D and WoTC era D&D I must say that I prefer the former, for the simple reason that it plays better than the latter.

But seriously, what elements of the game are better designed in the current version of the game rather than the older editions?

I think the issue you're going to find when comparing old school with modern gaming is that most people that prefer modern games don't include the current versions of DnD in their definitions of modern games.

kaomera

2011-12-07, 09:30 PM

I really wish we could stay away from the edition-warring. There is no ''perfect'' system or edition; newer editions of D&D have lost something compared to the older, but they have also most certainly gained in some areas. Not everyone appreciated what was lost, and not everyone will appreciate what was gained. In fact for many gamers one side or the other of the equation is liable to be a net negative. If that's you, then don't play that edition, but understand that it's a matter of taste and not everyone is going to agree. New editions and new systems should never have to be a negative - it's just more to choose from.

It's difficult to watch players move away from your favorite system. I went through this with 2e (and even with Unearthed Arcana and the Survival Guides). I had a choice to ''move on'' to 2e or to stick with what I knew, and I chose the latter. Unfortunately the group I ended up with were much more interested in griping about the new edition than they were in actually playing, and after several non-productive and generally un-fun sessions I ended up giving up on D&D altogether for quite a while. And as a result I missed out on a lot of cool stuff. I might have tried 2e and just hated it, but a lot of players really enjoyed it, and I definitely never had any fun bashing it.

olthar

2011-12-07, 11:11 PM

It really takes me a strong suspension of disbelief to accept a game without magic marts. I can understand not liking the aesthetic, but they make complete economic sense. Anything that exists will be bought or sold by humans, that is pretty much a fact of nature.

It's completely irrelevant that peasants will never be able to afford magic items. Most people can't afford a yacht, or a million dollar beach front condo either, but they are still readily available.

The main issue that I have is that regardless of design intent, magic items are plentiful and readily available in all editions of DnD. Head over to the local monster infested ruined castle and even a starting group of adventures is likely to come home with some magical swag. It therefore makes absolutely no sense that people wouldn't be buying and selling them.

Security is also an issue, but easy enough to arrange. You'd also make an enemy of all the other adventuring groups that rely on shopping at those marts, so there wouldn't be a shortage examples for the campaign world on why you didn't rob them. From a modern sense everything you said makes sense, but only a modern one. If played intelligently, then in big cities (and big cities only) magic marts make sense.

Most D&D games would be set somewhere between 800 and 1600. While a huge span of time, even by 1600 the world was barely at the beginnings of getting manufacturing going the way it is in the modern sense. And all of that is true without the main form of manufacturing (magical item creation) taking part of your (soul, life force, memory, etc., however you RP the concept of experience points) to create.

I always figured that magical items were prevalent outside in the world because they accumulate over time rather than be mass produced the way a magic mart assumes. Obviously they would be bought and sold, but it makes much more sense (thematically) for them to be made to order (scrolls included) rather being mass produced for a store.

All of this is again ignoring Eberron as a campaign setting since that setting makes allowances and plans for the concept of easy to access magic and the whole idea of the magic mart.

Sanguine

2011-12-08, 12:23 AM

Knaight

2011-12-08, 12:58 AM

All I can say Knaight is that I feel bad for you. AD&D is a pretty awesome game, and each iteration away from the original has lost something.

I've played it, and I disagree entirely as to it being an awesome game. As for the rest of the iterations, well, I've said this before and I'll say it again - the best game for D&D remains Warrior Rogue and Mage.

ken-do-nim

2011-12-08, 07:06 AM

I've played it, and I disagree entirely as to it being an awesome game. As for the rest of the iterations, well, I've said this before and I'll say it again - the best game for D&D remains Warrior Rogue and Mage.

Warrior Rogue and Mage? Wow, never heard of it. Sounds like a d20 compatible game.

Musing on 1E: I think it's a better edition now than it was in the 80s. I remember having lots of rules arguments back in the day, and longed for a more thorough rules set, and thought 3E was a god-send when it came out. I think for a lot of us playing AD&D now, it is only after the perspective of the subsequent editions that we can properly enjoy it.

hamlet

2011-12-08, 08:53 AM

I also agree with Knaight. Old School DnD tried to emulate many genres, but with it's miss-mash didn't capture the feel of any of them.

Actually, despite the claims above, I dont' think Gary was trying to emulate any particular genre, but to draw clear lines to where those genre inspired him to create his own genre, i.e., fantasy gaming. AD&D doesn't emulate any one particular style well because it's not meant to emulate any one particular style, but to create its own. Get past the "I want a game just like X" and it's a better experience for it.

Min/Maxing was alive and well in earlier editions. It was the lack of ready communication of the internet, and black listing people that played differently than you do that made it seem less prevalent.

There is a minor difference, though, in that third edition explicitely encouraged and rewarded the practice while in AD&D and earlier editions (pre-2e at least) there were significantly diminishing returns for it. Yes, you could gyp the rules to create an uber character, but in the end, even an uber character wasn't particularly uber when compared to his team mates. A bit, maybe. A one man show? Not even close. The same cannot really be said of 3.x in which unless the group agrees to a certain level of min-maxing ahead of time and everybody abides by it, it can become a continually escalating game of MAD (mutuallly assured destruction).

Is this bad? No. Just different. I'm merely pointing out an objective fact as stated by one of the designers, that 3.x encouraged and rewarded min-maxing in a way that AD&D did not.

The rules being open to interpretation was as often horrible for the game as it was beneficial. I'm actually really glad that 1E has passionate defenders, because I'd hate to think that the extremely poor DM's that I had were indicative of the hobby at large.

Certainly. But by the same token, rotten DM's make 3.x just as rotten. I've had a few 3.x DM's which turned me off to the game entirely at one point, that were truly atrocious. Not technically bad, but so focused on other priorities that it left me, the guy there just to have fun, out in the cold. Doesn't make it a bad game full of bad design (one might quibble about that, but still . . .), just that DM's that don't share your vision or priorities can spoil it for you. Bad AD&D DM's do not mean that the design of that game is objectively bad. I'd also point out that because you do not agree with the design goals or intentions, or understand them, that they are bad. I disagree with many of the design goals and intents of 3.x and 4.0. That doesn't make them bad.

It really takes me a strong suspension of disbelief to accept a game without magic marts. I can understand not liking the aesthetic, but they make complete economic sense.

Only if you operate under assumptions that are not universal. The 3.x editions assumed a prevalence of magic that was simply not assumed in AD&D wherin magic was rare, fabulous, mysterious, and dangerous. It wasn't something that ever really got collected up in quantities large enough to be sold at retail. Those who could get it tended to horde it (i.e., player characters or major and powerful NPC's).

It also assumes that the creation of magic items is something reliable and repeatable. Another assumption that is not universal except in 3.x and on.

The main issue that I have is that regardless of design intent, magic items are plentiful and readily available in all editions of DnD. Head over to the local monster infested ruined castle and even a starting group of adventures is likely to come home with some magical swag. It therefore makes absolutely no sense that people wouldn't be buying and selling them.

Perhaps you might find them in the "local dungeon," but it's not like a shopping trip where you get the ones you want. It's luck of the draw. And you're extremely likely to die on such trips, which is why those magic items and treasures tend to stay within said local dungeons and out of common circulation.

I'm glad that you enjoyed and still enjoy AD&D, however I'll reiterate, it was too open to the whim of the DM on whether it was awesome or horrid.

Which is no different at all than 3.x: equally dependant on the whim of the DM and the focuse of the group.

hamlet

2011-12-08, 08:59 AM

I don't think he was talking about huge conglomerations mass producing magic items. But rather a market growing up around this phenomena: After looting the Temple of the DarkBad our intrepid band of heroes splits up the treasures they liberated from it's horrid depths.The noble warrior Smashstuff looks at his portion of the swag and says. "Hmm, this +3 Sword of Kick-Ass is nice but I already have a +5 Axe of Badassery. Maybe someone in the nearby city will be willing to buy it off me."

Which is a different prospect than magic marts.

This is more a case of looking for somebody with an obscenely large enough pile of disposable cash to purchase an "extra" magic item than going to the local magic seller's and pawning it. Different things. And, in my experience, an adventure in and of itself.

Not to mention I've only rarely seen an adventurer willing to part at all with such a magic item even if it was "only" +3. Frankly, +3 was, back in the day, very powerful and not something to be tossed aside even for the large pile of coin it might bring in. At the very least it would serve as a backup weapon should something bad befall the primary.

Knaight

2011-12-08, 10:08 AM

Warrior Rogue and Mage? Wow, never heard of it. Sounds like a d20 compatible game.
Not at all. I'd argue that it has a very old school aesthetic in many cases. In any case, it's free, it's short, and it is worth taking a look at (http://www.stargazergames.eu/games/warrior-rogue-mage/).

Randomatic

2011-12-08, 07:06 PM

I don't envision magic marts as a Walmart type entity. There wouldn't be that level of commercialization and mass production. However, production of magic items isn't much of an issue in DnD.

There is a strong disconnect between the common idea that magic, either items or spells, are rare and mysterious, and the reality that they are a scarce, but hardly rare commodity. When any given group of randomly encountered bandits on the road have a 30% chance of having any 3 magic items, you can't call magic items rare.

That's why I have such a hard time with suspension of disbelief when it comes to magic marts. The reality of the game is that magic is all over the place, so there should be stores that sell it.

kaomera

2011-12-08, 08:17 PM

There is a strong disconnect between the common idea that magic, either items or spells, are rare and mysterious, and the reality that they are a scarce, but hardly rare commodity. When any given group of randomly encountered bandits on the road have a 30% chance of having any 3 magic items, you can't call magic items rare.
I can see this, and it's definitely a reasonable way to look at things. I think where I (and my experiences) differ is that I see ''magic is rare'' as a basic element of the game. If the PCs defeat an entire bandit operation there is a 30% chance that there are some specific magic items (or maps) that they might be able to find, unless the DM decides there shouldn't be. But, if you extend that out across the entire campaign-world, and you expect the rules to remain consistent, then that's possibly a fair bit of magic treasure (assuming that there are a lot of different bandit operations going on).

I see the 1e rules as being more subservient to the fiction of the campaign world - but that's probably at least in part because it produces the results I want. My biggest complaint with more common magic would be that it's a slippery slope... Allowing players to purchase magic items is a convenience, and they're going to want to expand on it.

Especially in more modern groups (I won't even say systems, as there's a definite change in attitude) players tend to assume a lot, and stepping on those assumptions doesn't make them happy, and IMO unhappy players is pretty much the worst thing you can do to a game. Random treasure (even if some of it can be bought) means that the players can't ever count on getting that one particular item they want, and also creates a situation where some magic items are rarer than others. One of my issues with a ''magic-mart'' system is that it just lets players load their characters down with tons of ''minor'' magic items, which is a book-keeping and rules headache.

I guess that, personally, I just can't get comfortable with the idea of items as a customization element. It's not directly suspension of disbelief, but it hurts my ability to really accept the world the game is happening in as being worth investing myself in.

olthar

2011-12-08, 08:19 PM

However, production of magic items isn't much of an issue in DnD.True. But what are the chances that any given town happens to have the given item that a character wants? It should be amazingly low unless the magic mart is working as a walmart type entity. The problem with that is that the players would then complain that you never give them what they want and that the dm is stonewalling them. So the magic marts tend to have what the players want/need.

Returning this side conversation back to the topic. I actually do think the illusionist reflects a huge difference between AD&D and 3.x. The illusionist reflected a character who was limited by the imagination of the player and what the DM would let said player get away with. In 3.x magic is commonplace and specific. Every time I see one of those "I want to make a mage assassin character" and everyone says that it's impossible I want to put in, "why don't you make an item that's purpose is killing mages. Call it the mage slayer arrow. It's a one use arrow that when shot nullifies all magic in the area around it and it's target. It would shut off a priest's connection to their god and remove all spells from a mage's memory." There, problem solved. But in 3.x that isn't possible. In 1e you can see that because a player or DM can imagine it up. An illusionist works the same way.

Randomatic

2011-12-08, 09:11 PM

I see the stock of a magic mart as being an abstraction that has to be hand waved somewhat in order to make a playable game. It's not just magic items, but if you go for a true 800-1600 AD type village, there wouldn't really be any shops at all until you went into cities. There would be a town blacksmith, but good luck finding weapons or armor available in town. Unless the town was a major hunting town you wouldn't have a fletcher, as every hunter would just be expected to make his own arrows, etc. However, not having any shops to resupply at outside of cities would make for a dull game. I apply the same reasoning to a magic shop. It should be stocked with some of the items that the players have a use for, just to keep the game running smoothly.

Magic items also have a necessity in DnD that doesn't exist in any of the fiction that it comes from. You can expect to run into gargoyles, wights or shadows even as a relatively low level adventurer, so that means that the PCs must have magic weapons, or they'll continually TPK. It wasn't intended, but the capability of most adventurers are heavily dependent on their items even in old DnD.

The biggest difference I see between 1E and 3+ DnD is guidance. Wealth by Level and Magic Marts, etc. tell the DM the appropriate amount of stuff that players are supposed to have, and that also let WotC standardize their adventures, so you didn't have the old module problem of having no clue of what gear the characters will have, and randomly finding loot that would cost 120,000 GP in 3E in a beginner module, because the module writer didn't think that item was so useful. It's happened in the older published modules, not regularly, but guidelines make quality control much easier.

That's also part of the issue that I have with the treasure for bandits. Sure, as a DM you could say that they don't find that ring of 3 wishes in the bandit camp that you rolled up, but that's what the Monster Manual told you was an appropriate treasure.

That also applies to the idea of the game rules being subservient to the DM. What guidelines does the DM have to go by for their rulings. This applies to illusion spells, creating new items or spells, ruling on what happens when a player tries to swing across a chandelier. 1E basically says, well the DM can make up anything they want. I really don't find that to be useful advice.

I know that if I had approached the DM's that I had, and suggested that I make a Magic Slayer arrow that could cut off a cleric from their god, or wipe out a magic user's memorized spells, they would have laughed at me, and called me a munchkin, and likely started using them against the party in future fights. Though we'd never find one as loot.

You had the potential for great rulings, and you had the potential to show up at the gaming table with your Illusionist, and have the DM say "Illusions, those things are stupid, they aren't even real." and have him rule that you never get to do anything at all, cause all your opponents disbelieve everything you do.

Gnoman

2011-12-08, 11:26 PM

But in 3.x that isn't possible.

It most certainly is. The DM simply has to prove it, just like in 1e. Nowhere in any 3.x rulebook says that you cannot create your own items and spells. In fact, the DMG encourages you to do so.

olthar

2011-12-09, 03:11 AM

It most certainly is. The DM simply has to prove it, just like in 1e. Nowhere in any 3.x rulebook says that you cannot create your own items and spells. In fact, the DMG encourages you to do so.

In my experience, magic in 3.x is a known commodity. There are no random pools of magic negation because there are no rules on how a pool of magic negation would work. If a DM put a pool of magic negation in, then the players would clamor for the rules on how it works and demand to know what source book it is found in. The simple fact that the post above yours refers to the same object I proposed as a munchkin item shows the point. If such an item were proposed in the 3.x thread it would be mocked with derision as exactly that (while they consistently discuss the amazing power disparity). The fact that such items would be used against the party would only make sense because as Thunt mocked in early goblins comics, there is no reason to not use the items from the poorly locked chest other than poor genre conventions.

In contrast, the lack of specific rules for stuff in 1e encourages creativity and rulings. Magic, as an art rather than a science, can do all sorts of stuff. A pool of magic negation would not be surprising and would be seen as a challenge to solve rather than a blatant attempt at the DM to ruin the fun of the mage. Illusionists can be as fun as one thinks up. Obviously a poor DM would have a greater effect on the illusionist than any other class, but a poor DM has a huge effect on the game anyway. The answer to poor DMs is to stop playing, not to change your class.

Premier

2011-12-09, 08:47 AM

The biggest difference I see between 1E and 3+ DnD is guidance. Wealth by Level and Magic Marts, etc. tell the DM the appropriate amount of stuff that players are supposed to have, and that also let WotC standardize their adventures, so you didn't have the old module problem of having no clue of what gear the characters will have, and randomly finding loot that would cost 120,000 GP in 3E in a beginner module, because the module writer didn't think that item was so useful. It's happened in the older published modules, not regularly, but guidelines make quality control much easier.

This is one of the cornerstones of the difference between old school and WotC D&D, and one of the big mental stumbling blocks when new-school people look at old D&D. The assumption that the very concept of "appropriate" treasure that the party is "supposed to have" exists.

The WotC mode of thinking is to accept this unconditionally as an axiom then apply it to everything. "Old school D&D didn't have rules to express this concept, so that's a fault."

No. The concept is NOT as universal and automatically true as WotC-thinking would have you believe. It's just a particular design choice that 3E and 4E took, which has valid alternatives that they might have taken but didn't, and which is not a basic requirement for or attribute of an RPG. Old school D&D didn't have rules for it not because it was an oversight, but because it was a deliberate design decision that there should not be a level of "acceptable" wealth and equipment - because such a level is not necessary. It's not that old editions "do not offer guidance"; it's that contrarily to WotC's assumption, there is nothing to offer guidance for.

Occasionally having too little or too much stuff was an element that brought extra gameplay and challenge into the game. No magic weapons to fight the gargoyle? Either use scouting and planning to go around it, render it immobile with a trap, or lure it into the lair of another dungeon denizen who's powerful enough to defeat it (monsters with sufficiently high HD could damage things that normally required magic weapons to hit). Or come up with something else. All opportunities for the players to excercise their creativity and problem-solving skills, which is what the game is all about.

You suddenly found a ridiculously mighty treasure of 500,000 gp, most of it in silver and copper coins? First, you have to find a way of getting that huge weight and volume of stuff out of the dungeon, through the wilderness and into town. Then you have to protect it from all those bandits, thieves, tax collectors, kings and whatnot who want to take it from you. Then you have to figure out what you actually want to do with it - then you have to do it. All this while being rather low level. Rather than the cakewalk WotC-thinking would believe, it's actually a great opportunity for the party to come up against a whole slew of challenges.

Both cases present a whole bunch of innovative situations and gameplay options that you simply won't have if the rules, like in 3E, ensure that you're always just sufficiently equipped to deal with the the situation in the most boring and mundane way a.k.a. sticking your sword in it.

Jay R

2011-12-09, 02:32 PM

Most people who didn't play D&D in the 70s and very early eighties make a couple of false assumptions.

The biggest one is to think of it as a mainstream game, or even as a primarily adventure game as the term is used today. It wasn't. It was a weird offshoot out of miniatures gaming, itself a weird and mostly unknown hobby. It was a new creation, written by and for people who were already wargamers and fantasy readers. Being wargamers, we were focused on the goal of simulation. Being fantasy & SF readers, we had clear ideas about what we were trying to simulate.

There's no point explaining why there "ought" to be magic markets in a game simulating a mix of Erewhon, Middle-Earth, Arthurian England, Dying Earth and a melange of mythologies, when none of them have magic markets.

There's no point trying to decide what the most "playable" rule is, when most of us had already had long discussions on the need for balance between playability and simulation.

The reason most old grognards prefer OD&D or very early AD&D is that we are simulation gamers. We want a simulation, and will sacrifice a certain amount of playability to get it. The reason most modern players prefer the modern games is that they are primarily "adventure gamers". They want the best adventure, and will sacrifice simulation to get it.

Neither game is an inferior version of the other. Each is the game as intended, serving the needs of its players. The game I prefer is the one that provides what I most desire, and the game you prefer is the one that provides what you desire.

TheHarshax

2011-12-13, 08:51 AM

Which is a different prospect than magic marts.

This is more a case of looking for somebody with an obscenely large enough pile of disposable cash to purchase an "extra" magic item than going to the local magic seller's and pawning it. Different things. And, in my experience, an adventure in and of itself.

Not to mention I've only rarely seen an adventurer willing to part at all with such a magic item even if it was "only" +3. Frankly, +3 was, back in the day, very powerful and not something to be tossed aside even for the large pile of coin it might bring in. At the very least it would serve as a backup weapon should something bad befall the primary.

You guys are forgetting a huge part of the OE experience:
You really didn't know what the sword's plus was, in the first place. No low level spell told you the definitive nature of a magic item. Many DM's wouldn't even say it was +1, just that a minor dweomer emanated from the item, under conditions of detect magic. High powered spells, required equally high powered magic-users to cast them. Maybe even expensive spell components, can't remember at the moment.

The nature of magic items were determined by trial and error. That "+1 sword" you just sold, might actually have a +3 vs. regenerating creatures, but you wouldn't know, because you ran out of pearls for which to cast identify. In fact, I ran many games where plus, charges, etc were kept secret from the players, and only very expensive spells would reveal that information completely.

It could also turn out to be +1 cursed beserker when fighting flumphs! Who wants to spend 2,000 gp on what they think is a +1 magic sword? If you had 2,000 gp, there was certainly better, more reliable purchases that could be made.

Which leads me to the OP's question. TOEs (The Older Editions), were able to provide a greater sense of mystery, and unknown, far better than the newer editions. TOEs have random and sometimes goofy tables, non-codified magic item creation rules, subjective rules, and imperfectly codified spells.

If the DMs and players appreciated that, they were more inclined to enjoy the illusionist's potential.

hamlet

2011-12-13, 10:33 AM

You guys are forgetting a huge part of the OE experience:
You really didn't know what the sword's plus was, in the first place. No low level spell told you the definitive nature of a magic item. Many DM's wouldn't even say it was +1, just that a minor dweomer emanated from the item, under conditions of detect magic. High powered spells, required equally high powered magic-users to cast them. Maybe even expensive spell components, can't remember at the moment.

The nature of magic items were determined by trial and error. That "+1 sword" you just sold, might actually have a +3 vs. regenerating creatures, but you wouldn't know, because you ran out of pearls for which to cast identify. In fact, I ran many games where plus, charges, etc were kept secret from the players, and only very expensive spells would reveal that information completely.

It could also turn out to be +1 cursed beserker when fighting flumphs! Who wants to spend 2,000 gp on what they think is a +1 magic sword? If you had 2,000 gp, there was certainly better, more reliable purchases that could be made.

Which leads me to the OP's question. TOEs (The Older Editions), were able to provide a greater sense of mystery, and unknown, far better than the newer editions. TOEs have random and sometimes goofy tables, non-codified magic item creation rules, subjective rules, and imperfectly codified spells.

If the DMs and players appreciated that, they were more inclined to enjoy the illusionist's potential.

Absolutely. One of my favorite games involved us as the players carting around magic items the function of which were completely obscure to us and, in a moment of panic and desperation, pulling various items out and randomly attempting to make the situation better. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. But half the fun of the situation was being at least a little unsure of what it was that the thing did.

TheHarshax

2011-12-13, 10:54 AM

Absolutely. One of my favorite games involved us as the players carting around magic items the function of which were completely obscure to us and, in a moment of panic and desperation, pulling various items out and randomly attempting to make the situation better. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. But half the fun of the situation was being at least a little unsure of what it was that the thing did.

I pulled out my 1E Player's Handbook pdf, and it's all coming back to me, when it came to identifying magic items:
Identify - Level 1
1. You had to wear the item, and be the recipient of an item's curse.
2. The item had to be identified within one hour/Level of finding it.
3. The spell never revealed the exact number of charges or pluses.
4. The spell gave you false information 5% of the time.
5. The spell caused 8 points of temporary constitution damage, that took 8 hours of rest to heal.
6. The spell required 100gp in spell components.

Regardless how many times you could memorize identify, criteria 5 was the hard limit on how often you could cast the spell. Because of the 8 point temporary constitution damage, only a magic-user with godlike constitution could cast the spell often enough, and only a foolhardy magic-user would do so. So the primary reason why there was no magic-shoppe, was because most items never get identified to a degree which would instill confidence in the buyer or seller.

The next PH spell that could give you exact information on magic items was Legend Lore, if you knew the right questions to ask. However, this spell had a chance of driving your m-u insane, or killing him outright. What 11th level character would risk that, so they could price a sword accurately? Again, there's other and more exciting ways to make money (and XP!).

If you didn't play identify by the book, (gawds know I didn't use every rule), then you can't lambast the d&d milieu for having no magic-shoppes, because you were already taking advantage of Rule 0 (It's my game), so there was nothing stopping you from creating a magic-item economy in the game.

rexreg

2011-12-13, 12:57 PM

re: magic marts
an individual village cannot afford your magic stuff
heck, most of them can't afford a normal sword
BUT, the Thieve's Guild has tentacles & connections throughout the world & would represent a purchasing entity w/ money to spend...up to a point...anything they buy they must make a profit on & they will only buy @ a substantial discount...at times a party might decide selling isn't worth it

hamlet

2011-12-13, 01:59 PM

Grac

2011-12-13, 06:37 PM

That presumes the existance of a "thieve's guild" in the first place.
I've never understood the idea of a thieve's guild, and have never included it in my games. The closest things would be local mob-ish organisations, but then most power centres in my games are essentially groups of thugs trying to beat everyone else over the head with a stick or spells.

LibraryOgre

2011-12-14, 02:16 AM

I've never understood the idea of a thieve's guild, and have never included it in my games. The closest things would be local mob-ish organisations, but then most power centres in my games are essentially groups of thugs trying to beat everyone else over the head with a stick or spells.

Really, that's what thieves guilds are... they're the Mob. They make sure you don't rob the people who are paying protection, they set up valuables to get robbed, etc. They also serve as fences for stolen loot, and a guild for thieves... making sure idiots don't ruin it for everyone else, possibly even offering up to the authorities those who break guild rules. Like many guilds, they can serve as clearinghouses of information.

Grac

2011-12-14, 02:48 AM

Really, that's what thieves guilds are... they're the Mob. They make sure you don't rob the people who are paying protection, they set up valuables to get robbed, etc. They also serve as fences for stolen loot, and a guild for thieves... making sure idiots don't ruin it for everyone else, possibly even offering up to the authorities those who break guild rules. Like many guilds, they can serve as clearinghouses of information.
It's the 'guild for thieves' part that gets me. But when merchants are constantly preying on one another's shipping, and nobles are raiding caravans that pass through their territory, there's just no room for any of that stuff.

kaomera

2011-12-14, 08:33 AM

It's the 'guild for thieves' part that gets me. But when merchants are constantly preying on one another's shipping, and nobles are raiding caravans that pass through their territory, there's just no room for any of that stuff.
The problem with thieves' guilds is there application as a very generic, standardized thing, imo. In relatively few situations an ''actual'' guild, that acts as and calls itself such might be appropriate, but usually what you have is little more than a set of informal agreements among the seedier elements - many of which are liable to not actually be thieves by class.

In the example you list above, if nobles are raiding caravans one of them might prefer to appear more legitimate (after all, then the merchants may try and support him) and therfore set up a bandit group as a front for these attacks. If he's not directly monitoring / leading these men, they are liable to become more bandits in fact and do various side-jobs, including working for one merchant against another. It becomes known (not publicly, but through rumor, etc.) that the woods (or whatever) is these bandits' territory, and those that want to do business with them seek them out. Some merchants may start paying protection money, and the bandits will want to establish contacts in various nearby cities to fence goods, buy supplies, etc.

This kind of network would form the basis of a significant thieves' guild, although no-one's liable to state such outright. And one or more nobles, merchants, etc. is liable to gain control of the operation in any given city - after all, they have the money. It's really only when you start assuming that high-level adventures retire with large amounts of treasure that your ''typical'' guild becomes more reasonable, as they have the capitol to set something up from scratch.

hamlet

2011-12-14, 08:46 AM

Don't also forget, though, that in The Free City of Greyhawk, there is an actual guild of thieves. With a seat on the ruling council.

But it sort of makes sense in implementation, all things considered.

kaomera

2011-12-14, 08:58 AM

Don't also forget, though, that in The Free City of Greyhawk, there is an actual guild of thieves. With a seat on the ruling council.
Damn those retired high-level adventurers! :smalltongue:

hamlet

2011-12-14, 12:16 PM

Damn those retired high-level adventurers! :smalltongue:

At least, unlike a certain Fearunian mage who shall go unnamed, they did stuff when it made sense.

JackShandy

2011-12-15, 07:12 PM

In regards to Dying Earth, the Clugel story Eyes of the Overworld starts at the magic market.

In regards to the Guild of Thieves, I believe that orginated in the Lankhmar (and I think that the reference to Erewhon above was meant to be Nehwon). Of all the inspirations, old school D&D reminds me most of Fritz Leiber's stories in feel.

Particle_Man

2012-01-06, 11:39 PM

*As far as I knew. Gygax may have taken them from some fantasy novel, but if so, neither I nor anybody I played with recognized it, and they didn't exist in OD&D as Player Characters anyway.

I think the gnome in question is in Three Hearts and Three Lions, by Poul Anderson (not an illusionist, as far as I can tell, and he gets killed by a *regenerating* troll in the novel, so I imagine that is where the D&D non-tolkein troll is from).

I think it would be cool to plan a dual classed assassin 13/illusionist 14+ as the ultimate "deep cover" agent, but that would take a loooong time in 1st ed. to work up through the ranks.

Some of the illusionist spells are quite nasty, even leaving standard illusions aside. Phantasmal Killer vs. low intelligent opponents? Very nasty. Chaos (the mass confustion spell, might have the name wrong) only allows saves to fighters, illusionists, and some monsters. Otherwise no save. In a world where it is not that hard for high-level characters to almost always make their saves!

Also, component-wise, some illusionist spells had only the S component, many have trivial M components. I think only a very few had significant M components.

And given the high intelligence requirement and limited number of illusionist spells (pre-Unearthed Arcana) the illusionist was almost goaded towards private spell research. :)

Damn, now I want to play a human illusionist. :)

Jay R

2012-01-09, 07:23 AM

And given the high intelligence requirement and limited number of illusionist spells (pre-Unearthed Arcana) the illusionist was almost goaded towards private spell research. :)

Not as much as you think. Depending on the DM, the various Phantasmal Forces were among the most over-powered spells, and certainly the most flexible, so as I recall, Illusionists tended to fill up their slots with them.

I remember one large scale battle where an illusionist basically kept up a single Improved Phantasmal Force of a large unit of archers up on a ridge for most of the entire battle. Unless somebody has a reason to disbelieve, it could last forever.

ken-do-nim

2012-01-09, 12:44 PM

Not as much as you think. Depending on the DM, the various Phantasmal Forces were among the most over-powered spells, and certainly the most flexible, so as I recall, Illusionists tended to fill up their slots with them.

I remember one large scale battle where an illusionist basically kept up a single Improved Phantasmal Force of a large unit of archers up on a ridge for most of the entire battle. Unless somebody has a reason to disbelieve, it could last forever.

I limit the amount of distinct parts of an illusion to the illusionist's level, so a 14th level illusionist could make an illusion of 14 archers on the ridge, unless all were shooting in unison, but that wouldn't look believable.

LibraryOgre

2012-01-09, 03:08 PM

I tended towards the rule that Phantsmal Force line of spells could emulate same or lower level spells... but they had an added save as illusions.

Jay R

2012-01-09, 06:32 PM

I limit the amount of distinct parts of an illusion to the illusionist's level, so a 14th level illusionist could make an illusion of 14 archers on the ridge, unless all were shooting in unison, but that wouldn't look believable.

I tended towards the rule that Phantsmal Force line of spells could emulate same or lower level spells... but they had an added save as illusions.

I repeat: "Depending on the DM, ..."

Belril Duskwalk

2012-01-11, 07:40 PM

I limit the amount of distinct parts of an illusion to the illusionist's level, so a 14th level illusionist could make an illusion of 14 archers on the ridge, unless all were shooting in unison, but that wouldn't look believable.

Not necessarily. Volley-fire was a valid tactic for utilizing trained archers in large-scale conflict. Used with a well-trained army, a unit of archers firing in unison would be very believable and lethal.

But yes, the power of a 1st edition illusionist is strictly limited by two factors: 1) How inventive the Illusionist is. 2) How flexible your DM is.

KorvinStarmast

2016-07-20, 01:18 PM

Why on earth play an illusionist in OD&D and 1e?

Because it was FUN as hell
Because it was a fantastic character for very creative and out-of-the-box-thinking players.

Most people who didn't play D&D in the 70s and very early eighties make a couple of false assumptions. Yes, and you made a very nice post. Well said.

In regards to the Guild of Thieves, I believe that orginated in the Lankhmar (and I think that the reference to Erewhon above was meant to be Nehwon). Of all the inspirations, old school D&D reminds me most of Fritz Leiber's stories in feel. Absolutely. The swords and sorcery genre seems to have found its early avatar in the Fafhrd/Grey Mouser series, and Lieber's stories were among the original inspirations of the game. Heck, I read F&TGM stories before I ever played D&D. (Also a bunch of the Conan stories).

Notes:

TSR put out a game for Lankhmar early on.
Fritz Lieber ran a dungeon that some of the early D&D authors/fans played in from time to time. (In one of the SR issues, EGG made mention of Fritz Lieber's dungeon perhaps being available for play at an early Gen Con).

Thrudd

2016-07-21, 01:23 PM

Just want to concur with everyone else. The effectiveness of illusion spells were highly dependent on the DM's interpretation of the rules and so could vary from nearly useless to incredibly overpowered. Where your DM landed on that spectrum would determine how good the illusionist class was for that game.

Apart from the illusion spells themselves, some of the other illusionist-only spells were objectively fairly awesome, like color spray and wall of fog.

Also, it's relatively difficult ability score requirements (need both a 15 and 16) meant that it wasn't even an option all that often, unless a very lenient rolling method was used.

CE DM

2016-07-27, 10:45 AM

As someone who played 2nd ed being an illusionist was a pretty okay option. You got extra spells per day (which helped you survive level one) and gnome illusionist could level up pretty high. So it seemed to be worth the slower level ups and smaller spell list. In 1st ed AD&D doesn't seem to have much appeal. You don't get extra spells per day and gnomes can only get to level 7.

actually, it's the 2e illusionist that is weaksauce. Gnomes play/are them because they are typically limited to that or nothing (later books add the alchemist & artificer sp mages to gnomes).

The 1e version has a host of spells wizards/mages have no access to, or sooner access, and illusions in 1e kill quite readily. It's actually quite powerful. Gnomes, and non humans in general (with exceptions for certain combos) are gimped by level limits pretty much period. Yeah, the gnome went to L7...but they were also limited to L6 fighter, and if allowed, L8 assassin & L7 cleric, so it's not like there was much difference to level caps by class.

They are different games, if similar in superficial ways.

DM fiat indeed matters much, but a 1e DM really will see different information (illusions do damage like mad). 1e calls for 2 scores of 15+ for PC's, thus illusionist stats are not all that uncommon, although in truth, they probably need a third high score in Con to have good odds of long term success (one could say that for all classes though, but those only needing one stat can go with it & con easily).

Mordar

2016-08-15, 04:41 PM

Creating options that are completely superfluous and handled better by something else in every single case is bad game design. It has nothing to do with "bonuses", or "roleplaying", and everything to do with sloppiness. There is a subset of people (myself among them) who are willing to play a particular concept even when the rules attitude towards that concept is a "and screw you too" variant, our existence doesn't obviate the sort of terrible rules design required for this to happen.

One might wonder how with such bad, sloppy and even terrible rules design this whole Dungeons and Dragons thing, advanced or otherwise, managed to compete against all of those other RPGs in the market at the time. I mean really...the defects are so obvious after 40 years of evolution how could anyone have wasted their time and money on such tripe?

At the end of the day, I think a lot of it comes down to flavor and wanting a wizardly option that wasn't so overt. I don't remember it being quite such a self-inflicted hamstring...just more of a different angle to take, and one that worked very well in cityscape kinds of stories/campaigns like those inspired by Fafherd and the Mouser.

- M

Knaight

2016-08-15, 06:28 PM

Mordar

2016-08-15, 06:48 PM

It's almost like being first and competing against 0 RPGs for a while was helpful. It's also almost like a massive boost to brand recognition from poorly informed "moral" crusaders in the 1980s and the continuing value of network effects help. That's ridiculous though, popularity is a perfect indicator of quality.

It could also mean that, like the first poorly designed aircraft to get off the ground, it established the field and did the hard work of invention. Those that followed were able to fine tune design elements, create their own inventions and modification, and eventually give us the jet-powered monstrosities of today. Of course those engineers that made those modifications and designed those jets were better at their jobs than those hacks the Wright Brothers or any of the other first generation of "engineers". After all, they didn't even think of using turbines to force air. They were just lucky there was no competition at the time.

Using the accumulated advances in the field and the design parameters of today (indeed, perhaps even the advances and parameters of a certain school of though) to suggest sloppiness or bad/terrible design in a product created literally at the birth of the field is probably unfair at best. To suggest that the Illusionist, for instance, was a result of sloppy design because it could be outperformed by another class in each aspect (even if true) misses the mark because it presumes the design goal was mechanical advantage in the performance of those tangible tasks or aspects and may fail to take into account other potential design goals.

Does the fact that the (A)D&D family of games was arguably the first large scale foray into what became modern RPGs make it the best? Of course not. But in my opinion, to broad-brush the development done 40 years ago with the critical analysis suitable for games of today, with their advantage of learning from the mistakes (and successes) of the past is unfair at best. It really is like complaining that a toddler's walk is gangly and uneven when compared to their 12-year-old sibling.

- M

2D8HP

2016-08-15, 07:49 PM

In regards to the Guild of Thieves, I believe that orginated in the Lankhmar (and I think that the reference to Erewhon above was meant to be Nehwon). Of all the inspirations, old school D&D reminds me most of Fritz Leiber's stories in feel.

The swords and sorcery genre seems to have found its early avatar in the Fafhrd/Grey Mouser series, and Lieber's stories were among the original inspirations of the game. Heck, I read F&TGM stories before I ever played D&D. (Also a bunch of the Conan stories).

Notes:

TSR put out a game for Lankhmar early on.
Fritz Lieber ran a dungeon that some of the early D&D authors/fans played in from time to time. (In one of the SR issues, EGG made mention of Fritz Lieber's dungeon perhaps being available for play at an early Gen Con).

At the end of the day, I think a lot of it comes down to flavor and wanting a wizardly option that wasn't so overt. I don't remember it being quite such a self-inflicted hamstring...just more of a different angle to take, and one that worked very well in cityscape kinds of stories/campaigns like those inspired by Fafherd and the Mouser.

- M
When I was in my 20's and he was in his 90"s I was privileged to shake Mr. Leiber's hand at a book signing.
For those reading this thread who are unfamiliar with the Leiber (or just want to re-read BADASS! stories, which were published from 1939 to 1977:

Induction (http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0087/ERBAEN0087___1.htm)

The Jewels in the Forest (http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0088/ERBAEN0088___2.htm)

The Bleak Shore (http://www.baen.com/Chapters/9781625791528/9781625791528___2.htm)

Lean Times in Lankhmar (http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0089/ERBAEN0089___2.htm)

In the Witch's Tent (http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0090/ERBAEN0090___1.htm)

The Circle Curse (http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0088/ERBAEN0088___1.htm)

The Sadness of the Executioner (http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0092/ERBAEN0092___1.htm)

Beauty and the Beasts (http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0092/ERBAEN0092___2.htm)

The Cloud of Hate (http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0089/ERBAEN0089___1.htm)

Sea Magic (http://www.baen.com/Chapters/ERBAEN0093/ERBAEN0093___1.htm)

Knaight

2016-08-16, 12:26 AM

It could also mean that, like the first poorly designed aircraft to get off the ground, it established the field and did the hard work of invention. Those that followed were able to fine tune design elements, create their own inventions and modification, and eventually give us the jet-powered monstrosities of today. Of course those engineers that made those modifications and designed those jets were better at their jobs than those hacks the Wright Brothers or any of the other first generation of "engineers". After all, they didn't even think of using turbines to force air. They were just lucky there was no competition at the time.

So what? All of this is true, but it's besides the point - the quality of the game is what it is, regardless of the reasons behind it. If I were trying to call the designers incompetent then this might be relevant, but that criticism was never made. Similarly, there's a reason that early airplanes aren't used for anything practical anymore, regardless of how brilliant many of the early engineers were (although there are some unmitigated disasters in there where people did really stupid stuff while their contemporaries were telling them it was a bad idea).

D+1

2016-08-17, 08:22 PM

One might wonder how with such bad, sloppy and even terrible rules design this whole Dungeons and Dragons thing, advanced or otherwise, managed to compete against all of those other RPGs in the market at the time. I mean really...the defects are so obvious after 40 years of evolution how could anyone have wasted their time and money on such tripe?

D&D and AD&D are the way they are because RPG design DID NOT EXIST. There was nobody to tell Gygax or Arneson, or Wesely, "You're doing it wrong," because NONE OF IT had ever been done before. Even if somebody had the temerity to pronounce judgements on their game design skills and acumen they would never have listened because they were too busy INVENTING THE ENTIRE DISCIPLINE of rpg game design. Gygax was at least humble and prescient enough for a moment or two to write in the DMG that he had no illusions about having crafted perfection and that others who were more clever would come along and generally do it better.

The predominant attitude at the time was that each Dungeon Master would in effect be creating his own modified game that was theirs and theirs alone, not just obsequiously following the rules written by "professional" game designers who always knew better than any individual DM what it was they needed or wanted out of the game. Personally, I still hold 1E AD&D as my favorite version of the game DESPITE all its quite obvious flaws and failings - mostly in the realm of game mechanics. Clearly there were mechanical improvements by "professional" game designers in later editions, but much was lost with every later version that was not just game mechanics. They continued to make the game less and less what it was originally and more and more about mechanics. It is the indefinite components of the game that are NOT mechanics that speak to Old School players and explain why after 40 years of evolution people STILL turn to the oldest editions and all their bad, sloppy, terrible rules design.

Mordar

2016-08-18, 11:18 AM

D&D and AD&D are the way they are because RPG design DID NOT EXIST. There was nobody to tell Gygax or Arneson, or Wesely, "You're doing it wrong," because NONE OF IT had ever been done before. Even if somebody had the temerity to pronounce judgements on their game design skills and acumen they would never have listened because they were too busy INVENTING THE ENTIRE DISCIPLINE of rpg game design. Gygax was at least humble and prescient enough for a moment or two to write in the DMG that he had no illusions about having crafted perfection and that others who were more clever would come along and generally do it better.

The predominant attitude at the time was that each Dungeon Master would in effect be creating his own modified game that was theirs and theirs alone, not just obsequiously following the rules written by "professional" game designers who always knew better than any individual DM what it was they needed or wanted out of the game. Personally, I still hold 1E AD&D as my favorite version of the game DESPITE all its quite obvious flaws and failings - mostly in the realm of game mechanics. Clearly there were mechanical improvements by "professional" game designers in later editions, but much was lost with every later version that was not just game mechanics. They continued to make the game less and less what it was originally and more and more about mechanics. It is the indefinite components of the game that are NOT mechanics that speak to Old School players and explain why after 40 years of evolution people STILL turn to the oldest editions and all their bad, sloppy, terrible rules design.

Hi -

Totally my point...just executed in a fashion much more appropriate to this kind of discussion (without the snark and sarcasm I used because I was being pissy) and this discussion space. I absolutely and completely agree with your first paragraph and most of the second.

- M