What's up with ad&d?

[that_one_kobold]

I've played and loved 5e for quite some time now, and just found an old ad&d 2e book. Are ad&d and ad&d 2e any good or what?

[D+1]

I've played and loved 5e for quite some time now, and just found an old ad&d 2e book. Are ad&d and ad&d 2e any good or what?

Yes they are. In some ways superior, in others maybe not so much. But no version of D&D has an expiration date. Read the rules. If you have questions you might want to ask about them on a 1e/2E friendly website like Dragonsfoot. I still play 1E. It's got a lot of house rules but what version of D&D doesn't wind up with a lot of house rules? I've played 3E, 3.5, and read 4E and 5E and I still think 1E is a better set of rules to base a game off of than anything later. Not that there aren't things that can't be improved about it, but as I said I PREFER to start there.

[Mechalich]

2e AD&D probably has the best fluff material of any of the editions, and certainly has the most fluff by word count of any edition. A lot of the extant settings where really hammered into place during 2e and have only evolved marginally if at all since then. So there's a lot of interesting material in 2e for use in games set in later editions in a fashion that isn't exactly true of 3.X or 4e.

Mechanically, 2e has real problems - and I say that as someone who ran it and loved it to death. There's a huge lack of consistency from one book to the next, stuff like racial class and level restrictions are annoying, THAC0 is a frustrating formula to actually use, and there are countless ad hoc rules buried deep in various splat books. Given that 5e was in many ways a means of getting back toward 2e roots while retaining 3e's measurably superior core mechanics it probably makes more sense to run 5e with 2e fluff rather than try to get into 2e at this point.

[Telok]

It should probably be noted that AD&D (at least 1st ed.) is less a fully fledged set of rules to run a game with, and more of a collection of baseline rules and masses of optional and house rules that you choose from and adapt to make your D&D game.

That said, there are reasons for all of the rules and which ones you use or emphasize will change the way that game play dramatically.

[KillianHawkeye]

The older editions of D&D were great (and modern D&D couldn't exist without them), but the trends and general concepts of game design have changed a lot since the 70s and 80s. The rules were looser, with more focus on the story, demanding more creativity and logical thinking from both the players and the DM. And it was a simpler time, back before most gamers had developed a ton of bad video game habits.

[daniel_ream]

They're certainly different. Any good? That's up to you and your group, but you'll certainly be learning some new things about gaming if you investigate them, and that's always a good thing.

You can find recreations of the first edition AD&D rules at http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/ and second edition at http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/justen-brown/for-gold-glory/ebook/product-22756917.html

In my experience, Gary Gygax's writing style is as crucial a part of 1E AD&D as the mechanics, so if you can find copies of the original books cheap I would pursue that option. 2E print copies seem to be fairly easy to find inexpensively.

If your only experience with D&D is 5E, then you're going to find 1E and 2E rather more...baroque. There's little consistency among mechanics or dice types for similar in-fiction tasks, and the rules as a whole will likely feel more cobbled together in an ad hoc fashion than deliberately designed (because they were). But they worked just fine for many a hexcrawl or dungeon delve back in the day.

Oh, and the 1E DMG is stuffed full of just plain useful stuff for a fantasy campaign. Rules on overland travel, building castles, magic items, occult herbs and gemstones, random encounters for everywhere, it's a treasure trove of ideas that has yet to be equalled.

[Quertus]

2e is my favorite edition, although the mechanics are often inelegant.

3e has great breadth of options, allowing you to play most any character you want. Want a Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot? Someone can probably tell you how to build it.

[JAL_1138]

I've played and loved 5e for quite some time now, and just found an old ad&d 2e book. Are ad&d and ad&d 2e any good or what?

Yes, very. 2e was my favorite edition, with 5e being close behind it but not quite overtaking it. The learning curve is steep though, as they're poorly-organized and the style of writing is less clear and concise. The rules are very, very different than 5e, so don't assume anything you know from 5e will translate to it. AD&D can also be a good bit more lethal; more save-or-die effects, lower HP, and the default rule is that characters die instantly at 0hp (pretty sure there were some slightly more forgiving variant rules later, or else people houseruled them in).

Also be wary of 2e splatbooks for classes and races or any other extra rules—TSR was run rather poorly at the time, and the CEO, Lorraine Williams, forbade employees from playtesting on company time (that's not a joke about game balance being poor; she really did institute a no-playtesting policy). The crunch for the splatbooks wildly varies in quality and balance as a result. The settings, on the other hand, were fantastic. Box sets of awesomeness galore.

[FreddyNoNose]

I've played and loved 5e for quite some time now, and just found an old ad&d 2e book. Are ad&d and ad&d 2e any good or what?

They are great! Unless you need everything spelled out for you like you are a child like the newer games do, you should love them.

[BWR]

I am quite fond of 2e (and BECMI/RC) but there is a reason I play Pathfinder. I may bitch about how easy PCs have it these days, with save-or-die being rare and not something 1st level PCs could be expected to encounter and whatnot, but PF runs more smoothly and is the preferred system of two of my players.

As already pointed out, what 2e did better than any edition was settings and ideas. I doubt you will find any edition that has as great a breadth and depth to the types of supplements and settings as 2e.

[2D8HP]

I went '77 "Basic D&D" -> oD&D (plus "All the World's Monster's, and Arduin) -> 1e AD&D -> other RPG's -> 5e D&D, and I only glanced at 2e through 4e, but 2e looks sweet, and I think it would be fun

If someone wants to easily learn TSR D&D, probably the easiest way would be to pick up '91 "Basic" or '94 "Classic" (same thing TSR just slapped a different cover on '91 Basic, and called in "Classic Dungeons & Dragons" in '94
Because I just can't resist bloviating, I'm going to point out that the '91 (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_Game_(1991_boxed_set)) rules were once known as "Fifth edition", see:

here (http://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/17171).

It went:


1974: Arneson/Gygax "Original" (Brown box/White box)

1977: Holmes "Basic" (Bluebook)

1981: Moldvay/Cook "Basic" (B/X)

1983: Mentzer "Basic" (Red box)

1991: Brown/Denning "New Easy to Master" (Black box) - 1994: "Classic" (same as '91, just a different cover).

Out of all of those, the '91/'94 rules really are "Easy to Master" as the editing/English is better, but my favorite is the complete game in just 48 pages Holmes authored 1977 version, which because it was my first FRP, I can't be objective about.

I enjoy the thought of calling OD&D/Holmes 1e, Moldvay 2e, Mentzer 3e, The Rules Cyclopedia 4e, ignoring AD&D and 3e/3.5/4e WotC D&D, and then came Mearls 5e.

But yeah the biggest change I know was between TSR AD&I/D&D and WotC "3e" (was 4e a big change?).


If anyone wonders:

The first Dungeons & Dragons box was in 1974.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_DSs2bX13hVc/SfSTvUzCu4I/AAAAAAAAA9A/9bUyti9YmUk/s320/box1st.jpg

The first Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook was in 1978.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/09/PlayersHandbook8Cover.jpg

As far as "complete" rules, the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia were published in 1991.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51jfxcIacTL._AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65_.jpg

The Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game: Rules and Adventures Book, (only was for levels one to five) was published in 1994.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51zg8bGF4gL._SL500_.jpg

And in 2014 was 5e Dungeons & Dragons

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51Ykm93n8ML._SY400_.jpg


The Holmes Basic "bluebook" rules were reprinted in '99 as part of the 25 "Silver Anniversary" Set.

Holmes is... not AD&D, or B/X or OD&D, it's sort of all of them and none of them... and it was AWESOME!

If someone wants to easily learn TSR D&D, probably the easiest way would be to pick up '91 "Basic" or '94 "Classic" (same thing), because those are the most clearly written, but if you want to be COOL, then get Holmes, "Basic", OD&D, and AD&D all within 2 years of each other. That's what I did!
:cool:

Also 1.5 was LAME! I'm still boycotting it!
:annoyed:

By "1.5" I mean 1985's Unearthed Arcana, if you decide to use it, be prepared to do some serious house-ruling.

[Xuc Xac]

They are great! Unless you need everything spelled out for you like you are a child like the newer games do, you should love them.

Or, they are terrible! You have to make even basic things yourself because the "designers" didn't think things through and left a lot of glaring holes. There's "some assembly required" but it includes too many of some pieces and not enough of others you need, like a chair from IKEA with two extra seats in the box but only two legs.

[Anonymouswizard]

THAC0 is a frustrating formula to actually use

THAC0-(1d20+bonuses)=AC hit, not that hard. If you precalculate your 'effective THAC0' when writing weapons down by just subtracting your bonuses it becomes eTHAC0-1d20=AC hit.

Still annoying it's not addition, but otherwise fine.


They are great! Unless you need everything spelled out for you like you are a child like the newer games do, you should love them.

Actually modern games are moving towards rules light and spelling out significantly less than 2e. But go on and insult people who like new games, I'll make sure not to invite you to any Rocket Age games I run.

EDIT: really, the main difference is that AD&D gives you all the materials you need to build and furnish a room, while modern games are more like a room you can furnish to your taste. The difference is where the work has to go, with a modern game you don't have to do any work to use it, but will likely want to personalise it, with AD&D you can't start using it until you've at least built a roof, and ideally four walls.

[ATHATH]

3e has great breadth of options, allowing you to play most any character you want. Want a Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot? Someone can probably tell you how to build it.
Off of the top of my head... Be a Warforged with the Incarnate Construct and Necropolitan templates, take a few levels of Rogue and Swashbuckler, then take the Craven and Daring Outlaw feats while continuing to advance as a Swashbuckler.

Next?

[ATHATH]

1st edition AD&D has a ludicrous number of game design flaws in it. Some examples:

Female members of some races have lower STR caps than males of their species- and no mechanical benefits elsewhere (except maybe for not being attracted to Succubi and such?)to make up for this (across any other species).

The "exceptional strength" system. Instead of, say, raising the STR cap, the game designers of 1e decided to create this weird fractional system for STR so that they could say exactly how much stronger or weaker He-Man is than Conan and the like (but not for the other stats, because ???).

Non-human races have level caps in most classes to "balance out their power", and are barred from some classes entirely (because a Dwarven Paladin is INCONCIEVABLE!). Due to the way that the system worked, if you were, say, an Elven Magic-User and reached your level cap, you could never gain another level EVER AGAIN (unless you used a Wish spell or the like, but that could only work once or twice). Your human party members could, of course, and would soon outclass you (because !@#$ you, you chose a cool, non-human race). Some races/class combinations had level caps as low as 7.

And just to rub it in your face- Guess what the one (and, bar a few exceptions, ONLY) class that every race doesn't have a level cap for is. Go on, guess.

THIEF.

Because anyone who's different than us clearly can only excel in taking things from us good, hardworking HUMANS! Praise the EMPRAH!

The Psionics system is !@#$ed up. Your Psionic power is completely independent of your level, so if you get really lucky in character generation, you can drive pretty much anything sentient that you encounter dead/comatose/permanently insane several times per day, INCLUDING GODS. And that's just if you rolled well for your power points- there are some utility powers that are really good as well. If you get unlucky, however, you're basically !@#$ed as soon as you encounter a Psionic enemy, which could and would one-shot you instantly because you were unlucky enough to be a weak Psionic character. Even if you ARE in a fair fight with a Psionic enemy, you basically have to duel them while the rest of the party sits around and twiddles their thumbs, because one round of Psionic combat (between two Psionic characters) takes 1/10 of a normal round. That's right, you get 10 turns for everyone else's one. !@#$ 1e Psionics.

What happens if you roll 3s for two ability scores, which would force you to take two different (possibly incompatible) classes? Whoooooooo knoooooooowwsss?

So, you wanna play a guy that shoots fireballs out of his hands, do you? Well, I hope you roll well for your stats, or else you're gonna play the "guy with a stick" class again, just like last game. And the game before that. And the game before that.

So, you rolled up the stats required to be a Barbarian, huh? Well, I hope none of your party members are Magic-Users, because your character now really, REALLY hates Magic-Users as part of their class. But don't worry! Once you get to a high enough level, you'll be able to begrudgingly work with Magic-Users if it's absolutely necessary! I hope you haven't met your party's Magic-User before then (or their Cleric, for that matter, if you're starting at low enough level that you hate Clerics too)!

Clerics and Druids have their spells capped at 7th level (spells), while Magic-Users get to go up to 9th level spells. Why? Whooooooooooo knooooooooooowwwwssss?

Oh, and a Dragon Magazine article reveals that 1e's game designers believe in the Guy At The Gym Fallacy.

In summary: 1e is a terribly-designed system. I highly recommend that you use a different system instead, like, say 2e (which shares some of 1e's flaws, but has much less of them and has the same general "feel" that 1e has (or so I'm told)).

[Anonymouswizard]

Off of the top of my head... Be a Warforged with the Incarnate Construct and Necropolitan templates, take a few levels of Rogue and Swashbuckler, then take the Craven and Daring Outlaw feats while continuing to advance as a Swashbuckler.

Next?

A balanced character?

[daniel_ream]

1st edition AD&D has a ludicrous number of game design flaws in it. Some examples:.

No one denies that the AD&D 1E rules are something of a cobbled together mess. But "I don't understand why these choices were made" != "game design flaws". Everything you've cited here was done for a very specific reason.

[Xuc Xac]

No one denies that the AD&D 1E rules are something of a cobbled together mess. But "I don't understand why these choices were made" != "game design flaws". Everything you've cited here was done for a very specific reason.

Their terrible decisions were made for known reasons, but that doesn't mean they weren't terrible decisions. Things like demihuman level limits don't work the way they are described as working and don't accomplish their stated goals.

[daniel_ream]

What do you think their stated goals are? And why don't you think they accomplish that?

[Arbane]

AD&D was a LOT more adversarial than most modern games. It was taken for granted that the GM was going to try to murder the PCs (hopefully within the rules), and the players would have to try to avoid it. And if the PCs did survive, there were plenty of ways to mess with them further - rust monsters, a section in the DMG on taxes to dump on PCs, a type of bug that will lay eggs in your ear if you try to listen at keyholes, unidentified magic items that had to be tested in a manner not unlike handling unexploded bombs...


The older editions of D&D were great (and modern D&D couldn't exist without them), but the trends and general concepts of game design have changed a lot since the 70s and 80s. The rules were looser, with more focus on the story, demanding more creativity and logical thinking from both the players and the DM. And it was a simpler time, back before most gamers had developed a ton of bad video game habits.

Yeah, they had entirely different bad habits, like ingrained paranoia due to the abundance of screw-you instant-death traps that passed for 'clever'.
There were no real skill rules (at least not in 1st ed, I never played 2nd), so accomplishing anything outside of combat required a lot of playing Mother-May-I with the GM and trying to play 20-questions to avoid the inevitable screw-you insta-death traps. It's kind of telling that the example of play in the 1st ed DMG of a party finding and trying to open a secret door - and when they succeed, the poor chump who opened the door is immediately paralyzed and eaten by the ghouls on the other side. FUN TIMES!


No one denies that the AD&D 1E rules are something of a cobbled together mess. But "I don't understand why these choices were made" != "game design flaws". Everything you've cited here was done for a very specific reason.

Mostly that reason is because Gygax & Co made up some stuff they thought would be fun. For example, Clerics only exist in the game because they needed a way to rein in an overpowered vampire PC.

[Thrudd]

1e AD&D is a snapshot of the creation and revision process for RPGs. Gygax and friends made the very simple original D&D rules, and then played and added what they felt they needed in a very ad-hoc way, occasionally collecting the new rules and things they had invented into a new booklet. Every game something new was being created. AD&D was another step in this process, which Gygax in his introduction to the DMG blatantly acknowledged - that this is a work in progress and these books are the first attempt at putting together something more comprehensive than what had come before.

So they are the first guy's first ideas about what a role playing game might be - literally the first guy who ever thought of a role playing game, that published his first attempt at designing such a game, with the full intent of continuing to revise it and playtest it and expecting other people to playtest it and come up with their own stuff that will make it better. (Of course, he was rather bitter about being cut out of that process by his own company, and bad mouthed everything that came after he was forced out, and said a lot of contradictory things at different points, but that's a different issue from what his frame of mind was in '77 or '78 when AD&D was being put together)

Looking at 1e AD&D for what it is, and reading all the advice and ideas found in those books, it's pretty amazing and easy to see why it became so popular. There are understandable flaws in it, it's like the first rough draft of a novel that has been collected from an array of disparate notes. But there is definitely a reason and clear rationale for everything in there and Gygax goes out of his way to explain his goal or rationale for many of the rule choices. They may not be the best way to accomplish what he was trying to do, but they definitely make sense according to what he was trying to do.

[Quertus]

THAC0-(1d20+bonuses)=AC hit, not that hard. If you precalculate your 'effective THAC0' when writing weapons down by just subtracting your bonuses it becomes eTHAC0-1d20=AC hit.

Still annoying it's not addition, but otherwise fine.

It's not "not Addition" that condemns THAC0, it's that it's not intuitive. But, really, it's bigger than that. It's the whole "are high numbers or lie numbers good here?", "do I want to roll high or low here?" Etc that is a systemic failure of 2e and earlier.

I've played with college educated adults who were still confused by older editions after years of play, and I've played with 7-year-olds who played 3e competently by their first session.


Off of the top of my head... Be a Warforged with the Incarnate Construct and Necropolitan templates, take a few levels of Rogue and Swashbuckler, then take the Craven and Daring Outlaw feats while continuing to advance as a Swashbuckler.

Next?


A balanced character?

That one's easy: at will Mind Seed. Turn the entire planet into copies of yourself.

Perfect balance. :smallwink:

[Anonymouswizard]

It's not "not Addition" that condemns THAC0, it's that it's not intuitive. But, really, it's bigger than that. It's the whole "are high numbers or lie numbers good here?", "do I want to roll high or low here?" Etc that is a systemic failure of 2e and earlier.

I've played with college educated adults who were still confused by older editions after years of play, and I've played with 7-year-olds who played 3e competently by their first session.

Oh, sure, I was mentioning that for most people subtraction takes slightly longer.

For the entire 'are high or low good', I wouldn't single out THAC0 for that. Descending AC did come first.

[daniel_ream]

But there is definitely a reason and clear rationale for everything in there and Gygax goes out of his way to explain his goal or rationale for many of the rule choices.

I will point out that the AD&D DMG doesn't actually contain very much of this compared to his Sorceror's Scroll column in Dragon, which is where the real gold is. To truly understand AD&D, read all of Appendix N and all of the Sorceror's Scroll columns. It dispels a great many misconceptions. (Among other things, that AD&D is about "telling a story")

[KarlMarx]

Essentially, in later editions, the basic format will be taken for granted. How do I try to do something? You roll a d20 and add the relevant modifier. Will taking seemingly mundane actions result in my unexpected gruesome demise? Probably not. Will there be any internal consistency? Yes.

Older editions buck this trend. Much less is invested in formal mechanics, and more in player-DM 'cooperation', because sweet-talking the guy at the end of the table out of insta-killing you, no save, is totally how cooperation works. Players, I find, die much more often, especially at lower levels. On the flip side, it's also much easier to roll up new ones, leading to less emotional investment.

It isn't a system I would recommend to inexperienced players, because there is so little consistency in the rules, nor necessarily to a group focused on min-maxing, because there aren't mechanics to be exploited utilized. But if your group is fine making it up as you go and using something other than a D20 to do everything, by all means, give it a whirl.

[Mr Beer]

AD&D was completely ground breaking, it was my first RPG and I played it exclusively for years. However if I was going to play D&D again, 5e is clearly a superior product in just about every possible way. As it should be, having the benefit of 40 years or so of game evolution.

[johnbragg]

Clerics and Druids have their spells capped at 7th level (spells), while Magic-Users get to go up to 9th level spells.

For people who never played 1st or 2nd edition, I'd like to point out that although cleric/druid spells only went up to 7th level, they weren't less powerful than wizard spells--clerics just spread the same power spread over 7 levels instead of 9.


Why? Whooooooooooo knooooooooooowwwwssss?
Indeed.

[AMFV]

I've played and loved 5e for quite some time now, and just found an old ad&d 2e book. Are ad&d and ad&d 2e any good or what?

I personally like AD&D better, but it's a lot more of a mess to wade through. I just like the way things are written and the flavoring of it better. It's got a ton of setting material and practically everything is somewhat flavorful.

[Jay R]

You need to realize that it is not a different version of the same game. It's a very different game, with very different approaches.

There is no CR. Many monsters you meet can and will kill your characters if you meet them head-on. You often need to run away, or make allies. Much of the time you should be sneaking around, often finding ways to get the treasure without fighting.

There are many fewer character options. There is some character build optimization, but nowhere near as much. Real optimization occurs during play.

I love it. But I also recognize that it plays very differently.

[LibraryOgre]

One aspect I very much like is that character creation tends to only take place at the start of the game, instead of every level thereafter.

I am playing a [blank]. That blank could be something mechanically very simple, like "Human Fighter", or it might be very complex, like a gnome Bard/Illusionist/Thief with the Professor kit (which I think is allowed, because Complete Bard's is both Excellent and Nuts at the same time; quick check shows I am wrong... it's either a Thief/Bard with the Professor or Jongeuler kits, or an Illusionist/Professor). But once that character is commited to paper, they seldom have much in the way of mechanical changes. I don't have to figure out what I'm going to take a level in at level 2; it will be in my class(es). I don't have to plan out my advancement for the next 20 levels to make sure I can hit the right prestige classes at the right time... pretty much my main choices are "What NWPs and WPs am I going to take" and "Where will I focus my thief skills, if I get a choice"?

Beyond that... the play is the thing. Unlike 3.x where character creation is a loseable, on-going minigame, character creation in AD&D is hard to lose.

[Quertus]

character creation tends to only take place at the start of the game

the play is the thing.

Indeed! I'm not sure which of those two I love more, but they're definitely 2 big reasons why I love 2e best, despite THAC0 and its other warts.

[georgie_leech]

Indeed! I'm not sure which of those two I love more, but they're definitely 2 big reasons why I love 2e best, despite THAC0 and its other warts.

The Baldur's Gate games have given me a soft spot for THAC0, so at this point for me it's less a wart and more a beauty mark. :smalltongue:

[Mechalich]

The Baldur's Gate games have given me a soft spot for THAC0, so at this point for me it's less a wart and more a beauty mark. :smalltongue:

The Baldur's Gate games have a computer doing all the calculations, so the fundamental arithmetic convenience of the mechanics doesn't matter for that situation compared to actually at a tabletop. There are similar cases for other games. For example, Exalted often had characters rolling as many as 30 d10s at one time and then determining how many of those individually produced a success. That's a perfectly fine situation for a computer, which can instantly make that calculation, but at an actual tabletop there is a time burden to looking at 30 dice versus 6 - a reasonable dice pool in VtM, for which the system was invented.

When computerized 2e AD&D is actually mechanically easier to handle - because of the aforementioned simplicity in advancement - than 3e. Non-caster characters in Baldur's Gate level up in seconds, sometimes without any choices at all, but this isn't true at tabletop, where you have to comb through a bunch of tables to look for things like saving throw progression.

2e arguably computerizes better than 3e while being the worse tabletop game.

[2D8HP]

You should be able to use all of the AD&D "fluff" easily enough.

1e AD&D play was a bit different, there was little changes in "mechanics" when you'd level up (that I have to learn new mechanics at new levels in 5e sometimes annoys me), PC's were more human scale, it took a lot longer to get a level, and character creation was faster, except for buying equipment.

What items your PC carried was many times more important than their "stats".

The game was much more about finding loot than combat.

I quickly gathered up some old quotes that may be helpful:



....I think D&D scales too much....


That's a very valid point.

While I know that @Jay R says that the danger of PC's dying in his very early (mid 1970's) D&D games was higher in perception than reality, in the games I played (a little bit late 1970's, a little more early 80's) the majority of my PC's died before reaching Second level, but I was a particularly incautious player:


IIRC-
To illustrate how this played out, the scene:
A dank almost crypt like basement/garage during the waning years of the Carter Administration, two pre-teens and some teenagers surround a ping pong table, that has books, papers, dice, pizza and sodas on it
Teen DM (my best friend's older brother): You turn the corner, and 20' away you see the door shown on the map.
Teen player (who thinks he's all that because he's been playing longer than me with the LBB's, but does he have the new PHB and DMG? No! So who's really the "Advanced" one huh!): With the lantern still tied to the ten foot pole, I slowly proceed forward observing if they are any drafts from unexpected places. You (looks at me) check the floor with the other pole.
Me (pre-teen): Oh man it's late, are we even getting into the treasure room today!
Teen player: You've got to check for traps!
Me: I run up and force the door open!
DM: Blarg the fighter falls through the floor onto the spikes below.
*rolls dice*
Your character is dead.
Teen player: Dude you got smoked!
Me: Look at my next character. I rolled a 15 for Strength.
DM: Really?
Me: Yeah, Derek totally witnessed me rolling it up!
DM: Did he?
Derek (my best friend, another pre-teen who invited me to the game): Are you gonna eat that slice of pizza?
Me: No.
Derek: Yeah I totally saw it.
*munch*
Me: See!
DM: *groan*
:smallwink:


In memory of my best friend, Derek Lindstrom Whaley, who in 6th grade saw me reading the blue book and invited me to play D&D at his house - R.I.P.,

since by the time I wised up to employing a "ten-foot-poles-and-bags-of-flour", style of play, I just didn't get to play much D&D, I remember 1st level TSR D&D as being a meat-grinder. The simple solution would've been just to start at higher levels, but that just didn't occur to us, in contrast 5e players seem to start at higher levels all the time!

Also it took about a year of play to go up a level (see Gygax's April '76 article "DM is only as good as the DM" from The Strategic Review", later re-printed in the 1980 Best of The Dragon, where I first saw it if you disbelieve me).

In contrast about a month (or less!) of play in 5e earns you a level, and (in my experience) most 5e PC's survive, which in some ways drives me bonkers, because I'm now I'm the cautious one, and urge retreat while other players say things like, "The DM wouldn't scale it so we'd lose."

Do our PC's know this?!

I'm pretty sure my PC has never heard of a CR!

*mumble, grumble, rant, rave, fume*


Interesting, that's actually a big point why I like D&D 3.5e. I like stories/games that span from zero to hero (or demigod).


I've never played 3.5, but I assume that it's more like 5e in how it scales.

As someone who used to play TSR D&D, a 5e "zero", (1st level) feels to me like a TSR "hero" (3rd level), and how much and how quickly 5e scales up is a little jarring.

To make TSR D&D feel more like 5e, I would have PC"s start at 3rd level in 1st level Dungeons. To make 5e more like TSR D&D, I would use the "Gritty Realism variant" from the DMG, use the free online 5e "Basic rules", and only a little bit more from the PHB (no feats), and slow "level ups", way the Abyss down.

After typing all that I wonder if an effective "compromise" edition is even possible, which makes me a little sad, as unlike some posting on this Forum, I really don't have that many opportunities to play (my favorite DM is now "Pining for the fjords").

Okay now I'm starting to think of "Mission of Burma", and "Joy Division" songs.

Well, if a player doesn't like my game they are free to take a hike. I have been running games since 74 and like my old fashion ways....


I'd gladly play in your game!

I started in '78 as a DM, and '79 as a player, and my time playing D&D ended too soon!



Back in OD&D and, to a lesser degree, AD&D I tended to play Fighters and Clerics (no thieves, One Mage, one pre-AD&D illusionist from a Strategic Review magazine article, no druids) in part because 3D6 in order seemed to make it easy to roll the former and the latter really wasn't much harder...


IIRC, at the tables I knew, we mostly played Fighting-Men/Fighters even when STR was the lowest stat.




....OD&D Paladins (before BECMI, B/X, AD&D) had pretty clear yet sparse guidance on how a Paladin works. Greyhawk was actually a nice balance between "enough" and "too much" rules. Concur.
Greyhawk page 8. The original game had NO min requirements for stats for a class, all it had was a bonus for XP for higher stats. The first Stat "min" requirement was the paladin, Cha 17, and the Ranger (Strategic Review 2) and Illusionist (Min 15 Dex, Strat Review 4)....

....I did not roll up a Paladin until a 4d6drop1 (AD&D 1e) some years later. Sometimes, you arrive at dumb luck. Did not play a Paladin in UA, I played Cavalier and Assassin.
If I had not rolled that 14 Charisma, I'd not have been able to play that Druid


Like I said before, I never rolled a Paladin (or Ranger, which I wanted to play even more), so I pretty much played Fighters (and sometimes thieves), which is mostly what I do since playing 5e as well, I really should finally step up and play one, now that I can.


True enough. My personal preference is point buy with role play over hyper-optimization orientation. I consider tens in non-prime stats viable...


Likewise.




....Don't get me started on platinum pieces...


Or electrum!


OMG, that brought back White Box memories!

Nice response.


Dude, you keep bringing back the memories (or is it flashbacks?) and making me feel old... dangnabbit.


Super glad to have you aboard the Forum ZorroGames!

FWIW, I (just barely played) D&D in the 1970's with a DM who used "white box" (and Greyhawk, and Blackmoor, etc.), but by the time I played the AD&D Monster Manual was already out and in use, so I didn't get to play OD&D "undiluted.




I'm surrounded by children.

Playing D&D in college. Not 4E, not 3e or 3.5E. not AD&D2 or AD&D1. The original three books, with fighters, magic-users and clerics. Then playing with the Greyhawk supplement which added thieves and paladins, before Blackmoor added assassins and monks. With hobbits, balrogs, and ents, before D&D was big enough for the Tolkien estate to notice

Waiting for the issue of The Strategic Review or its successor The Dragon, which could be expected to add something new to the game....


In my first serious game, my paladin betrayed and killed the entire Lawful party.

The year was 1975 or 1976, and the game was Original D&D, so Lawful means Good. I had rolled up a paladin, and joined a party of slightly more experienced characters (2nd-4th levels).

I had rolled so low on money that my paladin couldn't afford a sword, and was wielding a mace.

After a few encounters, we defeated some monsters who had knocked us down to minimal hit points. My paladin had one point, nobody had more than 3, and we were out of healing spells. In OD&D, if you reach zero points, you are dead.

The treasure included a sword, which my paladin asked for, just to have a sword. The party agreed, so I picked it up. The DM knew it was a chaotic sword, which meant that touching it would do at least two points and kill the character. The sword had a high ego, so he decided that it changed my alignment, rather than killing me. He passed me a note. "You are now Chaotic, and holding a chaotic Flaming Sword." I asked if I could ask questions in another room, so we went out and I said, "OK, I don't need to ask anything, I just wanted them to think I did." I told him my plan, we waited a couple more minutes, and walked back into the game.

"OK, everyone, listen up; this is important. This is a Holy Sword, and it's given me a quest. I have to go on the quest alone. Go back the way we came, in single file, and no matter what you hear, never turn around."

They agreed, and started to head back. The DM said, "You hear the sound of a sword blow behind you, and a body falling to the ground."

They all know the myth of Orpheus. "We keep on going, and don't look back."

"One round later, you hear the sound of a sword blow behind you, and a body falling to the ground."

"We keep on going, and don't look back."

Lather, rinse repeat. After five iterations, the DM told them that they were all dead.

After the game, I told the other players I'd try to recover their bodies, but tell me what magic items you have, so I can keep them safe. So I got a complete inventory of the items I had just looted.


My improvisation is as follows. "You want the rules set in stone? OK, make a saving throw against petrification. If you make your saving throw, you have to change. If you fail, you can stay as you are."

Of course, my characters would be saving to avoid upgrading to First Edition, because I started with OD&D. My first upgrade was Greyhawk, introducing thieves and paladins. (In fact, I just started playing with the most modern rules I've ever used -- in a 2nd edition game.)


Each "edition"/version of D&D has its quirks and strengths.

I still stand by:


If the game features a Dragon sitting on a pile of treasure, in a Dungeon and you play a Wizard with a magic wand, or a warrior in armor, wielding a longbow, just like the picture on the box I picked up in 1978, whatever the edition, I want to play that game!




...While something being old fashioned doesn't mean it shouldn't be used today, neither does it mean it was a mistake to have changed it....


Old D&D was fun, so is new D&D.

I find I like 1st level of new D&D better, but I like old D&D much better at higher levels.

Different strokes etc.

The trick is finding yourself at a "good enough" table.

I also enjoy switching the game or the version of the game too.

And honestly I think being at the right table makes a bigger difference than which rules most of the time.

Even though I really don't like anything Cyberpunk, a great GM meant that I played some really fun sessions of Shadowrun, which I credit to the GM, and my co-players for example.

Back in OD&D and, to a lesser degree, AD&D I tended to play Fighters and Clerics (no thieves, One Mage, one pre-AD&D illusionist from a Strategic Review magazine article, no druids) in part because 3D6 in order seemed to make it easy to roll the former and the latter really wasn't much harder...


IIRC, at the tables I knew, we mostly played Fighting-Men/Fighters even when STR was the lowest stat.


..I am becoming a fan of point buy and standard array with 5th Edition (skipped 3rd thru 4th, barely played 2nd.)


Me too.

I now think I like 1st level 5e better than the D&D I knew (higher levels are another story).



They have their downsides. One of which is all members of a class tend to look like clones in their stat arrays, especially among people that have been exposed to optimization advice. Although rolling doesn't help that much, since arrange in any order is the 'culprit' in regards to this.

The problem with roll in order is you have to choose your class after rolling, which is unacceptable to most modern-era players. The other problem is you might end up a character that many players might consider unplayable ... like Str/Dex/Con all 10, with high mental stats. (Most players seem to want medium to high Dex or Con to go with a high mental casting stat.)


I still sometimes roll stats (even 3d6 in order from time to time), but I then get grief from other players for not bringing an "optimized" PC to the table.

What really "grinds my gears", is how many times a player will roll stats, and then insist on point buy or standard array after they see what they got.

No take backs please!


....OD&D Paladins (before BECMI, B/X, AD&D) had pretty clear yet sparse guidance on how a Paladin works. Greyhawk was actually a nice balance between "enough" and "too much" rules. Concur.
Greyhawk page 8. The original game had NO min requirements for stats for a class, all it had was a bonus for XP for higher stats. The first Stat "min" requirement was the paladin, Cha 17, and the Ranger (Strategic Review 2) and Illusionist (Min 15 Dex, Strat Review 4)....

....I did not roll up a Paladin until a 4d6drop1 (AD&D 1e) some years later. Sometimes, you arrive at dumb luck. Did not play a Paladin in UA, I played Cavalier and Assassin.
If I had not rolled that 14 Charisma, I'd not have been able to play that Druid


Like I said before, I never rolled a Paladin (or Ranger, which I wanted to play even more), so I pretty much played Fighters (and sometimes thieves), which is mostly what I do since playing 5e as well, I really should finally step up and play one, now that I can.


True enough. My personal preference is point buy with role play over hyper-optimization orientation. I consider tens in non-prime stats viable...


Likewise.




....Don't get me started on platinum pieces...


Or electrum!


OMG, that brought back White Box memories!

Nice response.


Dude, you keep bringing back the memories (or is it flashbacks?) and making me feel old... dangnabbit.


Super glad to have you aboard the Forum ZorroGames!

FWIW, I (just barely played) D&D in the 1970's with a DM who used "white box" (and Greyhawk, and Blackmoor, etc.), but by the time I played the AD&D Monster Manual was already out and in use, so I didn't get to play OD&D "undiluted.

My hats off to you.

They are some other OD&D'ers on the Forum:

:cool:
Well, if a player doesn't like my game they are free to take a hike. I have been running games since 74 and like my old fashion ways.

There was a point where the player base started growing and became more mainstream (compared to wargamers in the 70s) and we started getting more liberal views in the game. The "good DMs don't kill players" is part of the newer thinking I reject. We died a lot back then and it was fun. If we didn't get the stats to become a paladin you didn't play a paladin. Touch luck.

Newer players didn't like that. Why can't I be a paladin. ::cries:: No wonder they believe DMs shouldn't kill players or why a player thinks he should have a say in how a DM runs his game. It is all about them.


I'm surrounded by children.

Playing D&D in college. Not 4E, not 3e or 3.5E. not AD&D2 or AD&D1. The original three books, with fighters, magic-users and clerics. Then playing with the Greyhawk supplement which added thieves and paladins, before Blackmoor added assassins and monks. With hobbits, balrogs, and ents, before D&D was big enough for the Tolkien estate to notice

Waiting for the issue of The Strategic Review or its successor The Dragon, which could be expected to add something new to the game....


In my first serious game, my paladin betrayed and killed the entire Lawful party.

The year was 1975 or 1976, and the game was Original D&D, so Lawful means Good. I had rolled up a paladin, and joined a party of slightly more experienced characters (2nd-4th levels).

I had rolled so low on money that my paladin couldn't afford a sword, and was wielding a mace.

After a few encounters, we defeated some monsters who had knocked us down to minimal hit points. My paladin had one point, nobody had more than 3, and we were out of healing spells. In OD&D, if you reach zero points, you are dead.

The treasure included a sword, which my paladin asked for, just to have a sword. The party agreed, so I picked it up. The DM knew it was a chaotic sword, which meant that touching it would do at least two points and kill the character. The sword had a high ego, so he decided that it changed my alignment, rather than killing me. He passed me a note. "You are now Chaotic, and holding a chaotic Flaming Sword." I asked if I could ask questions in another room, so we went out and I said, "OK, I don't need to ask anything, I just wanted them to think I did." I told him my plan, we waited a couple more minutes, and walked back into the game.

"OK, everyone, listen up; this is important. This is a Holy Sword, and it's given me a quest. I have to go on the quest alone. Go back the way we came, in single file, and no matter what you hear, never turn around."

They agreed, and started to head back. The DM said, "You hear the sound of a sword blow behind you, and a body falling to the ground."

They all know the myth of Orpheus. "We keep on going, and don't look back."

"One round later, you hear the sound of a sword blow behind you, and a body falling to the ground."

"We keep on going, and don't look back."

Lather, rinse repeat. After five iterations, the DM told them that they were all dead.

After the game, I told the other players I'd try to recover their bodies, but tell me what magic items you have, so I can keep them safe. So I got a complete inventory of the items I had just looted.


My improvisation is as follows. "You want the rules set in stone? OK, make a saving throw against petrification. If you make your saving throw, you have to change. If you fail, you can stay as you are."

Of course, my characters would be saving to avoid upgrading to First Edition, because I started with OD&D. My first upgrade was Greyhawk, introducing thieves and paladins. (In fact, I just started playing with the most modern rules I've ever used -- in a 2nd edition game.)


Each "edition"/version of D&D has its quirks and strengths, the existence of "Vengeance" Paladin is one of 5e's.

I still stand by:


If the game features a Dragon sitting on a pile of treasure, in a Dungeon and you play a Wizard with a magic wand, or a warrior in armor, wielding a longbow, just like the picture on the box I picked up in 1978, whatever the edition, I want to play that game!



This talk of older editions of DnD makes me wonder if this is a generational issue. I don't know about anyone else who wasn't even a glimmer in their father's eye when DnD first came out, but the whole Arthurian Romantic Fantasy angle never really made a presence in the game. Knights are far less likely to rescue the princess from the dragon then they were to have kidnapped the princess themselves for ransom. I don't think I have ever played in a game with any idea of a goodly king. Or am I alone in this?


Yeah, I think there's something to that.
We had Camelot, Excalibur, and Lord of the Rings (books and cartoon!), not Game of Thrones. Even Robin Hood's bad "King John" was a placeholder for Richard the "true King" while he was crusading.
I already did my five, but another thread has inspired one more:

Very few house rules are enough to make 5e feel like Oe, 1e, or 3e (and probably 2e, 3.5, and maybe 4e).



It's becoming increasingly apparent that the main feature of old D&D is the warm, fuzzy feeling of superiority towards people who play anything newer.


But of course!
:wink:
(Actually there's a lot I like about 5e more than old D&D, but there's also a lot about old D&D that I like more than 5e, but the best D&D is always a game that you can play with actual other people whatever the edition. Unless the game was Cyberpunk or Vampire which were lame :yuk:)


Since this thread has taken a turn towards comparing editions I thought I'd through my two coppers in.
Take what I say with a mountain of salt since most hours that I've spent playing D&D were from 1979 to 1983, with most of the rest of the time after 2014 with other less-fun-for-me RPG's in between, and my memory of the old days is pretty dim (strangely though I remember early D&D rules much better than the rules of games I've played more recently. Odd that).

In new D&D more time is spent building your PC's skills, powers etc.

In old D&D that time was instead spent budgeting and deciding on equipment.

The ten foot poles, iron spikes, flasks of oil etc. and how we used them seemed to have much bigger influence on whether our PC's survived than did our PC's abilities.

Then as now time was spent looking at our character sheets for ways out of a jam, but back then it was mostly our inventory that we looked at.

I was terrible at it, and my "kick in the door" style of play ment that I seldom had a PC that survived more than two sessions.

But I loved it anyway.

I'm actually playing and loving a game of 5e D&D that with just a few house rules feels a lot like old D&D.

The game is still there trapped underneath, and you don't have to remove many layers at all to uncover it.

[Xuc Xac]

What do you think their stated goals are? And why don't you think they accomplish that?

In the case of demihuman level limits, the fluff explanation is usually "longer lived races don't feel the urgency to advance as quickly as humans", which is not how the rules work. They advance just as quickly and then stop suddenly. An XP bonus for humans (or a penalty to everyone else) would be more accurate to that fluff. Also, by that logic, goblins and kobolds should be leveling up faster than humans do.

The actual reason is "demihumans get a bunch of bonuses that help at low levels so they have to be 'balanced' by a penalty". The problem is that the penalty rarely comes into play. You get the benefit of the bonus for the entire time you play a demihuman, but the penalty only affects you if you play for a very long time and you might never reach the limit. If you're just starting at a high level, you wouldn't pick a demihuman that would be capped at that level.

It looks ok at first glance but it doesn't hold up if you think about it for a few minutes. It seems most of the rules like this were made up as "on the spot" rulings and then fossilized in the rules before being considered more carefully. I think that is also the reason for so many different ways to roll a check. They made it up on the spot without considering what they had already done. So we end up with roll high on a d20, roll low on a d20, roll low on 3d6, roll high on a d10, roll a 5 or 6 on a D6...

[Telok]

The goal of demihuman level limits that I know of is to promote a majority human party in a default majority human setting.

[MesiDoomstalker]

The goal of demihuman level limits that I know of is to promote a majority human party in a default majority human setting.

So an inelegant player choice limiter to force a small, unrepresentative sample (the PCS) to fit the macro statistics? Ya, how bout no. I mean, I'm not denying that was the reasoning. I'm denying that the reasoning makes a lick of sense.

[Mechalich]

So an inelegant player choice limiter to force a small, unrepresentative sample (the PCS) to fit the macro statistics? Ya, how bout no. I mean, I'm not denying that was the reasoning. I'm denying that the reasoning makes a lick of sense.

The reasoning was actually explained, in some detail, in one of the later printings of the 2e DMG. it was, essentially, that since demihumans had static abilities that made them more powerful than humans at 1st level (in 2e this was clearly true), then if, for example, elves could advance in a fashion equal to humans they would inevitably dominate the world because they would be superior. So if the world was going to be human dominated - which was considered necessary to make producing a setting that was relatable compared to a wholly non-human setting or one ruled entirely by elves - then there had to be limits on the power of demihumans (and by extension monstrous races, which also existed).

There's something to this - it's actually most obvious via Dark Sun, where the Thri-Kreen are simply better than you at pretty much everything that's important and if you're playing a druid (where they had no level limit) a Thri-Kreen is flatly the most potent choice, period. However, overall the choice was extremely kludgy and poorly thought out. The class and level limits were closer to random than to making any sort of sense in terms of worldbuilding. For example, numerous races were not allowed to produce wizards at all, which is essentially marching them into the genocide-o-master and waiting for some suitably ruthless magocracy to push the pulverize button.

The better solution, which 3e took, is attempting to make the races balanced and claiming - for worldbuilding purposes - that they are even when you make mistakes and this proves untrue.

[Beneath]

The explanation for demihuman level limits that I remember is that in truly long campaigns (like, spanning decades or centuries in-world) or I guess more properly multi-campaign-long things where player characters can persist from campaign to campaign, human characters are "level limited" by their short lifespans, so to balance that demihumans peak and then advance no further. I think the book (AD&D2 DMG, if I remember right, but it's been a long time since I had these books) suggested that if you wanted to lighten them, you could get a similar effect by doubling or tripling the EXP required to advance past the normal level limits. A human will eventually reach the end of their lifespan, and then their dwarven or elven peers can catch up generations later.

This doesn't work at all with modern assumptions about what a campaign is (where "the party" stays roughly constant, meeting as scheduled), but for the more flexible style (Megadungeons, "West Marches" style, etc.) one person being level 3 and another person being level 14 works since they don't have to adventure together

[Mechalich]

The explanation for demihuman level limits that I remember is that in truly long campaigns (like, spanning decades or centuries in-world) or I guess more properly multi-campaign-long things where player characters can persist from campaign to campaign, human characters are "level limited" by their short lifespans, so to balance that demihumans peak and then advance no further. I think the book (AD&D2 DMG, if I remember right, but it's been a long time since I had these books) suggested that if you wanted to lighten them, you could get a similar effect by doubling or tripling the EXP required to advance past the normal level limits. A human will eventually reach the end of their lifespan, and then their dwarven or elven peers can catch up generations later.

This doesn't work at all with modern assumptions about what a campaign is (where "the party" stays roughly constant, meeting as scheduled), but for the more flexible style (Megadungeons, "West Marches" style, etc.) one person being level 3 and another person being level 14 works since they don't have to adventure together

In AD&D 2e the game assumed that traditional dungeon crawling largely came to an end at approximately level 9-12 (it varied slightly between classes) and the game transitioned into kingdom management. This was most explicitly expressed via the weird advancement rules for high-level druids. There were all sorts of rules produced for how you would create a stronghold and what that would mean and that was meant to be the focus. This went in tandem with changes in advancement that happened at the same time such as the shift to static hp gain. Implicit in this was the idea that high level characters spent only a small portion of their time adventuring (and in the case of high-level wizards only a small portion of their time on the material plane at all), perhaps only going on a campaign once a year or less. Considering the slow rate of advancement in high-level 2e - because even powerful enemies were only worth a tiny fraction of the XP needed to level up - it was quite possible and indeed even likely for humans who were anything other than wizards or druids to 'age out' of adventuring well before they had a chance of reaching level 20.

This actually informed the worldbuilding as a means of leveling high-level adventurers overall, but it ran into the problem of long-lived demihumans flooding the world with physically active adventuring characters of high levels in all classes (wizards were always an exception but they could be safely dumped elsewhere in the multiverse until Planescape came along). So yes, demihumans had the potential to monopolize the high-level NPC space available without the level limits.

Now, it turned out that this actually didn't matter, because wizards quickly moved in to monopolize the high-level playspace pretty much entirely. Spellfire, the very first FR novel, manages to feature at least three high level wizards including Elminster and Manshoon in major roles in addition to showing off spellfire as basically the ultimate magical power but features no major martial achievements at all. Even in Dragonlance, which has dragon and weapon in the name and put dragons and the aforesaid weapon on the cover of all three of the initial books, the most important power players were ultimately wizards and the major martials were often woefully ineffectual (and in Summer Flame got upstaged by Tasselhoff, ugh). Even Drizzt, undoubtedly D&D's most famous martial character, has been defeated by spellcasters and psionicists on several occasions. So effectively, design decisions regarding classes rendered a choice made to manage a perceived issue regarding races utterly irrelevant.

[Jay R]

So an inelegant player choice limiter to force a small, unrepresentative sample (the PCS) to fit the macro statistics? Ya, how bout no. I mean, I'm not denying that was the reasoning. I'm denying that the reasoning makes a lick of sense.

That's a deliberately unfair phrasing. This is no different from saying wizards can't wield swords, fighters can't use wands, and humans only have two arms. There are rules for what characters can and can't do, and that was one of them. That's all.

There's not "a lick of sense" that Castles move farther than Knights in chess, either. So what? Those are the rules.

1st level fighters were more powerful than 1st level wizards. Upper level wizards were more powerful than upper level fighters. Similarly, 1st level non-humans were more powerful than 1st level humans. High level humans were more powerful than high level non-humans. What's the difference?

And it makes perfect sense, once you realize the actual purpose of the game.

The goal was to have a game about humans exploring a fantasy world. If you want to play an unusual character, you can do so - with a penalty that was not often very onerous.

Most games never got to that level, and in the ones that I saw that did, almost every non-human managed to get a wish by that time that wiped away the level limit. The real penalty seemed to be burning your first wish.

But mostly, we usually lost interest once we got past the most challenging part of the game. I had exactly one character ever affected by non-human character limits, back in original D&D. And he used the improved Dwarf Fighter rules from The Dragon #3, where he topped out at level 9 - Dwarf King.

It didn't bother me at all. I knew and accepted the rules for the character when I chose him.

[2D8HP]

demihuman level limits


I frankly don't remember demihuman level limits coming up at all.

Gaining a level in 0e/1e took a lot more table time than with 5e, and usually PC's got retired before high levels anyway (my circle never built "strongholds").

Also usually you"d have your Elf or Dwarf (I don't remember any Halflings, and only one Half-Orc PC) multi-class which would divide your XP's among your classes, so you leveled up slower anyway.

I recall that at least 7/10th of PC's were human Fighters, and no it didn't seem bland, almost 40 years later I still prefer just playing a "guy with a sword". I was and remain someone who'd rather play Robin Hood, Sinbad the Sailor, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser type characters rather than Martian Man-Hunter, or Spock.

Like this:


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PiTSyZbIjAg

[Arbane]

That's a deliberately unfair phrasing. This is no different from saying wizards can't wield swords, fighters can't use wands, and humans only have two arms. There are rules for what characters can and can't do, and that was one of them. That's all.

There's not "a lick of sense" that Castles move farther than Knights in chess, either. So what? Those are the rules.


In chess, you play 16 pieces, not one.

[Jay R]

In chess, you play 16 pieces, not one.

Yup. Just like in real battle, a king has many castles and knights. But that has no effect on the fact that real castles don't move farther than real knights.

[And of course, when non-human level limits were introduced, we all had several characters. I had nine, three of which were non-human.]

[MesiDoomstalker]

That's a deliberately unfair phrasing. This is no different from saying wizards can't wield swords, fighters can't use wands, and humans only have two arms. There are rules for what characters can and can't do, and that was one of them. That's all.

There's not "a lick of sense" that Castles move farther than Knights in chess, either. So what? Those are the rules.

1st level fighters were more powerful than 1st level wizards. Upper level wizards were more powerful than upper level fighters. Similarly, 1st level non-humans were more powerful than 1st level humans. High level humans were more powerful than high level non-humans. What's the difference?

And it makes perfect sense, once you realize the actual purpose of the game.

The goal was to have a game about humans exploring a fantasy world. If you want to play an unusual character, you can do so - with a penalty that was not often very onerous.

Most games never got to that level, and in the ones that I saw that did, almost every non-human managed to get a wish by that time that wiped away the level limit. The real penalty seemed to be burning your first wish.

But mostly, we usually lost interest once we got past the most challenging part of the game. I had exactly one character ever affected by non-human character limits, back in original D&D. And he used the improved Dwarf Fighter rules from The Dragon #3, where he topped out at level 9 - Dwarf King.

It didn't bother me at all. I knew and accepted the rules for the character when I chose him.

That... doesn't refute the claim that the limits, in part or in whole, were made to make the adventuring group represent the world at large. That's bad statistics. I'm not even sure why you refute me by claiming that's the rules. Yes those are the rules, I'm not refuting they are the rules nor that they exist. I'm saying the reasoning behind it is as bollocks and poorly thought out as the rule itself.

Regardless, our point of contention is in our personal philosophies. They don't match and that's where we disagree.

[Knaight]

Yup. Just like in real battle, a king has many castles and knights. But that has no effect on the fact that real castles don't move farther than real knights.

It's almost like the design goals in an abstract strategy game are totally different than the design goals in a role playing game, and what works for one doesn't work for the other.

[kyoryu]

The thing to remember about 1e and prior versions is that they were really designed around a specific style of play.

Specifically, the game style was that some people would show up at Gary's house. Based on who showed up, they'd pick a character out of their several-to-many characters, and figure out who was involved, and then go into a dungeon. At some point, Gary would say "time to start closing up" and then you'd start heading out of the dungeon. It was a large dungeon, one that would be sufficient to basically *be* the campaign.

The goal was to get as much treasure out of the dungeon as possible - it was closer in that way to Zork than God of War.

So a lot of the design choices work in that context even though cause friction in other contexts. Losing a character sucked, but it was "losing a soldier in XCOM" suckiness, not "having your Skyrim save file deleted" level suckiness.

There was no "plot" or "story", and no expectation that any given party would be consistent for more than a single adventure.

The emphasis was on "make the best of what you get" rather than "build the perfect thing".

The game still works in that way. It's when you try to shoehorn it into other situations that it doesn't work quite as well.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yup. Just like in real battle, a king has many castles and knights. But that has no effect on the fact that real castles don't move farther than real knights.

[And of course, when non-human level limits were introduced, we all had several characters. I had nine, three of which were non-human.]

Weren't rooks originally meant to be some sort of chariot? It makes the piece's speed make a lot more sense.

Honestly, I don't think most of AD&D's rules are problematic, just for a different style of game to the one I like to run. Except for character death, I prefer characters squishy as it encourages players to gather intelligence and set up advantageous positions.

[D+1]

1st edition AD&D has a ludicrous number of game design flaws in it.And yet in ways it manages to remain superior to more "professionally" designed attempts at D&D.


Female members of some races have lower STR caps than males of their species- and no mechanical benefits elsewhereYeah, 1E's greatest sin is that it was written in 1977-79 when male chauvinism was not yet punishable by death. It's hardly a selling point of the system these days but simple to handle - just ignore it. Everyone does. Many even did so back in the day.


The "exceptional strength" system. Instead of, say, raising the STR cap, the game designers of 1e decided to create this weird fractional system for STR so that they could say exactly how much stronger or weaker He-Man is than Conan and the like (but not for the other stats, because ???).Because it was desired to give FIGHTERS that advantage over other classes. It was not done to compare He-Man and Conan. It was done to distinguish Conan from the mooks he would fight.


Non-human races have level caps in most classes to "balance out their power"No, they have level caps. The JUSTIFICATION that most players apply to it is that it is a "balance" but that was never the claim in the rules. It's a LIMITATION placed on them to distinguish them from humans, not to actually balance anything. If you like, it's a deliberate IMbalance - it's done with the intent to keep humans the most common race regardless of which race is more powerful. Gygax wasn't so dim as to be unable to see that non-human racial abilities didn't amount to THAT much that they needed to be balanced against humans or each other.


and are barred from some classes entirely (because a Dwarven Paladin is INCONCIEVABLE!)Not inconceivable. Simply not desired to mimic the fictional inspirations it was intended to mimic.


Due to the way that the system worked, if you were, say, an Elven Magic-User and reached your level cap, you could never gain another level EVER AGAINNot that it was that relevant because most campaigns did not advance (and most still don't) to the point where the caps come into significant effect. In the old days it would be because the PC would more than likely be DEAD long before then. Nowadays its simply because very long-running campaigns aren't the standard, and when 1E campaigns DO run for long periods and the caps become a factor something INCONCEIVABLE happens - the caps are altered or ignored because 1E players understand that unlike later editions, changing the rules is not just permitted, it's using that thing called imagination. When Gygax wrote the 1E DM's Guide he said something a "professional" game designer never would today - that there were limits to his creativity and imagination and that other people would think of things he hadn't. And at the time he wrote that he was busy inventing the freaking profession. It's rather unfair not to allow some slack for that.


Some races/class combinations had level caps as low as 7.Actually the lowest cap is 4th - for half-orc clerics. Strange thing is, players have the option to NOT choose to play a half-orc cleric, and yet SOME STILL DO. omg. Right? They're clearly doing it wrong.


Guess what the one (and, bar a few exceptions, ONLY) class that every race doesn't have a level cap for is. Go on, guess.Well, either there IS a class that doesn't have such an exception or there isn't. There isn't. Thief is the closest, allowing unlimited advancement for all races except half-orcs. Not sure why that constitutes a FLAW as such...


The Psionics system is !@#$ed up. Now THIS is very, VERY true. Consequently it just doesn't get used much. Of course, other editions of D&D have decent psionics systems that still don't get used much simply because a lot of people don't like the psionic peanut butter in their fantasy chocolate.


What happens if you roll 3s for two ability scores, which would force you to take two different (possibly incompatible) classes?Again, most people ignore those constraints as simply not having much use (if they ever did). It's not a flaw, it's simply an outdated rule because people no longer feel the need or desire to BE constrained in their character creation that way. Even so, it is a corner case SO unlikely, assuming use of any of the methods of score generation in the DMG, that it just bears no consideration whatever. Should it happen anyway the unwritten but OVERWHELMINGLY likely result would be for the DM to say, "Just re-roll". Because DM's are given that outrageous authority in 1E.


So, you wanna play a guy that shoots fireballs out of his hands, do you? Well, I hope you roll well for your stats, or else you're gonna play the "guy with a stick" class again, just like last game. And the game before that. And the game before that.No idea what the point here is.


So, you rolled up the stats required to be a Barbarian, huh? Well, I hope none of your party members are Magic-Users, because your character now really, REALLY hates Magic-Users as part of their class.Which simply means that players who choose to create barbarian PC's and do everything they can to bring the game crashing down by overplaying that limitation to it's fullest are jerks. And DM's who permit players to do that to their game are either too newb to know better or deserve what they get.


Clerics and Druids have their spells capped at 7th level (spells), while Magic-Users get to go up to 9th level spells. Why?Because they're different. 'S not rocket science friend.


Oh, and a Dragon Magazine article reveals that 1e's game designers believe in the Guy At The Gym Fallacy.Had to google that because I'd never heard that one before. Guess I'm not one of the cool kids who's up on all the newest jargon to demonstrate my authoriteh. I guess my response is simply that 1E is working as it was designed to work. If one wants fighters that also get all kinds of supernatural special snowflake abilities then 1E was simply not designed to accommodate all tastes. If you want Conan-esque fighters who just hit things with sticks (short of unfathomably acquiring actual magic items or choosing to have a multi-class PC) then you're in the right place.


In summary: 1e is a terribly-designed system.No it isn't. Yes it has flaws - but ALL RPG's have flaws. Your issue ultimately comes down to it just isn't what YOU want it to be, and is therefore bad in all ways for all people.

Oh, and you forgot to ridicule the 1E initiative system. Of the flaws that 1E has that is the very tip-top and most well-deserved object of scorn. How could you have possibly overlooked that?


I highly recommend that you use a different system instead, like, say 2eLOL! That's actually quite funny. 2E is so heavily based on 1E the two are effectively interchangeable. Pull anything out of either and you can use it without modification in the other. And that was by design intent - they wanted maximum backward compatibility. That said there are key items that 2E DID actually change in its core rules. Initiative is one, including elimination of segments in the round. Replacing combat tables with THACO. Some slight improvements to movement rules I'd say. Merged spell lists. Some minor monster changes (mostly just adding more hit dice to stuff). Dropped two classes, began adding others. Changed other classes, especially rangers so they were patterned more after the character of Drizzt instead of Aragorn. Hardly revolutionary - merely EVOlutionary - and that's after 15 YEARS of play and development - and nothing that anybody hadn't already been doing (Dragon magazine, for example, regularly published new character classes, proposed various rules changes and additions, and so on), and would continue to do irrespective of any of those changes. Even through 2nd Edition the game was still being invented - by TSR as well as individual DM's with their own campaigns.


(which shares some of 1e's flaws, but has much less of them and has the same general "feel" that 1e has (or so I'm told)).And also introduced its own new flaws. It was aimed at children, not adults as the original game had been, and the writing reflected that to notable detriment. "Dumbed down" in writing style is the term often used. It bowed to irrational fears regarding political correctness so monsters like demons and devils were renamed to avoid the "scary" words. Most of all it was allowed to expand uncontrolled in rules supplements and campaign settings - the former just constituting "rules bloat" necessitating game REDESIGN by individual DM's to determine what they would/wouldn't use just from among the published rules much less their own house rules, but the latter helping to nearly kill the game forever.

Nothing wrong with knocking 1E (or any edition) where it deserves to be knocked, but you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. There is a reason 5E was intentionally written to in part call back to elements of 1E, and that was repeatedly touted to "old school" players - because much of 1E is still worthy of imitation despite decades and multiple iterations of D&D rules in between. There is a reason 1E is still played (as is OD&D, 2E, 3E, 3.5...) - because it's still worth playing. Just reading the 1E DMG would likely be, literally, game-changing.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I do think 1e is the best edition. Mostly because it knew exactly what it wanted to be and designed around it. Whereas every other edition tried to be multiple things and consequently watered themselves down.

[Anonymouswizard]

Because it was desired to give FIGHTERS that advantage over other classes. It was not done to compare He-Man and Conan. It was done to distinguish Conan from the mooks he would fight.

Except that, depending on the method used (I don't own 1e so I don't know what was, I've hear 4d6b3), as few as one in two hundred and sixteen fighters would have exceptional strength. More if you used 4d6b3, but still a minority. It's useless for distinguishing Conan from the mooks he would fight, because he more likely has 15-17 Strength rather than 18.

It's like the 'bad flaw' problem, but it's instead 'and advantage that doesn't come up isn't an advantage'. Call it the inaccessible power boost problem, another implementation would be to give a fix feat high prerequisites.

Now I'm not talking about the intent, I'm talking about how in >99% of games (where you'll have less than 10 characters) nobody will have rolled high enough to get it.

[LibraryOgre]

Except that, depending on the method used (I don't own 1e so I don't know what was, I've hear 4d6b3), as few as one in two hundred and sixteen fighters would have exceptional strength. More if you used 4d6b3, but still a minority. It's useless for distinguishing Conan from the mooks he would fight, because he more likely has 15-17 Strength rather than 18.

It's like the 'bad flaw' problem, but it's instead 'and advantage that doesn't come up isn't an advantage'. Call it the inaccessible power boost problem, another implementation would be to give a fix feat high prerequisites.

Now I'm not talking about the intent, I'm talking about how in >99% of games (where you'll have less than 10 characters) nobody will have rolled high enough to get it.

It gets a little bit more forgiving than one in 216, even with 3d6, assuming you go with "arrange to taste", which makes it 1:36... still lousy odds.

However, I did see a rather nice suggestion on solving it: Drop Exceptional Strength, and use Weapon Specialization from UA. It gives fighters a boost in hit and damage that other classes don't have access to, without being inaccessible to a 9 strength fighter.

[Anonymouswizard]

It gets a little bit more forgiving than one in 216, even with 3d6, assuming you go with "arrange to taste", which makes it 1:36... still lousy odds.

However, I did see a rather nice suggestion on solving it: Drop Exceptional Strength, and use Weapon Specialization from UA. It gives fighters a boost in hit and damage that other classes don't have access to, without being inaccessible to a 9 strength fighter.

Yeah, I don't have 1e, but I remember in 2e Weapon Specialisation was a Nice Thing that only Fighters got. It actually made me think playing a Fighter (who always wanted to be a Ranger, but is allergic to trees) instead of a Ranger or Paladin might be worthwhile.

And yeah, I get that arrange to taste makes it better, but I was specifically going with the worst possible method. Still, even with the most forgiving methods I don't think we really get past about one in ten Fighters getting 18/XX Strength.

[Arbane]

Except that, depending on the method used (I don't own 1e so I don't know what was, I've hear 4d6b3), as few as one in two hundred and sixteen fighters would have exceptional strength. More if you used 4d6b3, but still a minority. It's useless for distinguishing Conan from the mooks he would fight, because he more likely has 15-17 Strength rather than 18.


IIRC, Dragon magazine had a writeup for Conan in AD&D (http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2010/06/gygax-on-conan.html). He had high stats across the board (except Wisdom), double-digit levels in multiple classes, special abilities no mere PC could ever aspire to, and psionic abilities, because that was the only way to make someone as awesome as Conan in AD&D.

[Anonymouswizard]

IIRC, Dragon magazine had a writeup for Conan in AD&D (http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2010/06/gygax-on-conan.html). He had high stats across the board (except Wisdom), double-digit levels in multiple classes, special abilities no mere PC could ever aspire to, and psionic abilities, because that was the only way to make someone as awesome as Conan in AD&D.

Sorry, I made the mistake of thinking of Conan as an example of what a high level fighter could realistically aspire to be, but it sounds like there's an official write up.

I forgot that Luke is a Pilot 20/Soldier 20/Jedi 13.

[DrewID]

IIRC, Dragon magazine had a writeup for Conan in AD&D (http://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2010/06/gygax-on-conan.html). He had high stats across the board (except Wisdom), double-digit levels in multiple classes, special abilities no mere PC could ever aspire to, and psionic abilities, because that was the only way to make someone as awesome as Conan in AD&D.

In fact that write-up was done by none other than E. Gary himself.

DrewID

[Telok]

There's another writeup in the deities and demigods booklet too.

[wumpus]

It should probably be noted that AD&D (at least 1st ed.) is less a fully fledged set of rules to run a game with, and more of a collection of baseline rules and masses of optional and house rules that you choose from and adapt to make your D&D game.

Gary Gygax says as much in the foreward of the Dungeon Master's Guide. He basically tells the player that the campaign is essentially their own rules. He does suggest not straying too far from the rules so to stay "Dungeons and Dragons" and with more or less playtested rules (although I am *sure* that nobody really tried to play any "Rules as Written" in AD&D, playtesting or not. Also I'm equally sure that the more obscure rules were added and cut by coolness, never by testing).

I'd recommend reading Gygax's DMG just to learn the basics of running a game, and get an idea of how the game is made and how to change it to fit your world. If you have 5e, I'd recommend playing that: 40? years of D&D have come a long way in making a playable game (and 5e looks like it can play well with any style, even 1e).



By "1.5" I mean 1985's Unearthed Arcana, if you decide to use it, be prepared to do some serious house-ruling.

If by "serious house-ruling" you mean "sell it on ebay" you might be right. From memory it included:

Specialization bonuses instead of proficiency - this was probably the best thing in the book, if only to improve the lives of low level characters. Note that AD&D melee types didn't really need this help, but players really lusted after multiple attacks. Forgivable power creep, but I suspect that players had been using similar rules published in Dragon magazine years back.
Using "does not play well with others for class balance. Pretty unforgivable (except for the thief/acrobat, which seemed to exist only for solo play) and used in all classes included in the book. Barbarians were "allowed" to have clerics in the party, and were always supposed to be anatagonistic to the wizards even when "allowed" to party with them (they are written to be more toxic to party than many toxic thieves or paladins). Cavaliers are required to refuse to play in a tactical manner with the party (so much for wargaming roots), and also include the Paladin to make sure they are even more toxic to group play (sure, just what the paladin needed). Don't forget the little tidbit about Chavalier attribute increase (something no other class got, and was huge). A DM who let a Chavelier or Paladin (paladins have such extreme requirements that a high strength score really pushes believability) slip by with an 18(77) strength (wildly high, but not impossible) will see game-breaking strength by 3rd level (AD&D bonuses scale with the probability of the distribution. Cavalier breaks said distribution badly).
+6 items Power creep for its own sake. Probably a helped sales with immature/starting players, I saw the saddest excuse for power creep here.

I really can't complain enough about including "does not play well with others" as a class feature/balancing act. It not only breaks the game, it attacks the fundamental idea of how the party is supposed to "win". In party antagonism (even limited to pure in character) is simply a formula to kill a gaming table.

[Telok]

The "does not play well with others" can be done well. Unfortunately it needs to be more of a roleplay guideline than a strictly mechanical rule, and the paladin code problems show just how badly that can go.

[ATHATH]

I concede my point to you, then, D+1. You seem to be much more knowledgeable about this subject than I am.

[Beelzebubba]

1st edition AD&D has a ludicrous number of game design flaws in it. Some examples:

--

In summary: 1e is a terribly-designed system. I highly recommend that you use a different system instead, like, say 2e (which shares some of 1e's flaws, but has much less of them and has the same general "feel" that 1e has (or so I'm told)).

Yeah, I hate my Dad too. :smallbiggrin:

--

In all seriousness, you're not wrong. But here's the thing: when I played AD&D, all of this is was known. We found the flaws by playing, and house-ruled or ignored stuff that seemed dumb. We solved the problem of Wizard Supremacy by taking turns. When the 1st level Fantasy Vietnam got old we started characters at 2nd level with full HP. And so on. We kit-bashed the game to be what we wanted.

(Incidentally, IMO 5E is surprisingly close to the house-ruled version of AD&D I played in the 80's.)

But, the thing is that old game has a weird, odd, gritty depth and scope that was filed off and sanded down by every subsequent edition.

Look at random encounters, % in lair, number of creatures encountered together, and morale. Instead of assembling a number of creatures to match a CR, you had a table of encounters that made sense for the area, and the risk and flavor of the encounter depended on how many creatures that came up in the roll, and where you ran into it. You eventually learned the ecology of the world - how certain creatures behaved and acted, whether they could be bluffed off or killed - and the mechanic built in a 'pressure' that kept characters moving on towards their goals instead of doing the 5 minute gaming day.

Look at the Maneuverability Class for flyers. That made it so certain creatures had exploitable movement styles, and air battles became a completely different fun little mini-game that forced players to be tactical in a new way.

All the stuff about strongholds, followers, men-at-arms, hirelings, etc. enriches what happens to character's lives at higher levels. It's not like a high adventure movie where all that stuff happens off-camera - it can become an integral part of the game and it grounds them into becoming part of society rather than just high powered murder hobos.

So, I use AD&D today to add some mechanics and flavor back in to 5E make things a bit more interesting. If you don't at least read it through for that, then I think you're missing out. It's like looking at a family genealogy and realizing where you came from.

[D+1]

I concede my point to you, then, D+1. You seem to be much more knowledgeable about this subject than I am.Obviously I'm a 1E fan despite it's flaws. When aim is taken at it, I will occasionally defend it. :) Sometimes vigorously so.

[wumpus]

Yeah, I hate my Dad too. :smallbiggrin:
But, the thing is that old game has a weird, odd, gritty depth and scope that was filed off and sanded down by every subsequent edition.

This is why I recommend any DM should read Gygax's DMG, if not to play it just to read how a game can be.

I was shocked as 3.x took over D&D and started to hear about the concept of "RAW". While the idea that "everything is covered by the rules, just dig in deep enough and interpret them" certainly makes a better game, I really don't think it is a good idea for D&D fun. Part of the wonder of AD&D is that the rules just begin to describe the world the characters live in, and never define its limits (Gygax even included a "sixguns and sorcery" page, certainly a tie-in to his "Boot Hill" game, but also showing just how unlimited D&D should be).

Easily the worst offenders are some of the 3.x feats. Lots of feats exist with extremely marginal value, the only possible in game use is for the DM to simply state "you can't do [cool thing: example "sundered range feat on hangman's noose"] because you didn't take this incredibly marginal and gimping feat back at 4th level". Never violate the rule of cool (this type of thing would be replaced with changing "advantage to disadvantage" in 5e or maybe a -4 penalty in 3.x, but this would so obviously make sure that nobody ever took the marginal feat. At that point the marginal feat simply isn't worth the paper it takes up and needed to be removed).

But it is also clear that some things from AD&D simply didn't work, and playing 5e makes a lot more sense. "Balance" in AD&D means party vs. monster. Players and classes could be wildly imbalanced. Also Magic Users (now wizards) were balanced between low levels and high levels. Of course, single adventure play was reasonably common (and characters advanced much slower [unless lots of gold was easily found and looted out of the dungeon*, a real possibility]) so often this really didn't work in practice.

But Gary Gygax's AD&D manual is as much about a guide to creating your campaign and making your own house rules as a list of the rules of the game. Don't expect to see that type of thing in any modern edition. And it is something every DM (and certainly players, when they insist on rules lawyering a situation).

[Chronos]

It's certainly true that AD&D spelled out less things explicitly in the rules less often, and made you decide how to handle situations. And sometimes that's just a matter of taste. For instance, suppose the party meets a stranger on the road, and wants to convince them that they're just a poor, lost troupe of circus performers. In 3e, that'd just be a simple Bluff check. In 2e, it probably depends on just how elaborate the lie is, and just how well the player tells it, oh and I guess the character's Charisma score is probably relevant in some vague, undescribed way. And there's room for either style of game.

But some of the omissions were just inexcusable. For instance, suppose you cast a spell at a monster (hardly a rare occurrence, right?). OK, so now the monster has to make a saving throw. What are the monster's saves? You don't know. The closest thing the game comes to a rule on that is to pick the class that the monster is most like, and assume that the saves are the same, and even that fails for monsters whose HD aren't on the table.

Monster listings also told you what the monster's intelligence was, and occasionally its strength, but never any other stats. And while a DM can make up numbers for those if needed, there's really no guidance on how to do that. How agile is a dragon? How wise is an ogre? How charismatic is a sphinx? How should I know?

[Thrudd]

But some of the omissions were just inexcusable. For instance, suppose you cast a spell at a monster (hardly a rare occurrence, right?). OK, so now the monster has to make a saving throw. What are the monster's saves? You don't know. The closest thing the game comes to a rule on that is to pick the class that the monster is most like, and assume that the saves are the same, and even that fails for monsters whose HD aren't on the table.

Monster listings also told you what the monster's intelligence was, and occasionally its strength, but never any other stats. And while a DM can make up numbers for those if needed, there's really no guidance on how to do that. How agile is a dragon? How wise is an ogre? How charismatic is a sphinx? How should I know?

What are you talking about? Of course you know what the monster's saves are, it's on a chart in the same place as the players' saving throws. Well, the DM knows. The players don't need to know, there's nothing they can do to influence that, it's just based on the monster's Hit Dice.

You also don't need to know anything about a monster's wisdom or agility or anything else that isn't listed in the Monster Manual - those things are not mechanically relevant in AD&D. A monster's intelligence level is listed as a role playing aid for the DM and because it interacts with a few spells and rules.

[Beelzebubba]

For instance, suppose you cast a spell at a monster (hardly a rare occurrence, right?). OK, so now the monster has to make a saving throw. What are the monster's saves? You don't know. The closest thing the game comes to a rule on that is to pick the class that the monster is most like, and assume that the saves are the same, and even that fails for monsters whose HD aren't on the table.

DMG page 79

11. SAVING THROW MATRIX FOR MONSTERS

A. All monsters use the matrix for characters.
B. Hit dice equate to Experience level, with (modifiers for bonus hit points)
C. Most monsters save as fighters, except (if they are more like another class, use those instead)
D. Non-intelligent creatures (have worse saves for the most part)

--

It IS weird and oblique and finicky and Gygaxian, (I cut all that stuff out with my paraphrasing), but it's there.

It also is much like most of AD&D - it's not telling you exactly what to do, it's telling you the overall way to think about it, and gives you enough mechanics that you can figure edge cases out yourself. It's from a 'kit-bashing' aesthetic that doesn't work for everyone.

[Deliverance]

Now, it turned out that this actually didn't matter, because wizards quickly moved in to monopolize the high-level playspace pretty much entirely. Spellfire, the very first FR novel, manages to feature at least three high level wizards including Elminster and Manshoon in major roles in addition to showing off spellfire as basically the ultimate magical power but features no major martial achievements at all.
Sidetracked:

Wasn't Darkwalker on Moonshae the first published FR novel? (If not, I need to reshuffle the ordering of my collection of FR books :D)

[2D8HP]

....Gary Gygax's AD&D manual is as much about a guide to creating your campaign and making your own house rules as a list of the rules of the game. Don't expect to see that type of thing in any modern edition. And it is something every DM (and certainly players, when they insist on rules lawyering a situation).


With the caveat that I've really only thoroughly read the '79 (1e), and '14 (5e) DMG's, and glanced at the 2e, and 3e DMG's, but they all seem to have worthwhile stuff.

The 1e DMG was the most fun to read, the 3e (IIRC) had more concrete rules (how much wealth is in a given town), and the 5e DMG has examples of possible alternative rules (maybe the alternative rules in the 5e DMG are too explicit, and discourage DM's from making up more?).

I do recall long ago wishing for more explicit rules, but "winging-it" soon became second nature, and trying to do "full, complete, and only" RAW seems to be too much of a headache.

I'll gladly play later editions, but I have a decided preference using old D&D to DM.

[JAL_1138]

As much as I liked 2e over 1e for some of the streamlining it did in comparison to 1e combat mechanics (later undone by splat bloat, and then wrecked entirely by the Player's Option series of add-on books), I have to say the 2e DMG is not a particularly good book in comparison to the 1e DMG. While it was better-organized (it largely mirrored the PHB in layout), it gave much less campaign and worldbuilding advice, had fewer of the interesting tables and whatnot, a fair amount of campaign advice it gave could be outright bad (e.g., it occasionally gave advice that boiled down to "railroad heavily"), and it's written in a style that's less idiosyncratic but consequently much less engaging and interesting. It's not completely rubbish, by any means--as a rules reference it's actually a fair bit better, because of the aforementioned layout improvements and greater clarity--but as a DMing and campaign-building tool it really doesn't measure up to the 1e DMG.


Edit: While different in style and content, the 5e "alternative rules" in the DMG are reminiscent of 2e core. It was loaded with drop-in replacement or modular add-on rules. There were different initiative systems, different skill variants (NWPs were mostly optional, with the exception of a couple class features like Ranger skills), different ability score generation methods, different ways of gaining XP, different casting rules (VSM was technically optional), things like weapon speed and weapon type vs armor type, etc.

[cucchulainnn]

Back in the 80's level limits did come into play rather often. Back then a character was not married to a campaign. You would take your character from DM and campaign to DM and campaign. It was common to make a character with DM "A" play with em for a while then meet DM "B" who would invite you to a game and ask if you have a character. At that point you would tell him yea, I've got one from DM A's game. DM B would look at the character. DM B would then tell you either the character is cool or it has to be adjusted because he is using different house rules and you would always have the option of making an additional character. Before you know it you have 5 different characters that you would use in up to twenty different games with different DMs. Of course you would also have 40-50 dead characters as well. Back then we went on the honor system and trusted each other to not play characters that died, pulling them out of rotation. I think it was some time in the late 80s early 90s that it became a problem. Where players would claim that a character was alive that had died under a different DM. At least in my area. That is around the time that DMs started to prefer players make new characters for their campaigns, which slowly shifted to required.
When I was in high school D&D was really common. I personally knew of easily 15-20 DMs and almost 100 players. My school, the next school over, the boy's club, friends dads or brothers, the library, the pot heads in the school yard. There was just as many pick up games as planed ones going on. I remember one time playing on the bus going to school. We didn't want to roll dice and possibly loose them to we flipped coins. There was one DM in my area that was known for being extremely generous with giving out magic items. It was common for players to join his game for little while to gear up before bring the same character into other games. What could I say we where 16.

[LibraryOgre]

Sidetracked:

Wasn't Darkwalker on Moonshae the first published FR novel? (If not, I need to reshuffle the ordering of my collection of FR books :D)

Darkwalker on Moonshae was so early, it actually predated the release of the boxed set; it was originally just a pseudo-Celtic fantasy that Doug Niles wrote, that got edited to fit into the Forgotten Realms.

[hamlet]

As much as I liked 2e over 1e for some of the streamlining it did in comparison to 1e combat mechanics (later undone by splat bloat, and then wrecked entirely by the Player's Option series of add-on books), I have to say the 2e DMG is not a particularly good book in comparison to the 1e DMG. While it was better-organized (it largely mirrored the PHB in layout), it gave much less campaign and worldbuilding advice, had fewer of the interesting tables and whatnot, a fair amount of campaign advice it gave could be outright bad (e.g., it occasionally gave advice that boiled down to "railroad heavily"), and it's written in a style that's less idiosyncratic but consequently much less engaging and interesting. It's not completely rubbish, by any means--as a rules reference it's actually a fair bit better, because of the aforementioned layout improvements and greater clarity--but as a DMing and campaign-building tool it really doesn't measure up to the 1e DMG.


Edit: While different in style and content, the 5e "alternative rules" in the DMG are reminiscent of 2e core. It was loaded with drop-in replacement or modular add-on rules. There were different initiative systems, different skill variants (NWPs were mostly optional, with the exception of a couple class features like Ranger skills), different ability score generation methods, different ways of gaining XP, different casting rules (VSM was technically optional), things like weapon speed and weapon type vs armor type, etc.

When DMing 2nd edition (which is probably my favorite honestly) I have both DMG's in hand. The one because obviously I need the rules that are in it and the other for inspiration and "what do you mean it's not in the 2e DMG?" moments. Of which there are many. The world building aspects of Gary's book were not equaled, really, until Paizo did their Advanced GameMaster's Guide. It was a very good book, though a little heavy on their own setting as Gary's was heavy on Greyhawk.

Personally, I've gotten the itch now and then to run a campaign in Paizo's world using old school rule sets. It would work very well, I think, though I'd have to figure out what world material I'd want to have in hand. Honestly, it's an itch that really gets to me some days and I've wanted to try it, I just don't know the world well enough to get a reasonable start on it.


As for 5e . . . and this is just entirely personal mind you not based in "fact" other than my having played and run it since it came out . . . I just don't like it anymore. For no definable reason. In fact, sitting there and looking at it from an objective eye, it's actually quite good and I like a lot of it. It's just that in practice . . . I don't know . . . it just falls flat for me. It doesn't "breathe" . . . stand up and demand to be played, fiddled with, and used. It's just . . .

Maybe "too clean" is a thing? But that's not even it, really.

It's just trying to be something so bland that it appeals to everybody that it just doesn't appeal to me. I get HUGELY more traction out of virtually any edition of D&D (except 4th which I objectively dislike entirely).

[Velaryon]

2e AD&D probably has the best fluff material of any of the editions, and certainly has the most fluff by word count of any edition. A lot of the extant settings where really hammered into place during 2e and have only evolved marginally if at all since then. So there's a lot of interesting material in 2e for use in games set in later editions in a fashion that isn't exactly true of 3.X or 4e.

I have definitely found this to be the case. The setting materials for AD&D 2e have exponentially more detail about the worlds themselves than their 3e counterparts. I haven't looked at such books for 4th or 5th edition, but I would be surprised to find that they contained a similar level of detail to the 2e books. As a result, I've bought several 2e books and box sets for fluff information about the campaign settings because it's just plain better than the stuff available in the edition that I play and run. I have no idea how to play 2e, but I do find the fluff material from those books useful... although the number of high level characters walking around in them is a bit crazy. Forgotten Realms in particular are known for being overfilled with high level NPCs, but that wasn't the only offender by any means.




In AD&D 2e the game assumed that traditional dungeon crawling largely came to an end at approximately level 9-12 (it varied slightly between classes) and the game transitioned into kingdom management. This was most explicitly expressed via the weird advancement rules for high-level druids. There were all sorts of rules produced for how you would create a stronghold and what that would mean and that was meant to be the focus. This went in tandem with changes in advancement that happened at the same time such as the shift to static hp gain. Implicit in this was the idea that high level characters spent only a small portion of their time adventuring (and in the case of high-level wizards only a small portion of their time on the material plane at all), perhaps only going on a campaign once a year or less. Considering the slow rate of advancement in high-level 2e - because even powerful enemies were only worth a tiny fraction of the XP needed to level up - it was quite possible and indeed even likely for humans who were anything other than wizards or druids to 'age out' of adventuring well before they had a chance of reaching level 20.

This is interesting to me, as I had not heard this before. It would I suppose help to explain why so many random mayors, counts, kings, etc. are all crazy high level in 2e setting books, I suppose. And since you mentioned levels 9-12 as a tipping point for that... hmm...

My D&D game has been set in Forgotten Realms, primarily in the nation of Tethyr. The queen is Zaranda Star-Rhindaun, who is I believe level 13 (and some mix of wizard and fighter that is horribly ineffective in 3rd edition, but that's irrelevant here). As of the 2e books from which I pulled her information, she had recently given up the adventuring life and become a queen, right around at the level range you said is when the game changed focus from dungeon crawls to kingdom management. I guess that could be considered supporting evidence? Neat.

[Deliverance]

This is interesting to me, as I had not heard this before. It would I suppose help to explain why so many random mayors, counts, kings, etc. are all crazy high level in 2e setting books, I suppose. And since you mentioned levels 9-12 as a tipping point for that... hmm...

My D&D game has been set in Forgotten Realms, primarily in the nation of Tethyr. The queen is Zaranda Star-Rhindaun, who is I believe level 13 (and some mix of wizard and fighter that is horribly ineffective in 3rd edition, but that's irrelevant here). As of the 2e books from which I pulled her information, she had recently given up the adventuring life and become a queen, right around at the level range you said is when the game changed focus from dungeon crawls to kingdom management. I guess that could be considered supporting evidence? Neat.
Well, that's more or less how it worked in BECMI too. You aren't "supposed" to reach level 20 as an adventurer; either you do the proper thing and die (mostly) or retire early (if you are lucky), or retire from adventuring some time after you reach name level (the 9th) and move beyond adventuring to live a life in more comfort rather than risking your life on a daily basis as you did in your youth, because you aren't insane. Even if you continue adventuring, by the mid-teens you will probably be on the verge of old age for humans.

Basic (1-3) - dungeon delving
Expert (-14) - outdoor adventures
Companion (-25) - rules for further adventuring, but focus is on dominion management and events, war machine rules, and mass combat
Masters (-36) - rules for adventuring on the outer planes and pursuing immortality, also further fleshes out dominion management and warfare
Immortals (N/A) - rules for satisfying the cravings of even the most powerhungry players, who want to play as godlike immortals.

As you can see, the rules do support further adventuring, but it is not "all in a day's job". With some variations that's how it worked in AD&D 1st and 2nd editions too - characters simply weren't supposed to keep on adventuring and achieving ever more power that way unless they were truly exceptional individuals who for one reason or another never settled down. Reaching level 20 was something that the vast majority of characters would never, ever, do.

[2D8HP]

Reaching level 20 was something that the vast majority of characters would never, ever, do.


Besides being more lethal to PC's, level advancement was nowhere near as fast in TSR D&D, as it is in WotC 5e D&D.

How slow?

D&D IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE DM


By Gary Gygax April 1976


Successful play of D&D is a blend of desire, skill and luck. Desire is often initiated by actually participating in a game. It is absolutely a reflection of the referee's ability to maintain an interesting and challenging game. Skill is a blend of knowledge of the rules and game background as applied to the particular game circumstances favored by the referee. Memory or recall is often a skill function. Luck is the least important of the three, but it is a (actor in successful play nonetheless. Using the above criteria it would seem that players who have attained a score or more of levels in their respective campaigns are successful indeed. This is generally quite untrue. Usually such meteoric rise simply reflects an incompetent Dungeonmaster.

While adventurers in a D&D campaign must grade their play to their referee, it is also incumbent upon the Dungeonmaster to suit his campaign to the participants. This interaction is absolutely necessary if the campaign is to continue to be of interest to all parties. It is often a temptation to the referee to turn his dungeons into a veritable gift shoppe of magical goodies, ripe for plucking by his players. Similarly, by a bit of fudging, outdoor expeditions become trips to the welfare department for heaps of loot. Monsters exist for the slaying of the adventurers — whether of the sort who "guard" treasure, or of the wandering variety. Experience points are heaped upon the undeserving heads of players, levels accumulate like dead leaves in autumn, and if players with standings in the 20's. 30's and 40's of levels do not become bored, they typically become filled with an entirely false sense of accomplishment, and they are puffed up with hubris. As they have not really earned their standings, and their actual ability has no reflection on their campaign level, they are easily deflated (killed) in a game which demands competence in proportionate measure to players' levels.

It is therefore, time that referees reconsider their judging. First, is magic actually quite scarce in your dungeons? It should be! Likewise, treasures should be proportionate both to the levels of the dungeon and the monsters guarding them. Second, absolute disinterest mast be exercised by the Dungeonmaster, and if a favorite player stupidly puts himself into a situation where he is about to be killed, let the dice tell the story and KILL him. This is not to say that you should never temper chance with a bit of "Divine Intervention," but helping players should be a rare act on the referee's part, and the action should only be taken when fate seems to have unjustly condemned an otherwise good player, and then not in every circumstance should the referee intervene. Third, create personas for the inhabitants of your dungeon — if they are intelligent they would act cleverly to preserve themselves and slay intruding expeditions out to do them in and steal their treasures. The same is true for wandering monsters. Fourth, there should be some high-level, very tricky and clever chaps in the nearest inhabitation to the dungeon, folks who skin adventures out of their wealth just as prospectors were generally fleeced for their gold in the Old West. When the campaign turkies flock to town trying to buy magical weapons, potions, scrolls, various other items of magical nature, get a chum turned back to flesh, have a corpse resurrected, or whatever, make them pay through their proverbial noses. For example, what would a player charge for like items or services? Find out, add a good bit, and that is the cost you as referee will make your personas charge. This will certainly be entertaining to you and laying little traps in addition will keep the players on their collective toes. After all, Dungeon masters are entitled to a little fun too! Another point to remember is that you should keep a strict account of time. The wizard who spends six months writing scrolls and enchanting items is OUT of the campaign for six months, he cannot play during these six game months, and if the time system is anywhere reflective of the proper scale that means a period of actual time in the neighborhood of three months. That will pretty well eliminate all that sort of foolishness. Ingredients for scroll writing and potion making should also be stipulated (we will treat this in an upcoming issue of SR or in a D&D supplement as it should be dealt with at length) so that it is no easy task to prepare scrolls or duplicate potions.

When players no longer have reams of goodies at their fingertips they must use their abilities instead, and as you will have made your dungeons and wildernesses far more difficult and demanding, it will require considerable skill, imagination, and intellectual exercise to actually gain from the course of an adventure. Furthermore, when magic is rare it is valuable, and only if it is scarce will there be real interest in seeking it. When it is difficult to survive, a long process to gain levels, when there are many desired items of magical nature to seek for, then a campaign is interesting and challenging. Think about how much fun it is to have something handed to you on a silver platter — nice once in a while but unappreciated when it becomes common occurrence. This analogy applies to experience and treasure in the D&D campaign.

It requires no careful study to determine that D&D is aimed at progression which is geared to the approach noted above. There are no monsters to challenge the capabilities of 30th level lords, 40th level patriarchs, and so on. Now I know of the games played at CalTech where the rules have been expanded and changed to reflect incredibly high levels, comic book characters and spells, and so on. Okay. Different strokes for different folks, but that is not D&D. While D&D is pretty flexible, that sort of thing stretches it too far, and the boys out there are playing something entirely different — perhaps their own name "Dungeons & Beavers," tells it best.*It is reasonable to calculate that if a fair player takes part in 50 to 75 games in the course of a year he should acquire sufficient experience points to make him about 9th to 11th level, assuming that he manages to survive all that play. The acquisition of successively higher levels will be proportionate to enhanced power and the number of experience points necessary to attain them, so another year of play will by no means mean a doubling of levels but rather the addition of perhaps two or three levels. Using this gauge, it should take four or five years to see 20th level. As BLACKMOOR is the only campaign with a life of five years, and GREYHAWK with a life of four is the second longest running campaign, the most able adventurers should not yet have attained 20th level except in the two named campaigns. To my certain knowledge no player in either BLACKMOOR or GREYHAWK has risen above 14th level.

By requiring players to work for experience, to earn their treasure, means that the opportunity to retain interest will remain. It will also mean that the rules will fit the existing situation, a dragon, balrog, or whatever will be a fearsome challenge rather than a pushover. It is still up to the Dungeonmaster to make the campaign really interesting to his players by adding imaginative touches, through exertion to develop background and detailed data regarding the campaign, and to make certain that there is always something new and exciting to learn about or acquire. It will, however, be an easier task. So if a 33rd level wizard reflects a poorly managed campaign, a continuing mortality rate of 50% per expedition generally reflects over-reaction and likewise a poorly managed campaign. It is unreasonable to place three blue dragons on the first dungeon level, just as unreasonable as it is to allow a 10th level fighter to rampage through the upper levels of a dungeon rousting kobolds and giant rats to gain easy loot and experience. When you tighten up your refereeing be careful not to go too far the other way.

I played TSR D&D from the late 1970's to the mid to late 1980's, and I never had a PC reach 20th level, nor did any of the PC's of my co-players.

[Anonymouswizard]

However, I also tend to see modern roleplayers tending towards shorter campaigns that move faster. When you're in a campaign that lasts 2-3 years slow advancement is much more acceptable than if it only lasts six to twelve months. Even then most games also don't tend to aim for those high levels of power, hitting level 10 in six to eight months is probably the fastest you want to go, a level a month is closer to what most players seem to like (which will hit level 13 after a year of play).

Now this varies a lot, I like games where characters get better often, but not by much. Other people like to get a massive power boost every now and again. AD&D is set up for a different type of game to that most modern groups play, which you can see simply by the difference in magic using classes in 1e/2e and 5e (it's even more extreme in BECM, and I believe oD&D but I never played that). But in some ways that's like saying I wouldn't use Traveller to run a Rocket Age game, they're both products of their time and the advancement is part of that.

Do I think D&D should go back to the 1e/2e model of 'few people get beyond 10th level'? Yes, but only because by that point the powers given to PCs mean you're playing a different game, and as such should probably use a different system.

[2D8HP]

...you can see simply by the difference in magic using classes in 1e/2e and 5e (it's even more extreme in BECM, and I believe oD&D but I never played that)....


Your essential correct. To me oD&D (with all the supplements), is a little bit more like AD&D than BECMI but it does seem like a cross between them (or rather, you can see how they're both descended from oD&D. AD&D is oD&D with editing and some added complexity, BECMI is oD&D with editing, and a little simplification, and a few new elements).

For someone new, I recommend starting with BECMI (because it's easier), and then adding oD&D and/or AD&D elements to taste.


.....Do I think D&D should go back to the 1e/2e model of 'few people get beyond 10th level'? Yes, but only because by that point the powers given to PCs mean you're playing a different game, and as such should probably use a different system.


I agree. I've played 5e at 11th level, and I didn't like it as much as low level 5e (or TSR D&D).

In my experience, a session of 5e at first level is more fun than a session of TSR at first level (because less paranoia is required to survive), but with enough "leveling-up", 5e becomes less fun, which I never experienced with TSR D&D.

To make TSR D&D more fun for me, just have PC's be one or two levels higher than the Dungeon level. To make 5e more fun, for me, just make each level last exponentially longer (have it take twice as long to get to 3rd level as it did to get to 2nd, and even longer to get to 4th, etc.).

I think I like long campaigns of TSR D&D better, but they're so many other factors, it's hard to tell.

The most fun gaming thar I remember having was oD&D with supplements (including third-party) but that was so long ago, I can't be sure.

I also recall a couple of sessions of Shadowrun that were really fun, which is odd because normally I dislike anything with a modern-ish setting.

Pendragon, Traveller, and RuneQuest are all real good (and I recommend) too.

In general any game is better than no game, and while it's not my preferred game, I'm glad it's so easy to find Pathfinder tables nowadays

Last night I picked up the Numenera rules, and I hope to post impressions latter.

If I had to list which games I'd most like to be invited too, it would be:


1) The oD&D/AD&D wirh extras that I used to play.

2) Pendragon

3) The Traveller that I used to play

4) Castle Falkenstein (which I've never played)

5) 7th Sea (which I've never played)

6) FATE (which I've never played)

7) Chivalry & Sorcery (which I've never played)

8) B/X D&D (or close retro-clone)

9) Dungeon World (which I've never played)

10) The RuneQuest that I used to play

11) Warbirds (which I've never played)

12) 5e D&D


5e is so low because opportunities to play it are so plentiful, I'd rate it higher otherwise, and any of the "never played" gets higher on my list as soon as I've played another.

[spinningdice]

Wasn't the 5th edition experience table designed with the same (kind of) guideline. They said most people prefer playing at the 3rd-12th level range, so the tables were setup to crash you into 3rd level quickly, then slow down to maximise the sweet spot that people preferred.

I have played pretty much every edition of D&D (nearly, not played really old OD&D, started with red-book version, though do now have the older one on my shelf. And while I eagerly bought the 4E books, I sold them on after thoroughly reading and deciding they appeared boring compared to 3E).

5E is my favourite, I loved 3E for so long, but the endless splats and Pathfinder killed it for me, I have a weird character OCD where I need to find the particular option that fits my character just right, and get stuck in a mire (sure you can say PHB only, but unless that's a hard rule by the DM it's hard to stick to).

1st and 2nd ed give me a headache, though I still play as it's the preferred system of some of my group. I can keep it in my head, but the conventions annoy me:

No unified XP chart annoys me, why does a thief advance at twice the rate of a wizard, what's the point in saying an adventure for 12th level characters on the front when what that means depends on the classes their playing.
We always ignored gender attribute differences
we either ignore level limits or make them more generous
We usually allow memorisation of 1st level spells without resting (at 10mins study per spell) once the characters reach a decent level (i.e. access to 5th level spells).
Why are Thief skills roll under % when all other skills (sorry proficiencies) are d20 roll under?


If I wanted an old school style I'd rather start from the cleaner 5e baseline and remove stuff than start from 1/2e again.

[RossN]

2e AD&D is the most wide ranging edition in both good and bad ways though I'd say the good is more prominent than the bad.

As others have said the mechanics aren't really cohesive in any way if you are coming at them from the point of view of a later edition. Every class has a different experience point table and things like Thieves abilities run on a completely different set of rules to 'regular' proficiencies. Balance was not a priority, especially when it comes to Kits which can range from essentially 5e style Backgrounds to completely rewriting a character class - the Sha'ir kit from Al-Qadim is a Wizard for rule purposes and HP and so on but the way he casts magic has nothing in common with a conventional Wizard from either a fluff or mechanical point of view. None of this is game breaking to a DM who is on his or her toes and some of it is even pleasantly simple (as others have noted a character was 90% constructed at 1st level) but it could be wonky.

On the other hand as others have said 2e is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to fluff and ideas. This was the edition that gave us Al-Qadim, Planescape and Spelljammer and the historical supplements and minor settings (Masque of the Red Death (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masque_of_the_Red_Death_(Ravenloft)) anyone?) We got players handbooks on Bards and Ninja and even if some of the books where a little mad like the infamous Complete Book of Elves they where almost always interesting.

[Chronos]

Backing up what others have said about worldbuilding information, one thing that was in the 2e Monster Manual that's missing from later editions is information about how the monster fits in with its surroundings. When is it active, day, night, both, only when the stars are right? What does it eat, vegetation, small animals, large animals, sunlight, brains, emotions, nothing, everything? What other things eat it? If you manage to kill one, is the carcass (or portions of the carcass) worth anything to anyone, and if so, who? If the creature is intelligent, what kinds of pets/guard beasts does it often have? Nowadays, you'll sometimes see hints of that scattered through the descriptions, but in 2e, every monster had at least an entry for "activity cycle" and "diet", and a section on ecology.

[hamlet]

It's also worth noting that 2nd edition had a couple of supplements devoted entirely to world building and many of them were quite good.

The Complete Priest's Handbook, as well, is more world building guide than it was a class guide/rules supplement and is great if you're designing your own pantheon.

AD&D is, as has been noted, designed to be as much tool-kit/open source as it is a rules set. It's a little looser and easier to fiddle with and make your own without impacting other elements negatively too much. It's also a bit chameleon like in that it will play pretty much as you want it to based on how you go forward. High adventure, world spanning intrigue, low and gritty fantasy, etc. All work well. You just have to know what knobs and levers to pull and most of that's on the DM's side.

I heartily recommend it, really, if only for a try. And if you don't want to sink cash into it, OSRIC and For Gold And Glory can both be gotten for free.

[Anonymouswizard]

I agree. I've played 5e at 11th level, and I didn't like it as much as low level 5e (or TSR D&D).

In my experience, a session of 5e at first level is more fun than a session of TSR at first level (because less paranoia is required to survive), but with enough "leveling-up", 5e becomes less fun, which I never experienced with TSR D&D.

To make TSR D&D more fun for me, just have PC's be one or two levels higher than the Dungeon level. To make 5e more fun, for me, just make each level last exponentially longer (have it take twice as long to get to 3rd level as it did to get to 2nd, and even longer to get to 4th, etc.).

I think I like long campaigns of TSR D&D better, but they're so many other factors, it's hard to tell.

The most fun gaming thar I remember having was oD&D with supplements (including third-party) but that was so long ago, I can't be sure.

One thing I've noticed on these forums, and why I tend to not recommend games to you much anymore, is that you like a completely different style of game to me. I look at old D&D and think 'with a bit of work and tidying up this could be better than modern D&D', you like the bits I want to get rid of.

Of course, you also like to be the warrior wielding a bow trying to kill a dragon to loot it's hoard, I'd much rather be flying a spaceship to Proxima Centuri to try and make money trading space pears, and just by picking the games we want to play we can both have what we want.


Pendragon, Traveller, and RuneQuest are all real good (and I recommend) too.

I'm assuming you mean classic Traveller, as modern Traveller seems to have really gone all out on the 'simulating a universe' and less on the fun adventures. Not that the fun adventures aren't there, but you might actually have to keep an eye on your reaction drive's fuel (if you're using them rather than M-drives).

Modern Traveller is also a little borked though, there's no reason to ever make a ship with a standard hull structure because a sphere manoeuvres the same but has a 20% discount, and a close structure gives a 10% discount while giving an extra 10% hull points (which is an extra 4 hull points for a scout). Literally the only reason to have a standard hull is for the rocket shape without the cost of streamlining.

Seriously, a sphere can give you an extra 25% hull volume for the same hull size, the only downside is requiring more expensive drives per credit spent on the hull (which you can make back with that increased cargo space from a bigger hull). It paints a picture of a unique universe, but one without standard hull configurations (small traders use streamlined ships to enter atmosphere, larger traders use spheres for the cheaper hull, and warships use close structures for sturdier ships).

[2D8HP]

One thing I've noticed on these forums, and why I tend to not recommend games to you much anymore,


Really?

I did take your (and others) recommendation, and got Savage Worlds, which looks really cool, unfortunately I haven't found anyone to play it with!

:frown:


...you like a completely different style of game to me. I look at old D&D and think 'with a bit of work and tidying up this could be better than modern D&D', you like the bits I want to get rid of.


Curious as to what those "bits" are.


Of course, you also like to be the warrior wielding a bow trying to kill a dragon to loot it's hoard,

Very much so!

:smile:


I'd much rather be flying a spaceship to Proxima Centuri to try and make money trading space pears,

That also sounds awesome!


.. and just by picking the games we want to play we can both have what we want.


Well... there's also actual other people required, which makes getting any non 5e D&D, or Pathfinder game going difficult.
I've had little luck with "indie" games, and only a little more luck with getting anyone to play old D&D (where are all the "red box kids"?).

Oh well, at least 3.5, and 5e sort of resemble old D&D, when I left the hobby (in '92) all the tables available played Champions, Cyberpunk, or Vampire, and when I last played D&D before that (probably late 1980's) two at the table tried to convince the rest to play Ars Magica instead, and one (me) tried to get people to play Pendragon instead.


..I'm assuming you mean classic Traveller, as modern Traveller...


Yes, I played '77 rules (and supplements)Traveller in the mid '80's, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if I actually put in more table time for it, than any other game.

The weird thing is that I barely remember any rules for Traveller, but I do remember some of the adventures and planets I made up for it, which is the opposite of the D&D that I played before I played Traveller, because the rules of early D&D I remember more of, but the adventures less (for some reason).

I briefly glanced at the Momgoose version of Traveller, and it looks cool, I'm game for it!

[Beneath]

My D&D game has been set in Forgotten Realms, primarily in the nation of Tethyr. The queen is Zaranda Star-Rhindaun, who is I believe level 13 (and some mix of wizard and fighter that is horribly ineffective in 3rd edition, but that's irrelevant here). As of the 2e books from which I pulled her information, she had recently given up the adventuring life and become a queen, right around at the level range you said is when the game changed focus from dungeon crawls to kingdom management. I guess that could be considered supporting evidence? Neat.

You should note that unlike in Wizards D&D, multiclass characters in AD&D and TSR D&D are considered to be the level of their highest-level class, not the sum of all classes (there are complicated reasons for this; in short it's because when you multiclass you divide your EXP among your classes, but in return you get something not entirely unlike what 3e terms "gestalt" (you get the better of most things, but you average your hit points). Because EXP requirements to level are exponential, splitting your EXP in half to maintain two classes "costs" only about one level. 3.5 had to add the Mystic Theurge to make builds that in 2e worked out of the box work again)

I'm not sure what levels she actually is though, but multiclass TSR (A)D&D characters often look much higher level than they actually are to eyes that are more familiar with 3e or 5e (I've done double-takes on this, and I even started in 2e)

[JadedDM]

Yeah, I looked up Zaranda Star's 2E stats, and she is a level 7 fighter/level 6 mage, so she dual-classed. She started as a mage, leveled up to 6, then changed her class to fighter, started again at level 1, and leveled it up to 7.

[georgie_leech]

Yeah, I looked up Zaranda Star's 2E stats, and she is a level 7 fighter/level 6 mage, so she dual-classed. She started as a mage, leveled up to 6, then changed her class to fighter, started again at level 1, and leveled it up to 7.

That's... ugh, that's all the pain of being a low level mage with none of the benefits of being a high level mage. Whyyyyyyy...

[napoleon_in_rag]

Besides being more lethal to PC's, level advancement was nowhere near as fast in TSR D&D, as it is in WotC 5e D&D.



Well, that kind of depends on what class you have. For example, in AD&D 2nd Edition:

Thief xp to reach 2nd lvl: 1250 xp
Magic User xp to reach 2nd lvl: 2500 xp

However the DMG gives a thief 200 xp per use of special ability but only gives a mage 50 xp/level for casting a spell. So A thief could reach 2nd level by using his abilities 7 times, while a mage had cast a 1st level spell 50 times! And, of course, a thief can use his abilities as many times as he wants while a 1st level mage can only memorize 1 spell at a time (2 if he specializes).

As I remember, it was very common for a thief to level up after 1 session. It usually took warriors and priests 2-3 sessions and magic users 3+ sessions.

[ATHATH]

Well, that kind of depends on what class you have. For example, in AD&D 2nd Edition:

Thief xp to reach 2nd lvl: 1250 xp
Magic User xp to reach 2nd lvl: 2500 xp

However the DMG gives a thief 200 xp per use of special ability but only gives a mage 50 xp/level for casting a spell. So A thief could reach 2nd level by using his abilities 7 times, while a mage had cast a 1st level spell 50 times! And, of course, a thief can use his abilities as many times as he wants while a 1st level mage can only memorize 1 spell at a time (2 if he specializes).

As I remember, it was very common for a thief to level up after 1 session. It usually took warriors and priests 2-3 sessions and magic users 3+ sessions.
Could you be a multiclassed Thief/Magic-User so that you could combine the power of the Magic-User class with the easy/fast experience gain of the Thief class?

[Koo Rehtorb]

Could you be a multiclassed Thief/Magic-User so that you could combine the power of the Magic-User class with the easy/fast experience gain of the Thief class?

You level up classes independently of each other.

[VoxRationis]

The XP tables are separate for each class, plus you'd be splitting your XP, so you're not going to level up faster as a multi-class. It's not quite like gestalt from 3.5.

[napoleon_in_rag]

Could you be a multiclassed Thief/Magic-User so that you could combine the power of the Magic-User class with the easy/fast experience gain of the Thief class?

Wizard xp would go to wizard and thief xp would go to thief. So, very easily, you could end up with a lvl 1 magic user/ lvl 3 thief.

Especially because you couldn't specialize in a school of magic as a multi class mage. So that 200xp thief bonus quickly out paced the 50xp spell bonus.

[Quertus]

Could you be a multiclassed Thief/Magic-User so that you could combine the power of the Magic-User class with the easy/fast experience gain of the Thief class?

PHB, p. 44, "Multi-Class and Dual-Class Characters": A multi-class character improves in two or more class simultaneously. His experience is divided equally between each class.

As much sense as it might make to apply these XP just to the class that earned them, I see nothing in the optional individual awards section to indicate that the rules have changed.

So, yes, if those optional rules are used (which, IME, they almost never are), being a multiclassed Thief/Magic-User would seem clever - at least until you realize a) how limited options to successfully use thief skills are; b) how unlikely to succeed thief skills are; c) how bad things are when thief skills fail; d) how squishy this character is (with level behind rounded down HP - which, by a bad reading of RAW, can mean starting at level 1 with 0 HP); e) racial level limits are reached.

[Chronos]

Don't forget that thieves also got xp for treasure gained. So you could get lucky and find one good (or at least, expensive) magic item, and end up jumping from level 1 straight to level 6 or so.

Rogues (thieves and bards) also had a faster level progression table than anyone else. So there were values of xp where a thief was across the board a better fighter than the fighter was, and where the bard was a better wizard than the wizard was, just because they were higher level.

[Anonymouswizard]

Didn't the tables also follow a nonlinear curve so that it took more XP for Mage 2 than Fighter 2, but more XP for Fighter 10 than Mage 10? I remember that being a thing.

[Quertus]

Don't forget that thieves also got xp for treasure gained. So you could get lucky and find one good (or at least, expensive) magic item, and end up jumping from level 1 straight to level 6 or so.

Rogues (thieves and bards) also had a faster level progression table than anyone else. So there were values of xp where a thief was across the board a better fighter than the fighter was, and where the bard was a better wizard than the wizard was, just because they were higher level.

Dagnabbit! Yes, 2 rogues can reach NI level just by stealing a single item (or even a single GP) back and forth. How quickly would they level?

Well, assuming they pool their initial resources on a single 50gp item (say, a gilded walking stick / pimp cane) that they're fighting over, that's 200 XP per theft.

About your most optional pick pocket would be base(15)+ranks(30)+half-elf(10)+unarmored(5)=60%, +10% if you rolled really well for dex. At 1,440 rounds per day (well, 1200 after 4 hours of meditation), that's 720 successful changes of possession each day. Each thief will only get half of those, for 7,200 XP each, per day.

Sitting in town for a day, fighting over who gets to use the gilded walking stick, they'll reach Thief 3 / Wizard 2. Sit in town for a month, and, even if they never boost Pick Pockets again, they're level 8 in each class.

[Anonymouswizard]

With the latest Unearthed Arcana for 5e it becomes more efficient. The rogues stealing the item from each other level up the entire party (assuming they can do it enough times before the Fighter manages to kill the sack of 1000 rats he bought, because the rules are literally that bad).

[Koo Rehtorb]

Don't forget that thieves also got xp for treasure gained. So you could get lucky and find one good (or at least, expensive) magic item, and end up jumping from level 1 straight to level 6 or so.

As far as I remember, you're capped at leveling up once per session.

[JAL_1138]

Didn't the tables also follow a nonlinear curve so that it took more XP for Mage 2 than Fighter 2, but more XP for Fighter 10 than Mage 10? I remember that being a thing.

I forget which levels it was, but yeah, the progression isn't uniform. Each class had places where it would kinda plateau for a long while or would climb really quickly.

[D+1]

Wizard xp would go to wizard and thief xp would go to thief. So, very easily, you could end up with a lvl 1 magic user/ lvl 3 thief.

Especially because you couldn't specialize in a school of magic as a multi class mage. So that 200xp thief bonus quickly out paced the 50xp spell bonus.
First, I think it should be noted that individualized xp was an optional rule. Second even with individualized xp the DM is advised to use their discretion and to be sure the award has been EARNED. A wizard can't just sit in a room, cast spells all day and earn xp for any of them. The idea is clearly to award individual effort separately from other PC's, but you still have to be doing things that make GETTING the award reasonable. Even with individual xp there are still group xp awards for monsters defeated and treasure gained as a group. Lastly, the individual awards are quite obviously imbalanced from one class to another, or at least HIGHLY dependent upon the kind of game that's being run; it's easy for one class to have a huge advantage over others if great care isn't used in applying individual awards. In short, not only is it an optional system it is, in practical application, rather broken.


Don't forget that thieves also got xp for treasure gained. So you could get lucky and find one good (or at least, expensive) magic item, and end up jumping from level 1 straight to level 6 or so.Only if the DM was a complete and utter noob (or just didn't care) and was handing out loot WILDLY in excess of what PC's should have been earning according to their level.


Rogues (thieves and bards) also had a faster level progression table than anyone else. So there were values of xp where a thief was across the board a better fighter than the fighter was, and where the bard was a better wizard than the wizard was, just because they were higher level.Not correct. I don't know where you're getting that at all. Rogues did have a faster xp progression - but a slower THACO progression, no super strength, no weapon specialization, and more limited weapon selection. Bards would advance faster than wizards but could not advance THAT much faster (unless the DM was going crazy with unwarranted individual xp awards...), had worse spell progression, and were limited to 6th level spells at best.

That's definitely a claim I've never even heard before and I think proof would be called for. Maybe you're thinking of a different game?

[Quertus]

Not correct. I don't know where you're getting that at all. Rogues did have a faster xp progression - but a slower THACO progression, no super strength, no weapon specialization, and more limited weapon selection. Bards would advance faster than wizards but could not advance THAT much faster (unless the DM was going crazy with unwarranted individual xp awards...), had worse spell progression, and were limited to 6th level spells at best.

That's definitely a claim I've never even heard before and I think proof would be called for. Maybe you're thinking of a different game?

This was very much a known fact at any table that had bards: the fireball that the bard (the one who only dabbled in magic) cast was generally more powerful than the one cast by the wizard (the one who was supposedly focused on magic to the exclusion of all else). It was notable as an early case of generalist beats specialist.

[Lord Torath]

Rogues (thieves and bards) also had a faster level progression table than anyone else. So there were values of xp where a thief was across the board a better fighter than the fighter was, and where the bard was a better wizard than the wizard was, just because they were higher level.

Not correct. I don't know where you're getting that at all. Rogues did have a faster xp progression - but a slower THACO progression, no super strength, no weapon specialization, and more limited weapon selection. Bards would advance faster than wizards but could not advance THAT much faster (unless the DM was going crazy with unwarranted individual xp awards...), had worse spell progression, and were limited to 6th level spells at best.

That's definitely a claim I've never even heard before and I think proof would be called for. Maybe you're thinking of a different game?I've actually got a spreadsheet put together that confirms this (for 2E, which had nearly identical advancement tables as 1E for everything except Bards). A single-class Rogue (thief or bard) has a better THAC0 than a multi-class fighter from about 2500 xp to 4000 xp. A single-class Cleric has a better THAC0 than a multi-class fighter from 6000 to 8000 xp. A single-class fighter never has a base THAC0 worse than any other class at the same XP total. From 8000 xp on, it has a better THAC0 than every other class.

A Bard is one experience level ahead of a Wizard (Mage or Specialist) up to 40,000xp (level 7 bard/level 6 wizard) and slightly less than that up to 220,000 xp, when they jump up to two+ levels ahead of the wizard. And yes, the bard's casting level equals his Bard level, so at level 7, when he finally gets that Fireball spell (@40,000 xp) it does 7d6 damage (while the wizard's at 40,000 xp does 6d6 damage). But the wizard gets that spell at level 5, 20,000 xp earlier.

[Chronos]

The biggest example of nonlinear leveling was druid level... 14, I think it was? A 14th-level druid (or rather, the 14th-level druid, because there's only one in the world) is the Archdruid, in charge of the entire hierarchy of druids... but it's a boring desk job, and most druids hate having a desk job. So it only takes 500 more XP to reach 15th, retire from Archdruid-dom, and become a Hierophant Druid, who goes back to adventuring. That's what the Hierophant PrC was meant to emulate, except that in 2e, you weren't giving up spell progression for it, because you already had all the spells you were going to get anyway.

And I might be misremembering the bard one, but a 2nd-level rogue is a better fighter than the 1st-level fighter. Their THAC0 might be the same, but the rogue would have more HP, neither can afford decent armor yet, and 99% likely, neither has exceptional strength.

[LibraryOgre]

Something I did a while ago, related to relative combat ability of the different classes and xp charts. For a given amount of XP, what are the average HP and ThAC0?

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xGLyIDa5lXHw7NW3B36JmOZlrpcEetkULXMgVY6k5e4/edit?usp=drivesdk

[Bohandas]

I've played and loved 5e for quite some time now, and just found an old ad&d 2e book. Are ad&d and ad&d 2e any good or what?

I've never played them tabletop but the AD&D CRPG Dark Queen of Krynn was one of my favorite games growing up and despite its extremely dated control scheme is still enjoyable now.


Also 2e has some very interesting fluff that was dumbed down a little bit in 3e and then dumbed down even more in 4e

[Endarire]

1E and 2E were much more obviously patchwork systems put together by compiling what various people thought was interesting with much less focus on making it consistently playable. Think of the books more like collections of seeds than saplings or forests.

[Mr Beer]

Don't forget that thieves also got xp for treasure gained. So you could get lucky and find one good (or at least, expensive) magic item, and end up jumping from level 1 straight to level 6 or so.

You can only go up one level at a time, I forget the exact rule but I think you maxed out at the XP you needed to go up two levels, minus 1 XP. Something like that.

[Corsair14]

Personally I love 2nd edition. I find the rules fairly simple. Its easy to DM. Plenty of sourcebooks you can or don't have to use. Plenty of campaign settings including the all time 3 best, Planescape, Spelljammer and Dark Sun(I don't count the crap that 4th edition tried to have). It is fairly lethal, monsters have more depth, magic was awesome.

[Lord Torath]

Plenty of campaign settings including the all time 3 best, Planescape, Spelljammer and Dark Sun.Hear! Hear! Where's my "Like" button!

[FreddyNoNose]

It gets a little bit more forgiving than one in 216, even with 3d6, assuming you go with "arrange to taste", which makes it 1:36... still lousy odds.

However, I did see a rather nice suggestion on solving it: Drop Exceptional Strength, and use Weapon Specialization from UA. It gives fighters a boost in hit and damage that other classes don't have access to, without being inaccessible to a 9 strength fighter.

1st edition UA was a broken book that really was for the power gamers. As an addition, it stunk.......

Exceptional strength is great. It give something unique and rare. WS, yawn, is boring but it is ok that you like it.

[LibraryOgre]

1st edition UA was a broken book that really was for the power gamers. As an addition, it stunk.......

Exceptional strength is great. It give something unique and rare. WS, yawn, is boring but it is ok that you like it.

I'm not a fan of exceptional strength because, even with more forgiving rolling methods, it's rare. It's accounted a benefit to fighters, but it's one that few fighters can actually take advantage of... sort of like saying "Can be a paladin" is a benefit to humans, when few humans will qualify, and the benefit does nothing for those who can't (or don't want to) qualify.

Replacing Exceptional Strength with Weapon Specialization has a few advantages. It's available to all fighters (and rangers and paladins), regardless of strength... someone who chooses not to take advantage of it is purposefully choosing the disadvantage, as opposed to someone who simply didn't roll high enough stats to get an 18. It's a bit more limited (focused on a single weapon), but the addition of an additional 1/2 attack makes it highly desireable, and makes even beginning fighters better fighters than experienced thieves... not overwhelmingly so, but it can tell when your 1st level fighter is facing a 2nd or 3rd level thief in open combat.