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View Full Version : Hey all you 1'st ed. Players!



Tre of the Wood
2007-11-28, 04:23 PM
Hey... who is still playing 1'st ed? all of these threads are about v.3 or 3.5. I would love to talk about 1'st edition (which has been abandoned for some reason despite the fact that it is clearly the best) but no one has any threads out there. If you still play v. 1, please post here or start a new thread about version 1.

Also, if anyone actually reads this and plays 1'st edition, I have a question: Monks are listed as being able to talk with animals like a druid can, but druids need to cast a speak with animals to do so. Can druids really speak with animals automatically, or are monks ablr to cast a spell, or is this a typo? Anyone know?

nyjastul69
2007-11-28, 04:27 PM
You may already know this, but in case you don't...


http://www.dragonsfoot.org/

hamlet
2007-11-28, 04:40 PM
You may already know this, but in case you don't...


http://www.dragonsfoot.org/

And this is why we don't talk about older edition here except to bash them.

Matthew
2007-11-28, 05:08 PM
Hello, Tre of the Wood, and welcome to the GitP Forums. I still play AD&D, as do a number of people around here. However, I usually play with a lot of House Rules and overlap from other editions and have never had to use the Monk Character Class. That said, I do occasionally 'play by the book'; it looks to me as though a Monk of Level 3 or above has the ability to Speak with Animals as the Druid Spell; I presume that he can simply activate this power at will. The same information is presented in the 1e Oriental Adventures.

A word of advice, though I expect you meant it in a jovial way, it's best to say 'in my opinion the best', as Edition Wars are a known and unpleasant phenonomen and are generally started by absolute statements.

KIDS
2007-11-28, 06:13 PM
(which has been abandoned for some reason despite the fact that it is clearly the best)

I respect all editions and am sure you can have fun with all but some humility please...

Dairun Cates
2007-11-28, 06:31 PM
I respect all editions and am sure you can have fun with all but some humility please...

Oh come on. How can you ignore the clear charm of monsters like these? Don't forget the executioner's hood that eats your teammate's face.

http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article73.htm

FloorPie
2007-11-29, 04:30 AM
FloorPie is intrested where to find some sort of manual/guide thingy for 1st edition DND, FloorPie has scaned through through dragonsfoot only to find
unrealated topics, where might FloorPie find manual/guide thingy:smallsmile:

Ps.Floorpie will now stop using 3rd person talking.:smallsmile:

Matthew
2007-11-29, 05:32 AM
Well, you can download PDFs for $4.00 a go from Paizo or you can download OSRIC (http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/osric/) for free, which is a retro clone of 1e Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. We are expecting a huge OSRIC update in the next few months, which should greatly expand on the material available. You may also be interested in Labyrinth Lord (http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.htm), which is a retro clone of Basic Dungeons & Dragons.

Roderick_BR
2007-11-29, 07:58 AM
You may already know this, but in case you don't...


http://www.dragonsfoot.org/

... Now I know what Boo really is...

And as for the OP, I never player 1st edition, I started in AD&D, but I still like 3.x for flexibility (if you ignore brokenness). I have some friends that did play 1st ed, though.

Mr. Friendly
2007-11-29, 08:03 AM
If I wanted to start playing 1e again, I'd probably play Hackmaster.

Matthew
2007-11-29, 08:29 AM
If I wanted to start playing 1e again, I'd probably play Hackmaster.

You'll be lucky to find the books in the near future, as the license with Wizards is about to expire. :smallwink: Kenzer and Company are selling off a lot of merchandise at the moment, but if I were looking for an updated version of 1e AD&D, I might choose Castles & Crusades, as it's not changing editions and looks to be receiving a good deal of support.

sapphail
2007-11-29, 08:41 AM
I play 2nd ed mostly, but some of the 1st ed books are interesting sources for the DM if you're willing to houserule them a bit. They are far stricter than even 2nd ed was but in the same vein they were willing to go into more detail. The spells were cooler too (whatever happened to Spiritwrack, Cacodaemon and Truename?). Good luck finding the sourcebooks though; hard copies are damn near impossible to find now, and the people who've still got them aren't selling them.

Matthew
2007-11-29, 09:07 AM
You should check out Noble Knight Games (http://www.nobleknight.com/ViewProducts.asp_Q_ProductLineID_E_2137419057_A_Ma nufacturerID_E_1_A_CategoryID_E_12_A_GenreID_E_). There always seems to be a copy there, though what printing is another matter! I got my 1e books from Oxfam for about £1 ($2) each.

hamlet
2007-11-29, 09:22 AM
You'll be lucky to find the books in the near future, as the license with Wizards is about to expire. :smallwink: Kenzer and Company are selling off a lot of merchandise at the moment, but if I were looking for an updated version of 1e AD&D, I might choose Castles & Crusades, as it's not changing editions and looks to be receiving a good deal of support.

The license was gone quite a while ago. Reputedly*, Wizards called up Kenzer and wanted to know if they wanted to renew and if they could schedule a meeting with he and Jolly about it. When Kenzer asked about the turns, it seems that it was immediately rejected as Wizards was seeking controlling interest in order to permit Kenzer to continue publishing Hackmaster as is.

Since that time, the "Fifth Edition" of Hackmaster has been announced as being in the works and tentatively scheduled for May or June of 2009 or 2010 based somewhat on their new game "Aces & Eights" though to what extent is not currently known since it has been hinted that the new edition will be compatible with the older editions. Rumor (spread by Dave Kenzer himself) has it that the company is waiting for the fall out from 4th Edition to die down and for WOTC to be excised from Hasbro before taking all the complaints about 4th edition and incorporating them into "the perfect game system."

*This is based entirely on hearsay and rumor so take it for what it's worth.

Dalboz of Gurth
2007-11-29, 09:33 AM
Good luck to DK about that. The HackMaster rules were full of god awful holes, not because of WotC or Hasbro, but because nobody in that office communicated with each other about errattum.

Two people on the messageboards, Jamie and that other guy, were simultaneously releasing argumentative errattum. It wasn't "april fools" joking errattum either, it was literally them not knowing what they were doing.

The character I spent weeks getting officially registered wound up being approved, disapproved, approved, then put into limbo because they didn't know what the heck they were doing.

To top it off, I had to make three long distance phone calls to get a straight answer, and to lodge a complaint about how Jamie and what's his face were messin around.

Fact is HackMaster was a butchering of First Edition rules, with masses of typos, grammatical errors, and god awful editing and organization. They successfully more than doubled the page count of AD&D 1st Edition rules into a speghetti mess. Dave Kenzer and Company refused to take any of the complaints about their system seriously and I seriously doubt they'll ever organize the mass of complaints into a cohesive game system. Not to mention the fact people were forced to spend 5 bucks a month on the KotDT "magazine" just to get current updates.

The moral of the story is: if you want real AD&D 1st Edition, then don't bother with HackMaster. What was a "cute comic" became a rules tutorial for a very user un-friendly RPG system.

Matthew
2007-11-29, 10:25 AM
The license was gone quite a while ago. Reputedly*, Wizards called up Kenzer and wanted to know if they wanted to renew and if they could schedule a meeting with he and Jolly about it. When Kenzer asked about the turns, it seems that it was immediately rejected as Wizards was seeking controlling interest in order to permit Kenzer to continue publishing Hackmaster as is.

Really? Hmmn, maybe I got the wrong end of the stick. I certainly heard they were trying to clear their warehouses of previous stock and, as far as I am aware, are still selling the PDFs. I dunno, I'll have to go over and check out the Kenzerco Forums again.


Since that time, the "Fifth Edition" of Hackmaster has been announced as being in the works and tentatively scheduled for May or June of 2009 or 2010 based somewhat on their new game "Aces & Eights" though to what extent is not currently known since it has been hinted that the new edition will be compatible with the older editions. Rumor (spread by Dave Kenzer himself) has it that the company is waiting for the fall out from 4th Edition to die down and for WOTC to be excised from Hasbro before taking all the complaints about 4th edition and incorporating them into "the perfect game system."

Yeah, that's why I wouldn't bother picking up Hack Master just at the moment and use Castles & Crusades.

hamlet
2007-11-29, 11:50 AM
Dalboz of Gurth: Each entitled to their opinion, but holy crap man lay off the system. It's a good game.

Matthew: They are clearing out old stock because WOTC provided an ultimatum stating that they were not permitted to sell anything with the D&D brand on it any more (understandable) and were not permitted to sell any more Hackmaster 4e products based on the AD&D engine.

If I were you and not already heavily invested in Hackmaster, I wouldn't buy too much yet either. However, if you're a collector, like me, you already had most of it already.;)

I will say, though, that it would be a good thing to check out the Kalamar sale too. They're all on 75% off too and if you only buy the Campaign setting and the Atlas, it's worth EVERY CENT. It is, in my opinion, the best campaign setting for general AD&D or D&D every put together as long as you ignore some spelling and grammar errors (not terribly noticable on the whole, but there all the same).

That, and the amount of 3.x rules data in the setting book and atlas book is actually less than 100 words altogether.

Matthew
2007-11-29, 12:18 PM
Ah right, got it. Yeah, I don't have any Hack Master stuff, but if I did have, I would no doubt be in the same boat as you - trying to collect it all up! I would buy their Kalamar stuff, but living in Britain the postage and packaging costs a bomb, so their sales tend not to attract me. However, if I see anything in my local gameshop(s), I might well pick it up. At the moment I am collecting their pre D20 Kalamar series, the YKs, which I am told get repeated a fair bit in some of the 3e Kalamar Books.

Really, though, I hope they make available all of their 3e Kalamar line as D20 or systemless PDFs eventually, and as print books through Lulu (as they already have with a couple of their PDF only line). The limited lifespan of 3e Kalamar is one of the things that turns me off.

hamlet
2007-11-29, 12:25 PM
Ah right, got it. Yeah, I don't have any Hack Master stuff, but if I did have, I would be in the same boat as you - trying to collect it all up! I would buy their Kalamar stuff, but living in Britain the postage and packaging costs a bomb, so their sales tend not to attract me. However, if I see anything in my local gameshop(s), I might well pick it up. At the moment I'm collecting their pre D20 Kalamar series, the YKs, which get repeated a fair bit in some of the 3e Kalamar Books.

Check out lulu.com for a couple of the YK series. They have been reprinted there as POD and on the Kenzer site as .pdf's. Or, you can surf on over to NobleKnight.com and pick up a whole slew of them there (but I imagine the shipping issue would still apply).

I'd also recommend that you pick up at least the "Strength and Honor" book on Hobgoblins in the setting. One of their best bits of work really.

But enough shilling for today, I'll head over to Kenzer and collect my check!

Matthew
2007-11-29, 12:27 PM
All the YK series are available at Noble Knight Games, which is where I'm planning on getting the remaining items (the shipping is actually very competitive through them), but I'll definitely take a look at Lulu as well.

It's actually cheaper for me to buy Expeditious Retreat's Advanced Adventures line and Goodman Games' Saga of the Witch Queen through Noble Knight Games than direct from the companies or through British distribution channels, such as Leisure Games.