General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
Random Prostitute Encounter Tables? ( Sorry... somebody had to... )
Heh, somehow I think these two quotes just belong together.
The thing I miss the most from the 1e era ... err... scratch that. There are two things I miss from that time.
First, I miss the humour. I miss those cartoons in the DMG and the various jokes and whatnot that were sprinkled through other books (I remember fondly finding those lines in the spellbook in the Unearthed Arcana that said something to the effect of "Help I'm trapped... Get me out!") and the various silly and almost surreal magic items that you could find.
D&D really does take itself too seriously sometimes.
The second thing I miss is the strong voice of the writer. Having started reading a lot of RPG's of late, that is something I'm really noticing. RPG's, particularly the smaller ones, have a real voice behind the writing of the rule books. You can picture the guy writing the Savage Worlds books - he's likely got a cigar burning beside his typewriter and a beer on the other side.
3e books, by and large, have no voice. 4e, particularly the PHB as well is very stale. The DMG is much better, as it's sprinkled with lots of sidebars where you really get a chance to hear a voice, but, even then, it's still very understated, and not very conversational.
I realize that it makes them better rule books, but, it also makes them a heck of a lot more boring to read.
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Rules-wise I don't miss anything off the top of my head- was never into the followers/henchmen/trap fodder or "landowner" aspects of AD&D (or OD&D for that matter). Alot of AD&D-ims I don't have issue with like some do, but I don't miss them either.
More than anything I miss the time period and being a kid again
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I think people sometimes get too fixated about what's "official" to see what they could do with the whole- "David "Zeb" Cook
I started with a German RPG (Das schwarze Auge) and later go to AD&D 2nd Edition, so I cannot say anything about 1E, but what I miss from 2E are the extremely cool Settings (I bought Dragonlance before I got AD&D Books, Dark Sun and Ravenloft was awesome, ...).
The settings were a large part of what hooked me. I was entranced by the idea of using one set of rules to play a variety of worlds. They were very rich and imaginative. My favorites included Dragonlance, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Al-Qadim.
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And the Art (one-Page Pictures) from 2E are simply legendary, especially Pcitures from Larry Elmore bring me instantly to a world of heroism, Dragons and Magic.
Some of the new art is great, but artists like Elmore, Easley, Caldwell, and Parkinson really defined the game for me. Dragons will always look like Elmore's dragons.
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While I liked Kender (and the new Halflings), the fat, barefooted and pipe smoking Hobbits where simply the "greatest" race for me.
I forget the name of the product, but Ari Marmel (sp?) worked on a 4e book that included a shire halfling race. I thought that was a nice tribute. I just consider hobbits to be one of the halfling subraces these days.
The other thing I miss is the sense of the fantastic. Magic items seem so stale these days, providing X bonus here, Y power there. I liked the flavor of the 2e magic items. I liked how they were sometimes downright bizarre. Flame tongues and frost brands. Gauntlets of Ogre Power combined with a Girdle of Giant Strength for warhammers. I also miss wild magic. That was so much fun.
Everything about AD&D was great -- except the rules.
What I miss about the old-school game is how free-form most of the game actually was, whatever the voluminous rulebooks might have implied. Very, very little of the game was choosing the optimal strategy given well-defined rules for various powers and abilities. It was almost all "outside the box" -- and most of our problems with the game were with the "inside the box" parts that didn't make sense (hit points, etc.).
I understand where the XP systems of 3e and 4e are coming from and, mostly, I think they achieve their goal. However, I feel that there is a unifying feature for XP=GP that is sometime sorely missed. When the primary motivation in an adventure is Treasure(!), then you know what everyone wants and the glee of finding a dragon's hoard is more than merely "what can I buy with this stuff?" (Which, a lot of the time in AD&D, was "a follower" or "a castle" - not some bit of magical power).
Sure, not giving XP for treasure opens up a wide set of other motivations. Not all PCs need to be mercenaries. It makes the monk fit in a bit more. However, occasionally the nostalgia overtakes me and I mourn the loss of finding 1000 gold... and gaining 1000 XP!
Cheers!
Same here, I miss it too. However, I rolled with the XP system in 3.0,3.5, and Pathfinder.
It's been said by a lot of people, but I think I miss Larry Elmore's artwork the most. I totally agree that his Dragons defined what dragons looked like for me and the dragon artwork appearing in all the new material just doesn't look right to me as a result.
I also really miss the layout and style of the AD&D Monster Manuals and Monstrous Compendia. Sure the book was overloaded with useless crap that I'd never use in any campaign and a lot of the monsters were somewhere between redundant and ridiculous, but.... The book made it very easy to find what you needed and dedicating an entire page or 2 to a particular monster instead of squeezing it into half a column meant that they had space to richly detail the monster's appearance, habits, preferred environment and so on. It really made the creatures come to life and have a real place in the universe, and helped to flesh out realistic dungeons and encounters when writing the adventures.
Dungeon Magazine during the 2nd Ed period also appealed to me. sure most of the book was in black and white and there was seldom more than 1 ilustration per adventure, but the adventures were so much deeper in plot and story. Sure this made adventures more linear and less open ended, but that depth of flavour was great!
The d20 approach is more simulationist though. Instead of seeking gold because it magically makes them more experienced, PCs want gold because they can use it to actually buy stuff.
Maybe in some imaginary worlds, PCs think treasure "magically makes them more experienced" -- but in mine, they usually know that experience is what happens on the way to attaining the goal.
I don't think a big salary (or severance package) magically makes a CEO more competent, either ... but some folks sure seem to like the "bling" anyway!
Last edited by Ariosto; 22nd July 2009 at 07:03 PM..
Maybe in some imaginary worlds, PCs think treasure "magically makes them more experienced" -- but in mine, they usually know that experience is what happens on the way to attaining the goal.
Well, to be perfectly fair, that is the way the 1e rules were written. You get treasure, you get more experienced.
__________________ I don't know if I would consider being smashed into a pulp by a giant mace to be a "good result".
It really bugs me that those were dropped in 4e's power scheme. I got a lot of mileage out of handing out charged items in my AD&D game. I really liked the inventiveness a charged item with several functions encouraged.
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Really that is all I miss of 1e, well and that I learned to Role Play from it and Traveller.
__________________ Bryan Blumklotz
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Free time to game is probably the biggie for me too.
I found that for my group, using treasure to train for XP (1gp=1xp) up to half needed for the next level kept the loose change down, without making every adventure become a "strip the paneling from the walls" acquisition mission. Limiting training to 50gp/day also made for a more realistic passage of game time. IMHO, YMMV, etc. etc.
Gary's writing, without a doubt. It was fun to read for it's own sake, even if you weren't going to play the game. I never found the style as difficult to absorb as some claim. (Though growing up reading the King James bible probably helped)
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We never used xps for treasure gained, but we *did* give xp for treasure spent. This had the dual functions of pleasure in finding treasure and you only get the xps once you get it -out-. It also meant that wealth was always passing out of the PCs hands. We didn't mind whether you spent it on training or ale and babes, but as long as it was spent, you got the xps!
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Originally Posted by Rechan
I miss the "You get a Keep and dudes to run it at 9th level". I like nation building and management of that style, and I haven't seen that thing in 3e or 4e at all yet.
This is the elements which I miss most from AD&D. It gave an entirely different feel to the 'shape' of campaigns in those days.
Cheers
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Parenthetically, photostat copies of the manuscript rules were made, and when the commercial game was published, fans not willing or financially unable to expend the princely sum of $10 for the product did likewise, copying the material on school (mainly college/university) machines. We were well aware of this, and many gamers who had spent their hard-earned money to buy the game were more irate than we were. In all, though, the 'pirate' material was more helpful that not. Many new fans were made by DMs who were using such copies to run their games. - Gary Gygax
Aside from missing the youth I was in the full flush of back when I was introduced to AD&D... I miss the gonzo style that I associate with (the wackier) parts of the World of Greyhawk, the harlot table, the odder monsters, and the old tournament modules. There was something lovely and freewheeling about that era's (A)D&D.
But I'm happy to try and replicate that in my 3e and 4e games. There isn't much about the old-school mechanics I miss (well, okay... post 3e I miss some of the spells, but they were trouble, I tell ya'...).
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Ah, the writing, easily. There was nothing like having a book that you could crack open and just read casually.
__________________ Psionics are too sci-fi, not like the traditional method of spell casting that has existed only in D&D, involves research, laboratory work, and formulas, and was cribbed directly from a series of science fiction novels. I mean, come on, calling forth the power to alter the world from your own center of will? That's not magical in the slightest! Not at all like my wizard's spell "Telepathy!"
XP for treasure is another reason why AD&D is awesome.
I wonder...
would 1/4 all XP from killing monsters and giving 1gp = 1 XP work to making feel like AD&D.
I remember when PCs really didn't like tackling random encounters. Random encounters after had very little XP and very little treasure, but would weaken the party. In 3.5e and 4e, treasure is worth no XP and monster XP is raised. Now there is incentive for killing everything (and I wonder if this contributes to players not running away from tough encounters.) I also understand that minions in 4e can be used as cheap random encounters, but I don't like minions; I really don't--they really cheapen the effort to kill a monster.
And at the end of my last session, one of the players said: "Man, we got a lot of treasure but we didn't really fight anything. Too bad this isn't AD&D..."
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