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.
The thing I miss most is the Aesthetic of the game. Gary's prose, the artwork, the play style, etc. Of course I still have all of the books as well as the retroclones so it's still all there for me (and my kids!)
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I love having a mechanic that I can use to determine if and when the baddies run away.
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I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
being so simple to roll up characters seemed to have character
nowadays its difficult not to get heavily influenced by the mechanic and, as no one dies in 4th edition, planning out your characters systemic development up to level 10 and beyond is hard to shake off.
go to any con and people can explain to you what there character will look like when its 8th level;, even though they are still 1st!!
Just seemed to be much more fear of death/drain et al in older editions. Adventuring has definitely got safer and easier and more profitable, IMO
Plus we have all lost some thrill of the early years of playing i imagine.
The thing I miss most from AD&D is experience points for treasure gained.
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!
I've come to appreciate this concept now -- 20 years after I removed it from my campaigns. Now I'd love to reinsert it.
But I think it would have been better to have lower xp needs so the gp awards could be smaller. I mean, finding 1,000 gp and xp sounds like a big haul, but really, compared to the xp needed for level gain, even at low level, it was miniscule, especially split 4-8 ways.
And when you get to mid to higher levels, you had to loot tens to hundreds of thousands of gp to be impressed. This was the flaw in the system for a great concept.
While reading my new (and so far, excellent) Manual of the Planes last night something popped into my head that I juts knew I had to post when I got up this morning.
GATE
I miss the term "Gate". 3E started with the lame-o "portal" stuff, and I never have liked it. "Portal" does not sound nearly as menacing or otherworldly as "gate" does
No. Portal goes back to at least Planescape during the 2e days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hussar
Thought of another thing I miss.
Morale rules.
I love having a mechanic that I can use to determine if and when the baddies run away.
I've never missed the morale rules. I don't feel that randomly rolling to determine if the baddies run away make much logical sense. Some creatures will run at the first sign of trouble, others when they know the fight has turned against them, and others just have to be put down like rabid dogs. Morale might make more mechanical sense in a wargame, but an RPG doesn't really need it; it's something that can be adequately handled by a DM's judgement.
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I don't feel that randomly rolling to determine if the baddies run away make much logical sense.
Real-life morale doesn't make much logical sense. There's definitely an unpredictable, random element.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Orius
Some creatures will run at the first sign of trouble, others when they know the fight has turned against them, and others just have to be put down like rabid dogs.
Sure, different creatures in different situations should have different morale scores.
Yeah the setting "fluff" like Ed Greenwood's Volo guides or the Greyhawk Slavers book by Chris Parmas are what I miss most. That and the other settings too like Spelljammer or Red Steel.
Mike
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I've never missed the morale rules. I don't feel that randomly rolling to determine if the baddies run away make much logical sense. Some creatures will run at the first sign of trouble, others when they know the fight has turned against them, and others just have to be put down like rabid dogs.
I don't quite see why morale rules work against that. Especially the Basic Morale rules, which has monsters that never run in it...
Quote:
Morale might make more mechanical sense in a wargame, but an RPG doesn't really need it; it's something that can be adequately handled by a DM's judgement.
One of the joys of using a morale mechanic is that for games that are very interested in system mastery over storytelling, it allows the DM to simulate morale without being distracted by how the group is actually going. So, you don't make the monsters run just because the group is doing poorly...
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.
I'm leading up to this in 3e, but the players don't seem deeply interested . . .
They do seem to like titles though -- one has been knighted, another is going to be made a captain of scouts pretty soon.
I'm leading up to this in 3e, but the players don't seem deeply interested . . .
They do seem to like titles though -- one has been knighted, another is going to be made a captain of scouts pretty soon.
That's one of the big shifts I've seen over the years.
In the early days of D&D, getting your stronghold, your keep, your lands, your kingdom--that was a major goal of adventuring. It was to build a base of many underlings to support you.
Nowadays, though, that seems to be mostly avoided by players. They want to ensure that they can never be tied down to any obligation, no matter what the benefits are.
I don't feel that randomly rolling to determine if the baddies run away make much logical sense. Some creatures will run at the first sign of trouble, others when they know the fight has turned against them, and others just have to be put down like rabid dogs. Morale might make more mechanical sense in a wargame, but an RPG doesn't really need it; it's something that can be adequately handled by a DM's judgement.
That could be said, otherwise word for word, about any RPG mechanics. So I guess I really don't get it. Put another way, rules for morale make just as much sense as rules for say, diplomacy, or for that matter, breaking down a door.
Besides the people I used to play it with, I miss the easy to digest rules. The new version is going to have a 3rd PHB coming out in 2010. Three?!
Tooooo many rules.
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Besides the people I used to play it with, I miss the easy to digest rules. The new version is going to have a 3rd PHB coming out in 2010. Three?!
Tooooo many rules.
I find there's a real difference between "core" rules and "option" rules, especially if the "option" rules are discretely segmented away. For instance, if you don't have a rogue in the party, there's no need to know the sneak attack rules. It's a set of rules that only applies when a particular class is in the party. Little of PHB2 has any relevance at all to the overall game if no race nor class from it is used.
When Unearthed Arcana came out, (this is the AD&D version), it gave very little in the way of core rules - although it did fold, spindle and mutilate a lot of things about multiclassing. (To make things worse, the first printing of UA, which I have, didn't print all the new material - the result was quite confusing!)
Meanwhile, Wilderness Survival Guide and (especially) Dungeoneering Survival Guide added more "core" rules which could be quite annoying in application.
Meanwhile, Wilderness Survival Guide and (especially) Dungeoneering Survival Guide added more "core" rules which could be quite annoying in application.
For me the WSG was the real offender. I was at a stage in my gaming where I felt compelled to use every rule published, so rolling for precipitation and wind chill every five minutes wasn't a great deal of fun.
If I'm honest there isn't much of AD&D I miss outside of the adventures. Basic D&D on the other hand still scratces my itch for rules light fantasy gaming like no other. I've recently gotten into Basic Fantasy in quite a big way - it does everything I always wanted the system to do, and very well too. When used with the supplemental material available on the site BFRPG cover most of the class and race combinations of core AD&D without adding reams of extraneous detail, which makes it just about perfect for my needs.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dannyalcatraz
There are a couple of spells...but really, not that much.
Don't get me wrong, I love AD&D. I just don't miss it. If a game of AD&D popped up on my radar, I'd play, no question. But currently, 3.X is my D&D of choice.
me too.
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Meanwhile, Wilderness Survival Guide and (especially) Dungeoneering Survival Guide added more "core" rules which could be quite annoying in application.
Yeah, I don't miss WSG or DSG much.
Cheers!
I actually really did like the WSG, but I always used it as an supplement to add texture to wilderness adventures and the weather. So beyond that, it didn't see much pervasive use.
What I didn't like about these two books, however, was that your level was the primary factor in determining your chance of success at tasks like using a grappling hook or making a jump.
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